The Place of Noises

As printed in Samuel Adams Drake (1884)

Told by unattributed — the collector names no informant · collected by Samuel Adams Drake · 1884 · Boston and eastern Massachusetts

Around the endangered prince who fled The scaffold where his father bled, I hid it, sale from storm and blast, Until the days of dread were past ; And then my iaithful l)reast restored The treasure to its riglitful lord. For this do pilgrims seek my side, And artists sketch my varying pride ; And far away o'er ocean's brine, An acorn or a leaf of mine, I hear, are stored as relics rich In antiquarian's classic niche. WE take the following weird tale partly from the historian Trumbull, and partly from tlie poet Braiuard. History and romance are thus amicably blended, — each elucidating according to its own si)irit the singular phenomenon wliicli so long disturbed the good people of East Haddam. "The Indian name of the town was Machemoodus, which in English is -the place of noises, '- a name given with the utmost pro- priety to the place. Tlie accounts given of the noises and tpiakuigs there are very remarkable. Were it not that the people are accus- tomed to them, they would occasion great alarm. The Reverend Mr. Hosmer, in a letter to Mv. Prince, of Boston, written August 13tli, 1729, gives this account of them : ' As to the earthquakes, I have something considerable and awful to tell you. Earthquakes have been her^ (and nowhere but in this precinct, as can be discerned, — that is, they seem to have their centre, rise, and origin among us), as has been ol)served for more than thirty years. I have been m- formed that in this place, before the English settlements, there were ..-reat numbers of Indian inhabitants, and that it was a place ot ex- traordinary Indian paivaws, — or, in short, that it was a place where 428 NEW-ENGLAND LEGENDS. the Indians drove a prodigious trade at worshipping the elevil. Also I was informed that, many years past, an old Indian was asked what was the reason of the noises in this place. To which he re- plied, that the Indian's God was very angry because Englishmen's God was come here. Now whether there he anything diabolical in these things, 1 know not ; but this I know, that God Almighty is to be seen and trembled at in what has been often heard among us. Whether it be fire or air distressed in the subterraneous caverns of the earth, cannot be known, — for there is no eruption, no explosion perceptible, — but by sounds and tremors, which sometimes are very fearful and di'cadful. I have myself heard eight or ten sounds suc- cessively, and imitating small arms, in the space of five minutes. I have, 1 suppose, heard several hundreds of them within twenty years ; some more, some less terrible. Sometimes we have heard them almost every day; and great numbers of them in the space of a year. Oftentimes I have observed them to be coming down from the north, imitating slow thunder; until the sound came near or right under, and then there seemed to be a breaking like the noise of a cannon-shot or severe thunder, which shakes the houses and all that is in them. They have in a manner ceased since the great earth- quake. As I remember, there liave been but two heard since that time, and those but moderate.' " The poetic version of tlie .story is introduced by the following account in prose, for the truth of wliicli the })0ct vouches. We will only add to it the statement that the carbuncle was highly prized by our ancestors for its supposed power to protect the wearer from tlie danger of infection ; but it was only to be found iu inaccessible places, like the bowels of the earth or unviolated mountain peaks. "A traveller who accidentally passed through East Haddam made several inquiries as to the Moodus noises that are peculiar to that part of the country. Many particulars were related to him of their severity and effects, and of the means that had been taken to ascertain their cause and prevent their recurrence. He was told that the simple and terrified inhabitants, in the early settlement of the town, applied to a book-learned and erudite man from England, by the name of Doctor Steele, who undertook by magic to allay their terrors ; and for this purpose took the sole charge of a black- smitli's shop, in whicli he worked by night, and from which he ex- cluded all adnussion, tightly stopping and darkening the place, to pre- vent any prying curiosity from interfering with his occult operations. He, however, so far explained the cause of these noises as to say that they were owing to a carbuncle which must have grown to a great size in the bowels of the rocks, and that if it could be removed, the noises would cease until another should grow in its place. The noises ceased ; the doctor departed, and has never been heard of since. It was supposed that he took the carbuncle with him. Thus iar was authen- tic. A little girl who had anxiously noticed the course of the travel- ler's inquiries sung for his further edilication the following ballad.''

Samuel Adams Drake, A Book of New England Legends and Folk Lore in Prose and Poetry (Boston: Roberts Brothers, 1884)