Patriot Rock
Captain Barnabas Hamlin of the whaler Sea Dog gratefully accepted the cup of hot coffee the ship's cook offered.
"Do you want something to eat, sir?" the cook asked.
"No, thank you."
"I'm surprised battling that nor'easter all night and day hasn't worked up your appetite."
"Honestly, I'm more tired than hungry. I just want to get out of these cold, wet clothes and get some sleep."
When the cook noticed First Mate Wilfred Nix in the doorway, waiting to speak to his superior officer, he wished the captain a pleasant night and returned to his kitchen.
"What is it, Nix?" Hamlin asked.
"I don't know that it's anything, sir, but I wanted to bring it to your attention."
"Well, what is it?"
"Tomkins was on duty in the crow's nest and spotted a light in the distance. He called me up, and I saw it, too. The problem is there's no known lighthouse in this area."
"Has the storm blown us off course?"
"Not according to the instruments. We're right where we should be."
"Then it was something else you saw."
"I'm sure you're correct, sir. I only mention it because ...."
"Yes?" the captain asked impatiently, eager to enjoy the luxury of a warm, dry bed.
"We're in the general vicinity of Patriot Rock."
The captain's face paled, and he temporarily forgot his exhaustion and his sodden clothing.
"Surely you don't believe in that old legend?" Hamlin asked, knowing full well that sailors were a notoriously superstitious lot.
"No, sir, not me," the mate protested, although the look of fear on his face did not convince the captain of the sincerity of his words. "I'm concerned with the men, sir. I'd hate for word to circulate through the crew."
"I quite agree. I'm sure the storm upset them enough as it is. They don't need to be worrying about phantom lighthouses and cursed waters. Keep an eye on the crew. If any of the men act out of line, send them to me."
"Aye, aye, sir."
Once Wilfred Nix had left, the captain finished his coffee. Then, rather than go directly to bed as he had intended, he went to the bridge where he kept his spyglass. His hands trembled as he drew the instrument up to his eyes.
"What the ...!" he whispered into the eerie darkness that surrounded him.
Like Tomkins and Nix, Barnabas thought he saw on the distant horizon the flashing of a lighthouse beacon.
It was not until well past midnight that Captain Hamlin left the bridge and finally laid his weary body on his bunk. It was not nearly as comfortable as the four poster bed in his Nantucket home, but the insufficient size and the hard mattress did not bother him, not when he was as tired as he was that night. Ironically, when he placed his head on the pillow and closed his eyes, he did not immediately fall asleep. It was not the cook's strong coffee that kept him awake but the mysterious light he had seen from the bridge.
What could it have been? he wondered.
There had to be a reasonable explanation. He was never a believer in spirits. The dead, he was convinced, remained dead and could no longer walk the earth. And neither could a lighthouse, which had been destroyed decades earlier, still send out its ghostly beam into the night.
* * *
Patriot Rock. It was a name familiar to all New England sailors. Back when the British first journeyed to the New World, it was an island too small for human habitation yet large enough to create a danger to navigation. Once the settlements were well established in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, lighthouses were built, beginning with Boston Light in 1716. In 1754, construction of a light began on Patriot Rock—although at the time it was referred to by an Indian name, one few people later remembered. After construction began, a series of severe storms struck the coast, and the lighthouse was not completed until 1756.
No sooner was light keeper Jasper Elway installed in the small dwelling alongside the light tower than the French and Indian War broke out. In the service of first King George II and later his grandson, George III, young Jasper, a novice to his profession, not only had to keep the lamps lit to aid navigation, but he also had to turn a wary eye northward for the French in Canada as well as the natives. Either enemy might try to capture or destroy the lighthouse. Thankfully, both the keeper and the lighthouse made it through the war unscathed.
Once peace was restored, the keeper married a young woman from the mainland and brought his wife to live with him at the light station. Eventually, the couple had a son. Despite the remoteness of the area, the three of them enjoyed living on the small island. Their home was one filled with love and laughter. It was a simple existence. There were only three things that mattered to Jasper Elway: his wife, his son and the lighthouse in his charge. As long as the three of them were safe, all was well in Jasper's world.
The changing political climate in the colonies soon cast a dark shadow on the family's happiness. There was growing unrest in Massachusetts. Many people, including influential men such as Samuel Adams, Paul Revere and Samuel Prescott, were espousing the cause of independence. After fighting erupted in Concord and Lexington, the keeper's son decided to leave the island to fight with the newly formed Continental Army even though his father did not approve of his decision.
"I don't see why you would want to leave your home and join up with these revolutionaries," Jasper said. "If Boston has grievances with the king, that is of no concern to us."
"I don't agree, Father," Kerwin Elway argued. "I know you consider yourself an English subject, but I think of myself as an American; and as such I'll fight alongside my countrymen until we are free of the British yoke."
Hetty Elway wept at the thought of her only child going off to war, but when she and Jasper realized there was nothing they could say to talk their son out of leaving, they gave Kerwin their blessings.
"I'll pray for you every day," Hetty promised, as she packed food for her son to eat on his journey to Boston.
"You watch yourself, you hear?" Jasper cautioned. "Keep your wits about you, and don't take any foolish chances."
"I can't promise that I'll make it back here," Kerwin admitted honestly. "But I can promise that I'll try. No matter what happens I want you both to know how much I love you."
Her son's admission brought on a new bout of tears from Hetty. After Kerwin pushed off from the dock in a small dinghy, the parents climbed up the tower to the lighthouse gallery, where they watched the boat that carried their precious son vanish into the horizon.
* * *
With Kerwin away at war, Hetty Elway spent more time with her husband. She frequently went up to the tower with Jasper when he lit the lamp, trimmed the wick or washed the glass. The two of them would then stand arm-in-arm, staring out to sea as though their future were written on the waves of the North Atlantic.
"I haven't gotten a letter from Kerwin in over a month," Hetty announced anxiously.
"This isn't the first time you've gone that long without a word from him, and it won't be the last. You can hardly expect him to stop in the middle of a battle or a long march to write to his mother," her husband teased, hoping to ease her fears.
"The last I heard from him, he said the Congress had written some sort of declaration breaking our ties with England."
Jasper chuckled and echoed, "Our ties? Since when are you on the side of the Sons of Liberty?"
"Since my son is fighting and risking his life for American independence," she firmly declared. "Both you and I were born here in Massachusetts as were our parents, so why should we feel any loyalty to King George?"
"Because he is our king."
"Jasper Elway! You don't mean to tell my you're a Tory?" Hetty asked with horror.
"To be truthful, I'm not sure what I am. Don't get me wrong; I'd never endanger America by either word or deed. However, I'm not sure I want Washington's army to be victorious. I'd rather we end the war peacefully and remain British subjects."
"Not me. I'm on Kerwin's side. America ought to rule itself."
"Well, let's not let politics come between us," Jasper said, putting his arm affectionately around his wife's back. "British or American, we're a family."
"American," Hetty insisted stubbornly.
* * *
When a letter arrived three days later, Hetty noticed the handwriting on the envelope was not her son's. Her hand went to her chest as though to protect her heart from breaking.
"You read it," she told her husband, passing him the letter with a trembling hand.
Moments after tearing open the envelope the keeper's face was transformed from expectation to grief.
"Is he ...?" was all the worried mother could manage to utter.
Jasper nodded his head.
"He was wounded in a battle that took place at Washington Heights in Manhattan and died three days later."
Tears streamed down Hetty's cheeks, but no words passed her lips. Her only child had been killed, dying more than two hundred miles from the only home he had ever known. The grieving mother slowly plodded through her home to the rear bedroom where her son had slept since infancy. Everything was as he had left it. Hetty gently caressed several belongings that seemed to be patiently awaiting their owner's return.
"I don't think he had the chance to finish reading this," she said, idly picking up a book off his bedside table.
The full realization suddenly hit her: Kerwin would not finish the book now, would no longer sleep in his bed and would not return to the light keeper's house.
"I'll never see him again," she cried, hugging the book to her breast and christening it with her tears.
For days Hetty wandered around the light station, a living ghost haunting her previously happy home. She refused to eat and rarely slept. Finally, she could bear her grief no longer. After waiting for her husband to fall asleep, she climbed the stairs of the light tower, walked out onto the gallery, hoisted herself over the railing and plunged to her death.
Jasper was inconsolable when he found his wife's battered body on the rocks below the lighthouse the following morning. Her suicide, coupled with the death of the couple's only child, left him a bereaved, lonely, broken man with no family or friends to console him. He had nothing left to live for except his duties as a light keeper. Soon, however, his grief began to fade, replaced by a growing hatred for the British, whom he saw as the cause for the loss of both of his loved ones.
One evening, as he stood on the gallery staring at the Atlantic, Jasper saw a large warship on the horizon. He retrieved his spyglass from inside the tower and peered at the ship. His heartbeat accelerated when he saw the familiar red, white and blue cross of the British flag. As he watched the ship approach, the light keeper felt his rage mount.
"If only I had a weapon powerful enough to destroy that cursed ship," he cried angrily.
All he had was a musket, however. He might as well throw rocks at the warship for all the harm a musket ball would cause. Jasper could do nothing but watch helplessly as the enemy ship approached. His hatred for its captain and crew grew as he imagined his son lying in a field hospital in New York for three days, slipping in and out of consciousness until death delivered him from his agony. Then the beam of the lighthouse flashed and seemed to envelop him in a warm, reassuring brightness. Suddenly the keeper realized he had a weapon at hand that could destroy the British ship. Feeling a fierce hunger for vengeance race through his veins, he walked back into the tower and extinguished the lamp.
Even with his spyglass and his knowledge of the topography of the island, Jasper could barely distinguish the rocks from the choppy ocean waves in the absence of the lighthouse beacon. He stood in the darkness, waiting, his anticipation increasing. He knew the British were near, heading blindly toward the perilous rocks. Soon the inevitable happened. The sound of the wooden ship being torn apart by jagged boulders was deafening.
Then, to the keeper's surprise, a beam of light shot out of the unlit lighthouse lamp: a thin, laser-like beam pointed directly at the crew of the crippled ship. Jasper covered his ears in an attempt to shut out the tormented screams of the men as they scrambled to the deck, eager to abandon the sinking ship, only to be incinerated by the murderous light.
Trembling with fear, Elway left the gallery and went inside the tower. As he had for more than twenty years, he lit the lamp. The darkness was instantly dispelled, and the keeper made his way down the tower stairs. Outside, he raised his handheld lantern high and called to the wrecked ship.
"Is anyone there? Is there anyone alive? Do you need help?"
Silence was his only answer.
* * *
The following morning townspeople from the mainland, all ardent patriots, rowed out to the damaged British warship. The crewmen were all on deck—not a single one left alive.
"Ain't that odd?" asked one man whose age and lame leg prevented him from taking up arms against his majesty's troops.
"What?" replied the old man who ran the local tavern.
"All the bodies are burned beyond recognition, yet there's no sign of fire on the ship. There's not so much as a scorch mark on the deck."
Although no one could explain how the crew had perished, credit for their deaths was attributed to the light keeper. Word spread up and down the New England coast: Jasper Elway was a hero to the American cause, a true patriot who had singlehandedly taken down an enemy vessel.
A little more than a month later a second British ship and crew suffered the same fate as the first. Six months later, a third ship was destroyed on the rocks with the burned bodies of its crew found on deck. After the destruction of ship number three, Jasper became a legend among the Americans and the British alike. The tiny island on which the lighthouse stood came to be called Patriot Rock, not after Kerwin Elway, the fallen soldier, but after his father.
Although Jasper denied having killed the British seamen, he did take credit for the destruction of the first ship. He had deliberately extinguished the light in the harbor, an act which caused the ship to crash on the rocks. But he could not explain the burned bodies of the crewmen or the source of the mysterious thin beam of light that had caused their deaths.
"I don't know what's gotten into you," Jasper said to the light the day after the wreckage of the third ship was discovered. "Whether it be a force of good or evil, I don't know. But I can't lie and say I'm not glad you killed those redcoats—not after they killed my Kerwin and Hetty killed herself."
For the remainder of the war, the British avoided Patriot Rock. They might have gone so far as to arrest Jasper Elway and burn down the lighthouse, but by that time most of the fighting was in the southern colonies rather than in New England. Lord Cornwallis's troops were in the Carolinas. Finally, in October of 1781, the combined American and French forces of Washington and Rochambeau defeated the British at Yorktown, Virginia. The war came to an end, and America won its independence.
* * *
In April of 1782, a number of former British subjects, now proud American citizens, woke up to see a familiar sight: a wrecked ship on Patriot Rock.
"You don't suppose the light keeper died?" asked the town blacksmith. "Why else would he not have lit the lamp?"
"I guess we should go to the island and see if he's all right," the cooper said. "We ought to bring the doctor along with us, just in case he's needed."
Within the hour, the three men rowed to Patriot Rock. Jasper Elway, alive and well, met them at the dock.
"What brings you out here?" the keeper inquired.
"The ship on the rocks," the blacksmith replied.
"Why didn't you light the lamp?" the doctor asked.
Jasper looked uneasily up at the lighthouse.
"I did light it, but it wouldn't stay lit."
"Why not? Have you run out of oil?" the cooper asked.
"No, I've got plenty of oil. It's ... well, ... that beacon has a mind of its own."
"What do you mean?" the doctor demanded to know.
"Ever since that first British ship crashed on the rocks, the lamp deliberately goes out whenever a boat comes near. It was the light that destroyed the ship last night, just like it destroyed the last two British ships. It also killed the crews of all four: burned them up like kindling wood."
The three men from the mainland shared uncomfortable looks.
"I've heard of men losing their minds when they've lived in isolation for a long period of time," the doctor whispered to his two companions as the light keeper prepared a pot of coffee for his guests. "And poor Jasper has been out on this island for almost thirty years."
"I imagine losing his wife and son didn't help any," the cooper said compassionately.
"I'm sure we all feel sorry for Jasper and what he's had to endure," the doctor began.
"And we're all grateful for his services during the war," the blacksmith added.
"Still, we can't stand by and let him hurt himself or innocent people," the doctor continued. "He needs to be removed as keeper."
Jasper who had been mumbling about the unexplained deaths of the ships' crews, overheard the doctor's last words.
"Remove me as keeper?" he echoed in horror. "But I've been keeper here since this lighthouse was built. Me and Hetty raised our boy here. I can't leave. I'm as much a part of this light station as the keeper's residence or the lighthouse itself."
Fearful that the keeper might become violent, the doctor quickly reassured Jasper that he would not be removed against his will. However, when he returned to the mainland, the physician contacted the proper authorities and expressed his concern over Elway's state of mind. The following week, when a group of sailors was sent to the island to take Jasper away, they discovered the keeper's body lying on the rocks in the same general area where his wife's remains had been found nearly a decade earlier.
Upon Jasper's death, a younger, more emotionally stable man was assigned to replace him as keeper of the lighthouse on Patriot Rock. The new keeper had been in service for less than a year when a ship was destroyed on the rocks and its crew was found incinerated on the deck.
This time, it was the keeper who rowed to the mainland rather than waiting for the townspeople to come to him.
"It deliberately killed those men!" the keeper cried.
"What are you talking about?" the doctor asked.
"The lamp was burning brightly when I saw the ship approaching the island. The lamp went out and defied all my attempts to relight it. I heard the ship crash against the rocks. Then ... then I saw a thin beam of light shine from the lamp. It seemed to search for the men and kill them, one by one, as they came on deck. Each man the beam touched instantly combusted. That light killed the crew on purpose."
"Do you think he's gone mad like poor Jasper?" the blacksmith asked the doctor.
"It does seem like it, but I find it strange that both men share the same delusion."
When the authorities learned of the latest shipwreck, they decided to build a new lighthouse further north on the coast. Its more powerful beam would be strong enough to lead approaching ships safely to a nearby harbor. Made obsolete by the construction of the new light station, the lighthouse on Patriot Rock was dismantled, and eventually the encroaching sea reclaimed the small island. Nothing remained of Patriot Rock except a legend of a loyal American light keeper and occasional tales of a mysterious light, an ill omen indeed, that sometimes appeared to passing ships.
* * *
Captain Barnabas Hamlin had just fallen asleep when a loud knocking on his cabin door startled him.
"What is it?" he called out.
"Captain," First Mate Wilfred Nix cried, "I think you should speak to the crew. A number of them claim to have seen a mysterious light on the horizon. And they know we're in the vicinity of Patriot Rock."
The captain got out of bed and quickly donned his clothes. He then followed his first mate to the deck.
"We all know the legend of Patriot Rock," he said in a loud, commanding voice. "Those of you who think you saw a light are afraid of the consequences."
There was a low murmur of agreement among the men.
"You must also know that the rocks that once destroyed ships nearly a century ago are well below the surface of the Atlantic now. There's no danger of our running aground on them."
"Beggin' your pardon, sir, but it's not the rocks that worry us," one harpooner said. "We fear the beam of light that might set us ablaze."
Captain Hamlin nodded his head, acknowledging that he, too, had heard the tales of the crews that died at the base of Patriot Rock.
"If we want to get back to Nantucket," the captain explained, "we can't avoid the area of Patriot Rock. Now, if you men honestly fear for your lives, then I suggest you seek shelter in your cabins until we pass through these waters. This ought to ensure your safety since all the men who died were reputedly on deck at the time they were hit by the deadly beam."
The crew's grumbling lessened. The captain's argument seemed logical. How could a beam of light penetrate the thick planks of the ship and harm them?
"Captain?" the first mate inquired. "If all the men are below decks, who will steer the ship?"
"I will," called out the ship's carpenter. "I don't believe in all this ghostly lighthouse rubbish."
The first mate knew he should offer to take on the duty himself. What better way to impress his captain? But he had seen the mysterious light with his own eyes and feared what might happen when the Sea Dog encountered the former site of Patriot Rock.
"Very well, go up to the bridge and keep a steady course due south. And remember," the captain warned, "I'll have you thrown in irons if you desert your post."
"Have no fear of that," the carpenter said. "I'll not cower in my cabin like a woman!"
Normally, not a man in the crew would have tolerated such an insult, but the sailors were too anxious to reach the safety of their quarters to waste time fighting with the carpenter.
The captain, too, left the deck. He returned to his cabin and covered his porthole with a heavy greatcoat. As stated previously, seafarers are a superstitious lot, and he was no exception. Once he was certain no light from outside could enter his cabin, he lit his lamp, took out his Bible, knelt beside his bed and prayed for a safe end to their voyage.
* * *
Several hours later Captain Hamlin woke up on the floor beside his bed. He had apparently fallen asleep praying.
Is it morning yet? he wondered, looking at the covered porthole.
He gingerly lifted his coat and was relieved to see the sun glistening on the water. As he left his cabin, he met the first mate on his way to the bridge. Wilfred Nix's face was ashen.
"Captain."
It was a cry of anguish rather than a greeting.
"What is it, Nix? Did that blasted carpenter leave the helm?"
"No, he's still there."
"Then what's wrong?"
"I've checked below deck, and all the men are unharmed. But the carpenter .... The old tales are true, sir."
Captain Hamlin followed his mate to the helm where the still smoldering body of the carpenter was draped over the ship's wheel.
"The poor bastard," the captain said. Then he turned to his mate and instructed, "Arrange for a memorial service as soon as possible."
Once the carpenter's burned body was delivered to the sea, the crew went back to their usual duties. There was no further mention of the death of their crewmate or the legend of Patriot Rock. The ghostly lighthouse, the deadly embodiment of Jasper Elway's overwhelming pursuit of revenge over the deaths of his wife and son, had claimed yet another innocent victim.
When Salem visited Patriot Rock, he brought with him marshmallows, graham crackers and Hershey bars to make s'mores.
