The Sea Captain's House
I was only a girl of thirteen in the year 1821 when I left my father's house and went to work for Virginia Worth. The affluent Nantucket woman, whose husband captained a whaling ship, had just built one of the largest homes on the island and needed help taking care of it. Personally, I thought the house far too big and elaborate for her, but Mrs. Worth did not share her Quaker neighbors' proclivity for simple living.
The interior of what was to become known as the sea captain's house was far more impressive than that of the other homes on the island. Captain Ezra Worth had acquired a considerable fortune during his voyages, and his wife enjoyed displaying the various goods he purchased in the ports his ship visited. What impressed people most about the dwelling, however, was the long, wide hallway that extended from the front door to the double staircase at the opposite side of the house.
"The lumber for that floor came from the deck of the Priscilla, a Salem merchant ship," Virginia boasted. "She sailed the Atlantic for more than twenty years before she was sold for salvage at the end of the War of 1812."
Since the hallway was the first sight that met a visitor's eye when he entered the front door, Virginia wanted it kept in pristine shape. For hours at a time I would be on my knees waxing and buffing the wooden planks until they shined like glass.
Although most Quakers frowned on gossiping, there were many whispers about my employer's ostentatious display of wealth. If Mrs. Worth knew of the disparaging remarks, I seriously doubt they bothered her. With her husband gone between two and three years on each voyage and no child to hold to her breast while he was away, she lavished her love and attention on her home instead. While some people criticized the captain's wife for her lack of humility, I felt sympathy for the lonely woman. A house, no matter how impressive, was no substitute for a loving family.
Virginia must have sensed my compassion, for we became much closer than most employers and employees; we crossed the threshold of friendship.
"What are you doing out there?" I asked one blustery autumn day when I saw the captain's wife out on the widow's walk. "It's freezing outside, and you haven't even got a cloak on."
"It's been almost forty-six months," she replied, with tears glistening on her rosy cheeks. "Ezra's never been gone this long."
I walked out onto the landing and managed to coax her back into the house.
"Your hands are like ice! Come sit by the fire and warm up while I go make you something hot to drink."
When I returned with a cup of tea, I saw Virginia dabbing her eyes with a silk handkerchief.
"I can't help thinking about what Mrs. Macy told me of the Essex. Only eight crewmen survived, and those in Captain Pollard's boat ...." She shuddered and took a sip of tea before continuing, "They resorted to cannibalism. After eating those that died of natural causes, they drew lots and killed poor Owen Coffin, a boy of only seventeen years, and devoured him."
"You mustn't fret. Your husband is an experienced captain with a good crew, and his ship is one of the finest whalers ever built. I'm sure they're all safe."
Alas, my certainty in the captain's wellbeing was feigned, a pretense for my employer's benefit. Like many Nantucketers, I had been horrified to learn of the attack on the Essex and of the harrowing ordeal faced by its crew. If a sperm whale could ram and sink Captain Pollard's ship, who was to say such an occurrence would not be repeated?
It was only two days after the incident on the widow's walk that Virginia finally received word from her husband. A ship returning to Nantucket from the Pacific brought long-awaited letters from crews of other ships it had encountered during its voyage.
Virginia's tears were now those of joy.
"Ezra's all right," she cried. "There was some damage to the ship caused by a severe storm, and he had to put into port for repairs. He's on his way home now. He could be home any day!"
Since the captain had not seen the house since its completion, Virginia wanted to be sure every room met her high expectations.
"Let's get to work," she told me, rolling up her sleeves and donning an apron. "We're going to clean this place from top to bottom: floors, walls, carpets, windows and furniture."
For the next three days the two of us scrubbed, waxed, polished and laundered.
"We're almost done," my employer announced, after we finished putting the China dinnerware back into the cabinet. "Only two more tasks. You go polish the silver in the dining room while I sweep away the dust in the room across the hall from yours."
"Why bother?" I asked. "The room is empty. No one's even entered it since I've been living here."
"I'll not have a single room, even one that has no use yet, mar the perfection of this house."
"Yes, Ma'am," I replied with a smile, knowing my mistress prayed nightly that one day the empty room would serve as a nursery.
As Virginia climbed the stairs, I got some clean rags from the closet and headed toward the dining room. I was almost finished polishing the ornate silver teapot when I heard a scream from above. I raced up the stairs, calling my employer's name.
"Are you all right?" I asked when I saw her lying on the floor, the broom still in her hand.
When I saw the look of sheer terror frozen on her pretty face, I knew she was not.
"What happened to you?" I asked, knowing I would get no answer, not in this life, at least.
For my employer, a woman I grew to love like a sister, lie dead amidst several piles of clothes. It was only after Virginia was laid to rest in the Nantucket soil that I wondered why the clothing had even been in the room. We had done all the laundry the previous day, yet on the dusty floor of the empty third-story bedroom, I found every piece of clothing that was in the house: Virginia's, her husband's and my own.
When Captain Ezra Worth returned to Nantucket five days after his wife was laid in her grave, he was understandably distraught.
"If only I'd managed to come home just a week earlier," he cried when he learned of her death, "she might still be alive today."
He was so upset by the loss of his wife that he could not bear to look at the house his money had built.
"This place was Virginia's dream. She hoped we would fill it with children."
Ezra believed the fact that he would never share a single night in the house with his beloved wife was God's judgment on the couple's extravagance. As such, he chose to sell the house and move to smaller, less elegant lodgings on the island.
* * *
While the new owners of the house were not nearly as well off as Ezra Worth, they needed a large home because of the size of their family. The master of the house, a man who had married his third wife after his first two died in childbirth, was the father of fourteen children, ten of whom survived past the age of five.
Although Crispin Starbuck could not afford to pay me what Virginia Worth had, I remained under the roof as a housekeeper at the sea captain's house. My needs were few, and I was content to work for room and board. Also, I missed Virginia terribly and felt it my duty to maintain her house as best I could.
Due to the number of people in the Starbuck household (three adults and ten children), quarters were tight. I even had to share my room with Crispin's two oldest daughters. For the first time since the house was built, the room across from mine, the one in which Virginia had died, was put to use. The youngest child, an infant less than six months old, slept in a cradle in the parents' bedroom, but the next three youngest children slept in that previously vacant room.
It was no doubt because of their young age that the two boys and one girl were not frightened by the bizarre occurrences that took place in their bedroom on the anniversary of Virginia Worth's death. It was the oldest sister, Sarah, whose responsibility it was to care for her young siblings, who cried out in fear when she opened the bedroom door.
I had just finished dressing and was on my way to the kitchen when I heard her scream. Remembering the events of the previous year, I turned and raced back up the stairs.
"What's wrong? I heard ...."
I could not continue. Like Sarah, I stared silently ahead at what seemed to be five figures kneeling in prayer in the center of the room.
The mistress of the house appeared moments later. She walked forward and touched one of the praying figures. The clothing fell to the floor in a heap, and she remained standing, open-mouthed, clutching a pair of her husband's winter drawers in her hand.
"What in God's name is all this about?" she asked.
Neither Sarah nor I had an explanation.
* * *
The Starbuck family remained in the house for ten years. During that time they saw the clothing kneeling in prayer ten times, always on the same night: November 1, the anniversary of Virginia Worth's death. After the tenth year, the master, whose third wife had recently died after giving birth to a stillborn child, decided to move to the mainland. Of his remaining children, six of them were married and living on their own.
The sea captain's house, although still the largest on Nantucket, was no longer as grand. Ten years and ten children had taken a toll on the place. The rooms needed painting, the shutters needed repairing and the hallway floor, which had once been the deck of the Priscilla, was marred by deep gouges and had not seen a good coat of wax since Virginia died.
The condition and size of the house as well as the many rumors that it was haunted by the original owner made finding a buyer difficult. Eventually, however, a minister, who was married to a well-off widow from Boston, purchased the house. With a firm belief in God, the minister scoffed at stories of ghosts.
After the sale was finalized, I was asked by the new owner to remain. Although the minister and his wife, like Ezra and Virginia Worth, had no children, they were both kept busy for long hours and had no time for the upkeep of such a large house. In fact, given all their charitable work, the two were rarely at home. When they were, they limited their activities to the first two floors.
I retained my third-floor bedroom and only ventured into the room across the hall early on the morning of November 2 each year to collect the clothes that continued to appear there. I had long since stopped questioning the peculiar occurrence. If it was the work of Virginia's spirit, as was the popularly held belief, then I had nothing to fear.
I was to find out within six months of the minister's arrival that he had an ulterior motive in purchasing the sea captain's house. Nearly a decade before twenty-three-year-old escaped slave Frederick Douglass gave a speech at the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery Society's annual convention on Nantucket, the minister and his wife espoused the abolitionist cause. Often, they hosted meetings of like-minded individuals in the large house. It was at one of these meetings that Jedediah Gardner, a childhood friend of mine and a staunch abolitionist, asked if any of the members could temporarily take in runaway slaves.
"We've arranged for a ship to collect the slaves at the Barrier Islands and then transport them here. We just need to find places for them to sleep until we can make more permanent arrangements in and around Boston."
"My wife and I will do whatever we can to aid those poor souls in their quest for freedom," the minister volunteered.
On the afternoon of October 28, the whaling ship Lexington sailed into Nantucket Harbor after a two-year, ten-month voyage. Along with barrels of sperm oil and spermaceti, the ship returned with a dozen escaped slaves. Six members of the Anti-Slavery Society volunteered to give shelter to the seven male slaves. The minister and his wife, thanks to the size of their home, were able to take in all five women.
The minister's wife had previously instructed me to prepare the two guest bedrooms on the second floor. At the last moment she told me to air out the third-floor bedroom, the room where Virginia had died.
"That room, Ma'am?" I asked nervously, knowing that on November 1, five figures, consisting of nothing but clothes from around the house, would kneel in a circle and pray.
"Yes," the mistress replied. "There's no reason we have to squeeze three women into one of the second-floor bedrooms when we have a spare room upstairs."
"I don't mind sharing my room," I offered. "It's clean and comfortable, and I can help comfort the poor woman, who's bound to be frightened after such a distressing experience."
The minister's wife was touched by my offer.
"Are you sure you don't mind the inconvenience?"
"Not at all," I said. "I'd like to do whatever I can."
"Very well. Go put a cot in your room then."
I smiled, relieved that she had accepted my offer.
The young recipient of my hospitality seemed to be immune to my comfort. She and her fellow refugees did not speak either to me or to each other, at least not in my presence. They were so silent that I began to wonder if they knew anything of the English language. I tried to communicate with gestures, but met with no success. Had they been so traumatized that they lost all ability to express emotion?
* * *
Late on the night of October 31, Jedediah Gardner sent word to the minister that the ship from Marblehead had arrived. Arrangements were made for the captain to meet with the members of the anti-slavery group the following day.
"Can you prepare a dinner for them all on such short notice?" the minister's wife asked me.
While I assured her I could, I did not add that I would make it as fine a repast as possible since Jedediah would be attending.
At four in the afternoon, while the meat was roasting, the bread baking and the vegetables simmering, Captain Enoch Bedford arrived at the minister's house, followed shortly by Jedediah and the other members of the anti-slavery group.
After exchanging pleasantries, Captain Bedford began discussing plans for the removal of the slaves.
At ten past five I announced that dinner was ready. The group left the parlor and went to the dining room. For the next thirty minutes I waited on the minister, his wife and his guests.
"Excellent meal," the captain declared to the minister. "My compliments to the cook and my thanks to you and your wife."
The other guests readily concurred. I looked at Jedediah and blushed.
"Ah, there's nothing like a good meal," the captain observed. "It's one of the few things I miss when I'm at sea."
"Were you always a whaler?" the minister's wife asked.
"No. Originally, I was a merchant. Then when President Madison declared war on the British back in 1812, I tried my hand at privateering. Alas, although I made a tidy profit, my ship took a beating during the war. After the treaty was signed in Ghent, I decided to sell the Priscilla to a salvage operation."
"The Priscilla?"
I was so astonished by the coincidence that I spoke aloud, forgetting I was but a servant in the house.
"You've heard of the Priscilla?" the captain asked.
"Mrs. Worth, the woman who had this house built, told me the floor in the hall came from the deck of the Priscilla."
"I'll be damned!" the captain swore.
He got up from the dinner table and walked into the hall.
"I never dreamed I'd stand on the deck of the Priscilla again!"
Suddenly, the captain's eyes appeared to bulge out of his head. His hands went to his chest and he fell to his knees.
"Quick," the minister instructed me, "go fetch Dr. Coleman."
I ran up the stairs two at a time to get my shawl before venturing out into the chilly autumn night. When I reached the third floor landing, I immediately noticed the door to the room opposite mine was ajar. I poked my head in as I neared my own door. The five female slaves had gathered in a circle in the center of the floor. They were on their knees, praying. I involuntarily screamed. It was as though the piles of clothes that had appeared in the room every year on this date were suddenly brought to life.
The minister and his wife came upstairs at the sound of my cry.
"What's wrong?" the minister asked. "Has one of the young women ...?"
He and his wife stood beside me, staring at the former slaves.
"We are free," the woman who shared my room declared. "We can find peace at last."
The five women then raised their eyes toward heaven ... and vanished! They left behind, not clothes, but puddles of seawater.
After several minutes of unspoken questions with no possible answers, the minister, his wife and I returned to the ashen-faced guests in the first-floor hallway. When I spied the body lying on the floor, I knew I no longer needed to rush to get the doctor. The captain was beyond his help.
Jedediah clutched my arm and demanded to know, "What happened up there?"
I shook my head and replied honestly, "I don't know."
"I don't suppose anyone can explain what happened down here either."
"What are you talking about?" the minister inquired.
"No sooner did the captain take his last breath than the seven male slaves the Lexington brought here from the Outer Banks rose up from the floorboards and then vanished before our eyes."
I noticed that the hall floor, like the one in the spare bedroom, was wet with seawater.
Suddenly, against all the laws of science the puddles began to smoke, and moments later flames sprang up from the water. Thankfully, we all managed to make it outside to safety before Virginia Worth's once-magnificent home was engulfed in fire.
* * *
While the minister and his wife did not question the events of that night, Jedediah did. He accompanied Captain Enoch Bedford's remains, which he had dragged out of the burning house, back to Marblehead. While he was there, he learned from the Captain's widow the name of the Priscilla's first mate. From Marblehead, he went to neighboring Salem to speak to Phineas Olman.
"You sailed on the Priscilla under Captain Bedford?" Jedediah asked after the fisherman invited him inside his home.
"Back before the war I did, but it's an experience I'd just as soon forget."
"Why is that?"
"I know a lot of Yankee seafarers who became rich from the triangle trade, but I never liked the idea of earning my bread at the misery of others."
"The triangle trade?" Jedediah asked.
"Ayah, the Priscilla brought sugar, tobacco and cotton to England; then we loaded textiles and rum and transported it to Africa ...."
"Where you took on slaves bound for the West Indies and the Americas," Jedediah concluded.
"And loaded up sugar, tobacco and cotton to take back to England, continuing the cycle."
"The captain is dead," Jedediah informed the former first mate.
"I won't lie and say I'm sorry to hear it."
"I was there when he died."
Jedediah went on to describe Enoch Bedford's last moments and the eerie events that followed.
"Seven men and five women, you say?" Phineas asked. "And after they disappeared, they left puddles of seawater behind?"
"I know it's hard to believe, but I'm telling you the truth. I'm not mad, and I'm not ...."
"Oh, I believe you," Phineas assured him. "And I think I can explain what happened after the captain died. In the fall of 1806, the Priscilla took on a cargo of slaves in West Africa. Two weeks into our voyage, we encountered a storm that nearly tore the ship apart. We lost almost half of our provisions. Even if we carefully rationed our remaining supplies, we wouldn't have enough food for everyone, so Captain Bedford took drastic action and sent some of the slaves to the bottom of the sea."
"He drowned them deliberately?" Jedediah asked with disbelief.
"With those twelve gone, we had just enough supplies to make it to the Indies."
"Twelve?"
"Twelve," Phineas repeated. "Seven men and five women."
* * *
When Jedediah Gardner returned to Nantucket from Salem, he immediately came to my father's house where I had returned after the sea captain's house burned to the ground. He came for two reasons. The first was to tell me what he had learned about Captain Enoch Bedford's actions aboard the Priscilla and the second was to ask me to marry him.
Since I was no longer obligated to take care of the sea captain's house, I readily consented. With her magnificent home gone, Virginia Worth's dream had finally come to an end; mine, on the other hand, was just beginning.
This story was inspired by a legend surrounding the Phelps Mansion in Stratford, Connecticut. The house, formerly owned by a sea captain, was purchased by Rev. Eliakim Phelps. He and his family observed many unexplainable occurrences in the house including praying figures made from clothes. The hallway of the house was built to the exact dimensions of a clipper ship's main deck.
If you see piles of laundry in my salt box, don't be afraid. It isn't ghosts. It's just Salem making himself comfortable.
