The first legend states, the coastal people rescued the pilgrims from the stricken cutter. The immigrants were fed and sheltered. The second legend is very sinister. It fits in well with why a flaming ghost ship would be seen through the ages, off the Rhode Island coast.
The Block Islanders were a diabolical bunch. From the shoreline they flashed bogus channel lights and drew ships upon the isle’s rocks. The coastal lights tricked the Princess Augusta’s helmsman.
The windjammer was holed upon the rocks by Sandy Point, but did not sink. Islanders then boarded the schooner. With blade and shot the crew and passengers were robbed and killed. Those travelers that swam to shore were run down and slain. Their corpses were buried in a mass grave. To mask the murderous deed, the crippled windjammer was taken off the rocks, fired, and sunk.
The ghost ship, when sighted, served two purposes. The flaming hulk warned mariners to stay away from the treacherous shoals and signaled to the living to bring to justice those responsible for the crime.
With the passage of time, the name of the doomed ship became confused with the original home of its passengers. The plundered Princess Augusta became known as the Palatine.
Yankee lore has it the evil Block Islanders and their offspring continued to run ships aground robbing and murdering the unlucky. The land pirates were never able to equal the windfall of 1738.
New slang phrases came into being amongst the Block Island marauders. “Moon Cussers” were the nights when the moon was at its brightest. Sailors could make out lands end. Only on cloudy or moonless nights did the bogus bonfires and lamps lure ships to their doom.
Fishing trawlers, or small schooners – it made no difference. They were drawn to the skeleton coast by the cunning landsmen. The islanders gave no quarter. Dead men tell no tales. The ships were scavenged and burnt.
John Greenleaf Whittier’s poem, “The Palatine”, documents the deeds of the Moon Cussers.
“Down swooped the wreckers like birds of prey
Tearing the heart of the ship away
And the dead never had a word to say.
And then with a ghastly shimmer and shine
Over the rocks and the seething brine
They burned the wreck of the Palatine.
In their cruel hearts, as they homeward sped
‘The sea and the rocks are dumb,’ they said.
‘They’ll be no reckoning with the dead.’”
For still, on many moonless nights,
From Kingston Head and from Montauk Light
The specter kindles and burns in sight.”
A witchy poem – is it based on fact? Maybe? There is a marker on the island, its epitaph reads, “Palatine Graves 1738.”
Were the Block Islanders a band of murderous thieves? It is plausible a ship did sink off the Block Island shore and a good yarn was built around it. But how does one account for the burning ship that has been seen through the centuries by thousands of people? Are the Moon Cussers Yankee lore? Or are these wreckers of ships Nor-Eastern fact? GASP! (9)
CHAMPAGNE LADY
(VOODOO QUEEN)
Voodoo, which is sometimes referred to as Santeria or Brujaria, is a form of faith that combines Catholicism with West African paganism. Practitioners of this religion believe in hexes and people with the power. New Orleans’ Marie Laveau was a person with the power.
Voodoo priestess Laveau was born in 1794, of mixed ancestry. Many Caribbean islands claim her birth. Using legends as a source, Laveau was born in what is now Haiti. As a young woman, Laveau moved to Santo Domingo, then onto New Orleans. Lore has it, Laveau’s father was a French aristocrat plantation owner named Charles. Laveau’s mother, Darcantel Marguerite, was half black and half Indian.
Charles Laveau owned Marguerite and took her as his slave mistress. Being half white, daughter Marie Laveau was quasi-schooled and learned to read and write.
In New Orleans, Marie Laveau was a free woman of color. There are many stories of how this happened. Laveau ran away from her French Caribbean master and bought her way out of slavery. Or she was born free, as the illegitimate daughter of a planter.
Laveau never forgot how fortunate she was or how poverty and slavery, ruined the luckless. Laveau practiced voodoo among her friends in New Orleans, as she learned the crafts of hairdressing and makeup.
Statuesque and raven haired, Laveau was an intelligent woman who was generous to those she judged worthy. Laveau’s first husband was Jacques Paris, a free Quadroon (three-fourth’s white). After seven years of marriage, Paris died or disappeared.
Widow Laveau fell in love with Christophe Glapion, who claimed to be Mulatto (half white). Glapion was much older than Laveau; their union bore children.
Laveau won fame by her work as a nurse at the 1815 Battle of New Orleans. Laveau’s skill with a knife and scalpel saved many lives. Laveau would painstakingly remove infected tissues and lodged bullets from the shattered bodies of the wounded. The voodoo lady shared her knowledge of herbs with the harmed soldiers. Her elixirs brought strength to the ill.
The war over, Laveau went back to being a hairdresser. Through her personality, creative cuts and magical powers, she gained the confidence of New Orleans’s wealthiest people. Gossiping customers brought Laveau insights that she used to her advantage. Politicians and businessmen, as well as the destitute consulted with Laveau, who had now attained celebrity status.
In the 1830s the practitioners of Santeria crowned Laveau with a “Tignon,” which is a handkerchief made to look like a seven-pointed crown. Laveau was proclaimed “Queen of Voodoo”.
Fame and prestige did not change Laveau. The priestess was not consumed by materialism. Her beauty and generosity was most uncommon. Many people in New Orleans considered the humble woman to be a living saint.
Yellow fever swept New Orleans in the 1850s. The kind hearted voodoo queen worked around the clock helping to heal the infirm. Laveau would go to the poorest and richest neighborhoods and nurse the sick. The woman with the power would handsomely charge the affluent for her services, for the poorest no payment was asked.
On June 15, 1881, at the age of eighty-seven, Marie Laveau died. Her death added to her magical reputation. Laveau’s daughter, Marie II, was a look-alike who took over her deceased mother’s voodoo business.
Through superstition and her daughter’s conniving, Marie Laveau, was seen as ageless. Eventually the gullible public was able to recognize, the immortal voodoo lady was not Marie Laveau, but her scheming greedy daughter.
Marie II was more capitalistic than her mother and used her magic to gain immense wealth. Legend has it; Marie II owned a house of prostitution on the shores of Lake Pontchatrain. Because Marie II’s knowledge of herbs was equal to that of her late mother’s, the throngs would put up with the daughter’s high prices and antics. Marie II died on June 11, 1897. The daughter was not revered like her mother.
Upon Marie II’s death, daughter Marie III took over the magic business. Unlike her grandmother, Marie III led a wild life. Supposedly the beautiful granddaughter was cursed by her mother’s indulgences. In 1919, the out of control granddaughter died in Lake Pontchartrain.
The bad deeds of the Marie II weighed down on the winsome daughter’s shoulders as she swam. In a fit of Karmic backlash, the evil energy drowned beautiful Marie III.
Marie Laveau’s crypt is located in St. Louis Cemetery No.1, it is attested her daughter Marie II, is entombed with her. Lore has it, if you knock on the crypt’s walls three times and mark three X’s on the tomb, you can ask for Laveau’s