Читать книгу MYSTERY-MAYHEM:CHRONICLE USA - ALLAN PACHECO - Страница 11

AND NOW THE WEATHER

(LAND PIRATES)

An eerie Atlantic seaboard legend is said to be the brainchild for the 1980 horror film, “The Fog”. The frightful movie has a small seaport being attacked by zombie pirates, these ghostly sailors were murdered by the town’s forefathers. The reanimated century-old victims avenge themselves upon the offspring of those that tricked them. The talented Adrienne Barbeau and John Houseman are up to their necks in zombie-fu as the fog rolls in.

Through the centuries off the waters of Block Island near Sandy Point, Rhode Island, a large ghost ship with sails ablaze has been repeatedly seen. This phenomenon is known as the Palatine Lights. On December 27,1738, the Princess Augusta, laden with one hundred and fifty-eight passengers, some sources say, three hundred, ran aground during a terrible storm. The passengers were from the Palatine area of Germany; their destination was Philadelphia. The Germans had planned to start a new life as colonists.

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)