Eagle Feathers #265 – Somerville’s Shadows

By Bob (Monty) Doherty

You don’t have to look very far to find mysterious, frightening, supernatural, spine-chilling, spooky and ghostly tales, stories, and legends that are grounded in Somerville.

The sixtieth anniversary is known as the Diamond Anniversary. If there ever was a diamond-studded song to come out of our city sixty years ago, it was The Monster Mash by Bobby Boris Pickett. Bobby was born on February 11, 1938, in Somerville and grew up in Winter Hill. He attended Somerville High School, was Captain of its basketball team and served in the U.S. Army stationed in Korea. The Monster Mash has delighted those who have enjoyed celebrating Halloween for the last six decades. It has become legendary, forever securing a spot in American pop culture.

Elizabeth Peabody was a remarkable woman, brilliant, daring and ahead of her time. She opened a bookstore that became a lightning rod to the literary elite. She dated and enhanced the career of novelist Nathaniel Hawthorne, the author of The House of Seven Gables and other famous works. He would later wed her sister Sophia. After her passing, Elizabeth was buried in Concord’s historic Sleepy Hollow Cemetery. Funds for a large burial memorial were collected by friends and residents in and out of Boston but were diverted instead to establish in her memory, The Elizabeth Peabody House, now in Somerville.

In 1648, Margaret Jones of Charlestown was the first woman in the Massachusetts Bay Colony to be executed for witchcraft. This took place forty-four years before the Salem Witch trials. Some say that the Mystic River’s name came from women like Margaret, whose only crime was gathering medicinal and mystical herbs for the sick along its shore.

Many ghost stories have flourished through the years regarding the 4,200 British and Hessian/German prisoners who were held on Somerville’s hills during the beginning of the Revolutionary War.

Stand and Deliver was his cry and his life became an instant Robin Hood-type narrative. Michael Martin or Captain Lightfoot was the first and last person to suffer his fate on this state’s gallows for highway robbery. His last crime totaled only $12 dollars and a watch stolen on Mystic Avenue at Temple Street from dignitary Major Bray of Boston and his wife. He never robbed ladies, always being chivalrous to the fairer sex. He just shook their hands and galloped away. At his execution, which drew hundreds, his last words were said to be, “Don’t let your sons end up like me.”

The largest memorial in Somerville honors world-record holding aviatrix Amelia Earhart. She was declared missing over the Pacific Ocean in July of 1937 in her flying attempt to circumnavigate the world. An official sixteen-day search was made with nine vessels, four thousand crewmen, and 66 aircraft to no avail. Today, 85 years later, her mystery still lies submerged.

Washington Irving, was the author of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, a Halloween classic. He also wrote a short story titled The Devil and Tom Walker which took place where Tom lived along the edge of the Mystic River. In this tale, Tom sells his soul to the devil in exchange for Captain Kidd’s treasure which is rumored to be buried near Ten Hills. Like Irving’s legend of New York’s Sleepy Hollow, where he is buried, Somerville has its hollows.

Let’s take a look!

• After her passing, Elizabeth Peabody was buried in Concord’s historic Sleepy Hollow Cemetery along with her sister Sophia and her husband, Nathanial Hawthorne.
• There is a female-owned and operated hair styling business on Highland Avenue called Hair at Little Hollow.
• Ball Square Fine Wines offers a fine California unoaked chardonnay called Toad Hollow.
• For years, Teele Square and its fire station were kiddingly referred to as Sleepy Hollow. That was until the Red Line trains came to Davis Square and changed all that. Today, it’s not sleepy anymore.
• This fall The Burren in Davis Square has featured the popular Boston band, Autumn Hollow.
• Many houses still standing today were moved in the late 1800’s from today’s Broadway/Foss Park site to Partridge Avenue and the Magoun Square area. At that time and earlier, this was Somerville’s largest park and was called Happy Hollow.

 Happy Holloween, Somerville!