The old house on Browne's Hill was removed from the summit to the plain, at a short distance from the foot of the hill. Colonel Putnam, of the Custom-House, recollects it there, standing unoccupied, but with the furniture still in it. It seems to have been accessible to all who wished to enter. It was at that time under the care of Richard Derby, an ancestor of the present Derbys, who had a claim to the property through his wife, who was a Browne. The owner of the house had fled during the Revolution, and Richard Derby seems to have held the estate as it was when the refugee left it, in expectation of his eventual return. There was one closet in the house which everybody was afraid to open, it being supposed that the Devil was in it. One day, above fifty years ago, or threescore it may have been, Putnam and other boys were playing in the house, and took it into their heads to peep into this closet. It was locked, but Putnam pried open the door, with great difficulty and much tremor. At last it flew open, and out fell a great pile of family portraits, faces of gentlemen in wigs, and ladies in quaint head-dresses, displaying themselves on the floor, startling the urchins out of their wits. They all fled, but returned after a while, piled up the pictures again, and nailed up the door of the closet.
The house, according to the same authority, was not tenanted after the earthquake of 1775; at least, it was removed from the summit of the hill on that occasion, it having been greatly shaken by the earthquake.
The house formerly inhabited by Rev. Mr. Paris, and in which the witchcraft business of 1692 had its origin, is still standing in the north parish of Danvers. It has been long since removed from its original site. The workmen at first found great difficulty in removing it; and an old man assured them that the house was still under the influence of the Devil, and would remain so unless they took off the roof. Finally they did take off the roof, and then succeeded in moving the house. Putnam was personally cognizant of this fact.
November 17.—A story of the effects of revenge in diabolizing him who indulges in it.
The Committee of Vigilance, instituted to promote the discovery of old Mr. White's murderers,—good as the machinery of a sketch or story.
A story of the life, domestic and external, of a family of birds in a marten-house, for children.
The people believed that John Hancock's uncle had bought an immense diamond at a low price, and sold it for its value,—he having grown rich with a rapidity inexplicable to them. The fact was, however, according to Hutchinson, that he made his fortune by smuggling tea in molasses hogsheads from St. Eustatia.
An old French Governor of Acadie, the predecessor of D'Aulnay, paid for some merchandise, which he bought of the captain of an English vessel, with six or seven hundred buttons of massive gold, taken from one of his suits. (Mass. Hist. Coll.)
An apparition haunts the front yard. I have often, while sitting in the parlor, in the daytime, had a perception that somebody was passing the windows; but, looking towards them, nobody is there. The appearance is never observable when looking directly towards the window, but only by such a sidelong or indirect glance as one gets while reading, or when intent on something else. But I know not how many times I have raised my head or turned with the certainty that somebody were passing. The other day I found that my wife was equally aware of the spectacle, and that, as likewise agrees with my own observation, it always appears to be entering the yard from the street, never going out.
