1884.]
��Dungeon Rock, Lynn.
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��■called Pirates' Glen, where they built a hut and dug a well. It is supposed that they buried money in this vicinity, "but our opinion is that most of the money then, as now, was kept above ground. Their retreat being discovered, one of the king's cruisers appeared on the coast, and three of them were arrested and carried to England and probably executed. The other, whose name was Thomas Veal, escaped to a rock in the woods, in which was a spacious cavern, where the pirates liad previously deposited some of their plunder. There the fugitive practised the trade of shoemaking. He con- tinued his residence here till the great earthquake of 1658, when the top of the rock was unloosed and crashed down into the mouth of the cavern, •enclosing the unfortunate man in what has been called to this day Pirates' Dungeon or Dungeon Rock. We ■cannot vouch for the complete truth- fulness of this historian's statements.
In 1852, one Hiram Marble pur- chased from the city of Lynn a lot of woodland in which Dungeon Rock is ■situated. He came, as was claimed, influenced by Spiritualistic revelations.
Directed by the spirit of the departed pirate Tom Veal, Mr. Marble com- Tnenced to excavate from this very hard porphyry rock in search of a subter- ranean vault, into which had been poured, as was supposed, the ill-gotten gain of all the pirates, from Captain Kidd down to the last outlaw of the ocean. Twenty-seven years the sound ■of the hammer and the drill and the thud of blasting-powder echoed through the leafy forests, and then all was hushed.
Hiram Marble died in his lonely resi- ■dence at Dungeon Rock, November 10, 1868, aged sixty- five. He was widely
��known for his perseverence in the work in which he was engaged. Sixteen years he labored without a realization of his ardent hopes. He remained a Spiritualist to the last, and those of a like faith were invited to the funeral services which took place on the day following his death.
" His faith has not been without works, nor his courage barren of results, and centuries hence, if his name and identity should be lost, the strange labor may be referred to some recluse Cyclops who had strayed hither from mystic lands."
" Edwin Marble, who succeeded his father in the strange search for treas- ure, died January 16, 1880, aged forty- eight years. He was buried near the foot of the rock on the southwestern slope, it having been his express desire to be interred near the scene of his hopeful, though fruitless, labors."
The broken rock, which they removed solely with their own hands, makes quite a mountain of itself.
We decided to enter the place where so many years of fruitless toil had been spent. A wooden gate on rusty hinges opened and we passed in, and the gate closed behind us.
The excavation is high enough and broad enough for two tall men to walk abreast, and on its winding way, screw fashion, doubling upon itself, it leads down one hundred and fifty feet into the bowels of the earth, all the way through solid rock that had remained undis- turbed for centuries on centuries, uniil the work of this ill-directed Marble com- menced. Down, down we went, out of the warm sunlight into this cold, damp subterranean passage, winding hither and thither, till we reached an ice-cold pool of water which is constantly being supplied from some hidden fountain.
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