New England Puritan Lore: The Devil Made Many Appearances

The Devil in DC  Comics' Batman Family #1, by Mike Grell

The Patriot Ledger newspaper in Quincy,Massachusetts publishes a "Haunted New England" feature every month, and this month is about "the Devil" making appearances during Puritan times.

I’m Eryn Dion, Regional Engagement Editor for Gannett New England, and this is Haunted New England. 

Turns out the Devil made quite a few appearances around New England in the colonial days, getting around to the First Church of Ipswich, outside the JC Solmonese School in Norton, near the Center School in neighboring Easton, all in Massachusetts. He made the trek up to Maine and left his mark on a stone outside the Manchester Meeting House, and came back down to North Kingstown, Rhode Island , leaving behind strange, triangle-shaped impressions or deep human-sized depressions in otherwise solid rock. These are just some of the more well-known examples - I’m sure many, many small New England towns have their own local legends passed down to kids just like me. 

But all of this begs the question - was Satan just jumping around ye olde thyme New England, burning holes in rocks wherever he went? And if not, why did our ancestors see weird holes in rocks and automatically think the Devil did it? 

To find the answer, like most things, the Devil is in the details. 

Remember, New England, and our country as a whole, was founded by Puritans. The first New England colonies were religious settlements, and families came to these colonies from England and beyond largely for religious purposes. Their religious beliefs were so strong, so integral to themselves and their lives, that they were willing to uproot their families and leave behind everything to cross the Atlantic on a musty, cramped boat and come to a land where they would literally be starting from square zero. Not even a Dunkin Donuts.

Religion ruled Puritan life and their whole existence revolved around working hard, going to church, dying (at a relatively young age) and going to heaven. That was it for them. God controlled their lives. Good things came from God and God’s favor, bad things came from the Devil, but also God not stepping in to do you a solid. 

It’s also important to know that, to the Puritans, the Devil wasn’t some amorphous figure representing evil. He was a real dude. You could meet him in the flesh while out riding your horse or toiling in the fields. You could even fight him, like the Rev. George Whitefield did in 1740 in the First Church of Ipswich, which, according to legend, led to their pair of Devil’s footprints when Whitefield got into a wrestling match with the Devil and pushed him off the church’s steeple. You could make a deal with him and sell your soul to get ahead, or worship him to gain his favor in the form of witchy powers. 

And life in early Colonial America was, frankly, scary. Death was rampant, from starvation, disease, or conflict with Native Americans. Any injury could easily become infected. The winters were harsh and cruel. Children died at a young age. Families toiled long hours just to sustain the household, nevermind make a modest living. It makes sense, for them to believe the Devil was everywhere, because to them he was. He was in every failed crop, every drought, every sick cow, every time they ran out of firewood or every ferocious hurricane blown ashore. And if someone managed to get ahead? If they found success, whether as a politician or a businessperson? Well, the Devil was in them, too. 

So when our colonial forefathers happened upon a rock in the woods with mysterious, triangle impressions, I think it was easy for them to point and say, “Well, speak of the Devil. There he was.”