Graves of VT - "Big Jim" Fisk and His Four Topless Women

James "Big Jim" Fisk is as extravagant in death as he was in life. A self-made millionaire who quit school at the age of 12, Fisk earned a reputation as one of the country's most ruthless businessman, to the extent that the term Black Friday was coined after his 1869 failed attempt to corner America's gold market. Nearly 150 years after his death, Fisk lays in the rear corner of Prospect Hill Cemetery in Brattleboro VT, buried beneath four topless women.

Fisk was born on April Fool's Day in the small town of Pownal, Vermont. After a stint in the circus and time spend peddling merchandise with his father, he made his fortune through illegal trade of cotton during the Civil War, shipping it up from the south to be used in making uniforms and blankets for northern soldiers. Although just 36 years old when he was murdered by a business partner, his was the kind of life people wrote books about. There was seemingly no aspect of business that Fisk wasn't willing to jump into, and created by local resident Larkin Mead, Fisk's grave features four woman who each represent an aspect of Fisk's financial empire.


Railroad
The lady below is holding in her hands a stack of railroad shares.

In the late 1860's a bitter battle for control of the Erie Railroad took place, one which pitted controlling partners Fisk along with Daniel Drew and Jay Gould into a fight against tycoon Cornelius Vanderbilt, who sought to overtake it. Vanderbilt was steadily buying up Erie stock in an attempt to gain control of the railroad, which the trio countered by continually issuing new stocks to water down the ones Vanderbilt accumulated. This battle became known as the "Erie War". The issuing of new stocks by Fisk's group was completely against the law, but a corrupt partnership with the Tammany Hall Political Party led to legalizing these newly issued stocks, and Vanderbilt for the time being was defeated. Fisk then squeezed Drew out of the picture, giving control of the railroad to just Gould and himself.


Steamships
Holding another pile of shares, a second lady symbolizes Fisk's enterprises in the steamship industry.

In 1869 Fisk purchased the Narragansett Steamship Company, which included the popular steamers Providence and Bristol. Unlike many investors who preferred to remain in the background of their businesses, here is where Fisk's personality went on full display. Not only were the ships full of statues and other extravagances, but Fisk bought himself an admiral's uniform that was described as more costume than uniform, and in full cartoon dress he would personally oversee daily launches as the self-declared admiral of his fleet, a move that earned him the nickname "Diamond Jim".


Gold Coins
Holding a sack of coins, lady #3 symbolizes Fisk's dealings in the stock market.

Google the name Jim Fisk and you'll find many stories related to his shenanigans in the stock market. His most notorious move was when, after illegally manipulating gold prices, he so drastically crashed the market that September 24th, 1869 forever became known as Black Friday. His plan was to convince advisers of president Ulysses S. Grant that the government's steady sale of gold was crippling American farmers and that the practice should be halted, then attempt to coincide with this stoppage by scooping up all remaining gold. This artificial shortage would inflate the price, then Fisk would dump all his shares at the peak. In just days he managed to sway the price of gold by over 30%, but realizing what was happening, Grant released enough government gold to eventually stabilize the price.


Theater
Although she's deteriorated to the point I cannot recognize the emblem she once held, the fourth of Fisk's woman is a representation of his businesses in the theater.

In 1869 Fisk purchased Pike's Theater and renamed it the Grand Opera House, and between this and two other theaters he owned he had become such a fixture in the New York night life he earned yet another nickname, "Jubilee Jim".

Fisk never let things such as his 10-year marriage to wife Lucy Moore get in the way of a girlfriend, and one of his mistresses was the showgirl Josie Mansfield. Fisk moved his railroad headquarters to the upper floors of the Grand Opera House, then set up Mansfield in a residence next door. To facilitate the lovers' liaisons he installed a hidden passageway for Mansfield to pass between buildings. But as unscrupulous as Fisk was with his relationships, so was Mansfield. She had begun an affair with a business partner of his named Ned Stokes, and the pair came up with a plan to blackmail Fisk by threatening to publish love letters he had written to Mansfield. When that plan failed, Stokes confronted Fisk in the stairway of the Opera House and shot him twice. Fisk died the following day, but not before identifying Stokes as his killer.

After a public viewing in New York that attracted 20,000 visitors, Fisk's body was returned to Vermont where he was buried in Prospect Hill Cemetery, in Brattleboro. His wife Lucy lived until 1912 and, ever the good sport, was buried in the same plot beneath Fisk's women.

Both time and vandals have taken their toll on his grave. A relief carving of Fisk that once occupied the front oval disappeared sometime around the year 2000. But enough of the monument - and the girls - remain, to still tell the story of one of America's most infamous, and ruthless, businessmen.



Further Reading:

Brattleboro Historical Society: 'Jubilee' Jim Fisk and Brattleboro

Black Friday, September 24, 1869

Fort Williams

The first time I visited Fort Williams was in the early 1990s, where armed with just a folding map and sense of adventure my wife and I made the one hour drive to Cape Elizabeth from our apartment, in roughly two hours. Several wrong turns aside however, we enjoyed it so much we've been going back ever since, most recently this past summer when we introduced the place to my parents for their very first time.

Fort Williams started as 14 acre sub-post to nearby Fort Preble, but by 1899 had grown to 90 acres and been distinguished as its own fort - named after the late Major General Seth Williams - and now included an officer quarters, barracks, a hospital, and even a fire station.

Fort Williams played a part in both world wars. During WW1 the fort was manned by National Guard and artillery troups, and during WW2 it served at the headquarters to the Harbor Defenses of Portland. It never saw action in these or any other war, but its guns were test fired as early as 1898 prior to the Spanish-American War.

In 1943 all guns were removed from the fort, and by 1950 it had transformed from a defensive post to an administrative installation for the military. The installation closed in 1962, and two years later it was purchased by Cape Elizabeth for $200,000.

Many ideas for what to do with the site were bantered about in the following years, with some going to far as proposing the site be town down and converted to low-income housing. Those bullets were dodged though, and in 1979 the land was opened to the public as Fort Williams Park.

One of the most beautiful structures at the park is the Goddard Mansion, constructed prior to the fort's existence in 1858. The Army acquired the mansion as part of its expansion in 1900, and it served as NCO quarters for non-commissioned officers. Time has taken its toll, and in 1975 the town offered the mansion up for salvage in order to have it removed. Fortunately for people like me there were no takers, so to make it safe for the public the mansion was gutted through a controlled fire in 1981, the basement filled in, and in 2009 the insides were gated by a protective fence.

The Original Rondinone Explorers

Fort Williams also features a magnificent cliff walk, a 1,700 foot coastal path that brings you not only throughout the ruins of the fort, but also past the state of Maine's oldest lighthouse, Portland Head Light, built in 1791.

Portland Head Light

You're not going to have 200+ years of history without a few interesting stories to tell. On Christmas Eve of 1886, the 188-foot Annie C. Maguire crashed onto the rocks of Portland Head, stranding twelve passengers and crew. Fortunately, all twelve were rescued safely by lighthouse keeper Joshua Strout and two others.

Site of the Annie C. Maguire Shipwreck

With regular visits here over the past 25 years it's hard to imagine there'd be anything left for us to find, but the place just keeps on surprising us. During our last trip my son and I went wandering along the southern tip to explore the rocks, and there we found some archways carved into the stone. Not quite sea caves but a pretty cool find nonetheless, and a perfect ending to what certainly won't be our last visit to Fort Williams Park.

Links:
Fort Williams Park
The ship that crashed into Portland Head Light on Christmas Eve
The Goddard Mansion

Abandoned Yankee Siege - Greenfield, NH

What started as a way to attract more visitors to his pumpkin stand ended with an entry in the records books. In 2004, Steve Seigars' homemade trebuchet, a catapult tosser named the Yankee Siege, launched a pumpkin 1,394 feet as a first time entrant in the annual "Punkin Chunkin" competition in Bridgeville, Delaware. Seigars and his team returned for several years thereafter, bettering their own record to an eventual 2,835', in 2013. Other pumpkin tossers reached distances of a mile or more, but those were air cannons or other styles. In the category of trebuchet, the Yankee Siege stands on top.

The news section of the Siege's website has it's last entry as the record toss from 2013, and since that year the site has gone quiet - both the website and seemingly the physical property, at least on the day I was there. And although its top half has been removed, the giant wheeled-base of Yankee Siege still stands on display in the field.

I visited the Yankee Siege in the summer of 2019, and right from the entrance this place was one photo opportunity after another. These giant gates are the first thing to greet you as you enter. I didn't have my wife to pose in the picture for size perspective, but fortunately my bicycle was of equal height and able to serve the same purpose.

Seigars didn't just make these gates decorative, he made them functional. Walk around the backside and you'll find a door at the base of each tower.

Inside these doors were steel rungs, and they had just enough of a metal over rust ratio for me to risk the climb up.

I spent several minutes on top of the tower, enjoying snacks while ducking out of sight from the occasional vehicle.

Back when it was active, the Yankee Siege would put on shows chucking all things large and small. Couches, refrigerators, even cars were great way to demonstrate the muscle of Yankee Siege, and to show off the distance it could throw a pumpkin, Seigars built a castle out in the field as a target. I climbed down from my perch to go have a look.

Back when it was open to visitors, this drawbridge and the path leading up to it were beautifully landscaped and pumpkin-lined. Now, they are overrun by weeds and brush.

Eight people are credited with taking part in the Siege's construction, and they sure had a good time making the castle. Each of its towers has a chamber beneath it, and each of these chambers has a different painted scene.

Each of these chambers also has a steel ladder leading up, so you know what came next.

From on high, I was able to overlook the castle's entire courtyard, but a bees nest soon chased me back down.

But not before I had time to capture the ever elusive dragon-selfie.

Outside the castle a short tunnel leads underneath it, but not to any dungeons or torture chambers. These small rooms mostly just hold old props.

Although the castle was built 600 feet from where Yankee Siege stood, the trebuchet was tossing pumpkins in some cases twice that distance. That led to the construction of this tower at the very edge of the field.

A fake door was painted in the front of the tower, but a real door was in the rear. I was excited to climb up, but only until I saw that it was locked.

I kicked myself later, though, because after going through my pictures and zooming in, it looked like the chain was only draped over the locking arm, not through it.

One last really cool thing out here is this 10,000 pound spiked mace. As part of entertaining the public, Seigars would drop this beast onto cars or anything else that had outlived its useful life.

In recent years, the official Punpkin Chunkin competition that Yankee Siege once dominated has not taken place. 2014 and 2015 contests were cancelled due to logistical and insurance issues. In 2016 the event took place, but an air-cannon exploded and seriously injured a television producer, contributing to the 2017 and 2018 events getting canned. But the World Championship Punkin Chunkin (WCPC) non-profit that organizes this event announced recently that the chunkin will resume in 2019, and it starts today, November 2nd.

And soon we will find out, whether Yankee Siege's 2,835 foot trebuchet record will stand for another year.



Fun Links:

History of Yankee Siege and a video exploration, by WeRmudfun - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-0BJ2ldFio

Yankee Siege tosses a piano - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_NJC7bCxxd4

Memorials of N.H. - Her Blood Still Shows On The Rock

Special thanks to the Historical Society of Lee, and particularly Kevin Shenefiel, for research and assistance in piecing together this interesting slice of history.

A few years back our family was returning from a camping trip one Sunday afternoon. Camping with two young kids is a wonderful way to spend the weekend, but it is not a relaxing one. After two full days of swimming, fishing, and late night fires, I couldn't decide what I needed more desperately, the coffee maker or the shower.

That's when we drove past this curious turnstile gate at the entrance to an old graveyard. It was the kind of thing that would normally have us turning the car around for a better look, had it been just my wife and I on an afternoon drive. So we did what any reasonable people would do in our situation - we dropped the kids off at home, quickly unpacked, then drove back to the cemetery to explore it.

This was not too large of a graveyard, and we had wandered through most of it without finding anything unusual, when toward the southern side we saw a curious and out of place boulder. It was the kind of rock someone might plop in their front yard as decoration, but with a short path leading up to it. At the head of the path was a Town of Lee historical marker.

Several gravestones lined the path to the boulder, and there we found the grave of Elizabeth Burnham, explaining the presence of the stone and suddenly making our whole trip worthwhile.

ELIZABETH BURNHAM

Aet 23

Fatally shot by Indians in Durham. May 22-24 1721

fell upon this boulder which

still shows the stains of her blood

Hers was the first burial here.

These stones were placed at

her grave by

S. Millett Thompson &

John J. Bunkey 1907

My wife is a fan of everything morbid, and at the mention of blood still showing on the rock she gave it the kind of inspection that would've had NCIS taking notes. But of course this was written almost 200 years ago, and whatever blood once stained it has long since washed away.

This was a great find, but it left us with more questions than answers. I back-burnered the info for a few years, but after coming across it recently I wrote to the Historical Society of Lee and asked what they could tell me about Elizabeth Burnham and the rock.

I received a very nice reply thanking me for my interest, saying there was a lot of conflicting information about the story, and that one of their researchers would put together some info and send it my way. Two weeks later I received three pages of notes and references, and with those plus a few more tidbits I found we have a couple variations of the following story.

Born in a time of ongoing skirmishes between Native Americans and early settlers, in 1724 Elizabeth Burnham was returning from church with fiance George Chesley. The two were attacked by Native Americans, with Chesley dying immediately and Burnham dying four days later. This information comes to us from church records of Reverend Hugh Adams, who when lamenting deaths within the church's congregation over the prior week, noted that:

In the evening by the indians was killed by a shott (sp) in his head poor George Chesley and Elizabeth Burnum was wounded."

And in a subsequent entry regarding baptisms for the congregation, Rev. Adams followed up with:

 "May 27, 1724, Elizabeth Burnum, who was wounded by the indians the 24th, the day George Chesley was killed, the evening before she died I baptized at her penitent request.

This story is reiterated in subsequent writing, including The History of New Hampshire by Jeremy Belknap, who says of Native Americans on May 24, 1724:

On Sabbath day they ambushed the road at Oyster River, and killed George Chesley, and mortally wounded Elizabeth Burnham, as they were returning together from public worship.

And in the Indian Wars of New England, Volume 3, by Herbert Milton Sylvester, the following is said:

May 24, 1724, Sunday, the savages ambushed the Oyster River trail. George Chesley and Elizabeth Burnham were making their way home from church.  The hidden savages killed the man and mortally wounded the woman.

Even though the above corroborates Rev. Adams records, already there are questions about the story. Was her last name Burnham, or Burnum? Did the attack take place on a road, or a trail? Also, where does the bloody rock come into play with all this?

A more descriptive account that includes the origin of the rock comes from A History and Description of New England, General and Local, by Austin Jacobs Coolidge, John Brainard Mansfield. In speaking of the Indian wars, they say:

Among the traditions is one of a Miss Randall, who was betrothed to Thomas Chesley of Oyster River, and was about to be married. She was returning from Oyster River falls one day with a party of friends, when they were surprised by Indians. She tried to escape, and ran towards a barn standing near, for refuge; but was shot just as she was going into it, and fell across a stone, where she soon bled to death. The stone is preserved; and it is said, that, when a heavy rain falls upon it, her blood-stains can be clearly seen.

Now we know about the rock, but here's where we run into all sorts of other problems. George Chesley is now Thomas Chesley, Elizabeth Burnham is referred to as a Miss Randall and is said to have died on the boulder instead of four days later, and rather than returning from church, the pair were leaving a gathering of friends by the falls of Oyster River.

Another telling in Historical Memoranda Concerning Persons and Places in Old Dover N.H. John Scales, gives a similar account of Thomas Chesley and Miss Randall, with the added details of how the stone began its journey to where it stands today:

(Miss Randall) tried to escape, and ran towards a barn that stood near, with the hope of hiding herself, but was shot just as she was going into it, and fell across the stone at the door, where she soon bled to death. That stone has since been taken up to Ephraim Bunker's farm, and it is said that when there is a heavy dew the blood stains can still be seen upon it.

Confusion is added by saying that Chesley survived the attack, gave chase, killed 11 Indians before dying himself, and that all this took place in the year 1708:

Mr. Chesley was greatly grieved at her death, and declared he would spend his life in fighting the savages: he took his gun and started out: he soon came upon a party of twelve Indians and the fight began: when it was ended he had killed eleven of them, single handed, the other escaped. It is thought Chesley was afterwards killed by the Indians near Oyster River. He was dead in 1708, leaving a son Samuel who was born in 1691; Samuel chose his uncle George for his guardian, 7 June 1708.

As an aside and as another potential source of confusion, we also have another George Chesley being ambushed and killed in 1710. In The Ancestry of J.G. Williams & Ursula Miller by Jim Schneider & Holly Rubin, we are first told the original story of George Chesley in 1724, but cautioned us not to confuse him with an earlier victim of the same name:

George Chesley, who was killed by Indians on his way to mill, 8 June 1710, leaving widow, Deliverance.

When you boil all this information down, we end up with two distinct versions of the same story. One says that George Chesley and Elizabeth Burnham were attacked May 24th in 1724, with Chesley dying on the spot and Burnham succumbing four days later. The other has Thomas Chesley and Miss Randall being attacked in 1708, with Miss Randall dying across the rock and Chesley being killed soon after giving chase.

Which story is to be believed, or is the truth maybe even a blend of the two? I'm a big fan of history, but that doesn't make me an historian, so rather than make my own uneducated guess I'll just lay out the facts I have read, then invite you to visit the stone for yourself and draw your own conclusion.

Elizabeth Burnham's grave and the memorial stone are located in the Old Parish Cemetery, at the intersection of Garrity and Mast Roads, in Lee New Hampshire.