He Will Come Again: Episode #3

Will he though? This week Sarah takes us to the Isles of Shoals for encounters with the spooky 14th wife of a world-famous pirate. Plus, educate yourself on millennial classic Lizzie Maguire, and learn about the Isles of Shoals Steamboat Company in Spooky Good Recs. 

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:45

Welcome back to another episode of Salty and Spooky. I'm Sarah, and I'm Carrie, and we're your weekly coastal New England haunts and travel podcast. What is new with you? Anything exciting and new coming up? Yeah, actually. I'm going out to a wedding next weekend. Noise. Yeah, it's gonna be overlooking Boston Harbor. So that should be nice, nice and salty. Yeah, it's um it's a really close friend of my husband's, and he's actually officiating their wedding. So okay. Yeah. He always so Terrence is like everyone's best friend in the world. And every time we go to a wedding, like he's somehow involved. Like he's either the best man, Terrence is officiating. Yeah, I I interpreted that as the groom is officiating his own wedding. I was like, that is a new one for me. And you know, no, like pardon me. No, Terrence is officiating, and like every wedding we go to, he's either the best man or he's a groomsman who's also asked to make a speech, or he's officiating a lot of speeches. He is a lovely speech writer. Oh, good. But yeah, how about how about you? Anything on the horizon? I am actually I'm going to New York City this week, the big, big city. Oh with my sister, who you know. But we're gonna go see Hilary Duff in the flesh this week. So exciting. It should be fun. I'm so happy to see that Hillary Duff is out on the road again and all that. You know, I was such a big Lizzie Maguire person. Isn't it crazy that I feel like Lizzie McGuire took up so much of my adolescence and childhood? But I think there's only I rewatched that like I was gonna say recently, but not recently, like 10 years ago. But there was only two seasons of Lizzie Maguire, I'm pretty sure. Really? Yeah. What? In my mind, it's like eight seasons, but it's only I'm pretty sure it's only two. Are they long seasons? Like, I don't think so. And then the movie, and that's it. That was Lizzie Maguire. The more you know, yeah, but I mean it made a global lasting impact on us all. Clearly. All right, should we get into today's topic? Yes, uh, we shall. Today you're stuck with me uh in my storytelling. I'm sure it's great. Okay. I'm doing a gigantic caps disclaimer for mine, because mine this week definitely falls under the category of lore. It's like the definition of lore because every account that I've researched on this, every location and detail is slightly different. So you can't get mad at me if you think I'm butchering the story because it's lore. So it's basically a game of telephone throughout history of this story. I'm so mad at you already. You're like, you're already messing it up. This is already wrong. Turn it over. So given all the versions of this, we're just gonna go dive right into the first written account of the story. Because I figured that's a very good place to start. And the first written account is done by my girl, Celia Thaxter, who is the resident historian of the Isle of Shoals, which is southern Maine coastal New Hampshire Islands, just to give you a little update about my girl, Celia. This is from her book Among the Isles of Shoals, which was published in 1873, which I actually went and read for this. I did my homework. And Celia kept an old newspaper clipping that she thought was interesting. And I guess this is from 40 years ago at the time that she wrote this, from an anonymous writer to this newspaper. So doing the math, this is 1830s. This newspaper article was published. This is a vintage story. Also, a man anonymously writing into a newspaper is kind of funny. Besides, yeah, I know. Or he never got credit, according to Celia, if he was, but she describes him as anonymous. All right, but we're diving into this man account. This man was staying on Star Island, which is on the New Hampshire side of the Isle Shoals, and then he decided to go for a walk on Appledore Island, which is the main side. It's a part of the island, it's called Devil's Glen. Oh. It's pretty pretty spooky. Locally, it's also known as Moneygut, which is a gross name. Yeah. Less if you ask me. He's on his hot girl walk. He's stops, he's looking out to sea, soaking in the view, looking at the horizon. And then a woman appears next to him, is standing next to him. She has long, flowing blonde hair. She's got blue eyes. She's wearing like a long, flowy cloak. She's not saying anything, she's just also staring out into the ocean. And it looks like she's kind of like scanning the ocean as if he thinks she's looking for a boat, like a specific boat. But this whole time I'm standing right next to him. And I'm guessing this is not a crowded island either, so kind of awkward. Uh personal space, literally invading his bubble, not saying anything, and he finally decides to just ask her, like, oh, who are you looking for? And then she turns to him and intensely stares at him and says, He will come again. He will come again, he will come again. And she's just repeating this same line over and over again. What is she trying to convince? I don't know. Honey, I don't think he's gonna come again. So after this strange encounter, our anonymous man returns to Star Island where he's staying. And it's not said in Celia's description of this newspaper article, but I think he was bugged um by this interaction. And he starts kind of looking around Star Island, because I think that was the more populated island, looking around for her and kind of like asking around about her a little bit, but nobody fit this description of this woman that he met that day. And he takes his boat out and is boating around Appledore Island, still trying to look for this woman. Obsessed. Yeah. A little bit stalkery. He starts hearing the woman saying, He will come again. He will come again, followed by laughter. Which I don't like spooky laughter in any of these stories, though. No, is it like what kind of laugh is like this would be enough for me? I'm guessing not a cheerful laugh. Not a lilting little tee, but something more maniacal. Yeah, definitely. So he just hears her for a while. And then again, I could tell just from my reading this that this this guy is bugged and bugging. So for days and days, he repeats by taking his boat out, circling around Appledore Island looking for this woman. And several times he does like go to shore, and this woman does appear and is standing right next to him again, just repeating, he will come again. And he describes her as her eyes never moved from their sockets this whole time, so she's kind of like deadpan staring at him. And I guess they walk together at some points, and he describes it as the seashells underneath her feet and the sand don't leave any imprint, also. Oh, she's a light-footed lady. This part also not said by this man, not said by Celia. This is Sarah's interpretation. I think at this point, our boy kind of has a crush on our girl. Because he keeps for days and days and days. I don't know exactly the time frame, but he keeps looking for her. They go on walks together, even though she's only saying the same thing over and over again. Kind of a boring hang. And then this encounter, they're watching the sunset together, kind of romantic. Romantic. Yes. And this time when he's looking at her, she appears like rosy and has a glow about her and appears more human-like or a normal human than any of the times prior. And then there's a very rapid sudden shift in the vibes. He feels an inexplicable, just like overwhelming sense of terror out of nowhere. And he literally drops to his knees in pure fear at this point, and he from there on out swore to never return to that spot ever again. Like he done.

SPEAKER_01 10:31

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 10:32

That's uh. And then he leaves Appledore Island where all these encounters have happened, and he goes back to Star Island where he's staying, and he runs into a fisherman friend of his who notices that he's like visibly flustered and scared and bothered. And his friend quietly says to him, I know where you've you've been, I know who you've seen because I've also seen her. And his friend kind of shares the lore of this woman. And this woman was the bride of Blackbeard. Oh. I wouldn't want to get involved in that whole situation. So it's Blackbeard as in the Blackbeard, one of the most notorious pirates of the time. Also Yeah. His real his real name, by the way, is Edward Teach or Edward Datch. He's written as both last names, which is not as menacing as Blackbeard. Ed Edward. And Blackbeard allegedly buried treasure on I read multiple, if not every single island on the Isle of Shoals. So he was there on business quite often. They said he frequented all the islands, as well as many pirates of the time passed by these islands and stopped. And I guess there was just treasure literally everywhere. And the Isle of Shoals, there's nine islands. Five are in Maine, four in New Hampshire. They're like six miles off the coast. And they're all pretty small. I went on a boat tour last fall there. And they're they are very small because you look, you look out at them, and it's hard to kind of picture until you're there what they look like. But they're all like very rocky. There's not much vegetation. So in my mind, like it's uh very surprising that that was like the hot spot to go and like bury stuff. So I'm like, where do you there's no place to bury stuff? I don't understand. But also I found this is a fun fact. I keep saying the because all this is kind of in my backyard and blowing my mind. But the Captain John Smith. Whoa! The one and only her to him. Um yeah, he also explored the islands in 1614 and originally named the island after himself. Of course. They were named Smith's Isles, but the name didn't stick, which good, because Smith's Isles. Smith Isles is kind of a tongue twister. Yeah. And also, just aside, there was another written account by Captain Haley, who once owned the island of Smuddy Nose, and he was doing construction at home at one point, and he just like flipped over a rock while moving rocks and found four like very large silver bars that were just like leftover pirates' treasure. Like there was stuff literally everywhere, which is crazy. But I guess recently many people have searched for treasure on the Isle of Shoals, and like nothing's been found. All right, so going back to our ghost, this is Blackbeard's newest wife. Oh can you guess how many wives Blackbeard had? 77. Oh god, no. That's much more impressive than the actual numbers. A wife in every port. No, he didn't have 77. He wasn't what's his buns from the LDS um church set 77 or 76 or whatever he had. I can't think of that guy's name. Um, but anyway, Blackbeard had 14 wives. Some I I read 15 in some place, but this is the new and approved, the newest, freshest one. Um still puts Hugh Hefner to shame. Yeah. All right, so him and his new bride, I guess they honeymooned on Smuddy Nose Island. But I have also heard and read that it was White Island, so who knows what island, but I guess they spent like an entire month there on their honeymoon, which is very long at PTO from back in the day. And like I said before, there's these islands are very small, very rocky, like there's not a lot to do out there. I feel like that would be boring after a while. So they're on their honeymoon, romantic, all the things, and Blackbeard just tells her on their honeymoon that he has to leave. Like he's gotta go away on business, but he'll return. Which leaving on a business trip on your honeymoon rude. That's rough. And he makes his new bride swear to watch the treasure that he buried on the Isle of Shoals and to keep guard and don't let any other people near this treasure. Yeah. She's she only has to watch it until he returns, which spoil alert, is never. Oh no. So he really didn't come back again. No. So she's just waiting in perpetuity. Presumably she waited and waited and waited and died waiting. Oh god. Like tick tick tick, sir. Was he worth it? No. And her ghost has also been seen on White Island. When I took the tour from the Isle of Shoals steamboat company, that's what I heard, which is when I first heard the story. Um, she's also been seen on Lunging Island, as well as Appledore, um that last story we heard. She's also known as the Lady in White, White Lady, Blackbeard's bride, Blackbeard's bride ghost. Um, I'm also like just my own thoughts. I'm like, is she known as the White Bride or like the White Lady because White Island, or because some of the accounts she's wearing like a long white robe. It could be maybe it doesn't matter. So it it turns out Blackbeard had to leave her on business because the British Navy were kind of honing in on him because he's done tons of crimes, like pirates are bad. They the British wanted to be. So he left his new bride. Wild move. So her job now is to just watch the treasure, wait for him. He'll be back. Sure. Um that's what they all say. I know. Typical. So Blackbeard's on the run. And his headquarters are in North Carolina, right near Okra Coke, North Carolina, which I've been to, which is weird. It's beautiful. Also, kind of ironically, the island right below Coke is Portsmouth Island, which is right off the coast of the Isle of Shoals, also. So very small world. And the boat that he took down there is called the Queen Anne's Revenge, which is like a 200-person ship, which he sailed around the Caribbean and the East Coast. And I also read an account that his bride is somebody that was like just happened to be on the ship he married, and then left her in New Hampshire in Maine on a tiny deserted island. Oh, wait, so she was like one of like the the crew people on the ship or something or who knows? I I don't really know. There's no like big descriptors. Either ship worker or something more nefarious. They like to use uh their winches around, if you will. Something like that. Not to speak ill of the ghost of Blackbeard's wife. That's the lovely lady. She was probably real nice. Yeah. Okay, and this next part, I hate to talk too much about Blackbeard because he's not the main character of the story, but it ties it all together. So trust me. Just go with me for a little bit. So the time period we're in when he's sailing back, it's May 1718, just for a little reference. He's sailing to North Carolina. He gets into a little like whoopsie daisy shipwreck on his way back. Casual. It's fine. Um, his other ship ran out of supplies. Whoops. Poor planning. Failure to plan is planning to fail. So he has to abandon that ship too. So now he only has one ship left, which he takes to Bath, North Carolina. And he met with Governor Eden of North Carolina, which I've read a lot of these accounts where pirates, even though they're illegal, they're like meeting with all these government people all the time. It happens so often. Um corruption going on. Um speaking of corruption, so he meets with the governor of North Carolina who's basically like, stop being a pirate, it's illegal, you're like wreaking havoc everywhere. And he makes a bargain with Blackbeard. He's like, Yeah, I'll stop being a pirate. And if the governor's gonna pardon him in exchange for a large portion of his treasure. So like super government corruption, not a stand-up politician. So, anyway, if you can believe it, Blackbeard did not hold up his end of the bargain after this. Shocking. He didn't stop being a pirate because, like, once a pirate, always a pirate. It's a pirate's life for him. And then I guess the people of North Carolina were sick and tired of all these pirates terrorizing them and were always playing to the government. Stop the madness. And the government was at this time trying to make big waves to capture pirates in very public displays and to let them know this is not to be tolerated. But pirates, I mean, they still exist to this day. So this agenda has not worked. Um now we're on to another governor. This is Governor Spotwood of Virginia. So the governor of Virginia sent a British naval force to North Carolina to like finally deal with Blackbeard. And then this is November where Blackbeard was finally defeated. It was the Battle of Oakra Coke Island. It was very bloody. And this is also with the lore that when Blackbeard was captured and killed, he had five bullet wounds and twenty lacerations when he died. So they really got him. Uh, it was also said that he was after beheaded. Overkill. Damn. His body was said to have swam three laps around the ship. Like a final hurrah. Yes. Like a chicken with its head cut off. A black bird with its head cut off before his body finally sunk into the ocean. They also hung his head on the ship as proof that they killed this guy. But also a little bit like, is this karma? Maybe a little bit. Was it coming to him? Did he deserve? Maybe not. Not victim-blaming Blackbeard. Sorry, but I mean. So now back to Celia Baxton's accounts of this. Because she also wrote about another story, which they're pretty sure is the same girl, the ghost of Blackbeard's bride. When it's a group of people went to Duck Island, another island on the Isle of Shoals. And then one man kind of separated from the group and he went out to look at boats, which I feel mean because it's something I would do. I love me a boat. Oh yeah. And then when his friends met up with him, this man was like sitting in the grass, shaking and frazzled, just shaking in terror. And he said to his friends, Do you know what I've seen? And he told them that he was coming back to find his friends. And he saw a woman in one of the fishing huts staring at him. And he said that he thought it was a member of his group he was with, but then he did not recognize her. And he keeps walking. And he said he described it as a young face, but also the face had infinity age, which is an interesting descriptor. Okay. Um and he said the way that she was staring at him is as if she was watching and waiting for him since the beginning of time. Oh, feels special about themselves. Well, she's an intense lady, but he goes to like go in this hut to confront this woman and her ominous staring. And he walks into the hut and no one is there. It's like an empty hut when he gets there. She lost interest. Yeah. So there's many accounts of people over the years seeing this ghost of this woman, but she's just always seen it like all these different islands on the Isle of Shoals. She's just eternally pacing and scanning the horizon, looking for Blackbeard. But the kicker is, which makes my blood boil, is Blackbeard's ghost is has also been seen many times on the Isle of Shoals. But he has never been seen with his bride that's eternally pacing looking for him. He's seen looking for his treasure that he buried there. Okay. Oh does that not infuriate you? Oh. For eternity or is are those gold coins gonna keep you warm when you're dead? No. What the heck, man? You think he cared about any of his 14 to 15 vibes? Also, that last part, nobody else that I've read has put two and two together, but that is my takeaway from all this. That these two ghosts are for what 1700s, so like over 300 years have been seen on this island, but never together. She's just spending eternity looking for him. And he's freaking there. He's not he's not coming back for you. It'd be nice to even just give her like a heads up like, hey, I'm gonna be a text. I know sends a text message, you up. So his priorities were not on the up and up. What a jerk. Not that I expected him to like be this loving, doting husband. But like my question for the listeners so definitely when you see the post um for this week's episode at Salty and Spooky Pod, leave your answer. I'm also gonna ask Carrie and myself this question. But just picture yourself as this bride. You're newly married, you're on your honeymoon, you're married to a rich guy with treasure. He's probably also like Pirates of the Caribbean, like we talked about before. Jack Sparrow, yes. I I I imagine vibes like that. Charming, rich. He tells you to wait, and he's gonna return for you on your honeymoon. Uh like threatening aside, like all like his threats that he she has to say and like look for this treasure. But if it were you, how many days would you end up waiting? Oh, that's such a good question. I don't fully know why, but the number five just keeps coming to my head. So I think five, because I would probably want to try and stick it out, but then I'd get real bored and impatient. And I'm just I'd be very quick to be like, nope, he's gone. Wrap it up. Never coming back. It was all a ruse. So I'd say five days. How about you? Okay, almost a full week. I was trying to really put myself in these shoes. And like he leaves, we say that's day one, a full day later. I'd be getting concerned. I I honestly think I could only make it like three days. Fair, yeah. Even if I have lots of snacks and books to read. Like, there's just not much to do. I feel like you'd be so in your head. Yeah. That I would end up searching for a ship and bailing at that point. Fair. I'm not as loyal as this 14th bride was that she's literally spending forever waiting for him. Lord. Loyalty. Loyalty unmatched. Seriously. So now we're gonna go into our spooky good wrecks for the week, which is our local recommendations for the area. My local recommendation for this week is the Isle of Shoals Steamboat Company, which you go to Star Island, you go and you could walk around. There's like a bunch of different buildings. They do a very good job too. And the tour guides were awesome. I mean, they do storytelling like the whole time. Also, I think you can get like drinks on board and things like that. And then one thing that I haven't done that is on my to-do list for this area is you can go to our historian author of the week for the stories. You can go to Celia Thaxter's garden on Apple Door Island is still there. Walk around her gardens, which I think would be spooky, but also like a relaxing time. What are your spooky good wrecks for this week? Yeah, so my spooky good wreck for a place I have been as on Market Street in Portsmouth, New Hampshire. It's a little shop called Ganesh Imports. I'm a big fan. I think there's a second location in Newburyport in Mass. I've not been to that one, but I know what you're talking about. Yes, I've gone there with you.

unknown 29:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:51

No, I love, love, love, love Ganesh Imports. Started going there back in the day when we were at UNH. Um and yeah, it's a a must-stop spot for me. It's a great shop with just a variety of different funky things, candles and incense and little figurines. They have a lot of cool jewelry and clothing and yeah, and tapestries to hang on the wall and pillows and other home decor type stuff. Just got a little bit of everything. So I'm a big fan of Ganesh imports. A place I'd like to check out that I haven't yet is pretty much around the corner and down the street from Ganesh. It's also in Portsmouth. It's the Seacoast Repertory Theater. I've been meaning to take in a show there for years. Oh I've heard really I've just heard really good things. Um, their Performing Arts Center. I might be totally misremembering this, but because it's been probably like a decade at this point. I think I almost auditioned for one of their shows, but I didn't. So that's a great story. Um, but I've just heard really good things about their theatrical productions and would love to take in a show sometime. So that's a spot I'd like to check out. Nice one. Be sure to follow us on Instagram at Salty and Spooky Pod for stories posts and also to answer your own answer from this week's question. Yes. And as always, if you have your own coastal spooky story that you'd like to hear potentially read during a listener stories episode, which we would love to start doing in the future, uh please email us at salty and spooky at gmail.com. And these can be stories from anywhere in the world, not just New England. Thank you all so much for listening. Until next time, stay salty and stay spooky.