Connecticut western news., 1878-04-25
MOu Pitcher of Lynn.

Mou Pitcher is memorable as the for tune-teller of Lynn. Twenty-Five years ago, says a writer in Harper for May, there were very few firesides in New England that her fame had not reached, perhaps disturbed; and her successful predictions, alike astounding to the vul- gar or perplexing to the enlightened, were the theme of many midnight watch or forecsstle confab. She was not the withered, decrepit, and toothless crone of Spenser, or Otway's
 "wrinkled bag. with age grown double,
 Picking dry sticks and mumbing to herself" but woman who lived in the full gaze and gossip of the world, which only ac- cepted her claim to foreknowledge upon the unequivocal testimony of thousand witnesses. Do you contend that her reputation was due solely to the shrewd- ness, penetration, and ready wit with which she was undoubtedly and in re- markab)e degree gifted? How, then, will you explain revelations of the future made ten or twenty years before the events predicted took place?
 When she was in the meridian of her fame and life the ordinary applicant saw 0 woman of medium statue, having an unusually large head, pale thin face shaded by masses of dark brown hair, who was as thoroughly self-possessed as he was ill at ease, and whose compre- hensive glance measured his mental ca pacity before he could utter a syllable People of better discernment, who recol- lect her, say that her face had none of the wildness of the traditional witch, but was clouded with habitual sadness, as of mind overburdened with being the depository of so many condolences, per- haps crimes. She had full, capacious forehead, eyes that read the secret thoughts of a suitor, a nose "inclined to be long" and thin ips-a physiognomy wholly unlike the popular ideal, but rather that of a modern Eeeria in short, the witch of the nineteenth century.
 During the fifty years that she pur- sued her trade of fortune telling, in what was then lonely and ittle-frequented quarter of the town, not only was she consulted by the poor and ignorant, but by the rich and intelligent class. Love affairs. legacies, the discovery of crime, lotteries, commercial ventures, and the more common contingencies of fortune formed, we may well imagine, the staple of her predictions but her most valued clients came from the opulent sea-ports within sight of High Rock. The com mon sailor and the master, the cabin boy and the owner, equally resorted to her humble abode to know the luck of voyage. It is asserted thnt many ves- sel has been deserted when on the eve of sailing, in consequence of Molrs un- lucky vaticination. She was also much besought by treasure-seekers-a rather numerous class in her day, whose united digging along the coast of New England would, if usefully directed, have re- claimed for cultivation no inconsiderable area of virgin soil. For such applicants the witch had short and sharp reply. Fools," she would say, |" if I knew where money was buried, do you think I would part with the secret ?"
 Moll Pitcher died in 1913, at the age of seventy. She was originally of Mar blehead, and Is said to have inherited the gift of prophecy from her grand father, John Dimond, who must, how ever, have lived in a time when it was neither wise nor safe to exercise powers then universally attributed to the Evil One. Her father sailed out of Marble head as master of small vessel. Mary Dimond married Robert Pitcher, a shoe maker, ill 1750. MT. Lewis, the histo- rian of Lynn, asserts that she was con- nected with some of the best families i'll Essex, that, except her fortune telling pretensioD, there was nothing disreputa- ble in her life. and that her descendants were living and respected when he wrote. Her life seems rather to mark the line which divides old and new superstition than any decay of that inextinguishable craving to pry into futurity which has distinguished the human family of all ages. One of our Gative poets regret fully exclaims
 '' Even she, our own weird heroine.
 Sole Pythoness of ancient Lynn,
 Sleeps calmly where the living laid her
 And the wide realm of sorcery,
 Left by its latest mistress free,
 Hath found no gray and skilled invader"