The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1878-05-22
MNll Pitcher.

Inc vicinity OF Liz MOCK WaS long
memorable as the residence of Mol
Pitcher, the fortune-teller of Lynn.
Twenty-Five years ago there were very
few fresides in New England that her
fame had not reached, perhaps dis
turbed {; and her successful predictions,
alike astounding to the vulgar or per
picking to the enlightened, were the
theme of many a midnight watch or
forecastle 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 mumblng to herself
but a woman who lived in the full gaze
and gossip of the world, which only ac-
copied her claim to fore-knowledge
upon the unequivocal testimony Of a
thousand witnesses. Do you contend
that her reputation was due solely to
the shrewdness, penetration, and ready
wit with which she was undoubtedly
and in a remarkable degree gifted ?
How, then, will you explain revelations
Of the future made ten and twenty
years before the events predicted took
place?
When she WAS in the meridian of her
fame and life the ordinary applicant saw
a woman of medium stature, having an
unusually large head, a pale thin face
shaded by masses Of dark brown hair,
who was as thoroughly self-possessed as
he was i'll at ease, and whose compre-
{: hensive glance measured his mental
capacity before he could utter a syl-
liable. People Of better ~discernment,
who recellect her, say that her face had
none of the witness of the traditional
witch, but was clouded with a habitual
sadness. as of q mind overburdened
with being the depository of 80 many
condolences, perhaps crimes. She had
o full, capacious forehead, eyes that
read the secret thoughts of a sutton, a
nose "inclined to be long," and thin
lips-a physiognomy wholly unlike the
popular ideal, but rather that of q
modern Egeria !; 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 a lonely and little fire.
quented quarter of the town, not only
was she consulted by the poor and ig-
norant, but by the rich and intelligent
class. Love affairs, legacies, the dis.
covery of crime, lotteries, commercial
ventures, and the more common con-
tingencies of fortune formed, we may
well imagine, the staple of her predic.
tons but her most valued clients came
from the opulent sea-ports within sight
of High Rock. The common sailor and
the master, the cabin-boy and the
owner, equally resorted to her humble
abode to know the luck of a voyage. 1t
is asserted that many a vessel has been
deserted when on the v of sailing, in
consequence of Moll's unlucky vatici-
nation. She vas 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 reclaimed for
cultivation no inconsiderable area OF
virgin soil. For such applicants the
witch had a short and sharp reply.
"Fools," she would say, elf I knew
where money was buried, do you think L
would part with the secret?"
Moll Pitcher died in 1913, at the age
of seventy. She was originally OF
Marblehead, and is said to have inherit
ed the gift of prophecy from her grand
father, John Dimond, who must, how
ever, have lived in q 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 a small vessel. Mary
Dimond married Robert Pitcher, a shoe
maker, in 1850. Mr.. Lewis, the his
torian of Lynn, asserts that she was
connected with some of the best families
in Essex, that, except her fortune-tell-
ing pretension, there was nothing dis
reputable in her life, and that her de-.
scendants 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 in all ages. One OF our
native poets regretfully e1claims
"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
-Harper's Magazine.