NINE MEN’S MISERY© Victor Franko Part One: The Novel Copyright 2003 Victor Franko. All rights reserved except for license to Leonard Bucklin and Joseph Bucklin Society. 1 Dedication No matter how unusual or crazy the outcome is, how bizarre the situation becomes, or how ironic the moment is graced, everything in life happens for a reason. After researching the event and completing the investigation, I came to accept the fact that there is no such thing as dumb luck or odd occurrences. Having devoted my time and energy in the search and enquire of the event, I had no choice but to honor the event in history by writing this book out of respect for not only the 9 men who the site is named after, but to the hundreds of curious visitors who pay homage to the site every year. Whether good or bad, I hope and pray that it does more than less to its story. With all my heart and virtues, I’d like to thank the following: The people and the town of Cumberland, Rhode Island for not only being my backyard for so many years, but for their time and belief in my vision of a storyteller. There is not a home, a street, or a brook in Cumberland that does not have a story. Bob & Ryan Billington for appreciating the time spent together on the topic and throughout the research. Thank you for your work on the site and its story. I hope the time spent together as father and son on the project will live throughout your lives as some of the best memories held onto. To Eric Schultz & Mike Tougias and their support. Words cannot describe the pages and pages of knowledge that his book holds for the reader. It stands as one of the best books on references for the King Philip War. Lester Hilton, for being the first one to show up and to take the struggle seriously. Thanks for showing up and letting the documentary begin. Lester is just one of many local residents who spends endless hours of devotion toward researching the past. To Norm Beauregard who came out to the cairn that day and recalled all the times he played in those woods as a child. The tears held in that day have a similar connection to the ones that I later shed. The trails in those woods are named after his father who, like his son, admired the story and the site. 2 Kathleen Schleimer who has the power of telling a story. Her gift has blessed my research and a great deal of this book. What she saw that day at the cairn has touched my heart and the way I have looked at the site. If it all is just a story, it has been one worth telling over and over. For their time and appreciation I thank Al Klyberg and the Rhode Island Historical Society. John McNiff who has held a love for history and the history of Roger Williams. Thomas Shannahan with his years of devotion and to the Central Falls library. I thank you all. John Sterling and his tombstones and the long distance phone calls we both made to each other to either ask or answer one of the many questions we had. Betty Johnson for her time, her patience, and her influence. Like the rocking chair that sits in her parlor, it has held much knowledge that has been shared and experienced by many who have shown interest. Paul Reice for making the project happen when no others wanted to. One of the earliest learned lessons in production I was forced to realize is getting people interested and getting people to show up. I thank you and give you all the credit for getting the documentary made and shown. It wouldn’t have been made if it wasn’t for your knowledge and interest. Dave Balfour for reminding me of the trials I would face and his greatness for reminding me from time to time of being the scholar that I was. With our studies, I hope others will learn, acknowledge, and shed more light on the richness of our history. Dr. Ella Sekatow for telling me how it is, how it should be, and how it will be. Thank you for making it possible. May your people, our people, and God’s people all remain one like we always have been. Only time will tell. To the Rhode Island Historic Societies Library on Hope Street, the John Brown House in Providence, and the American Antiquarian Society in Worcester, Massachusetts for having me spend more time at their presence than I needed to do my research. Many of the questions of the past can be answered here. Father Laurence Bourget and the St. Joseph Abbey for letting us into your home, listening to me rant, and for telling the 3 world many secrets about the cairn and its story. Thank you for your words of graciousness and of truth. You will be remembered for being the ideal man of God who has given his life to being a true friend to the people of his community. Special thanks, with honor to my mentors John Cassavettes, Brother Blue, and Prince Caspian for being role models of interest and graciousness figures to follow. I thank them as much as I thank others who made this work possible. ------------------ Dedicated to my father Donald P. D’Agostino who pasted away on the very same day as the nine men in the story, March 26th. For that reason alone, I have no doubt that the site, the event, and the story, that occurred over 325 years ago, is somehow connected spiritually as well as emotionally to myself. With that, we should begin with page 1. 4 Introduction I was introduced to the site by accident in the early summer of 2000. Then looking for ghosts, I found something more real. The woods had an odd feeling. Even the dirt path that led into the heart of the woods would change rapidly from dirt, to rock, into a grassy trail, and back into a rocky hillside trail. The locals told tales of the woods being haunted for generations. Evil spirits and witches on broomsticks would haunt the woods by night. ------------ Shadow lands Haunted Places / Index www.sjgr.org Cumberland- Cumberland Monastery The ghost of a monk has been known to move books or close books when people (in the library) get up to do something. Along the back trail a phantom horse rider, which will come upon you out of nowhere. A third apparition is of a child has been running in the swamp area and along some of the back trails. ------------- It was the only way people could explain its rich and somewhat macabre like history that laid in those woods. The last thing one would expect in the middle of theses woods is a marker, let alone a giant secret of a story that many of the locals who knew of the site never liked to tell. Walking up the slope of the hill from the south end of the marker, I first saw the back part of the cairn. Looking like the history books have described it, a rude pile of cemented rocks, I didn’t notice it until later that everything around me was quiet. It added to the oddness of the situation. From the trees to the cool summer breeze that greeted me at the entrance of the woods, nothing moved. The event was timeless. And by that, I mean that nothing moved. I can remember every exact detail that occurred in those few minutes where I repeated the words I read on the cairn over and over to myself and even out loud to the nearby trees that I wished were listening. Thinking back, it had to be motionless because just like most memorable moments, they have to be held higher than the ones we don’t recall. It took me less than a day to go to the Cumberland Library to begin researching the event. I needed to know the story. Since the site sat on the grounds where the Cumberland library was, they had a fair selection of books, news articles, and fliers on the story. I found 5 this more convenient than uncanny. It’s like it was meant to be that the library would be in the same vicinity as the site. It added to my belief that something, or some sort of something was trying to get me to just research the event, let alone write my accounts of the research and a telling of the story in fiction down on paper and into a book. Dumb luck? Maybe. A coincidence? Probably. All I know is that it made it a lot easy for me to begin my research. The hours passed as I began to search through and begin to understand the story of what the locals still called Nine Men’s Misery. The facts and the fiction differed from one book to another. It was a fourteen-month war that was fought throughout New England from June of 1675 to August of 1676 when a series of broken promises and treaties on land disputes, fishing and hunting rights, etc. between the local natives and early European settlers began to occur. The war began like most wars do, with a disagreement that would conclude in the deaths of several early colonial settlers and thousands of Natives (Indians) that lived throughout New England.