Fitch Poole and the Haunted Steeple

October 1, 2025  |  S. M. Smoller  |  10 min read

PEABODY – Long before masquerading trick-or-treaters roamed the streets in celebration of Halloween, a supernatural bell demon with two flaming eyes terrorized the local grave digger in a tale of local history called “The Haunted Steeple”.

 

Penned by prominent 19th century newspaperman, antiquarian and librarian Fitch Poole, the story involves at least two real events from the town’s history. It was the practice of some of the youths who lived here at the turn of the century to steal the clapper in the bell of the Old South Church, which then stood in Peabody Square. The bell was rung daily and the pranksters were apparently dissatisfied with the small sound of the church’s bell-so much so that they absconded with the clapper on two different occasions.

Articles that appeared in the South Danvers Wizard newspaper more than fifty years later reveal that Fitch Poole and Andrew Nichols, the town’s future doctor, were involved in the pranks. A poem written by Nichols about the event was published with an editorial note from Poole revealing that the clappers were believed to have been thrown into the North River from Gardner’s Bridge.

 

Another version of the story appears in the tale “The Haunted Steeple”. Instead of telling the true story of the missing clappers, the tale invokes the character Joseph Stacey, the town’s hard-drinking sexton. The character may not be far removed from that of Daniel Proctor, the town’s sexton who was found dead in the belfry of the South Meetinghouse in 1771. In the tale, Poole relates that the construction of the tower and steeple attached to the Meetinghouse was jinxed.

 

“It happened that his old house was built not many years after the Witchcraft delusion, and the minds of the simple-hearted villagers were strongly tinctured with both the love, and fear, of the marvelous. There were some strange circumstances attending the erection of the house and steeple, for they were not built at the same time.

“At the time appointed for raising the tower, a sudden tempest arose and so powerful was it, that it scattered about the lighter materials in the building and sent the men of the village back to their homes. Another day was appointed and their work was hardly begun before a tremendous thunderstorm, attended by hail and rain, again interrupted their labors and again they were forced to abandon the work. It was on this afternoon too, that the minister’s cow was found dead in the field, having been struck by lightning while under a tree for shelter. But at length, the steeple was raised; it however was still unfinished, when one of the carpenters fell from its top to the ground, a ghastly and mangled corpse. A deep gloom for a long time hung over the village in consequence of this event, but still the work went on and at last it was finished.

“As the years passed on, these events appeared to occupy the minds of the people and as they dwelled constantly on each sad particular, they always connected it with the raising of the steeple, which was in this manner, fast gaining a bad reputation, wholly aside from any fault of its own. Strange noises had also been heard and flashes of red light had been seen in the tower.”

As the town’s sexton, Stacey lived with his wife in a small cottage near to the meetinghouse. He was a blacksmith who also was the town’s grave digger. It was on a dark and cloudy evening in November, when Stacey entered his house after returning from a 3 mile walk to bury “old Straikers, that weighed 230 pounds’. He was in a melancholy mood and eventually announced to his wife, ‘I won’t be Sexton any longer.’  The wife dropped her knitting work in an instant and explained in rather a soothing tone, ‘you don’t say so, Joseph.’

‘Yes I do, and I’ll let the committee know it tomorrow.’

‘Now, don’t be rash Joseph,’ says the relenting wife, ‘You don’t always have to go so far to bury such corpses as old Straikers, and besides, business will be better by and by and then you’ll be sorry. You remember that year when the typhus was about and how fast the money came in then? It won’t always be so healthy as it is now, and you may have good times again if you hold on.’

‘It ain’t the burial. I like that part well enough. It’s the meeting house. ‘

The wife’s countenance fell at this announcement. The worthy couple had often talked over the various legends connected with the haunted steeple and at each rehearsal with sadder hearts and more fearful forebodings.

‘I don’t blame you Jo, for not wanting to have anything to do with the steeple or the house either, for I don’t believe it’s all right about the pulpit…There was the time of the bell, you know, that was missed when you went to toll for the funeral of widow Stakely. It was that very night that the flesh and the gray hair was found in the box, floating in the pond. Then, there was the old iron worker who drowned just 25 years after the man was killed by falling from the steeple. I remember it, for I heard the minister tell it.’

Joseph took a liberal draft from the pewter can and set it on the table. He had consented to supply a new tongue in the bell, which he secured in the strongest manner but that afternoon he learned that the new tongue was missing and that the bell of the haunted tower was again dumb-spirited away by supernatural means. Strange fears crept over him but his courage gradually rose as the contents of the can continued to fall. He not only gave up his purpose of resigning his office, but after repeated libations from the can, he began to boast of his future deeds of daring.

‘What’, says he, ‘shall Joseph Stacey, a member of the artillery with a good sword and belt, a good red coat and buff leather breeches and gaiters, having charge of two brass six pound field pieces, be afraid to meet a cowardly ghost that steals away bell clappers in the night?’ Not he. ‘As Sexton of the parish, I have faced death too many times for that.’ With this eloquent speech, he drank off the remaining contents of his can.”

The story unravels that Stacey fell asleep and dreamed of a frightening encounter with the ghost of the bell tower. He ascends the well known flight of stairs and “arrives on the level with the gallery. He hears a sighing noise in the great open church; it is the wind and an occasional gust shakes the windows with doleful clattering. He ascends another flight; he is on a level with the ceiling. Something strikes him with violence on his head. It is a bat, one of the 10,000 with which the roof is inhabited. He goes on up, up, up the narrow stairway, now this way, now that, among timbers and braces until he arrives almost to the deck of the tower and finds the trap door wide open. He looks up and sees a strange waving light, like a luminous cloud hanging over the bell deck. He watches it attentively through the opening and sees it assume various colors and shapes. Now a bell, now a spade, then a coffin, and again a brass cannon with its muzzle pointed directly at him…. At length, those appearances passed away and the cloud assumed a shadowy, waving form as when he first saw it.

Stacey now felt much relieved and watched the cloud for new formations. It soon became more luminous and then a dark line appeared to form, then another, and spread themselves out into the shape of well formed legs and arms, then a body partly human was affixed, and lastly a head. If that may be called a head, which was only a glowing ball of fire.

Our hero (albeit a hero no longer) witnessed this last change with greater terror than the former. But, when he saw the figure take up the tongueless bell and quietly place it on his head for a covering, the red light streaming down from under it and two flaming holes burning through it, his knees smote together with terror and his hair stood erect.

A rapid glance at the figure served to show him that the size and proportions of his body and limbs were the exact counterpart of those of the man he had buried that very afternoon three miles off. In each hand, the specter held an iron tongue which Stacy recognized as the very ones which had been stolen. These he would occasionally strike on the bell which covered his head and which omitted unearthly sounds.

Stacey ran outside, followed by the demon, “his two eyes flaming through the sides of the bell with more intensity than ever. He ran as if for life and in order to facilitate his speed, he threw off his sword, belt and breastplate. He knew these trappings were of no use to oppose spectral beings and he discarded them. He had just passed a small bridge when he heard two successive splashes in the water behind him, by which he knew that his pursuer was also lightening himself for the race. He had thrown the iron clappers into the water and was now in full pursuit. They reached the main road and their course was turned towards the cottage. The specter approached him and he heard the stifled demonic laugh behind him. He renewed his efforts to escape but the light grew more intense and the laughter more loud. He even thought he felt the hot breath of the demon on the back of his neck. He saw now inside his quiet cottage, for which he reproached himself that he had strayed. He strained to reach it but, alas for poor Stacey, his limbs failed him, faintness seized him. He felt the scalding breath, the laugh became a yell, and horror of horrors, he felt a hand grasp him by his shoulders-he shuddered-he awoke.”

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