File:West Indian tales of old (1915) (14595069419).jpg

Identifier: westindiantaleso00aspi (find matches)
Title: West Indian tales of old
Year: 1915 (1910s)
Authors: Aspinall, Algernon Edward, Sir, 1871-1952
Subjects: Legends -- West Indies, British West Indies, British -- History West Indies, British -- Description and travel
Publisher: London, Duckworth and Co
Contributing Library: Brown University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: Brown University

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ter of the Hon. Thomas Chase, all was confusionwithin. To the utter amazement of the funeral party,the coffins of Mrs. Goddard and Mary Chase were foundto have been violently disturbed, that of the infantbeing head downwards in the opposite corner of thevault to the one in which it had been placed. Thefuneral ceremony was, however, proceeded with, and thevault was once more hermetically sealed, the disturb-ance being attributed to the mischievous act of some ofthe negro labourers who attended the previous inter-ment. Nothing further of importance appears to havetaken place in connection with the vault until fouryears later, though the Hon. Thomas Chase was himselflaid to rest in it on August 9, 1812. On September 25,1816, it was again opened, this time for the receptionof the coffin of Samuel Brewster Ames, another infant.When the stone was removed, the labourers were horri-fied to find that the coffins were again disarranged.Suspicion once more rested on the men ; but they stoutly226
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A BARBADOS MYSTERY protested their innocence, and the coffins having beenreplaced in their former positions, the vault closed.Little else was now talked of in the island than the coffinaffair at Christ Church. The negroes on the one hand wereconvinced that the disturbance was due to jumblesor duppies, the ghosts, of which they have a pioushorror, while the white population with equal certaintyattributed it to the mischievous pranks of some practicaljokers. The affair continued to be a constant topic ofdiscussion, and interest in it had by no means died outwhen on November 17, 1816, the body of SamuelBrewster, who had been murdered during the insurrectionof the slaves in the preceding April, was removed to thevault from St. Philip, where it first lay. Crowds flockedto the churchyard and, from a respectful distance,watched the opening of the tomb. The ponderousstone was slid aside, and it was at once seen that therehad been a repetition of the former disturbances. Mrs.Goddards coffin ha

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