Pictures of the Victims of the Salem Witch Trials gravemarkers

Colonel Buck's Tombstone

There are several stories about how it got there, but it's there all right. The silhouette of a foot and part of a leg imprinted on Colonel's Buck tombstone. Supposedly it's the consequence of a curse. Colonel Jonathan Buck, the town's seventeenth-century founder, was responsible for administering local justice. When rumors of witchcraft began working their way up the coast from Salem, the good citizens of Bucksport began eyeing each other with suspicion. Eventually many fingers pointed to an elderly and eccentric recluse. Colonel Buck hauled her in and put the question to her. She denied communicating with Satan and all other witchery. Of course, Colonel Buck knew witches lie, so he applied torture to evoke a more truthful answer. Still the old crone would not confess. Colonel Buck realized that anyone who could endure such sustained agony without confessing must be receiving preternatural assistance. That was proof enough. With the help of eager townspeople, the old woman was marched to the gallows. But before the noose did it's work, she cursed her tormentor, promising Colonel Buck that she would return to dance on his grave. The malediction was forgotten long before Colonel Buck had his own rendezvous with the grim reaper. He was buried and a monument was erected a giant stone obelisk befitting such an important man. Then something seemed to blemish the perfect white marble. An indelible shadow fell across it a stain. And anyone who saw it recognized the outline of a foot. People began recalling the curse and realizing that somehow that old woman was in fact dancing on the colonel's grave. Suspecting it the work of a prankster, Colonel Buck's family hired a team of workmen to pumice down the monument, making it as smooth and unblemished as before, but the outline gradually reappeared. They tried more aggressive cleaning techniques, but always the foot would return. Finally the family had the monument replaced. Yet the old woman's dance continued on the new stone, and the family gave up. To this day you can see the stone, the footprint, and an explanatory plaque at the Bucksport Cemetary.

I was thirteen years old when, one day driving through Bucksport with some baptists, who were trying to teach me what would happen to me if I kept studying witchcraft, showed me the tombstone. But, later, when I was around 15, I found the true story of the "evil witch who was hung". I reasoned that if what these baptist's said was true, then Buck was the one who murdered an innocent woman. If the woman had been evil, then her curse would have never happened, but it did, not only once, but three times!

This story has stuck to me since that time. One thing I have never found out is what the name of our sister was. If anyone can supply me with this information, I would greatly appreciate it.

Blessed Be, Belgarion