Devil Comes to Massachussetts

This was taken from the book Strangely Enough

"The Congregation Church in Ipswich, MA, is the fifth to stand on its present site. The first, built in 160, was the scene of an interesting and fantastic legend about a fight between a minister, the Reverend George Whitfield of England, and the devil himself. It is all faithfully recorded in the history of the town, and some of the evidence is still there to see.

It was in 1740 that the Reverend went on a tour of new England villages. In each town he preached a resounding sermon, calling on the citizens to put down the devil and all his teachings. When he arrived in Ipswich, a great crowd greeted him and the church overflowed.

According to the records, his sermon was so powerful that the devil himself decided he'd better come up and hear what the minister had to say. In the middle of the sermon, he arrived, complete with horns and a tail. It took him only a moment to decided that he had better stop the sermon before he lost face altogether. And so he challenged Reverend Whitfield to a wrestling match to decide who was the better man.

They fought all over the floor of the church, rolled outside, and finally worked thier way up the steep sides of the steeple. Before the horrified throngs below they struggled to push each other off the peak of the spire to certain destruction on the ledges below. It looked pretty bad for the Reverend, until with a mighty heave he shoved the devil from the steeple. Down he fell, straight for the rocky ledge, head first, Satan righted himself and landed with a crash upon his feet. As he hit the ledge of granite, however, he sent up a shower of smoke and sparks. Then, with a great cry, he leaped down off the hill and was never seen in Ipswich again.

Even today the devil's footprints remain in the rock ledge. During my visit there, in a moment of bravado I slipped off my shoe to try it on for size. My stockinged foot fit the deep imprint of the devil's footpring---perfectly. "

I thought this story was kinda cool. Its really in that towns history! How could they have faked that and gotten it into the history, fooling a bunch of ppl? Do you believe it? Heres a site i found :

www.rootsweb.com...

I highly doubt it happened.

I doubt this, too, but how did they fake it? Did someone just write it in the town history for fun or soemthing?

Originally posted by Ashly
I doubt this, too, but how did they fake it? Did someone just write it in the town history for fun or soemthing?

When was the "historical" account written? Right after it happened? Do any testimonies from witnesses exist? I doubt it. It's probably a folk tale, handed down orally for generations and eventually written down.

[Edited on 1/15/04 by NotTooHappy]

i actually live in massachusetts, but you dont have to to realize that things that arent accurate can get into history. remember how much people were fooled during the salem witch trials and how that was able to get int history? of course if i remember correctly, it was probably the moldy bread that made them hallucinate and the possessions were probably seizures.