Grave Designs Read online

  Seven days later, these pioneers reached the banks of the broad Connecticut River. Claiming a gentle hill overlooking the river, they commenced the construction of their small village, which they named Canaan, harking back to the Promised Land of the Hebrews.

  Tragedy first struck Canaan in September of 1685. It came in the form of a storm so fierce and relentless as to rival the great Boston storm of 1635. Young Marvell described its terrible onslaught in his diary:

  Such a mighty storme of wind & raine as nonne living in these Parts, either English or Indean, ever saw. Being like those Hauricanes that writers make mention of in ye Indeas. It began in ye Morning and came with such Violence in ye beginning, to ye Amasamente of many. It blew downe sundry houses & uncovered others & blew downe many thousands of trees, turning up ye stronger by ye roots and breaking ye higher pines in the middle. Several are ye dead and ye injured. Edmund Barnard lost his gentle wife….

  The storm destroyed nearly half the village’s buildings, and included in its path of devastation the small church and Reverend Marvell’s simple house.

  The following evening, the Elders of Canaan met with Reverend Marvell to plan the reconstruction of the church. According to the surviving church records, those in attendance that fateful eve were Richard Bradstreet, Joseph Frye, Simon Blake, and Benjamin Marshall. By flickering candlelight the Elders of Canaan debated the merits of various means for raising funds to rebuild the church. After many hours the Elders voted to fund the reconstruction by holding a lottery.

  Dear reader, please recall that in the early days of our fair republic, lotteries were widespread. Indeed, history records at least one such lottery held years before the lottery of Canaan: the Jamestown lottery. In 1607, the village of Jamestown was founded by the Virginia Company. By 1612, due to disease and famine, the future of that young settlement was in grave peril. The principals of the Virginia Company seized upon the idea of a lottery to finance the expedition, and thereby prolonged the life of that woebegone settlement.

  In Colonial America, lotteries raised money for many public improvements. The great colleges of Columbia, Harvard, Dartmouth, and Williams, to name but a few, were built or supported by the proceeds from lotteries. Lest we forget, in 1776 the Continental Congress established a lottery to raise much-needed funds for our Revolution. Alas, the Revolutionary War lottery proved a financial disappointment.

  I knew about financial disappointments. I looked up at the Matisse poster on my wall. None of my lottery tickets had ever gotten me to France. I went back to my reading:

  That first lottery of Canaan in 1685 proved a success, and the little church was rebuilt before winter. But the curse of Canaan remained, and that February a most ferocious blizzard destroyed the church and killed several villagers. The Canaanites rebuilt again their little church, raising the funds through yet another lottery.

  Tragedy struck once more that summer, wounding the young minister most cruelly of all. The prior winter Marvell had married young Rachel Lowell, a fair damsel of sixteen, who had traveled west with her parents. By July 1st, according to the young minister’s diary, his pretty wife was already heavy with child. Alas, two weeks later she was dead, the victim of a four-day storm that caused the Connecticut River to overflow its banks. The raging cataract of water swept the young bride down the river to her death. The lamentations of her grieving husband still pluck at the strings of our hearts more than two centuries after he recorded them in his diary:

  My dear and loving wife departed this life after we had been married and lived together 7 months and 14 days, whereby I am bereaved of a sweete and pleasante companion & left in a very lonely and solitarie Condition.

  Reverend Marvell confided less frequently in his diary during the next few years. His sporadic entries, however, record a most unusual series of tragedies that befell that hapless community. The village knew famine, disease, repeated Indian attacks, fires, and storms. As Reverend Marvell wrote:

  I believe never there was a poore village more pursued by ye wrathe of ye Devil than our poore village. First, ye Indean Powawes moleste our planters. After this, wee have had a continued blaste upon somme of our principal Grain. Herewithal, wasting sicknesses, especiallie Burning and Mortal Agues, have Shot ye Arrows of Death in at our Windows.

  But Canaan also knew occasions of supreme felicity: bountiful harvests, miraculous recoveries from fatal diseases, unexpected generosity from neighboring savages.

  At first the lotteries of Canaan were simple affairs involving a fortnightly drawing for a prize of grain or butter. But some of the villagers grew discontent with the manner in which their wealthier brethren purchased myriad tickets for each drawing, thereby multiplying their chance of victory. It was Reverend Marvell who introduced the first and, in retrospection, the most profound innovation into the lottery system: two tickets would be drawn, one for a prize and one for a penalty. This elegant solution to the hoarding of tickets injected a new element of risk into the melancholy lives of the Canaanites.

  In the beginning, the penalty was a mere fine. As Reverend Marvell notes in his diary entry for May 5, 1690: ‘Goodman Phillips drew ye penaltie Ticket and, according to ye day’s charte, was ordered to donate 9 stalkes of corne to oure church.’ But on July 7, 1690, Richard Pierce drew the penalty ticket, refused to pay the fine, and was forced to sit in the stocks for a day. By March of 1691, the payment of a fine had been eliminated and instead the owner of the unlucky draw was simply ordered to spend a day in the stocks.

  The next major change came the following spring. The poorer villagers had complained of the purchase price of the lottery tickets, and some of the wealthier Canaanites had elected to withdraw from the lottery for fear of drawing the unlucky number. The resulting diminution of funds threatened the very existence of the lottery, which by then had become an important element of the village’s fragile economy. The Elders of Canaan met with Reverend Marvell and voted to dispense with the requirement of purchasing a ticket. Thenceforth, every adult member of Canaan was enrolled in the lottery and the purchase of tickets was abolished. An annual tax levied on the head of each household supported the lottery.

  Reverend Marvell’s sermons (and diary) were wont to be written in a fine hand on small pages four by six inches in size. Those sermons that have survived reveal a disquieting preoccupation with biblical lotteries. The one I hold before me quotes the Old Testament (Num. 26:55—56), where the Lord instructed Moses to take a census of the people of Israel and divide the land among them by lot. In this same sermon Reverend Marvell describes how the first king of Israel was selected by lot. In yet another sermon, Reverend Marvell reminds his followers that after the death of Judas Iscariot, a casting of lots determined that Matthias and not Joseph should be named his successor as apostle.

  Alas, Reverend Marvell’s obsession with lotteries transmogrified into a vision that surely is the dark side of the doctrine of predestination:

  And thus it appeareth to me that our Lord hath secreted unto His Scripture a texte which hitherto had not been revealed to me but which tonight hath come cleer, namely, that God doth play dice with His Universe.

  From ye Cradle to ye Grave, a Man’s life is predetermined in accordance with ye divine Lawe of Chance. Ye application of His Lawe of Chance properly belongs to God; He is ye only Lawemaker. But He hathe given power and gifts to man to interprett his Lawe and to establish on Earthe ye vessels through which His Lawe of Chance can be expressed.

  And therefore, an Elder may prescribe ye pleasures and ye penaltyes so long as ye recipients thereof be chosen in accordance with ye Lawe of Chance.

  I was startled by the sound of Ozzie barking.

  “What’s wrong, Oz?” I called out as I put the booklet on my bed and sat up. He barked again.

  I found Ozzie in the kitchen, facing the back door. “What do you hear?” I said, patting him on the head.

  He wagged his tail and then tr
otted into the living room. I stared at the back door for a moment and then followed him into the living room. He was standing by the window, his body tense, his head slightly cocked. I peered out the window. The street was empty.

  Ozzie looked up at me and then moved over to the couch. He curled up on the floor, resting his head on his front paws.

  I glanced at my briefcase resting against the coffee table. There was work in there, but it could wait.

  “C’mon, Oz. Keep me company.”

  He followed me into the bedroom and settled down by the foot of the bed. I picked up the booklet and found my place:

  The minister found enthusiastic accomplices among the original four Elders who had met with him to establish the first lottery in 1685. The awful vicissitudes of Canaan must have forced each of them to search for an answer to the riddle of their sad village. As Reverend Marvell recorded in his diary:

  Swearing a Solemne Oathe of Secrecy, wee professed ourselves fellow members of Christ, for His worke wee have in hand, it is by mutuall consent through a speciall overruleing providence.

  By 1694, all lottery drawings were conducted in secret, and the results of the drawings were carried out in secret. No one in Canaan could any longer be sure whether his good luck or misfortune was the work of God or the result of the lottery of Canaan, administered in secrecy by the church Elders. A name would be selected by lot, and then a series of drawings would determine the precise fate of the target of the lottery. According to hints in Reverend Marvell’s diary, the lottery drawings for one person could last from midnight until the break of dawn.

  Although the church records continued to record the felicities and ignominies of the Canaanites, no longer do they indicate the cause of the origins of those achievements or punishments. We learn of Richard Brown being publicly whipped, but hear not for what. We learn of Katherine Aimes forced to stand on the church green wearing on her breast the shameful scarlet letter which Hawthorne has so poignantly immortalized in his story about Hester Prynne. But did she commit adultery? And if she did so sin, was she led to sin by her own impurity or by the silent machinations of the Elders of Canaan? The church records are silent and Reverend Marvell’s diary contains nary a hint.

  Poor men become rich and rich men become poor. Young girls hang from the gallows as witches. A sow dies mysteriously. An old widow discovers a precious gem while digging in her garden. A beautiful succubus visits seven male Canaanites in one week. A midnight conflagration consumes the barn and livestock of John Green, who stands alone on the village common the next morning hurling curses at the unseen lottery. And all the while the forces of nature and the whims of the savage Indians wreak havoc on that tiny community isolated in the wilderness.

  The august Cotton Mather paid a brief visit to Canaan on July 30, 1696. His shock at what he saw and his determination to end the blasphemy are recorded in his journal entry for that day:

  Wherefore the Devil is now making one attempt more on us; an attempt more difficult, more surprising, more snarl’d with unintelligible circumstances than any that wee have hitherto encountered. Understanding that many, especially of their Elders, gave themselves a Liberty to do things not of good Report, in obedience to the scandalous and secretive Game of Lotterie, I sett myself against their miscarriages and vowed to stoppe this perversion of God’s Message.

  Cotton Mather returned to Boston and rallied the Congregational ministers against all forms of lottery, and especially against the secret lottery of Canaan. Although the power of the Puritan church was in decline throughout the Commonwealth, Reverend Mather was able to pass a resolution in 1697 condemning the Lottery of Canaan and banishing Reverend Winthrop Marvell from Massachusetts.

  Reverend Marvell’s last diary entry is dated May 21, 1697:

  Ye Elders of Canaan met at ye Church this eve and didst make an oathe to carrie on ye Lotterie into parts knowne and unknowne. Wee must not content ourselves with usuall ordinary meanes whatsoever wee did when wee all lived in Canaan. Ye same must wee do and more allsoe where wee goe. I shall depart on the morrow for ye Territorie west of Ye River. Ye Elders shall carry on in secret without me.

  Reverend Marvell left Canaan the next morning and, alas, disappeared forever into the dark forests of western Massachusetts. The Village of Canaan disbanded in 1698, most of the remaining villagers moving on to Northhampton, Springfield, or Boston.

  Little else is known of the Elders of Canaan or their lottery. There is a Richard Bradstreet buried in Boston behind the Old South Church. He died in 1711. Is it the same Bradstreet? No one can say. There is a Joseph Frye buried in Springfield, 1714. According to church records in Northhampton, Benjamin Marshall and his family set out for the West. A bill of lading bearing Marshall’s name from Fort Pitt, dated April 9, 1720, is still extant. The rest of the Elders seem to have vanished into the sands of time.

  Benjamin Marshall? I repeated. Could he have been the ancestor Graham Marshall had tried to trace his own roots to? But then again, it was a common name. There were thousands of Marshalls. Just as there were thousands of Golds. I took a pen off my nightstand, underlined the name, and started reading again:

  Echoes of the Lottery of Canaan have reverberated softly through the years. A determined but misguided few persist in the unfounded belief that the Elders spread their blasphemy beyond the Village of Canaan, and that their heirs continue to perform their dark maneuvers in secret, outside the laws of man and God.

  Indeed, just a few years back we again heard Canaan uttered in polite society, this time from the mouth of a young ne’er-do-well named Andrew Thompson. Mr. Thompson claims to have been on the Boston Common near the ceremonial platform during the dedication of that inspiring memorial to young Colonel Robert Gould Shaw and his Negro soldiers. Those of us present that glorious day watched with sympathy swelling in our breasts as Shaw’s forlorn widow, Anne, burst into tears when the monument was unveiled. The esteemed sculptor of that monument, Augustus Saint Gaudens, placed a comforting arm around her shoulder and said to her, “It was the will of God.” According to Mr. Thompson, Anne Shaw looked up at the sculptor with swollen eyes, smiled a bitter smile, and said, “No, sir. Not the will of God. The Lottery of Canaan.”

  Needless to say, there were others as near to the podium as Mr. Thompson, including your humble author, and all deny Mr. Thompson’s incredible tale. And well they should, for the mad scheme of Reverend Marvell died with him somewhere beyond the wilds of the Berkshire Mountains two centuries ago.

  But had it? I asked myself.

  Chapter Fifteen

  What was Colonel Shaw doing in Cindi’s apartment (compliments of Graham Marshall) and in Ambrose Springer’s bizarre little tale? And what did a pet’s grave, a computer printout, and four newspaper articles from 1985 have to do with a secret lottery conceived by a mad Puritan minister in a tiny village on the edge of the wilderness of western Massachusetts?

  I walked to the kitchen, poured a glass of milk, and sat down at the kitchen table. It was 10:15 p.m. I had to get away from Colonial Massachusetts and someone else’s ancestors. I had parents of my own, and I owed them a letter. Though we talked on the telephone every Sunday morning, I still tried to write them every couple of weeks. I knew my father took each of my letters down to the produce company, where he was the bookkeeper. He would read excerpts to the secretaries and salesmen. And then it would be my mother’s turn to show it off. Sarah Gold: a brilliant and frustrated woman who came to America from Lithuania at the age of three, never finished high school, and put her older daughter to bed every night with fairy tales about college and medical school. “Someday you’ll be a somebody,” she would tell me as she kissed me good night, “and not a doormat like your poor father. Dr. Gold, they’ll say. Please help me, Dr. Gold.”

  My younger sister, Ann, was allowed to be the girl of the family. She got as far as her sophomore year at the University of Missouri, married a Z.B.T. from Creve
Coeur, worked to put him through dental school, and now lives out in Ladue in a new English Tudor with my niece, Jennifer, my nephew, Cory, and her husband-the-orthodonist (who once made a drunken pass at me at a New Year’s Eve party, grabbing me in their modern kitchen, pushing me against the built-in Amana microwave oven, and stabbing his thick tongue into my mouth—“You have magnificent incisors,” he slurred as I pushed him away).

  Tonight I got as far as “Dear Mom and Pa” and then crumpled the sheet of stationery and tossed it into the trash can.

  “Come on, Ozzie,” I said. “Let’s take a walk.”

  Ozzie scrabbled to his feet and was waiting for me when I reached the front door. It was a warm night, and the beach and Loyola Park were crowded with couples enjoying the lake breeze. We walked out on the pier, past the men fishing and the young couples embracing. Standing at the end of the pier, looking south, I could see the red light flashing from the top of the Hancock Building; looking north, I could make out the squat outline of the observatory at Northwestern. A large sailboat glided by, passing close enough for me to hear a woman’s high-pitched laugh.

  We walked slowly back to the apartment. Ozzie collapsed on the hardwood floor in the living room and I plopped down on the couch and began leafing through the Reader, Chicago’s weekly alternative newspaper.

  I skimmed the first section and then idly turned to the personals in the third section. This week’s crop looked unpromising. Nothing much in the first column. Mostly phone-sex ads in the second column.

  And then I spotted it, one column to the right, halfway down the page:

  Canaan 6: Addison-N