The Peculiar Delights of Research in a
Halloween Spook House
Catherine Stine
I’ve
been fascinated by the Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia ever since I
visited for their Halloween fright tour, and saw the actual, untouched surgical
room from when they opened in 1829. It still had a rickety metal operating
table, sharp and crusty medical tools, and frighteningly tiny holding pens. The
idea for one of my witch novels, Witch of the Wild Beasts rushed in right then
and there. It would be a thriller involving doctors devising medical mischief
and unlucky prisoners, including Evalina Stowe, a woman accused of witchcraft.
It
turns out that in the 1850s, when my novel takes place, Philadelphia experienced
an explosion of new medical “breakthroughs”, from the wacky to the notable. At
the offbeat end, there were herbal remedies inspired by the German Pow Wow or
Braucherei practitioner, a combination of ritual prayer, herbal applications
and the chanting of charms to not only heal the patient, but protect the
farmers’ cattle and sheep. On the remarkable side, were the “plastic
operations” of Dr. Thomas Mütter, who pioneered plastic surgery at Jefferson
Medical School, and who invented applications we use to this day, such as the
Mütter flap. This uses a flap of living skin, still partially attached, to
cover open, damaged areas until they can heal, at which point the connected
flap is cut and stitched. Dr. Mütter, who appears in the book, was quite the flamboyant
dresser, who liked to match his suit to the color of his carriage. To this day,
the Mütter Museum is a go-to attraction for all sorts of medical oddities,
including dozens of wax molds of eye diseases and ‘The Soap Lady’, a woman
whose body was exhumed in Philadelphia in 1875. She is nicknamed this because a
fatty substance called adipocere coats her remains.
I
grew up in Philadelphia and thought I knew a lot about its history, but in the
process of research for the novel, I learned many new, startling facts. I love
writing historical fantasy for this very reason.
Before
Eastern State Penitentiary was built with its single cells and solitary
confinement, people of all ages, including children were thrown in one holding
pen at another location. Thus, Eastern State revolutionized the system and was
considered state of the art when it was built. It was equipped with skylights,
central heating and some of the very first flush toilets, and inspired by the
Quakers’ belief that solitary penitence could quell an inmate’s urge to commit
crimes.
Yet
it wasn’t long before people realized that “paying penitence” 24/7 alone in a
cell did not cure people of criminal behavior. Rather, the isolation drove them
stark raving mad. Charles Dickens, who visited the prison, wrote a scathing
treatise, saying, “Solitary confinement is rigid, strict and hopeless… I
believe its effects to be cruel and wrong.” Oddly enough, during that era the
phrase What the Dickens was a euphemism for What the Devil! Go figure.
Even
in this cultured, modern city of Brotherly Love, superstition and chaos were
alive and well. According the an article on the Historical Society of
Pennsylvania blog, a sensational case occurred in 1852, with newspaper headings
entitled, “Superstition in Philadelphia,” and “Witchcraft –
Evidence of an Enlightened Age”.
“Mary Ann Clinton & Susan Spearing, residents of Southwark Ward, were formally charged at the ‘Court of Quarter Sessions,’ with “conspiring to cheat and defraud George F. Elliott, by means of fortune telling and conjuration,” in order to extort money. The ‘Commonwealth of Pennsylvania’ alleged that the two women were giving Mrs. Elliott, “a bottle containing some portions of Mr. Elliott’s clothing, and telling her that as the clothing decayed, so Mr. Elliott would moulder away, until he would finally die by virtue of the spell…”
It appeared that Mrs. Elliott
suspected her husband was guilty of infidelity, a belief that “had so strong an effect upon her as to
make her wish for his death.” Thus, she had enlisted the services of
Clinton & Spearing, who also encouraged the jealous wife, as an “ordeal of witchcraft,” to “take her husband’s clothes, tear them
to pieces, fill the bottle with them, then boil the contents nine times, and
this would give him such extreme pain as to cause his death.”
Enter
my heroine, Evalina, accused of witchcraft when her pet bird, flies down the
throat of her violent boss and chokes him to death. Add to this mix, Dolly
Rouge, her prison neighbor and ex-bawdy house madam, Lightning, a homeless
urchin who knew Evalina’s brother and was jailed for stealing horses, and
Birdy, a handsome, kind Irishman jailed for a tragic accident while blasting
granite for the railroad who Evalina falls for. Oh, and add a handful of sinister
doctors, and Evalina’s perilous plot to gain justice for her brother’s murder.
Research
is the grounding for the fire that ignites the writer’s mind. And research in a
Halloween destination was a pure spine-tingling delight.
“He’s alive but you messed him up good. Why are you coming around, so angry, gunning for a fight? You look so familiar, but… ” She ran a cooling cloth over Wayland’s swollen eye. She smelled of forest phlox and river moss—of the Canadian tundra in summer. He struggled to get up again and realized she’d tied his arms, torso and ankles down with thick vines. He didn’t believe in hurting a woman. But his rage bubbled dangerously close to the surface. If he stayed like this too much longer, and she leaned closer to him as she cleaned his wounds he might not be able to stop from snapping his head up and biting her.
“Why the hell did you tie me up?” he snarled.
“For your own safety and for mine. You seemed unhinged. Who are you anyway? You look so familiar.”
“Wayland. I used to live around here.”
“Wayland!” She stopped cleaning his swollen eye and stared down at him. “Wayland Leblanc.”
“Yeah, a damn Leblanc. The Tundras, led by your vicious brother slaughtered us a year ago in case you need reminding. Bunch of fucking savages,” he growled.
“I know who you are. Your father killed my father.”
“So, you are Stormy, Thorn’s sister,” he muttered. The very man I’m hunting down.
