A BRIEF HISTORY OF HILLFIELD (pt. 6)

6 - Hillfield & the New Constitution

Given the predominance of Quakerism at its inception, New Jersey has enjoyed a particularly ignominious place among the original thirteen states regarding matters of race. New Jersey’s first state constitution, adopted in a desperate effort to protect itself following George Washington’s 1776 defeat in New York, had granted the vote to all free citizens who met the property requirements, including blacks. That codicil, however, would fall by the wayside in 1807 when, for the sake of party politics, the Republican state government passed a bill restricting the vote to free white males. It had passed a law of gradual emancipation as early as 1804, but slaves were kept as late as 1865. New Jersey did not even ratify the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments until the 1870’s. At a time when every northern state was hurling itself toward the end of “the peculiar institution,” New Jersey notoriously dragged its feet. One of its most intolerable episodes occurred with the adoption of New Jersey’s new constitution in 1844.

For years the manufacturers in the north of the state and the farmers in the south had choked within the stranglehold New Jersey’s railroad interests held over the powerful state legislature. At that point the state’s constitution bore little resemblance to its national counterpart. The divisions between branches of government were amorphous if not wholly absent, and it lacked a bill of rights. But what most galled the rich and wannabe-powerful was that New Jersey’s governor, a then practically impotent figure, was elected by the state legislature, not its citizenry. New Jersey’s most wealthy and ambitious had been spoiling for a greater say in how the state was governed, and Hillfield soon found itself a key player in the adoption of a new and controversial state constitution.

Hillfieldian Hugh Giggley was at that time one of the most powerful men in South Jersey. He had built his initial wealth in farming, but soon branched into transportation, owning or at least possessing a controlling interest in many steamboat and ferry operations running between the state interior and Philadelphia, New York, Baltimore, and Washington D.C. Subsequently he was instrumental in greatly expanding New Jersey’s system of canals, which made transporting his own crops even more economical. These investments brought him untold wealth, but they also brought him into direct competition with the railroad interests in North Jersey. Already established as the transportation method of the age, the railroads had coffers deep enough to stymie Giggley’s efforts to create one all-encompassing concern dedicated to off-land travel. Giggley watched as the railroads employed nothing short of sabotage and intimidation to scare off his investors, and with the majority of New Jersey’s Whig legislature stuffed deep in their pockets, they remained immune from prosecution.

Hugh Giggley may not have been able to identify the direction in which the winds of change were blowing, but that did not stop him dreaming on a large scale, and he now dreamed of unseating the railroad interests’ control of the Whig government. Constitution reform had been a topic of debate for several years, but was always neglected in the hands of the Whigs. Giggley knew that reform was necessary to wrest control away from the railroad tycoons, and he enjoined his fellow wealthy farmers to marshal the political forces at their disposal. They shared his sentiments, but they knew any chance of reform would be futile and potentially disastrous without public support. When the Broad Seal War broke in 1838, Giggley recognized it as the opportunity to galvanize public disgust with the Whigs.

The Broad Seal War was the popular term designated to the controversy surrounding the 1838 election to the U.S. Congress. Following the election, both the Whig and Democratic commissions applied for admission to Congress, but then-governor William Pennington – a Whig – determined the Democratic commissions null and void. Everyone knew that the Whigs had rigged the election, but it remained unproven until Giggley sprang into action. In December of 1839 two men employed by the county clerks offices in Middlesex and Cumberland counties presented a number of returns that had been obviously ignored by the county clerks. These returns gave the Democrats a majority in the House of Representatives. The two men were Hugo von Daniken and Cotswallop Strange. Von Daniken had family employed by Abraham Browning on his Cherry Hill Farm, and several members of Strange’s family were employed at the Crippled Bear Farm owned by Linus Braggart. Both Browning and Braggart were well known friends of Hugh Giggley.

The outcry over the fraudulent election was more than Giggley and company could have hoped for. The next state elections saw the Democrats seize control of the state legislature. Giggley was even able to place his own Democratic waterboy, Daniel Haines, in the governor’s office. Drafting a new constitution became the state government’s first order of business. But the people of New Jersey paid a horrific price.

Over the years, the Whigs had managed to control the state through more than just the war chests of the railroad interests. They had appealed directly to the hearts and minds of New Jersey’s underprivileged inhabitants: women, blacks, and immigrants. As previously stated, the Republicans of the first decade of the nineteenth century had managed to rob these people of the few rights allowed them by the standing constitution. The Democrats of the 1840’s found themselves in opposition to those same beleaguered people and made it clear to Giggley and his cohorts that there would be no quid pro quo in Trenton unless the women, blacks, and immigrants were allowed to be constitutionally disenfranchised. And so, when the state constitution of 1844 was adopted, those people were rendered as powerless as ever.

The irony, of course, is that Hugh Giggley and his compatriots were impelled by their disgust with corruption, and subsequently bequeathed to New Jersey a state so corrupt it long enjoyed the dubious distinction of being, “the Georgia of the North.” It was a distinction it would have to endure until long after the Civil War.

Next:

Vote for Goat

COMPLETELY CONFIDENT

            Coquette was curled up on the couch in clothes with no seductive ambition. The tea at her side was still piping, and she was just getting to the next spicy portion of her very sensitive pornography. Then the phone rang.

            “Hello?”

            A sheepish voice of underwhelming masculinity said, “Hello, miss. I’m calling from the electric company. You’ll be happy to know you’ve qualified for a twenty-five percent discount on your monthly electric bill for all your years of faithful patronage. I just need some information off the receipt from your most recent electric bill.”

            “Why am I getting the rebate again?”

            “Uh, for all your years of, as a-a faithful patronage.”

            “I’ve only lived here for four months.”

            …

            “Well, we’ve taken all the bills from your last house into—”

            “I lived with my boyfriend before moving here four months ago. And with my parents before that. And the electric bills were in their names.”

            …

            “Your twenty-five percent off can begin as, as soon as you—”

            “What’s the name of the company?”

            “What?”

            “The electric company. What’s its name?”

            …

            “The Electric Company…?”

            Coquette was now sitting up in her seat. “Really? Well, I’d like to lodge a complaint with Morgan Freeman. Can you put him on the phone?”

            “Uh… he can’t come to the phone right now.”

            “I’m hanging up.”

            But she didn’t take the phone from her ear. She listened as the voice plowed forward with ignorant courage. “All we need, miss, a little information off your most recent bill’s receipt.”

            “Why?”

            “Huh?”

            “You’re the Electric Company. Why do you need me to read you information off my bill? Don’t you have it right there in front of you?”

            “Well, no.”

            “No? You’re not sitting in front of a computer?”

            “Uh, well, er, yes.”

            “So why do you need me to give you information you already have?”

            …

            “Redundancy?”

            “Excuse me?”

            “Redundancy, miss.” He was very proud of his ingenuity.

            “Define ‘redundancy’ as you’re using it.”

            …

            “To… do… again?”

            “Wow.”
            “We can wrap this up in sixty seconds, miss, if—”

            “Just stop. I’m not giving you my information.”

            “But… I won’t be able to process your twenty-five percent—”

            “Enough!” Coquette was now on her feet. “I want you to give up.”

            “Miss, I—”

            “I want you to concede this is a scam and hang up the phone.”

            Initially the phone ringing had aggravated Coquette, and the immediate realization that the call was nothing more than a con had rankled her further. Now she was enjoying it. It thrilled her to no end having this worm dangle from her hook.

            “A twenty-five percent discount can—”

            “There is no discount.”

            This spineless homunculus had turned out to be a godsend. He had been exactly what Coquette needed: a mosquito blithely buzzing around her head and begging to be swatted. She clutched the phone, delighting in the anticipation of bringing down her heel.

            “The electric company—”

            “—was a dumb show.”

            What did he look like? she thought. What face and spindly imitation of a frame produced that stuck pig’s squeal? Coquette was grinning and nearly licked her chops with carnivorous excitement. She was practically trembling.

            “Miss—”

            “Just admit it!”

            “Look, what do you want from me? I got over a hundred calls to get through a day. I got a quota I got only two weeks left to meet. I’m way behind, and I got ten million other things I gotta do. I gotta sign five people a day up for an internet sales scheme, I gotta get the three-card monte in, I still gotta prep for a badger game tomorrow. I got four different bosses, they never talk to each other, and they’re all over my ass all the time. Now I can’t sleep because the regional manager’s coming in next week to oversee a pigeon drop I’m shilling for. I’m overworked, I’m underpaid, upper management doesn’t care, and middle management just throws it all back at us here in the stores. I get no health coverage, no 401(k), I think I’m developing an Adderall addiction! I’m doing the best I can!”

            …

            “What are you doing tomorrow night?” Coquette asked.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HILLFIELD (pt. 5)

5 - Red, White, and Black & Blue

            When the sun broke over Hillfield on the morning of September 1, 1779, the town was prepared to greet Colonel Tye and the Black Brigade. Joshua Murray, fermenting in Old Testament zealotry, had press-ganged Hillfield's younger, sprier boys into serving as lookouts, shaming them for their masturbatory decadences. He proceeded to plant various weapons on the premises and outfit the town with all manner of makeshift booby traps. Murray spoke little, contenting himself to quietly singing Irish folk songs with hostile lyrics lifted from the Bible. Allegedly he slept with his eyes open.

            At 8:47 AM on September 5, the thirteen-year old son of a weaver ran into town, crying that the Black Brigade was less than a mile away. Murray ordered the townsfolk to go about their normal activities until Tye arrived, but according to Filman Hazelworth's diary, Murray's shrill barking emphasized his brogue, and someone had to ask him to repeat himself. He did and promptly disappeared into the nearby Meeker's Inn.

            Tye and the Black Brigade rode into town just after 9:00 AM, and the entirety of Hillfield's citizen body gathered in the town square to present themselves to Tye. Included in the assembly were Hillfield's slaves. Tye took one look and started shaking his head with insincere disappointment. He ordered a gallows constructed and a man identified as Amos Longtickle strung up. As his men made quick time of the gallows' construction, the Hillfieldians looked on, unsure of how to proceed without Murray's instruction.

            With the gallows erected and the noose around Amos Longtickle's neck, Tye addressed the petrified townsfolk. "This is why your nation will prove stillborn," he proclaimed. "A whipped animal will work for so long before baring its teeth." Tye raised his hand, ready to order Longtickle's hanging, when a dagger whistled through the rope. It landed in the mud as Longtickle dropped to the ground. The Black Brigade immediately drew their muskets, their heads turning every which way, their horses excited and ready to take off. Only Colonel Tye maintained his poise.

            Joshua Murray's voice rang from the second-story balcony of Meeker's Inn. "Colonel Tye! I defy you, you traitorous namesake of a pagan despot!"

            Tye remained still and unimpressed. "Does the innocent betray the penitentiary when he escapes, Mr. Murray?"

            " 'The wise store up knowledge, but the mouth of a fool invites ruin.' Proverbs 10:14."

            "Please interpret, pastor."

            "It means, 'Fuck your twisted darkie logic.' "

            Murray drew two muskets, fired, and threw himself backwards through the balcony's glass doors.

            Hazelworth described what followed in his diary:

We ran for sanctuary as the negro brigade reared their horses and gave chase. Tye directed two of his mercenaries to dismount and pursue Murray into the inn while another guarded the exit to the back. Shots rang from inside the inn, followed by another and the neighing of a horse from behind the inn. A moment later the Irishman sprinted from behind the inn, whooping like an Indian and confusing both us and the negros. Murray proceeded to lead Tye and his barbarians throughout the town, killing them one at a time with musket, saber, pitchfork, or improvised cudgel. When trapped Murray displayed no fear at diving through glass, wood, or thicket in escape. Even when a black succeeded in wounding the Irishman with a musket shot or saber slash, Murray exacted judgment on the animal and continued to his next target. He succeeded in scalding one of the Brigade with hot stew and bludgeoned another with a slaughtered pig.

            Eventually only Colonel Tye remained alive, but when Murray dropped from a tree, Tye crippled him with a well-placed shot to the right leg. He netted Murray from atop his horse, but as he rode toward his hobbled quarry, Murray produced another musket and fired into the knee of Tye's horse. Tye fell and Murray, drawing a dagger, rushed to cut the Colonel's throat. Tye was quick to draw his own musket and pressed it to Murray's head just as the Irishman's blade met the black commander's Adam's Apple.

              What followed can only be surmised through speculation. Tye and Murray spoke to one another, but their words have not been recorded. The witnesses were likely too far away to hear, but we know that they did watch several minutes of conversation followed by a period that saw Tye and Murray each mutilate himself in turn. It is believed that, however the issue was arrived at, each man sought to prove to the other that he was more willing to endure pain and eventual death for his respective cause, for the stand-off climaxed with Murray holding Tye's musket to his own head and Tye holding Murray's dagger to his own throat.

            We don't know how the two settled the conflict, but both exchanged their weapons and walked away from one another, leaving the town in peace but perplexed. Admittedly this makes for an enigmatic and unsatisfying end to the episode, at least as it pertains to Hillfieldology. Tye would eventually prove the victor, killing Murray the following year in Monmouth County. But the two combatants engendered a distrust of both blacks and Irish that resulted in the immediate abolition of slavery in Hillfield and a great deal of strife-ridden absurdity in the years to come.

Next:

Hillfield & the New Constitution

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HILLFIELD (Pt. 4)

4 - Let the Red Flow Freely

            The problem Hillfieldologists face when studying the chapter of the town's history involving the Loyalist-killer Joshua Murray is a paucity of primary sources. Very little exists pertaining to Murray's life whatsoever. He was born in Derry, Ireland in the mid-eighteenth century and immigrated to the American colonies with his mother when he was still a young boy. They settled in Monmouth County, New Jersey where Murray grew to become a stonemason, married, and had four children. Murray was a staunch Patriot and when the Revolution erupted, he immediately enrolled in the First Regiment Monmouth Militia. There is no evidence that Joshua Murray ever rose to a rank higher than Private, but by 1778 he had earned himself an indelible reputation that persists to the present day.

As a member of the Militia, his official enemy was the Royal Army and its allies. But Murray made a name for himself by killing Americans still loyal to the English crown, and he did so with an idiosyncratic savagery that quickly made him a hero among Patriots and a virtual bogeyman to Loyalists. Allegedly the Monmouth Militia, recognizing the psychological value of Murray's wave of terror, encouraged and even covertly funded his bloodletting activities. We have no idea when he started targeting Loyalists or what the ultimate motive behind his violent distaste for them was. For many years the popular theory was that Murray, being a native Irishman, had been brought up with a particularly venomous loathing for all things British. In recent years however, this theory, being based solely on an ethnic stereotype, has lost traction. It also fails to explain Murray's single-minded hatred for Loyalists. There is no record of him attacking the Royal Army with any more vigor than every other man in his outfit. To date, however, no historian or Hillfieldologist has posited a viable alternative (Mark Krasker's "Defense-in-Girth" theory is not viable).

Complicating matters further is the lack of consensus amongst historians as to how much of Murray's terror is apocryphal and how much is to be believed. Hillfieldologists are lucky that the only surviving primary source attesting to his butchery is Filman Hazelworth's diary. It gives a detailed account of Joshua Murray's brief stay in Hillfield and the horror he brought with him. Hazelworth writes, "Less than one hour passed between Murray's ingress into the environs of the town and the occasion on which he claimed his first victim… He was retribution made manifest, invoked from Providence by Edwards himself." Debate still rages amongst Hillfieldologists as whether or not Hazelworth's word should be accepted at face value -- a debate that has triggered mutual recriminations across the internet and at least one visit to their clubhouse from Hillfield's finest.

Joshua Murray entered Hillfield on August 28, 1779, riding a massive ink-black donkey. His head was entirely hairless save for the wide bushy mustache that hung down past his mouth. Every stitch of clothing he wore was a deep burgundy, and the cross that hung from his neck was carved, likely by his own hand, from stark black-and-white stone. The Town Fathers immediately ran out to greet him with the rest of the populace looking on. The town's leaders invited him to speak with them regarding Colonel Tye in private, and Murray silently followed them into the meetinghouse. Approximately forty minutes passed before the pillars of the community emerged into the street. There is no record of what transpired or what words were exchanged in the meetinghouse, but we are able to make reasonably educated guesses in the hindsight of the following events.

Emerging from their parley with Murray the Town Fathers assembled the entirety of Hillfield's citizenry along Main Street. A few minutes later the Loyalist-killer emerged from the meetinghouse. Standing in the center of Main Street he announced in a guttural brogue that he was willing to protect the town from, as Hazelworth reports, "the darkies swinging from King George's teat." Before he would assent to do so, however, he insisted that Hillfield had to be cleansed of its Loyalist taint. He wheeled around and pointed to a one Mr. Lemuel Truburgh, owner of Hillfield's first bank (and ancestor to Elihu Truburgh, who would transform Madsen, New Jersey from a redheaded stepchild of a city in Philadelphia's shadow to one of the major metropolitan centers of the Twentieth Century). Murray had Truburgh brought forth and accused him of not only harboring Loyalist sympathies but of directly colluding with the British. Shocked by the accusation, the people looked to their civic leaders for their opinion. The leaders watched silently, so the people followed their lead and bore witness to the bloody spectacle that unfolded.

Filman Hazelworth writes,

The dreaded archangel tied M. Truburgh's hands to a nearby hitching post. He drew from inside his great coat a nightmarish blade the full length of a man's forearm. He quoted from Scripture -- Exodus I believe, "If they cry out to me, I will hear their cry. My anger will be aroused and I will kill you with the sword." I'm sickened to even commit what followed to paper. M. Murray cut into M. Truburgh's leg and the poor banker screamed like a dying pig. M. Murray cleaved away the meat from his bone, which he finally tore out with his bare hands. He held aloft the bone from M. Truburgh's body and again quoted from The Book, "The cook took up the leg with what was on it and set it before Saul. Samuel said, 'Here is what has been kept for you. Eat.' " Poor M. Truburgh was killed with his own bone through his mouth and the back of his skull.

            Whether this horrific scene happened precisely as described by Hazelworth, if at all, Joshua Murray managed to convince Hillfield that he was the man to protect them from the wrath of Colonel Tye.

Next:

Red, White, and Black & Blue

DINNER ON OLYMPUS

           The Great Hall was built from marble quarried by the first men. It stood un-ravaged by time and the elements, perched atop a rocky outcropping, nestled within the brilliant azure of the unsullied sky. Thick as an ocean of sackcloth the sea of clouds gently rolled past, insulating Olympus from the ignorant mortals below spoiling for divine retribution.

            Inside the Hall torches hung from columns and shone like shrunken suns. The gilt in the floor caught the torchlight and ran through the stone like veins of molten fire. The dining table straddled the length of the Hall like the Colossus of Rhodes. Carved from a grove of fir long since destroyed by Man, it stood draped in a cloth of purple. The table hosted bowls of grapes, pomegranates, figs, plums, dates, and olives; cisterns of soups and stews; loaves of bread; plates of beef and bird with greens and several bottles of wine.

            Around the table were six chairs. One sat vacant. The others held five immortal beings, older than recorded time, without a smile on a single face.

“Dad, what are we doing here?” Hebe asked.

            Zeus was seated at the head of the table. “Ask your mother,” he answered, wiping the corner of his eye with a finger.

            Hera, seated at the foot of the table, didn’t wait for her daughter to address her. “We’re here, child, because it’s been ages since we’ve supped together as a family,” she said. “So, tonight, we’re going to have a pleasant dinner together.”

            Hebe weighed her mother’s words between narrowed eyes. “So where is everyone?” she asked.

            “Who’s everyone?”

            “Poseidon, Demeter, Hades…”

            “No, no,” Hera said, waving her finger dismissively. “Just us. No aunts and uncles. Just your father and I and our children.”

            Vulcan mumbled from behind his sooty un-kept beard, “Not all the children.”

            “Yeah. Where’s Ares?” Aphrodite chimed.

            Zeus head popped upright. “Oh, he’ll explain that if he bothers to show up.”

            Hebe looked back to Hera. “What’s going on, Mom?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “All of the sudden you’ve got the urge to bring the family together? Where’s this coming from?”

Hera blanched. “I have always cared about maintaining a tightly knit family. I spent all day preparing this meal and I intend for us to enjoy it.”

            “Really?” Hebe replied dubiously.

            “Yes, really. Now go get the lamb. It should be done by now.”

            “Why me?”

            Zeus rolled his eyes about. Vulcan bowed his head, casting his eyes away from his sister’s ill-advised defiance. Aphrodite looked on, her eyebrows arched in delight. “Because,” Hera answered, “you are goddess of servitude and you’re going to fulfill your familial obligations tonight. Go.”

            “What about the nymphs or priestesses or…”

            Hera hardened. “I’ve sent them away for the evening. Now fetch.”

            Hebe rose and skulked toward the kitchens. Vulcan watched his sister leave, then turned to his mother. “Who cooked?” he asked.

            Hera turned impatiently toward her son. “I just told you. I did.”

            “Well, what was Hestia doing here earlier?”

            “Hestia was kind enough to lend me a hand in the beginning.”

            Vulcan furrowed his brow. “Wait,” he said. “I saw her spooning the fasoladainto the cistern.” Aphrodite shook her head as she twirled a knife between her fingers.

            “She helped and, regardless, I’m the one responsible for the crops that went into the meal,” Hera snapped back.

            “But Persephone handles the harvest.”

            Hera slapped Vulcan across the face. “Fucking toad!” she spit. The sound of the impact reverberated through the hall and down out of Olympus. The one side of Vulcan’s beard held the shape of his mother’s open palm.

            Aphrodite leaned over to her husband and quietly said, “You really shouldn’t speak anymore.”

            “Listen to your wife, beast,” Zeus added.

            Hebe entered the Hall carrying a roasted lamb on a platter of silver. The air grew succulent as Hebe approached the table and the platter gleamed bright enough to be seen by the Three Sisters. Hebe hoisted the platter over the table and let it drop with a metallic thud. She took her seat and said to Hera, “Don’t punish Vulcan because you can’t cook.”

            “I don’t care who cooked,” Zeus moaned. “Can we eat?”

            “When Ares arrives,” Hera answered.

            “Should I go find him?” Aphrodite offered.

            Hera cast a frigid gaze at Aphrodite. “Better you not. I’d hate for you get lost and delay the meal longer.”

            “I would never be so disrespectful.”

            “Not to you at any rate, Mom,” Hebe added.

            Zeus soothed Aphrodite, “You stay here, dear. Ares will be along.” Zeus looked back at Hera. “It’s just a question of before or after the meal goes cold.”

            “We are eating as a full family,” Hera reiterated.

            “I’m eating,” Zeus announced and reached for a slice of pita.

            “Don’t touch that food,” Hera commanded.

            Zeus froze and slowly looked up at Hera. Every fiber of Olympian authority radiated from his cold steel eyes. “What?” he snarled through clenched jaws.

            Hera raised her open hands in supplication. “I apologize. My tone was out of line. But I would humbly implore you to abstain temporarily. Not for your son’s sake, but for your wife’s.”

            Zeus and Hera eyed one another from across the table.

            “I intend on drinking,” the king of the gods said.

            Hera nodded compliantly.

            Zeus grabbed on olive and popped it into his mouth.

            Hera bowed her head with the slightest twinge at the corner of her mouth.

            Her husband grabbed the bottle of wine before him and leaned back in his seat as he filled his goblet. He returned the bottle to its place with one hand and drank deeply with the other.

            “Dad,” Hebe started, “you’re not planning on getting drunk before Ares gets here, are you?”

            Zeus refilled his goblet as he addressed his daughter. “My libations are none of your business, my little old maid. That’s first. Second: for Ares’s sake, I hope not.”

            “Please don’t be too hard on him,” Aphrodite hummed with the scent of mandrake on her words. “Yes, he can be a little wayward, but he means well enough.”

            “He’s the god of war!” ejaculated Vulcan spitefully.

            “So?”

            “So how does the personification of destruction mean well enough?”

            Aphrodite grinned at Vulcan like a master smiling at his dog. “Simple husband,” she started slowly, “war stems from Man’s passions, which, I think you have to admit, I am the authority on.”

            “War is a consequence of hate,” Hebe said. “Not love.”

            “What’s hate but the mirrored reflection of love, dutiful sister?”

            “Don’t call me, ‘sister.’ ”

            “I’m sorry. Are we not both the daughters of Zeus Almighty?”

            Hera scoffed with a nasally chortle. Zeus turned to the goddess of love, his beard dripping with vino, and said, “Ignore the two and their scornful mother, pet. Whatever punishment’s coming Ares way, he’ll walk away from it.”

            Vulcan offered, “With or without a limp?”

            The king of the gods turned his head to his aesthetically displeasing son. He smelled the sulphur and smelt ore waft off the hirsute god’s person. He saw the flakes of iron fall from Vulcan’s beard and land like snowflakes on the table. Zeus’s lips curled and he grabbed Vulcan by the ear, yanking it to within an inch of his mouth. “Do you want me to break your other leg? You insolent sub-being?”

            Hebe jumped in, “Dad…”

            “SHUT UP!” bellowed Zeus. He turned back to the silent cringing Vulcan, still an inch from his face. “Do you want to sit in your caves with the Cyclops forever? Never again look across the earth from the peak of Olympus?” Zeus raised his hand, opened to a claw. The hand flickered like Greek fire for the briefest moment, and stood raised to Zeus’s own sky clutching a lightning bolt. Zeus brought the lightening, crackling and writhing with the anger of a viper, toward Vulcan’s face. “You think you’re grotesque now? What do you think you’ll look like after I thrust this into your face? The gorgons will fear your gaze!”

            “Smite him! Smite him!” cried out a voice. Everyone turned toward the entrance of the dining hall to see Ares standing there; robes disheveled, fists clenched and eyes saucered in excitement. “Do it, Dad!” he cried.

            Hera bounded out of her seat. “Where the hell have you been?” she screamed. “I’ve been slaving all day over this feast!”

            Ares looked at his mother with an expression blank enough to render him faceless. “What do you mean?” he asked innocently.

            Hera’s widened eyes flashed red. “What do I mean? You have the temerity to keep us waiting for approaching an hour – after the time and sweat I’ve poured into this meal today – and you…”

            Ares, his face as still as the Lethe, interjected, “That’s what I’m talking about. You cooked?”

            Zeus closed his eyes and shook his head with an inconspicuous grin. Aphrodite covered her mouth with a closed fist as her abdomen throbbed with chuckles. Hebe rolled her eyes with a slackened jaw and Vulcan, massaging his manhandled ear, frowned.

            Hera stared at her eldest son with an ashen face that have scattered Furies. “ZEUS!!!” she roared.

            “Where were you?” Zeus asked rising from his chair. “Do you know what I’ve had to endure thanks to you? Your mother’s been carrying on about her gruel without pause. I’ve had to listen to your sister’s incessant egalitarian prattle.”

            Hebe leaned over to a Vulcan. “This is my life,” she said under her breath.

            “And the only thing smart about your brother,” continued Zeus, “is his misshapen mouth!”

            Ares started to the table and said, “Yeah, but his mouth’s not the only thing on him misshapen. Right, Aph?” he asked with a wink to Aphrodite. Aphrodite smiled back as Vulcan glowered and took a sip from his goblet of wine.

            “Ignore your brother until I’m finished with you.” Zeus told Ares.

            “Yeah, but that was good, Pop. Admit it.”

            “He will not until you account for where you’ve been!” Hera barked.

            Zeus turned to Hera and proclaimed, “Don’t tell me to ignore a swipe at Vulcan. I’ll enjoy Ares’s mockery all I want. In fact, I think I’ll join in: the next time Athens angers me, I’ll order Poseidon to release Vulcan.”

            Ares laughed and added, “Hey! Why does Cerberus have three heads? So Vulcan’ll lose count!”

            Zeus chuckled and said, “Good one, son. Sit down.”

            Vulcan leaned over to Hebe and whispered, “You want to trade?”

            Hera burst out of her seat. “That’s it?” she exploded. “A few jibes at Vulcan’s expense and he’s off the hook?”

            Zeus said, “Can we eat now?”

            “Not if that’s all you’re going to…”

            “If you sit down and let us eat, Ares will explain himself.” Zeus turned to his martial son. “Right?” he asked.

            “Whatever you say, Pop.”

            Hera regarded her ne’er-do-well-except-on-the-battlefield son for a second of silence, and slowly sunk back into her seat. “Fine. Eat,” she said.

            Zeus tore into a leg of lamb and said to Ares, through a mouthful of meat, “Placate your mother.”

            Ares turned to face Hera. “So what’d you want know, Ma?” he asked.

            Hera leaned forward in her seat, “Where – were – you?”

            “Ma,” he started, “I’m sorry I’m late. But you have to believe it wasn’t my fault.”

            “Whose fault was it?”

            “Thor’s,” Ares said.

            Vulcan and Hebe exclaimed in unison, “Thor!?!”

            Hera pointed a stern finger at Ares and said, “How many times have I told you not to associate with the Aesir?”

            “It didn’t start out like that,” assured Ares. “We were both working. I was stirring up shit with the Persians and…”

            “They’re not the Persians anymore,” interrupted Hebe.

            “The Seleucids, the Parthians, the Sassanids! The point is…”

            “ ‘The Sassanids?’ Do you have any idea what millennium it is?”

            “Hebe,” Aphrodite editorialized, “nobody cares how smart you are.”

            “She’s right, Hebe,” Zeus added through a mouthful of stew.

            “Yeah, now go get your fucking shine-box, Heeb!” Ares chided.

            “It’s ‘Hebe!’ ” she insisted.

“Whatever, Jew. Anyway, I’m stirring up the brown people, getting them to start in on the Hebes again, when Thor shows up and says he’s already got something in the works and he doesn’t want me queering up his game. I tell him it’s my turf by virtue of geography, to go prod a metal band into burning a church. He goes, ‘Don’t you have a diner to run?’ ”

            “Son of a bitch,” snarled Zeus.

            “I’m sure he didn’t say that,” offered Vulcan.

            Zeus and Ares spun their head around. Zeus glared thunder at Vulcan and spit, “What makes you so sure?”

            “What do you mean?”

            “Oh, did we lose you?” Ares asked his brother.

            “Well…” Vulcan inched gingerly, “I just mean… how would Thor know Greeks own diners?”

            Aphrodite turned to her husband with an opprobrious flip of her tresses and said, “The same way you would know that Hindis run convenience stores and whatever the brown people are run gas stations.”

            “If you had an intellect to speak of,” added Zeus.

            “Yeah,” chimed Ares. “Anway, we’re about…”

            “Well, doesn’t…” Vulcan re-started.

            “WHAT!?!” spat Ares with a murderous sparkle in his eyes. Vulcan bowed his head toward his plate and kept silence. Ares continued, “So we’re about to throw down, when it occurs to me: we’re both gods of war. Let’s work together and finagle one ginormous dust-up.”

            Hebe mouthed noiselessly to Vulcan, “ ‘Ginormous?’ ”

            Ares kept going. “So I send Thor over to the Jews. I get the Persians, or whatever they are, to cross into Jew land and kill some of them, and Thor gets the Jews to go batshit and bomb half of their capital.”

            “Fine,” Hera said. “But why are you late?”

            “Well, Mom, you have to understand. When it comes to warfare nowadays, you have to get a little creative sometimes. With all these bombs and germs and things that can kill thousands in the blink of an eye, it takes a little time getting people to confuse unchecked aggression with self-preservation. You have to make them ignore all these international treaties and human rights bullshit…”

            Hebe crossed her arms over her chest. “You went drinking afterwards, didn’t you?” she asked.

            “We had one drink.”

            “It’s never just one drink with the Aesir.”

            “How do you know? Were you there?”

            “Well, they do live in a beer hall,” Vulcan offered.

            Aphrodite leaned into the table across from Vulcan. “At least your brother was doing his job. What have you done recently? Digital downloads? CGI?”

            “I’m only responsible for the Hadron Collider and gene splicing…”

            “Terrific! You gave Man the tools to do our jobs. That’s tantamount to treason.”

            “Man likes what I do.”

            “Not as much as he likes your wife and me,” hissed Ares.

            Vulcan glowered as his brother and wife smiled knowingly and too-affectionately at one another. “Fighting and fucking like animals,” he stated. “You’re what prevents Man from realizing his potential. I’m how he’s going to evolve.”

            “Stop talking over your head, Vulcan,” said Hera.

            “No. He’s right,” said Hebe.

            “No,” Zeus started. “He’s not.”

            “Think about it, Dad. Technology allows Man to understand the nature of the world without blindly prostrating himself to us.”

            “Man can see the bones beneath the world’s skin with greater clarity. But he will never see the full form at once as we do.”

            “Why not? He gets closer every day.”

            “Because we allow it.”

            “Man paves his own roads.”

            “Man has the capacity for what he does because we exist.”

            Hebe and Vulcan shared a complicit look of judgment.

            Zeus saw the look and bellowed, “What does that look mean?”

            Hera sat up in her seat and told her husband, “Forget them, Dear Heart. Vulcan, pass your father another cup of wine.”

            “I’ll pour my own wine,” Zeus said and did so. He quaffed the wine in one gulp and poured another, emptying the bottle.

            Ares turned to his mother, “So, Mom, why are we here?”

            Hera blanched. “Why does the idea that I want all of us to sit down as a family require such a stretch of your imaginations?”

            “Because,” Hebe said, “you hate the lot of us.”

            “That is a wicked lie!”

            “Oh c’mon, Mom. You think Vulcan’s a monster, Ares’s a brat, and I’m an ingrate as far as you’re concerned.”

            “Vulcan has his problems, as we are all aware, but I think I deserve a little more credit than counting him a monster.”

            Vulcan jumped in, “Then why won’t you call me, ‘Hephaestus?’ ”

            Zeus answered, “Because I forbid it.”

            “Why?”

            “Your mother has the floor. Zip it, creature.”

            Hera continued, “And Ares, despite fulfilling his obligations, would benefit from a little maturity.”

            “What do you think of that, Hebe?” Aphrodite asked.

            “I think I don’t remember anyone addressing you, harlot.”

            “Pardon me, Mom, but the discussion is open to everyone, correct?”

            Hera bristled at Aphrodite’s use of her maternal title. She answered, “Quite,” then turned back to Hebe. “And as far as you’re concerned, I do not think you an ingrate.”

            “Oh really?”

            “Truly and honestly, my thorny rose. I only wish you would take pride in your duty as an Olympian.”

            “Am I not allowed the same freedom as Man?”

            “She thinks she’s better than her duty, Mom,” Aphrodite opined.

            “I do not think I’m better,” asserted Hebe. “But some of us are not as naturally inclined to our duties as others.”           

            “And what do you suppose that signifies?” asked Hera with her chin accusatorily toward Hebe.

            “It signifies that we should hold dominion over our strengths.”

            “And what are your strengths, Hebe?” asked Aphrodite with a silken hiss.

            “Change.”

            Aphrodite and Ares burst into laughter. Zeus grimaced and shoveled lamb into his mouth. Vulcan looked at his sister, a proud little smile peaking through his tangle of beard, his eyes yearning to reach out and hug the goddess of servitude. Hera stared at her.

            “Don’t laugh,” said Hebe. “Change is what life is all about.”

            Zeus wiped bits of meat from his face with his forearm. “That,” he said, “is the flaw in your argument, little girl. We are the Olympians. We are beyond life. We do not change.”

            “Everything changes, Dad.”

            Ares chimed in, “You’re just jealous no one has a hard-on for you.”

            Aphrodite said, “I don’t know, Ares. I think Vulcan may.”

            Vulcan looked across the table at his wife. The skin beneath his beard went red and his pupils to near pinpricks. “What did you say, whore?”

            “Hey, hey! Easy!” Ares ordered.

            “I sit here, absorb every insult thrown my way, and now I’m expected to endure accusations of infidelity?”

            Hebe laid a gentle hand on Vulcan’s shoulder. “Don’t, Vulcan.”

            “Yes, I will!” he screamed as he bound to his feet, sending his chair crashing upside-down and prompting Hebe to snatch away her hand in fear. Vulcan turned to Aphrodite. “You dare accuse me, all the while making me a cuckold?”

            “I said easy!” snapped Ares.

            “Seeing as you’re one of the many my wife spreads her legs for, my brother, you have no room to speak!”

            Zeus stood up. “That’s enough.”

            “No, it’s not!”

            “I am telling you it is. Now take your seat and calm yourself.”

            “Tell me, Dad, if I fucked you, would you defend me?”

            Zeus’s face turned to rage-blasted iron. He growled under his breath, “Do you lack the wits to know who you are speaking to?”

            Vulcan walked directly toward his father. “I don’t give a good gorgon’s fart who I’m speaking to! It’s bad enough you fuck your son’s wife, but to fuck your own daughter?”

            Zeus drew back his hand. He summoned a bolt of lightning just as Vulcan withdrew his hammer. He had it raised above his head, ready to devastate his father’s skull. Zeus had his bolt aimed at his son’s heart.

            “STOP IT, NOW!!!” Hera screamed with bloodcurdling ferocity. All eyes at the table turned to look at her. They saw the queen of the gods on her feet, holding herself up with the dining table. She was trembling. Her eyes summoned storms from the depths of Tartarus and rained down fire from the peak of Olympus. She turned her head toward Vulcan. “You shame yourself, Vulcan.”

            The forge of Olympus spun around to face his mother, aghast.

            “Your foolishness doesn’t surprise me,” Hera continued. “But this blatant disrespect…”

            “Gaea’s cunt!” spit Hebe. “You of all people!”

            “Quiet.”

            “Is that why it’s just us here? Why no Athena or the twins? So you won’t be reminded that you, Queen of Olympus, are married to a cad and too spineless to even acknowledge it?”

            Hera backhanded Hebe across her face. The slap rang throughout the Great Hall like a gong. Her fingernails had drawn blood, a pencil-thin slice across Hebe’s cheek. Hebe held the side of her petrified face as Hera spoke, “You will not forget your place again. You are to serve and begin doing so without complaint or comment immediately.”

            Hebe looked up at her mother. Her face remained unchanged, uncowed.

            “Go get the Corinth 484. Now!”

            Ares and Aphrodite watched with sadistic smiles as Hebe slowly rose from her chair. Vulcan, his broken will as plain as the broken nose on his face, watched as Hebe bowed to her mother and left the Hall.

            “And fetch my purple shawl!” Hera cried out as Hebe exited.

            “Let me make this perfectly clear to every one of you,” said Zeus as he took to his feet. “Things are as they are because that is how they should be. That is how they should be because I will it. Your dissatisfactions are utterly immaterial. Vulcan will endure my scorn. Hebe will do as she is told. And Hera will remain a loyal honorable wife regardless of how I comport myself with mortals.” Hera smiled at her husband. “You will,” Zeus continued, “fulfill every duty, obey every command, and endure every indignity I choose to bestow. That is how it should and will be.”

            Zeus took his seat.

            “Does everyone understand?” asked Hera. Her children replied with silent nods as Hebe entered with a bottle of wine and her mother’s shawl. “Did you hear that?” Hera asked her.

            “I did, Mother.”

            “Pour the wine.”

            Hebe touched the lip of the bottle to a jewel-encrusted goblet and poured the Corinth 484.

            Hera turned to Vulcan. “You will offer your father wine and supplicate yourself.”

            Vulcan promptly rose from his seat with a grunt. He gingerly took the goblet in both hands, turned, and hobbled over to Zeus. The king of the gods turned in his seat to face Vulcan as he fell to his knees with a moan. He offered the goblet to his father. Zeus swiped the goblet with one hand and drained it in one gulp. He haphazardly tossed it onto the table.

            Hera smiled. “Good,” she said. “Everything is as it should be.” She turned to her husband. “Isn’t that right, Dear Heart?”

            Zeus’s eyes were narrowed. His brow was glistening with sweat. He tried to swallow.

            “What’s wrong, husband / brother?” Hera asked. “Is everything not as it should be?”

            Zeus, his groans buried alive, clutched his throat.

            The others, mouths agape, turned to face their mother. Hera’s eyes were solely on the agonized writhing Zeus. Hera calmly walked over to her dying husband. “Do you remember the prophecy from all those years ago? That you would be killed by your own son, just as you killed old Chronos?”

            Zeus looked at Vulcan with through welling tears.

            “No,” his son whispered.

            “Oh, the toad would never attempt such treachery intentionally,” Hera clarified, picking up the goblet and swirling around the remaining drops of the murderous libation. “But I knew an invisible hand could nudge poor pathetic Vulcan into coincidentally committing patricide. As long as the poison comes from his hand, everything is as it should be. Don’t you agree?”

            Zeus, rocking violently in his seat, fell backward to the floor. He breathing quickly shallowed.

            Hera loomed over Zeus and said, “Dear deluded Hebe is correct on one account: everything changes. The mortals have no desire to cower before a cavorting reprobate of a patriarch. And neither do I."

            Zeus squeezed one last terrified tear from his eye. His tortured breathing ceased and the shell that was the God of the Sky and ruler of Olympus stared unblinking at the marble ceiling of the Great Hall.

            Hera turned and returned to her seat. “My shawl,” she said and Hebe promptly handed it to the new lord of the Olympians. “A goddess will now sit atop Olympus,” she said as she wrapped her purple shawl around her shoulders.

            “Yes, she will,” echoed Hebe.

            Without warning the shawl sparked to life with furious illumination. It burst into a tall whipping flame. Hera screamed as the fire immediately consumed her. She shrieked and the fire died as quickly as it was born.

            Everyone leapt to their feet as what was once Hera collapsed into no more than a small hillock of ashes on the marble floor. Everyone but Hebe.

            She and Vulcan met one another’s eyes. Vulcan smiled, fear curling the corners of his mouth more than glee.

            “Don’t worry,” Hebe told her brother with an embracing smile and a tone forged in Vulcan’s own fires.

            They looked at Aphrodite and Ares.

            Ares said, “I’m sorry.”

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HILLFIELD (Pt. 3)

3 - The Redcoats Are Coming!

            When open warfare finally erupted in April, 1775 between the nascent United States and the still-waxing British Empire, Hillfield came to a standstill as it debated whether to declare themselves Loyalists or take up the Patriot cause. The town's population was still predominantly Quaker and generally considered the violent revolution advocated by the Patriots anathema. On the other hand, the town's citizens found the British to be insufferably snotty and exceptionally annoying. Perhaps predictably the town fathers ultimately settled on a policy of unofficial neutrality. Hillfield would not openly declare for either their fellow Americans nor for their English overlords. It was also decided that in the event a contingent from either army was to enter the town or otherwise make demands of the citizenry, each situation would be dealt with on an individual basis.

            Isolated deep in the wooded tangle of the Pine Barrens, Hillfield remained untouched by the fires of the Revolution for the first four years of the war's hostilities. During that time life in the small town continued uninterrupted, the town's residents only peripherally aware of the conflict over their future. But on August 4, 1779, Colonel Tye brought the war to Hillfield's doorstep.

            The escaped slave had been born (or branded, rather) Titus Cornelius by his former owner, a Quaker from Monmouth County, northwest of Hillfield. Prone to drink and eschewing the Quaker practice of educating their slaves and freeing them upon their twenty-first birthdays, Tye's owner had been known as an especially unforgiving slaveholder. Shortly after Lexington and Concord Virginia's last royal governor offered freedom to all slaves who escaped and took up arms under the Loyalist banner. Tye wasted no time. He quickly escaped to Virginia and was soon back in New Jersey, armed and uniformed with the intent of crushing the colonists' rebellion. While Tye's exact date of birth is unknown, it is believed that he was still in his mid-twenties by 1778. By that point he been granted the honorific of "Colonel" for his tactical ingenuity and charismatic leadership, despite the prohibition of blacks as commissioned officers in the British Army, and been given the command of one of the most dreaded Loyalist units in the country. The Black Brigade was an elite guerilla unit of two dozen former slaves committed to supply seizures, hit-and-run attacks on Patriot outposts and detachments, and assassinations of important American leaders.

            However, when his British commanders had not given him specific missions, Tye regarded the Black Brigade's standing orders to be the liberation of slaves, particularly if those slaves belonged to Quakers, and to do so with extreme prejudice.

            On August 6, 1779, two days after Tye arrived at the secluded hamlet of Hillfield, Filman Hazelworth, a tanner, recorded the eventy of the 4th in his diary:

The Black Brigade - twenty-three ink-black negroes on twenty-three ink-black horses - rode slowly, almost sleepily, down the thoroughfare. At the head of this obsidiun (sic) mass rode a single bright eye. It was he - the Colonel Tye - astride a steed white as milk. Of a paler complection (sic) than his fellows, the Colonel was the embodiment of patrician class and command. His carriage was that of Cornwallis himself. His likeness would not be misplaced were it displayed in Charring Cross, such was his austere comportment and stentorian resolve. His compatriots, meanwhile, seemed freshly plucked from the deepest jungles of the Dark Continent, for if they be any indication, Africa is as dark of soul as it is of skin.

The Colonel, the picture of gentlemanly eloquence informed us, the townsfolk, of his identity and that of his brigands. He requested, with utmost politeness and as a fully-authorized representative of the English Crown, a litany of provisions that, were we to acquiese (sic) to their requisition, would leave our settlement on a rather frightening brink. We relented, of course, with little argument for fear of raising the ire of the Colonel's savages.

Once the provisions were delivered in full, the Colonel demanded the town's entirety of slaves and indentured servants be brought forthwith. This we did with far greater consternation. The Colonel addressed our negroes sweetly as a governess, inviting them to cast off their shackles - they were not shackled at all - and join his Brigade. Our blacks, having grown accustomed to our munificence and having been well trained, did not move or make an utterance. It was then the Colonel, betraying the primitivity of his race, ordered his men to go forth and assault our women, which they proceeded to do with ferine abandon. With the rapine concluded, the Slave Colonel demanded we free our slaves before his return in September. If we had not done so upon his arrival, he swore to raze Hillfield to the ground.

            Tye and the Black Brigade wheeled around and rode out of town, carrying their requisitions back to the Loyalist keep in Monmouth County.

            The people of Hillfield trembled at Colonel Tye's promised wrath. But they were a proud and stubborn and not altogether intelligent people and were loath to bend to a man they considered to be little more than a dark-skinned terrorist. Their deeply-prized neutrality had been violated alongside their women. They determined to violate with equal violence the vengeance of Tye and his savages.

            It was then that Hillfield turned to the only man they believed could exact that violation.

Next:

Let the Red Flow Freely

A BRIEF HISTORY OF HILLFIELD (Pt. 2)

2 – The Indigenous in Dutch

            The great powers of Europe began to colonize the New World. The Dutch founded New Netherland in the land that became the states of New York and New Jersey. New Sweden was founded in the area now known as the Delaware Valley. The Dutch then seized New Sweden, and the English followed suit in their seizure of New Netherland. The Duke of York quickly divested himself of New Jersey in 1665, selling the eastern half to Sir George Cartaret and the western half to Lord John Berkeley. After several unprofitable years’ attempt to promote settlement and collect tribute from the few who loped after the Lords Proprietors’ carrots and sticks, Berkeley sold his half to the Quakers in 1674.

            Throughout these lean, strife-riven years the Hillfield Lenape remained isolated on their hunched patch of land nestled amongst the pines and bogs that swamped the southern half of the colony. In 1675, however, the Quakers first set eyes upon them. As the settlers migrated east from Philadelphia to the Atlantic Ocean, they came upon the Lenape, now numbering no more than two hundred, on their large open field blanketing a hill of almost negligible elevation. The Quakers had always gone to great lengths to live peaceably with the indigenous populations. But these natives – stunted, deformed, and mumbling gibberish unintelligible even by the standards of the other Algonquin tribes – frightened the Quakers. Of no mind to slaughter other human beings, the Quakers proceeded to ignore them and settle the surrounding environs. The area thus became a series of small farms and cabins inhabited by white Quakers surrounding a field full of disfigured and slow-witted American Indians. The Hillfield Lenape remained inviolate.

But in 1695 their isolation came to a swift and violent end when three concurrent events conspired to change the course of Hillfield forever.

            As the Quakers had originally fled England in search of religious freedom, one wealthy Quaker named Faulk Madrigal sought to establish a settlement in New Jersey that welcomed those who believed in his particular iteration of the Quaker faith. Most of the details of Madrigal’s beliefs have been lost, but the specifics with which we are familiar – Jesus’ ministry in the New World, the corruption of Christian doctrine by Greco-Roman culture, undergarments imbued with supernatural powers – bare an uncanny resemblance to Joseph Smith’s Church of Mormon (pre-dating Smith’s religion by one-hundred twenty years, some, such as Hillfieldologist Mark Krasker, speculate as to the influence Madrigal’s beliefs may have had on Smith). Faulk Madrigal believed that the land occupied by the Hillfield Lenape would be perfect if he could convince the Lenape to leave on their own accord.

            Around this time a strange Dutchman began roaming the area and terrorizing the people. He claimed to be not only the last survivor of the drowned city of Saeftinghe, but also the bastard offspring of the mermaid who warned of Saeftinghe’s impending doom and the fisherman who caught her in his net. Initially the Quakers considered this aspect of Saeftinghe’s destruction to be mere folklore and the Dutchman to be a harmless kook. Soon, however, he began avowing himself to be an agent of divine retribution and proceeded to frighten crops, curse livestock, and scream incomprehensibly at children.

            Madrigal recognized the superstitious nature of the Hillfield Lenape and concocted a plan that would net him both the land he coveted and the respect of the Quaker community at large. He convinced the Saeftinghe Dutchman that a local mother of twelve known to us only as “the Woman Leeds” was to be the mother of the Anti-Christ unless he, the Dutchman, seeded her first. The Dutchman reportedly bound her to her bed, stripped her, and flung his ejaculations at her for several hours. The Woman Leeds’ screams and bloodcurdling prayers were eventually heeded when her neighbors found themselves unable to sleep through the caterwauling. The Saeftinghe Dutchman was dragged from the house and presumably killed somewhere in the nearby woods.

            The Woman Leeds soon found herself pregnant with her thirteenth child, but was traumatized by her experience with the Dutchman. Under the guise of comforting her, Madrigal preyed upon her piety, expressing fear as to what a baby conceived in such sin would be. Prayer services were conducted almost continuously, but the Woman Leeds repeatedly proclaimed, “Let it be the devil!” Meanwhile, Madrigal, feigning neighborly relations with the Lenape, stoked fear throughout the tribe with each new appraisal of the developing situation. On the night of the baby’s birth, Madrigal ran to the Lenape and told them that the Woman Leeds had indeed given birth to a monstrous demon with the head of a goat and wings like a bat. The Lenape were so terrified they immediately evacuated their land and disappeared toward the Atlantic.

            Madrigal promptly swooped in and bought the land. His plan had been a complete success, but his fortune would be short-lived. Soon after, a riot erupted at a meeting of the new settlement’s residents. Everyone agreed on the name of the new settlement – Hillfield – but they could not come to an accord as to whether it should be so named because it comprised a hill located in a field or a field located on a hill. Tempers flared and Madrigal was killed in the ensuing brouhaha.

            Hillfield was born.

Next:

The Redcoats Are Coming!