The Curse of the Widow Godfrey

Submitted by Elizabeth Fulford. 

Originally published in the September 1919 Owl.

The oldest industry of Pocasset, MA, southwest of Sandwich, is that of a blast furnace on the Pocasset River, which was built in 1822 by H. Weston.  It is located a little northwest of the “Old Natty Wing” residence. Tradition says that it was once the property of the Widow Godfrey of Harwich, MA. Her husband was a storekeeper in Harwich who met his death in about 1830 by freezing. On a cold winter day, he and another man were out in a boat, which was probably swamped. They apparently swam to shore because they were later found sitting in a sheltered spot, frozen to death. 

The widow, not feeling equal to the management of her husband’s store, sold it and moved to Pocasset, where her married daughter lived. Widow Godfrey was considered very well-to-do, and, in the name of her daughter’s husband, purchased the furnace property, which included a residence that she occupied. The furnace business was managed by her son-in-law, an alcoholic. On one occasion, while under the influence of liquor, he borrowed a great deal of money, which he was unable to repay, and brought himself and his mother-in-law to financial ruin. The furnace business was seized by the lender, and the Widow Godfrey was told to leave her home.

The Widow Godfrey, with her limited knowledge of business and law, could not understand or be convinced that anyone could have the right to take her home from her.  When she positively refused to leave, she was forcibly ejected from her home. In her despair and rage at the loss of her property, she ran to a high point of land near the furnace and house and, raising her hands high above her head, she cursed the land, the buildings, and the owners of the property forevermore!

A History of Cape Cod says that the property was sold to Rufus Kendrick and J.M. McCrew in 1832.  Soon after, the building burned down. The grandson of the Widow Godfrey heard her say to her daughter, his mother, “Polly, my curse has begun to work!” 

Kendrick and McCrew rebuilt the furnace as an iron foundry and later sold it to one Howard Perry. The building caught fire, perhaps set by Perry himself. He rebuilt the property but found himself in so much debt that, in 1859, he committed suicide by an overdose of morphine. One J.H.W. Page was hired by the new owners to manage the business, but he, like Perry, incurred such great debt that he drowned himself in Boston Harbor.

The foundry then became the property of entrepreneurs, Blackwell & Burr, and for a time prospered. However, Burr’s son-in-law, Herbert Sterling, took over ownership, and in 1881, it was again destroyed by fire.  He rebuilt it, but in what had become standard occurrence, he lost all he had put into it and ended his life by jumping from a fifth story window in New York.

After these events, people remembered hearing the Widow’s grandson say, as he saw the building burn or heard of the tragic death of an owner, “There now; you see, that’s my grandmother’s curse working!”

The Widow Godfrey died in Pocasset but no grave marks her burial there. Possibly she lies next to her husband in a grave in Harwich.