442 
FOREST AND STREAM 
[June 6, 1903. 
The Witch of Bay of Islands. 
• The" Bay of Islands, in which Camp Island and 
Boundary Rock are situated, is not on the Newfoundland 
seaboard. Boundary Rock is the outer guard of an 
arciiipelago of barren rocks and spruce-covered islands 
on the Nova Scotia coast; it is the last bit of terra firnta 
between Canada and the Irish shore. For an average of 
two hundred days a year the surf thunders against the 
northeastern side of the ledge and the rock is dimly 
viaible-Jis a black streak amidst the white spray. The 
least easterly wind raises a sea which would capsize 
any boat, no matter how skillfully handled, if the occu- 
pants attempted to cross the channel between Camp 
Island and the breakers. It is only in the months of 
April and May that any rational human being wishes to 
set foot on the rock-weed grown slopes and naked 
ledges. 
From the last of March to the middle of May the 
summer migration is going on along the Atlantic sea- 
board. Every fine day from sunrise until noon the 
flight goes on. Wildfowl in millions are making their 
way from the Atlantic Coast of the United States to 
their breeding grounds in Labrador, Newfoundland and 
Hudson's Bay. One who has not seen them can have 
no conception of the huge flocks of eider ducks, coots, 
ice ducks, and sheldrakes which pass along the coasts 
on their way to the alder swamps and marshes of the 
Northern Terra Incognita. 
I made it a rule to devote one week of each year to 
wildfowl shooting, and as I have a prejudice against un- 
necessary work, I usually hired a man to do my rowing 
and pick up cripples. Abijah Best was an elderly man 
who could neither read nor write. He and his family 
lived in a 15 by 20 shanty which could be reached in a 
rowboat if the weather was fine, or by a footpath across 
the bogs when it was stormy. He fished lobsters in the 
spring, when he was not too lazy to tend to his traps, 
"lay around all summer," and starved during the fall 
and winter. His family inherited his dislike for manual 
labor, and positively declined to attend school. Every 
winter some misguided individual kept them from starv- 
ing, and they increased like New Zealand rabbits or 
English sparrows. 
The Captain kept a "general store" and had a com- 
fortable house; his wife ran the store, and possibly that 
accounted for the fact that the Bests had no dealings 
there. My guns, cartridges and shooting suit were at the 
Captain's house; his dog was waiting for the coach at 
the bottom of the field, and when I alighted welcomed 
me as an old acquaintance. Poor Kaiser! that was ten 
years ago; he was a young dog then and one of the best 
retrievers I ever shot over. No sea was too rough for 
him, no weather was too cold. He was hideous to look 
at — most mongrel Newfoundlands are; but he had more 
intelligence under his disreputable looking hide than the 
majority of hundred dollar pedigreed kennel aristocrats 
can lay claim to. 
Kaiser's mistress received me at the door. "That dog's 
been clean crazy since the Captain got your guns down 
and oiled them this morning; he knows as Well as possi- 
ble you are going out to the Rock. Just make yourself 
at home as you used to do. Your clothes are laid out on 
the bed, and the Captain's down at the wharf fixing up 
the boat with that Bijah Best." 
I changed my clothes and walked down to the beach, 
preceded bj^ the dog. The Captain and Abijah were 
.stowing away the forty odd sea duck decoys. The 
Captain and I left Abijah to finish stowing the decoys 
and returned to the house for the guns, cartridges and 
provisions. He explained it was such a fine afternoon 
we had better row out to Camp Island and stay there for 
the night. We could sleep until close on daylight and 
have the decoys out as soon as it was light enough to 
shoot. We should be perfectly fresh for the morning's 
sport, and the row back would not fatigue us as much 
as if we had to row back next day. I had been there 
before; I had no wish to row eighteen miles in a day 
with soft hands (and nine miles home with a sore 
shoulder), so I gladly assented. 
The first time I was out on the rock the Captain took 
four Queen Anne muskets and a French fusee with him ; 
these weapons were converted flint locks, and fired the 
old fashion "beaver cap." The breechloader had sup- 
planted this armory, however, and we only took two 
guns each, a single 10 bore and a double-barreled 12. 
Abijah had a double muzzleloader, the barrels of which 
were attached to the stock by a few fathoms of copper 
wire and some cod line. He carried his shot in a leather 
bag, his powder was in an enormous ox horn. There 
was just enough wind to enable us to sail the first six 
miles. The islands were still wearing a wintry look with 
patches of snow here and there and masses of ice still 
clinging to the rocks. The harbor was full of harbor 
birds, coots, "lords," ice ducks and sheldrakes, but they 
gave us a wide berth. Every now and then a small 
bunch of sea ducks (eider ducks) would alloAV us to get 
within a dundred yards of them and rise as soon as we 
got the cartridges into one of the guns; an occasional 
seal would rise astern of us and watch us for a minute 
or two before he dived again, and here and there we 
would see a fish hawk suspended over the shallow water 
in shore watching for perch or sculpins. It was an ideal 
afternoon, and the trip itself was worth the thirty-mile 
drive. 
We made the little cove on Camp Island just at sun- 
down. An old sheldrake was in possession, and as he 
flevv out I ventured a shot at him and knocked him down. 
Kaiser went overboard and brought him in to the land- 
ing while we were running the boat between the rocks. 
As there was no camp on Camp Island and there might 
he twenty degrees of frost before morning, it behooved 
lis to rig a shelter and collect drift wood for a fire. 
Part of the island is covered with low spruce trees 
blasted by the sea breeze and dense as a Mississippi cane- 
braLe. We rigged up a tent with one sail in the shelter 
of the bushes, collected enough wood for the night, 
"brushed down" the floor of the camp, spread another sail 
oyer it and cooked our supper. After supper we lit our 
pipes and sat in the fire light. Abijah was the most 
superstitious man in the country. We had very hard 
work to induce him to spend the night on Camp Island, 
and I do not think he would stay there alone for a 
thousand dollars an hour. I had had some experience 
of the superstitious nature of the older fishermen in this 
locality; a number of them still believe in witchcraft, 
and every polling station along the shore contains an 
island or a rock on or near which Captain Kidd buried 
money. 
In addition to the legends relating to Captain Kidd and 
his mythical treasure there is another reason why some 
of the islands are avoided at night. Many of them serve 
as the last resting place of victims of the frightful ship- 
wrecks which were once so common along this inhos- 
pitable coast. A lighthouse keeper I used to know had 
buried over thirty bodies and parts of bodies during the 
time he lived on one of the islands. Only a year before 
the date I write of, the Captain found a man's body float- 
ing in the cove our boat lay in. Who or what he was no 
one knew. He wore a charm with the square and com- 
passes on it and half a dozen people in the district 
clubbed together and paid the expenses of a decent 
funeral. Stories like these lose nothing by the telling. 
Sixty or seventy years ago the section of coast I refer 
to was practically without roads, there was no telegraph, 
nine-tenths of the population could neither read nor 
write, conununication with civilization was by schooner, 
and when the civil power desired to investigate a re- 
ported case of wrecking or some transaction closely verg- 
ing on piracy, they appealed to headquarters and a sloop 
or gunboat was sent to do the work which one constable 
can perform at the present time. 
It is ojily three years since the Government broke up 
the last nest of outlaws at Whitehead, a place within an 
hour's journey of the Western Union Telegraph Com- 
pany's headquarters. The story of arson, ship sinking 
and general rascality which came out at the trials reads 
like a romance of the eighteenth century Cornish wreck- 
ers. The Munroe gang received their deserts and are 
expiating their offenses in penal servitude, the telegraph 
line runs from one end of the shore to the other, every 
settlement has its schools, armed cutters patrol the coast 
and look after wrecks, the dangerous shoals are buoyed, 
there is a lighthouse on every important cape, and a 
steamer calls at the village wharves twice a week. 
Superstition dies hard, however, and it may be a 
couple of generations before the belief in ghosts, witch- 
craft and "spells" is totally extinct in these regions. 
To resume my story, however, Ave had our supper, Abi- . 
jah cut up enough drift wood for the night, and about 
half past nine we turned in. The camp was a comfort- 
able one, the night was calm and frosty, the Captain 
slept like a boy and I did not wake up until two A. M. 
As we had eaten some very salt smoked salmon for 
supper, and as I did not care for black tea, I requested 
Abijah to go to the spring and fill the kettle with water. 
The spring was not fifty yards away, but the man politely 
but firmly declined to go unless I went with him. Under 
ordinary circumstances I should have been exceedingly 
angry, but the thought occurred to me that Camp Island 
might be haunted, and if that was the case I should like 
to find out the ghost's history. I accordingly picked up 
the kettle and went to the spring myself. On my return 
I asked Abijah why he was so reluctant to go, as our 
usual attendant, Solomon, would have gone in a minute. 
Perhaps it was the fact that I had employed him in the 
woods some time previously and given him a prescrip- 
tion to cure a cow of his (which a neighbor had be- 
witched) that made him communicative; at any rate he 
hummed and hawed for a while, then, with a glance at 
the Captain, who was snoring like a trombone, he began 
his narrative. 
You never saw old man Toflfts ; he died 'way before 
your time, but maybe you've heard of him. He came to 
these parts on a 'Merican pirate in the last war (1812). 
She was wrecked somewhere off Sambro and most of 
her crew was drowned, but Toffts came ashore on some 
of the rigging, and the Indians found him and kept him 
alive. He came down to these parts when the shore was 
all woods and a man could kill a moose 'most anywheres 
he was minded to try. You didn't have to take out 
papers for a bit of land in them days; you built your 
house where you wanted to and put in your crop and 
nobody came along to trouble you. Toffts built a place 
on Toffts' Point, and ran a fence right across from the 
tall cliff to the other side. It was good land and he 
fenced off maybe two hundred acres and said he'd shoot 
anyone who came across the fence without leave. He 
had great learning and could read print as fast as a man 
could talk, and he was a great man to work. He must 
have cleaned up ten acres first and last; the piles of rock 
he took out are all round the old cellar yet — rocks two 
men couldn't handle by themselves. He lived there all alone 
for some time, and then he got a woman who couldn't 
talk at all. They did all their conversation on a slate 
and with their hands. She was a real smart woman, as 
strong as a man, and too bad to look at, and from the 
day she came there Toffts began to make money. He 
never had any more than a little "flat" before that; but 
she hadn't been with him three months before he went 
out fishing in the flat and came back in a new fishing 
boat, with new sails, all fresh painted and with lines and 
gear on board her. He sailed right into the harbor here, 
and when some of the folks asked him where he got her 
he says, "I made a trade for the little old flat and I 
guess I got the best of it, too." 
Two days afterward a fellow came around the point 
and he says that he was out fishing among the islands a 
day or two before. The fog was very thick and he hears 
a man rowing along easy, he sings out, "Who's there?" 
and the answer came back, "The Devil." He didn't take 
no more notice for a minute or two, then the fog begins 
to rise and he sees Toffts rowing straight for a big boat 
which was not a hundred yards ahead of him. Her sails 
were all set and there was no one on board. Toffts 
hooks into her and steps over her side, then he sings out, 
"What do you think of my trade?" and when the fellow 
rows up to her the little flat was gone. That was enough 
for hit>i. He saw Toffs had traded boats with the Devil, 
ajid he turned his own boat around and put for the shore. 
There was five houses round the harbor in them days; 
there's forty now; and Toffts tried to raise a crew to go 
fishing with him, but no one would go in such a boat. 
She would have held four men, but two could manage 
her. "Very well," says Toffts, "if you men won't come 
you can stay ashore; but death's as handy to you on 
shore as it is at sea. There's going to be a burying in 
this harbor before three months, and it won't be a body 
washed up, neither." 
That very afternoon some boys went into a house and 
one of them picks up an old rusty pistol, points it at his 
brother and says, "I'll shoot you." He swore he never 
laid his hand on the trigger, but the pistol goes "bang," 
and the boy drops on the floor stone dead. The man that 
owned the pistol swore he hadn't loaded the pistol ; and 
then the people knew that Toffts was a witch and had 
put a spell on the harbor. 
A few days afterward some men were out on the 
island and they seen a little man-o'-war close in shore. 
They rowed off to her and told her there'd been a man 
murdered in the harbor, and the captain puts in and 
sends a boat's crew after Toffts. The captain sends for 
the people and begins to swear them on the Bible, and a 
man wrote down all they told him, and then read it over to 
them and they put a cross to it. He examined four or 
five people and they all told him what Toffts had said ; 
and the man who owned the pistol swears it wasn't 
loaded. Just then the boat came back with Toffts hand- 
cuffed and his feet tied. The captain looks as black as 
thunder, and says : "Untie that man and bring him up 
here." Then he reads over what the folks had sworn to 
and says very stern like: "What's the meaning of this 
infernal nonsense?" 
Toffts doesn't seem at all took .back. He says: "This 
here's quite true; I did say some of them would die 
ashore. I believe the boy's brother did shoot him accidental, 
and I was fishing near H^alibut Island when the thing 
happened. Yes, sir, it's all true, but I didn't put no spell 
on him, and I didn't trade boats with the Devil; and if 
I had put a spell on him, there ain't no law against witch- 
craft. What I want to know, sir," says he, "is why I've 
been put in irons and my feet tied and brought on board 
this here vessel? I would have come on board quiet and 
civil, but that young officer slapped the irons on before 
1 could open my mouth to speak." 
The captain he got very red in the face, and turned to 
the men who told him about the murder. Says he : 
"What the devil do you fellows mean by reporting a 
murder to me and bring me in here on a fool's errand? 
First you say Toffts killed the boy and then you all swear 
his brother shot him, while Toffts was fishing at Halibut 
Island, six miles away. I've wasted a whole day in get- 
ting in this cursed harbor, and listening to your stories 
about witchcraft, and now I have got to stay here all 
night or run the risk of knocking the bottom out of the 
vessel on one of these blasted rocks. Get off my ship, the 
whole gang of you," says he. "and never you. dare to 
board a King's ship again with a parcel of lies about 
witchcraft and swapping boats with the Devil, you pack 
of longshore pirates." Then he turns to Toffts and says : 
"I'm sorry my officer exceeded his instructions, but they 
told me you had shot the boy yourself. Go with this 
man and get something to eat and a glass of grog, and 
the boat'll take you back where they fetched you from, 
and here's a guinea to make up for the mistake." 
Toffts says he will pilot the man-o'-war out and she 
needn't stay all night. The captain says yes, and he 
does it. 
That was all the harbor folk wanted to know about 
him ; a rnan who could bewitch a King's officer and make 
him believe he hadn't put a spell on the boy was a man 
to leave alone. 
Toffts went back home, and after that him and the deaf 
and dumb woman used to go fishing together; no man 
in the harbor would dare set foot in the boat. They 
used to catch more fish than any four men ; and when 
Toffts pulled his boat up for the winter it was the same 
with his trapping. If one of the harborers got a mink, 
he killed an otter; and he had some kind of a scent he 
used about his traps that tolled all the foxes to them, 
like them tollers in the boat toles up duck and drakes. 
It would be about five years after the boy was shot 
that that same boy's father comes across one of Toffts' 
traps with a mushrat in it. He picks the trap and mush- 
rat up and starts down the lake; it was snowing at the 
time and he had quite a lot of fur with him. Just as he 
was getting off the ice he slips on a rock and sprains his 
ankle. There he was, five miles from home, a big pack 
of fur, no food, and a sprained ankle. He left his load 
and cut a stick. It took him ten hours to go the five 
miles, and when he got home his foot was frozen. When 
he comes to his own door and goes to open it, he hears 
something rattle. There was the trap with a mushrat 
in it and a witchwood branch lying in the snow. He 
never looked at another trap that winter, his feet was so 
sore. 
Next fall there was three or four families come to the 
harbor, the Captain's grandfather here was one of them; 
and when the old residenters told them that Toffts was 
a witch, they laughed at them. The Captain's grand- 
father was a magistrate; when people went to him for 
law on Toffts he daren't give it them; but when Tobe 
Smith's father pointed a gun at him he fined him $10 
and sold two nets of his to pay the fine. I was only a 
little gaffer then, but I can mind the time. 
Toffts kept very much to himself over on the point; 
he used to go to Halifax once a year, and maybe once in 
three months he'd come to the harbor to buy stuff from 
the Squire's store. Witches always have money, and the 
Squire used ter say to him kind o' pleasant like: "Give 
my respects to Captain Kidd next time you see him, Mr. 
Toffts, and ask him if there ain't two or three bottles 
of sherry wine left in that Spanish ship that sunk outside 
Boundary Rock. I'm a great believer in the Good Book 
when it says, 'Wine that maketh glad the heart of man.' " 
Then Toffts would bring the old man two or three bottles 
of wine the next time he came. Some folks said that he 
smuggled it; but I've seen the bottles with the shells on 
them when I was a gaffer fifty years ago. 
Things went on very quiet for some time; new people 
begun to come into the harbor and some of them made 
friends with Toffts. It was one New Year's day over 
sixty years ago that the row hajipened. I wasn't born 
then, but my father saw it with his own eyes. The deaf 
