A CHILD TRAGEDY

MARY ESTHER MULFORD MILLER

The author of this childhood reminiscence was born in 1849.

One night Uncle John came to my room and wakened me out of a sound sleep.

"Mary, get up quick, the whole town is on fire."

It was not our house, he said, but fires were breaking out all over the village. Fanny Hedges was spending the night with me. We could see the fires from my window. We dressed quickly and ran outdoors to the pump, where we helped fill pails for the men who were fighting the fires.

Here it was a barn burning in one place and a barn and dwelling place in another; there it was a haystack, in another place a wood house. All fires had broken out simultaneously. Sam Miller heard the alarm and rushed to the door of his house to be met by fire.

The woman who had set all the fires was quickly found. She was an Irish servant who had worked for a family in East Hampton a long time. The farmer for whom she worked had told her that one of his fine calves belonged to her. Then he sold the calf she had fed and petted. He did not even tell her about it or give her any of the money. Very angry, she gave up her place and went home to Ireland. She was half crazed and came back vowing to burn out everybody in East Hampton.

After they had put out the fires, a posse of men hunted her and found her at Sand Hills outside the town. John Young, the constable, took charge of her and placed her in a second floor room that contained one window with four panes.

Some way or other, she escaped during the night. The village next morning was in a panic. Everyone was expecting fires to break out at any minute.

My father was pitching hay in our barn. Suddenly his fork struck something besides hay. It was the girl, hiding. Father called the men who were milking and they brought her down from the haymow and guided her out through the pightle with her wild hair streaming about her face, stamping her foot and screaming.

"I'll burn down all of wicked East Hampton!"

I did not sleep well for a week. Mother let me come in and sleep in her bed.

The poor girl died in prison.

Told by Mary Esther Mulford Miller to Abigail Fithian Halsey in 1938 and published that year in "An East Hampton Childhood."