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Ocean-Born Mary Fulton--A Family Folktale
© Virginia Marin
Aug 21, 1998
The Babb family from which my immigrant
ancestor comes, lived in the southern part of
England. As the tale goes, he was the son of
one Phillip Babb, who plied the oceans,
accumulating great wealth--for you see,
Phillip was a pirate! And this is the tale
of Phillip, alias "Pedro the Pirate" and
Ocean-Born Mary Fulton.
This tale did not originate with me, nor was
it penned by anyone in particular. It
apparently began around 1652, with the
humanitarian deeds of Phillip to the
fishermen and their families in Bristol,
England, and has since been handed down by
word of mouth for generations and continuing
in this country with the Babb family in
Maine. My father, the last male in an
unbroken line from Phillip, until I the first
female was born, told me this tale often. It
was a favorite of his. He told it with much
animation, and was always able to end it with
a big BOO, which I must admit, I have never
been able to do--I think, because I have been
unable to remember his unique ending. The christening of Mary at sea by the pirate
is authentic, as recorded by Col. Coggswell
in his History of Henniker. Several
members of the Wallace family--direct
descendants of Ocean-Born Mary herself and
Kirk Pierce, the nephew of President Franklin
Pierce--contributed information from their
family histories. The tale begins on a ship at sea. It was in
the 1720 that a group of emigrants sailed on
the Wolf from Londonderry, Ireland,
for America to make new homes in Londonderry,
New Hampshire. While becalmed off the
Massachusetts coast, they saw a long, low,
sinister-looking craft approaching. The
stranger displayed no colors, and suddenly
its crew fired a gun across the bow of the
unarmed emigrant vessel. "Pirates!" The warning cry passed from mouth
to mouth as a boat put out for the
Wolf from the rakish frigate. A
blanket of fear settled over the doomed ship.
Men stood hellishly silent; women prayed and
sobbed hysterically. In moments sun-bronzed men, cutlasses and
pistols gleaming, clambered over the rail.
The pirate leader, a fierce, dark man with
bits of burning tallow stuck in his ears and
whiskers, grimly told his captives to prepare
for their death. But as he spoke, the faint
cry of a baby came up from below deck. He
turned and tramped down the companionway to a
cabin in which young Elizabeth Fulton had
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The copyright of the article Ocean-Born Mary Fulton--A Family Folktale in Folklore is owned by Virginia Marin. Permission to republish Ocean-Born Mary Fulton--A Family Folktale in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
In response to message posted by Red:
Thank you, Mary. It is said that one of my cousins, I think, 3 or 4 times removed is actually in ...
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Virginia,This is a fantastic story. I am glad I found this through Tina's article on Henniker. I found it very interesting that the pirate was able to find his mother's namesake after all thes ...
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thank you so much for your addition. And like other ghost phenomena this one, is vowed to be no story! Thanks for stopping by, and come often. Do you have any other Babb or related stories? ...
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VIRGINIA,
I REMEMBER,AS A CHILD,VISITING THAT VERY SAME HOUSE THAT YOU MENTION IN YOUR ARTICLE. AT THAT TIME IT WAS BEING LOOKED OVER BY A CARETAKER. HE TOLD US ABOUT THE SPIRITS THAT ROAMED THE PROP ...
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Virginia Marin - May be, Dan. So much has changed and things today accepted that in the past were anathema. Take for example...! ...
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