Coffin Curse

The Coffin Curse, also known as the Obeah Curse, is a legendary hex believed by some to be the cause of a long series of deaths, accidents and other calamities involving members of the affluent Coffin family of Madbury, New Hampshire. It has allegedly haunted the descendants of colonial settler Peter Coffin for eleven generations, affecting not only his direct heirs, but also those who marry into the family or are otherwise closely associated with it.

The curse originated in 1673, when Steebeth Maalah, an Obeah witch doctor from Barbados, placed a hex upon Captain Coffin, as a punishment for selling her into slavery and stealing away her daughter, Menimba. Tragedy and loss are said to have followed ever since. Suicides and untimely deaths are the most common manifestations of the curse, although skeptics have argued that such lamentable events are to be expected in a large family over the course of hundreds of years.

Origin

As it is recorded in his journals, Captain Peter Coffin (1630-1715) sailed to Barbados in 1672 aboard the Dionis, a 150-ton, 110-foot schooner with a hold full of lumber, salted meats, Indian corn and other commodities, which he intended to trade for molasses from the island’s sugar plantations. While there, he was persuaded to bring a small cargo of Africans from Bridgetown to the slave market at the English port of Charles Town in Carolina on his return voyage in 1673. Among them were two Coromantee women of West African descent - Steebeth Maalah (c. 1635 - c.1690), said to be a witch doctor in the Obeah tradition, and her teenaged daughter, Menimba (c.1657 – 1682).

According to the legend, Captain Coffin had fallen in love with Menimba, and tradition holds she fell in love with him as well. When they arrived in Charles Town, Captain Coffin kept Menimba aboard the Dionis while the rest of the Africans were put ashore to be sold at auction. As the story goes, when Steebeth saw that Menimba remained on the ship with Captain Coffin, she placed an Obeah hex upon him and all of his descendants.

Captain Coffin returned to Coffin’s Landing in Dover and made Menimba a servant in his home on Garrison Hill, all the while maintaining an illicit relationship with her, which would eventually result in two daughters - Amani, born in 1675, and Ekeni, born in 1678.

Menimba became jealous of Coffin’s wife, Abigail, and began a doomed plot to take her place. She slowly poisoned several of the Coffin children, resulting in the death of two of the younger ones, and causing infirmity in several others, including Peter Coffin, Jr. (1660-1699), who throughout his life would be known as “Sick Peter.”

Menimba was careful to advance her plot slowly and incrementally, and to avoid detection. All the while, she manipulated evidence and circumstances to make it appear that it was the children's mother, Abigail, who was causing the mysterious illnesses within the family, as well as among others who came in regular contact with her.

By 1680, rumors began to spread about Abigail, eventually resulting in a formal charge of practicing witchcraft and communing with the devil. In 1681, she was convicted by a panel of magistrates in Portsmouth, and sentenced to hang. However, before the sentence could be carried out, a mob from Dover broke into the jail, and brought her back to Garrison Hill, where she was hanged extra-judicially within sight of the Coffin homestead. Some believe Peter Coffin may have watched the whole affair from his window. The tree from which she was hanged, known as the “Gallows Tree,” still stands on the property today.

About a year after Abigail’s execution, in 1682, Captain Coffin announced he would marry Sylvia Matthewson, a wealthy young widow from Hampton. Distraught at the realization that she would never become Peter’s wife, Menimba hurled herself, with her two children in her arms, from the top of the cliff now known as Wretched Ledge, into the ravine at Silver Falls. Learning of Peter Coffin's shameful relationship with his housemaid, his bride-to-be was so humiliated that she, too, leapt to her death from the top of Wretched Ledge. Grief stricken, Captain Coffin lived the rest of his life alone, with a broken heart.

Evidence

The following events have been seen as evidence of the Coffin Curse:

• 1681 – The mysterious deaths of Peter Coffin’s infant sons, Eliphalet (age 4) and Nathaniel (age 3).
• 1681 – The conviction and hanging of Peter Coffin’s wife, Abigail (Starbuck) Coffin, for witchcraft.
• 1682 – The murder/suicide of Peter Coffin’s mistress, Menimba Maalah, and her two daughters, Amani (age 7) and Ekeni (age 4), who died when Menimba leapt from Wretched Ledge carrying the girls in her arms.
• 1682 – The suicide of Sylvia Matthewson, engaged to be Peter Coffin’s second wife.
• 1743 – The disappearance of Barnabas Coffin without a trace.
• 1763 – The suicide of Phebe (Tupper) Coffin, wife of Barnabas Coffin, who leapt from Wretched Ledge.
• 1820 – The accidental death of Nathaniel W. Coffin (age 5), son of Samuel and Caroline (Orcutt) Coffin, who fell from Wretched Ledge.
• 1872 – The untimely death of Charles O. Coffin Sr., who was lost at sea aboard the Marie Céleste.
• 1884 – The untimely death of Ruth Elvira (Hellesby) Coffin, widow of Charles Orcutt Coffin, who was run over by a draft wagon while crossing Central Avenue in Dover.
• 1891 – The suicide of Mary Victoria (Gore) Coffin, wife of Charles Orcutt Coffin, Jr., who leapt from Wretched Ledge.
• 1896 – The suicide of Sarah Jane (Sargent) Graves, mother of Josephine (Graves) Coffin.
• 1918 – The death of Barnaby Coffin’s two young sisters, Dorothy Margaret Coffin (age 11) and Vanessa Jane Coffin (age 6) ten days apart from Spanish Flu.
• 1930 – The murder of Edwin C. Coffin in Newport, R.I.
• 1932 – The suicide of Ferguson Tate, the family butler.
• 1948 – The disappearance of Martha Doyle (age 15), in which Dudley Coffin was implicated.
• 1952 – The untimely death of Brenda Jernigan (age 18), who was found on the Coffinhurst Estate at the foot of Wretched Ledge.
• 1953 – The accidental death of Barnaby Coffin, by self-inflicted gunshot wound while hunting alone on the Coffinhurst Estate.