The ghost of Robert the Scot, alleged manservant of Matthew Fuller of Plymouth Colony, is said to roam the marshes of Sandwich on Cape Cod near Scorton Hill. Having been falsely accused of stealing the jewels, he died of grief and starvation. He is still searching for the jewels to clear his name. In his grief, his moans and his droning bagpipes have been heard during the night. The spectre of Robert the Scot’s ghost was invoked to scare naughty children. Or so the tale has been told, probably since 1678.
In Week 43 of 52 Ancestors https://grmgenes.blogspot.com/2020/10/52-ancestors-week-43-matthew-fuller.html), Matthew Fuller (my 9th g.grandfather) of Plymouth Colony and Barnstable was described as an eccentric, but respected and honored member of Plymouth Colony.
Matthew Fuller died in Barnstable between 20 July 1678, when his will was made, and 26 October 1678 when his inventory was approved (his estate proved on 30 Oct 1678.) [1]. Matthew died a wealthy man and he provided for his wife, Frances, and his children, as well as Robert Marshall, “the Scotsman.” In his will, Matthew states:
“I Give and bequeath unto Robert Marshall the Scotsman a peece of Cloth Intended to make mee a suite; off;”
Among his inventory was this item:
“Item pearle presciousstones and Diamonds att a Gesse £200”
Amos Otis in his Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families, published in 1888, mentions the tale of Matthew Fuller’s precious stones in a note [2]:
“In connection with this box of jewels a marvelous tale is told. Soon after Capt. Fuller’s death it was missing. Robert, the Scotch servant, was charged with having stolen it. There was no proof against him – he was simply suspected. This charge so affected him that he took no food, and finally died of grief and starvation. He was buried in a grove of wood, on the north-eastern declivity of Scorton Hill. He died in the winter when a deep now laid on the ground. The neighbors carried his body to this place – the deep snow preventing them from proceeding farther, and there he was buried. Cat. Oliver Chase has recently placed two stones, one at the head and the other at the foot of poor Richard’s [sic] grave. For nearly two centuries the plow has not desecrated his grave, and we hope no sacrilegious hands will hereafter remove the simple monuments now erected to his memory. To this day his grave is pointed out, and some timorous people dare not pass it after nightfall. Many fearful stories are told of the appearance of the Scotchman’s ghost; and for years many a wayward child was frightened into obedience by threatening to call the Scotchman’s ghost, to aid the authority of the weak mother.”
Apparently Amos Otis knew of the location of the gravesite of “Robert the Scot,” as he was later called, but since the time his work was published (1888) it has been forgotten, though many have tried to look for it in the area of Scorton Hill in what is now Sandwich, Barnstable County on Cape Cod.
Who was “Robert the Scot?” Matthew Fuller, in his will, mentions a Robert Marshall, “the Scotsman,” though it is not at all clear that this man is the ghost "Robert the Scot" in the ghost tale. There is no known record of a servant to Matthew Fuller or that Robert Marshall was that servant. There was more than one Robert Marshall living in Plymouth Colony at the time according to the Plymouth Colony Records (PCR). However, there is no record in the PCR of Robert Marshall or Robert the Scot being accused of a theft of Matthew Fuller's jewels. Nevertheless, there certainly was an oral tradition and ghost tale, probably since the death of Matthew Fuller for Amos Otis to have taken the time to mention it and for Oliver Chase to place gravestones at the site.
The ghost story of Robert the Scot grew over time. The most descriptive (and fanciful) legend is told in Elizabeth Reynard’s “The Narrow Land.” [3].
Reynard describes Robert the Scot as “a North County madman with naked knees and a chess-checker petticoat” and that Robert was Matthew Fuller’s “chemist and personal servant.” Reynard seems to be describing a short kilt, hence the “naked knees,” but the short kilt was not worn by Scotsmen until the mid-1800’s. If he had a kilt at all, it would have been a great kilt, which would have completely covered him.
Reynard’s story, which was either handed in oral traditions
or embellished from the tale in Otis, was that Robert was entrusted with the
box of gems after Matthew Fuller died and that the jewels were missing when
“lawful heirs required it.” She also
claims that “Governor Hinckley” summoned Robert to Court and accused Robert of
theft. However nothing in the Plymouth
Colony Records mentions any such event. Hinckley was not governor until 1680, two years after the death of Matthew Fuller.
Reynard then describes, as Otis does, but with far more eloquent embellishment, that Robert was so overcome with grief as to the accusation that he could not eat and died of starvation. He died in winter and his “great-boned corpse” could not be carried in the deep snow, so he was buried on the northeastern slope of Scorton Hill where Reynard eloquently says “Unhallowed earth covered him, a hard couch for such as he who had been grimly devout; and ever since then his spirit has refused to await quietly Gabriel’s summons. Before the dead rise from their tombs, before the sleep and the goats are divided.”
The old ghostly folktale is told that when one passes Scorton Hill at night, the bagpipes and a man’s tragic sobs can be heard. That the tale of Robert was known even two hundred years after his death is evident as when Amos Otis mentions that Oliver Chase placed stones on the grave “that their heft might weigh Robert down a little.”
Reynard concludes the tale saying that “Robert will walk in the moon’s pallor or the sea’s green twilight, and pipe and search the whole night through…bent is he on finding the Pearls, precious stones and Diamonds, at a guess £200.”
Happy Halloween!
[1] George Ernest Bowman, “Capt. Matthew Fuller’s Will and Inventory: Transcribed from the Original Records,” Mayflower Descendant 13 (1911) 7-13. Original: Plymouth Colony Wills and Inventories, Vol. III, Part II, pp. 127-129; available at FamilySearch.org (https://www.familysearch.org/search/collection/2018320).
[2] C.F. Swift, revised. Genealogical Notes of Barnstable Families, Being a Reprint of the Amos Otis Papers, Originally Published in The Barnstable Patriot. Volume 1, (Barnstable, Mass.: F.B.&F.P. Goss], 1888.
[3] Elizabeth Reynard, The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod, 3rd ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1978) 294-297.
What an interesting ghost story! Thanks for sharing.
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