Co-Incident / Canada
4th August, 1909. Martha Pankhearst stands at her kitchen sink. Her arms are frozen in position in the soapy water. She is transfixed by the view outside the kitchen window. And as she watches, she slowly begins to tremble…
Minutes before, the late-evening sky had been pierced with a light. Martha was looking out over the bay as it happened. At first it seemed as though the Sun was suddenly beaming through the clouds. But the sun had set ¾ of an hour earlier. And she was looking eastwards.
The brightness grew until it was clearly not the Sun, Moon or anything else that she could imagine. It was a blinding beam of fire that reached down from the heavens. Not like a lightning flash. The column of light gradually descended. It was heading towards where she knew the town of Weymouth lay. On the darkest of nights you could sometimes see the faintest of lights from the town, though it was at the bare limit of the horizon from where their house stood on Mink Cove.
But that’s where the light hit the ground, she was sure. After it made land, the light dimmed somewhat. Martha goggled at the scintillating colours that then appeared. Pulses of colour: blues and greens and purples, radiated from the ground backup into the night sky. The ink-water of the bay reflected and scattered the display in a kaleidoscope that fanned out in front of her.
She was terrified. And in awe.
As she began to tremble, Martha called out to her husband. It was then that she felt the first of the tremors run through the floor.
“Stuart!” she shrieked. The house vibrated slowly on its foundations.
Stuart Pankhearst was stacking wood against the back of the house. He felt the ground start to shake as his wife screamed out his name. He bounded towards the kitchen, careening into the hallway wall as the very Earth tried to upend him. A plate hanging there crashed to the floor, but he was already holding his wife tightly from behind. Both of them stared out over the bay as the house shook.
The cloud of colours was dissipating as it expanded, leaving the column of light. “What is it?” Stuart gasped, as if his wife would know. She answered, however. “It’s the finger of God!”
MARTHA’S JOURNAL
Later that week, Martha writes of that day in her journal.
Wednesday was a day like no other. I had been dreading that visit from Stuart’s mother for months, and she was due to leave that afternoon. It had been as pleasant as it could have been, although she never misses an opportunity to comment on my housekeeping. Thank goodness Stuart had the where-with-all to buy land far enough away from Digby that it takes her a good half-a-day to get here.
I am not sure we would have lasted otherwise!
I know she means well, but she has never been able to let Stuart go and become a man. In her eyes, I think she half expects him to come back home to her.
Her visit left me annoyed, and I went about the house cleaning places I had scoured only days earlier. But it all paled into insignificance! Such a sight I saw.
It must have been the finger of God itself!
I saw it push through the clouds, splitting the sky into sunbeams. It seemed to descend onto the town of Weymouth, over the bay. It’s too far to see the town itself, but it certainly seemed to be the object of our Lord’s ire! The light was so beautiful I was filled with such awe. But then the very Earth began to shake.
I think I must have screamed in the midst of it all. I felt Stuart run up behind me and he held me tight as the world seemed to be tearing itself apart. We watched the bay vanish in a gigantic cloud of colour. I don’t think either of us made a sound, although I was certainly terrified.
What seemed like hours was only minutes according to the mantel clock. The light just faded away, leaving the finger itself lighting up the eastern sky. Then that too just faded away. We thought that Weymouth must be nothing but a charnel pit at that point. We only just found out today that it is perfectly unscathed!
What on Earth did we see?
Our cottage made it through largely unscathed. My mother’s jubilee plate is smashed to smithereens. Stuart feels badly about that, as he says he crashed into it while running to the kitchen.
I can hardly blame him for that.
Every night since I have prayed extra hard, thanking God that we were spared his wrath. And asking that we be spared again from any future retribution that he might mete upon the Earth.
Although the reason for it all is a complete mystery to me.
This ‘Finger of God’ phenomenon was witnessed by only a few people. In New Tuskett, south of Weymouth, a pig breeder saw the same light in the sky, and it still looked to be behind Weymouth. A girl in Barton, to the north, saw the very same thing.
All eye witness accounts placed the centre of the strange light at Weymouth. Most oddly, no one in that town saw anything strange in the sky at all. They did, however, have to deal with a fire that started near the centre of town at close to midnight. This burnt down quite a few buildings, including two churches.
The Evening Mail, out of Halifax, reported it like this:
Weymouth Struck by Heavy Conflagration!
Weymouth, August 4 – One of the worst fires in recent years in Weymouth took place this afternoon, when the Methodist church and the building adjoining, occupied as a shop by J.C. Muise, tailor, and as residences by James Fitzmaurice and Mrs. George Miller were totally destroyed.
The fire started in a small barn at the back of the church, owned by J.C. Muise, through a small boy playing with matches. The church was valued at $2000, insurance $1000. Muise’s loss is over $2000, partially insured. The residence of Augustus Brooks, collector of customs, was badly damaged by the water, but is fully insured. The boarding house, and the Catholic Church, were on fire several times.
C. Jameson, M.P., who was here attending a meeting of the executive committee of the county conservative association, worked like a trojan. In the course of the fire his right hand was severely burned. His work was effective and his cheery words and advice did much to encourage local workers.
Months later, a man came to the town of Weymouth asking questions about the fire. He found the locals to be very helpful in this regard, as the event seemed to be the result of the foolish acts of an innocent child.
But who was this child?
Where was this child?
Everyone seemed to know the story, but no one was as sure as to the identity of the unintentional arsonist as described by the newspaper.
The investigator then sought out Mr Muise, a tailor, and the owner of the small barn at the back of the church where the fire had started. Muise did not hold back with his feelings on the subject. He had lost a lot of money, and had his own ideas on who was to blame.
The conversation was transcribed into the investigators journal:
FROM THE JOURNAL OF CLARENCE LLOYD
November 9th, 1909
I am in the village of Weymouth, Nova Scotia. The incident occurred, yet again, on August 4th, just before sunset. It seems from outside this town, a great light could be seen streaming down from the sky.
Noone inside the town saw anything at all.
There was a fire though, later that evening. Quite the event it seems, destroying a few buildings including a church. The newspaper reports this fire was started by a child playing with matches.
I have tried to locate said child, but no avail.
I tracked down the owner of the bard where the fire started, a Mr Muise. What follows is a transcript of my recalled conversation with him about the fire.
A fellow named Jenkins rented the place from me in January, if I recall correctly. He was a strange sort, some kind of engineer I reckoned. He was building something in there, that was for sure. And, it turns out, digging.
After it was all over, the whole place was destroyed. Except now there was this copper tube embedded into the ground.
It’s about 3 inches across, and some of us tried to pull it up.
It wouldn’t budge, so we tried to dig it out. We made it about 10 foot down before we gave up. It was then we noticed the marks engraved into the surface of the tube. They started about 2 foot beneath the floor of the barn, and continued down further that we had reached.
It was definitely writing. Symbols of some kind that seemed to be grouped into words. But nothing I have ever come across before.
It’s still there, if you want to take a look…
