That Feeling When…Your Dead Husband Hides the Toilet in the Woodpile...a blog by Bethany Groff Dorau

My marriage is basically one long sea shanty – some drinking, lots of laughs, a few dirty jokes. Comfortable, stable, call and response. He says, “where are my keys?” I say, “t’wer in that crack.” I say, “how was your day?” He says, “I’m all bloody but my eyes.” Added to any list of ways that things have gone wrong? “Also, I swore.”

Okay, we may have the only marriage whose love language is 17th century court testimony. Over the course of the decade-plus that we co-hosted the Tales and Ales event at the Swett-Ilsley House, he as operations manager for Ipswich Ale, me as historian, we had our favorite court cases, our favorite people.

Reuben Guppi, who shoved a hen down his pants and ran away from home; Rev. Gilbert, who had a bit too much to drink before the service and threw up in the middle of a psalm; Ruth Peters of Wenham, who attacked a man with…cheese. But there is no set of weird, wild, crazy people in the history of this area quite like the Quilter family.

The Quilters were a raging dumpster fire, in the age before dumpsters. Here’s the call and response that they bequeathed to us. If one of us is on a wild tear about something, the other one will offer to “open a window for you to shoot out of” or declare, “you have killed the man!”

Here's why.

It's 1672. John Edwards is bartending in Ipswich. “I was attending at Quartermaster Perkins' house drawing beer for his Guests and being to & fro in several Rooms of the House, I saw ten men in one room. In this Room there was much disturbance & offence given to the master of the House by shooting of pistols in the Room, so much that the Quartermaster & his wife went to bid them to cease firing in ye Room. A window was opened for them to shoot from, but they shot under the table instead.” That’s right. The Thirsty Whale on a summer Saturday has nothing on the scene at the Perkins tavern on training day.

Let’s unpack this a bit more. Every man in every town, unless he was ninety years old or missing both legs, had to be part of the militia company. Imagine this today. Take every guy over the age of sixteen in, say, West Newbury. Every guy – the flag-waving Trump guy, the Buddhist vegan, the guy with the stamp collection and Road Runner whirligigs on his lawn – all of them are given guns and ammo and forced to spend the day together. So after a day of this, they all pile into the tavern, and ten of them start shooting, just for fun, inside the bar. Instead of asking them to leave, the owner opens a window, but they shoot under the table. What could possibly go wrong?

Enter Mark Quilter. “When I told the men there that I did not care for drinking, some answered & said you must kiss the cup then. And I, going to follow the Quartermaster, was stopped by those that sat on each side of me: and going to creep under the table was stopped by some holding my Coat behind; till watching my opportunity got from behind the Table & making Towards the door, it was clapped (shut) too, & some cried, here is the man, here is the man,” etc.

According to the testimony of bystander John Burr. “One and then several pistols were shot. And Mark said you have lamed me: I then did light the light, and cried out you have killed the man, and as all the persons were hustling they presented & snapped their pistols at Mark as they went, he lying by the door & Bleeding: I viewing his wound saw a wad sticking which I took out, it being on fire, & I Cried again, you have killed the man, for he lay speechless & Ready to die away.”

Mark Quilter walks into a bar. Drunk guys tell him to have a drink. He says he doesn’t drink (which they all know is a lie). They shove a cup in his face. He tries to run away. They grab his coat, he crawls away, and they, well, shoot him. But not very effectively. You see, the ball (if there was one), and the wadding material were so sloppily arranged that Mark Quilter was shot with a flaming chunk of cloth. And the guys filed out and snapped their guns at Mark, bleeding on the floor with the aforementioned cloth sticking out of his leg.

You hate this story. It’s violent and terrible. Not funny at all. Well, you don’t know Mark Quilter. If you had, you may have wanted to shoot him in the leg.

Mark Quilter was in and out of court for most of his life for drinking, being beastly to his wife, punching the neighbors, refusing to pay medical bills. In 1664, Quilter was grumbling at his wife about his inadequate breakfast. His neighbor, Goody Shatswell, who was visiting, said something under her breath, and then it was ON. Mark was brought to court for “violently taking her from the chair on which she sat, throwing her down on the floor, her head against a door, her neck being doubled, then taking her up, and continuing violent shaking and thrusting her out of the house.” Quilter’s wife rushed to her husband’s defense, saying that neither of them could stand the Shatswell woman, who kept inviting herself over.

I have followed Mark and his wife, Frances, through the record for years. Today, I found a new tidbit, and it made me smile

“Frances Quilter testified that the pewter (chamber) pot which she was accused of taking was found in her husband’s woodpile…by her maid servant, the day her husband Quilter died, which was about two years ago. She supposed her husband had laid it there to keep it from her, as he did his money.”

The hot chamber pot was sent to Newbury to the home of her sister, Dorothy Woodman, to hide it from the men who came to assess the value of Mark Quilter’s meager estate. After a lifetime of trouble, I am sure a pewter potty is the least she felt he owed her.

Another delicious detail - she knew full well that her husband hid money from her in the woodpile. My husband hides his in…well, I can’t say. We must pretend to have our secrets.

Editor's note: Inconsistencies in spelling of names, etc., are from the historical record and not a typographical error.