Rumpundit

Story of little girl buried in rum told over and over

By Kim Grizzard
The Daily Reflector

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

In Beaufort’s Old Burying Ground lie Union soldiers and Confederates, slaves and free men. In the cemetery is a British soldier buried upright and facing England and a grave marker dated 1756. But perhaps the most visited grave is not the oldest, nor one of the most heroic. It is that of an unnamed girl entombed in an unorthodox manner.

The headstone tells all that is certain of her story: “LITTLE GIRL BURIED IN RUM KEG 1800.”

“Of course, it attracts attention,” said Janet Grainge, event director for Beaufort’s 300th anniversary. “The legend is pretty well renowned. This story is told many times per day as tour guides take folks through the Old Burying Ground.”

For more than 30 years, visitors to the site have brought trinkets and childish treasures to place on headstone No. 24, a marker that references the grave in a self-guided tour pamphlet. Some bring seashells and flowers, others leave toys and teddy bears.

“Mainly it’s the children,” said Patricia Suggs, executive director of the Beaufort Historic Site. “Because it is a little girl, they leave things on her grave … like little Barbie dolls, little ponies, Troll dolls, anything for a little girl. … Just the story about it being a little girl, that’s what appeals to everybody.”

The story, as it is told, is that of a little girl growing up in Beaufort who longed to visit her English homeland. Her mother agreed to let her take the journey with her father, so long as he promised to bring her back. But the little girl died on the return voyage.

“Normally they would do a burial at sea,” Suggs said. “But since the father promised the mother that he would bring her back, he purchased a keg of rum from the captain on the ship and had her basically embalmed in the keg of rum. … It’s just one of those stories that’s been handed down over the years.”

It has been told to school groups and senior citizens, area natives and tourists who have visited the Old Burying Ground, which is designated as a National Historic Site.

East Carolina University graduate Lynn Allred heard the girl’s story when she moved to Beaufort more than a decade ago. Allred, a former employee of The Daily Reflector, began researching Beaufort’s background in her spare time while working with the Newspapers In Education program at the Carteret County News-Times.

As she pieced together history and hearsay, Allred began to imagine what life had been like for the unknown girl who was a curiosity in the cemetery. She created a story that would help children focus on the life, not the death, of a child growing up in this harbor town in the late 1700s.

The result is “Molly’s Beaufort-town,” a serialized story released to coincide with the 300th anniversary of the founding of Beaufort. The 10-chapter serial, which begins Sept. 29 in The Daily Reflector, gives the girl in the grave a life-story, complete with family and friends, activity and adventure.

“I’ve always wanted to write,” said Allred, who recently moved to her native Oxford. “I kept seeing all these serial stories coming out, and I said, ‘I can do that.’

“I’ve been wanting to write one for quite some time,” she said. “I was interested in the little girl, in the history of Beaufort. … When I sat down to do it, it all just kind of came together.”

Though Allred said the writing took only two weeks, she has spent considerable time studying local history to make the story educational as well as entertaining. Allred researched the period and added details, including the kinds of toys and games children might have played with and the kinds of chores that were part of their daily lives.

Though the title character’s name is fictional, Allred took some of the surnames in the story straight from the town’s historical records. Both Suggs and Grainge consulted with Allred on the fictional story to ensure historical accuracy.

Suggs hopes the story will create interest in the state’s third oldest town.

“We hope that it will pique the interest of the teachers and they’ll bring their school classrooms down (to the Old Burying Ground),” she said.

“It is a national treasure.”

Tourist season brings thousands of visitors to the site each year to share the story that Grainge calls a “mixture of mystery and tragedy.”

“(For) a father to want so badly to preserve his daughter that he comes up with this rather eccentric way to preserve (her) until he can properly bury her in his hometown,” she said, “others feel that sense of family and want to recognize it.

Allred hopes the story will focus attention on the lives of children in Beaufort’s history, instead of one girl’s death.

“It is a happy story,” she said. “The way I want kids to look at this story is not that the little girl died but the fact that she had something she really wanted to do. She wanted to go to England and she got to do that. Not very many kids get to have a dream fulfilled at such a young age. … That’s what I would rather the kids concentrate on than that the little girl died.”

“Molly’s Beaufort-town” is sponsored by Pitt Community College and the newspaper’s NIE program. Lesson plans will be available for teachers. Contact Eban Kea at ekea@coxnc.com or call 329-9630.

Events

Beaufort continues its 300th anniversary celebration:

FRIDAY

4:30-11 p.m.: Free outdoor concerts on Front Street with Big Drink and The Embers

6 p.m.: Community blessing

Beaufort Outdoor Picnic By-the-Sea and 300th birthday cake

SATURDAY

Noon: “The Carteret Chords” performing patriotic songs

1-6 p.m.: Concerts presented by Beaufort churches & choirs

6 p.m.: Closing ceremonies: Be a part of history as Beaufort receives high honors.

6 p.m.: Shrimp Boat Parade from Taylors Creek to Gallant’s Channel.

6:30-10 p.m.: Free concerts on Historic Beaufort Waterfront, Front Street

8:30-9 p.m.: Fireworks display, Gallants Channel