There are many tales and ghost stories of Block Island, a small island just off the coast of Southern Rhode Island. The Palatine Light, Dutch Kattern, and the Pirate Lee are just a few of the famous narratives islanders still tell. One lesser tale told is that of the dancing mortar. A mortar, along with a pestle, is a device used to grind grains or herbs, depending on the size. The possessed implement in question was said to have been fashioned from the lignum-vitae wood of the famous ghost ship Palatine. The vessel was actually called the Princess Augusta, but became known by the former moniker, being made famous in John Greenleaf Whittier’s famous poem of the ghost ship. Old timers on the island once related the story with utmost certainty, swearing that the mortar was a cursed byproduct of the devil.

The mortar stood 14 inches high and 10 inches in diameter and was quite heavy compared to its size. It was first owned by a man named Simon Ray, who had the distinction of sheltering and nursing many of the survivors of the Princess Augusta shipwreck. Those who passed while in the family’s care were buried in a grave not far from the home. When he and his family passed on, the property, including the mortar, came into the possession of a man named Dodge. Dodge was convinced that the spirits of the former tenants, including those of the famous shipwreck who passed within its walls, were still in the house.

The mortar, which came with the homestead, was claimed to be possessed with some unknown spectral powers. Wild accounts soon flooded the local stores and shops, of how the mortar would suddenly start flitting about or spinning on its base without any human intervention. When the tool became bored with such meager antics, it began to flip itself on its side and roll around the room. It would then right itself and start hopping up and down, sometimes touching the ceiling rafters before hopping across the room again.

Attempts to exorcise the demon in the mortar were to no avail. It was used as a chopping block, but would not sit still long enough to fulfill such a task. Finally, it was laid on the base of a large stone and anchored with heavy boulders, whereas Ethel Colt Ritchie put it in her book Block Island Legends and Lore, “it lay restrained from its ghostly ballet by the sober cold stone surrounding it.”

This is not the end of the dancing mortar tale, for it was later removed from the stone crypt by the Dickens family, and once again began its recreation to the point where they decided to finally rid the island of it. The mortar was donated to Brown University, where it was displayed with other artifacts of early Americana in the university’s Rhode Island Hall. The mortar stayed on display throughout the 1950s but vanished around 1960 when the hall was cleaned out to make room for a new department.

The whereabouts of the dancing mortar has been a mystery since. No one from the Block Island Historical Society or Brown University has any recollection of where the mortar may have gone. Perhaps it sits in someone’s private home, waiting for the right time to once again come to life and begin hopping and jumping around. Or, just maybe, the demons that once possessed the object left the dancing mortar when it was removed from the island.  If so, where did they go and what may they be currently possessing on the magical atoll we call Block Island?