Jenny Lind Tower facts for kids
The Jenny Lind Tower is a cool stone tower found in North Truro, Massachusetts. It's named after a famous singer from the 1800s, Jenny Lind. People say she once climbed the tower when it was in Boston to sing and calm down a huge crowd who couldn't get into her concert. This tall tower is about seventy feet high and stands between the Highland Light lighthouse and the old North Truro Air Force Station.
The Tower's Journey: From Boston to Truro
This unique tower, which looks a bit like a castle, was first built around 1845. It was part of the original Fitchburg Railroad train station in Boston. Later, the Boston and Maine Railroad owned it.
In 1850, the famous opera singer Jenny Lind performed in a hall above this very station. So many people wanted to see her that the concert was completely sold out. Many fans couldn't get in, and some even tried to force their way through the gates! Jenny Lind had to stop her show early because of the excited crowd. P. T. Barnum, who was a well-known showman and helped promote Lind's concerts, might have even helped create the stories about her and the tower.
In 1927, the old train station was being taken down. A lawyer named Henry M. Aldrich, who worked with the railroad, decided to save the tower. He had it carefully taken apart, stone by stone. Then, he moved all the pieces to his land in North Truro, Massachusetts, which he had bought from a local person. Putting the tower back together took more than two months and five workers. Mr. Aldrich also built five small houses on his land, but he never said why he decided to move the tower all that way.
Years later, in 1961, the Cape Cod National Seashore became the owner of the tower. It was given to them by Mr. Aldrich's daughter-in-law. There aren't any roads that lead right to the tower, but it's pretty close to a road that goes to a radar building used by the Federal Aviation Administration. This radar facility is on land that used to be part of the old North Truro Air Force Station.
Legends and Local Lore
A popular story about the tower is that on the night of her concert, Jenny Lind climbed to the top and sang to the crowd below. While no one has proven this story wrong, old newspaper reports from that time don't mention her singing outside the station.
Another rumor says that Henry Aldrich, the man who moved the tower, was a big fan of Jenny Lind. This is supposedly why he moved the tower to his property. However, this is unlikely because he wasn't even born until 17 years after Jenny Lind's famous concert!
In a book from 1946 called A Pilgrim Returns to Cape Cod, a historian named Edward Rowe Snow wrote about the myth. He said, "There are those who like to believe that because an Aldrich family member was captivated by Jenny's voice, this caused them to decide to move the tower to their land in Truro, Massachusetts." But he also mentioned that Aldrich's son later told him that his father's reason for moving the tower had nothing to do with Jenny Lind's performance. Even so, these stories help keep the legend of the Jenny Lind Tower alive in local tales.
Local stories passed down for hundreds of years also talk about the ghost of Goody Hallett. She's known by many names, like "the Witch of Wellfleet" or "the Sea Witch of Eastham." Legend says she was the girlfriend of Samuel Bellamy, the captain of the pirate ship Whydah Gally. People say her ghost haunts the woods of Truro and Wellfleet on Cape Cod.
Her ghostly screams, like those of a banshee (a spirit in folklore known for its wailing cries), can be heard at sunset from the cliffs of Wellfleet. The legend says she curses passing ships, hoping they will crash there, just like her lover Sam Bellamy's ship did in 1717. But here's where the Jenny Lind legend comes in: local tales say that when Goody Hallett starts her haunting, the ghost of Jenny Lind climbs the tower again to sing. The beautiful sound of her "nightingale song" is said to scare Goody away and make her leave.
