The First Witch of Savoy, and the Tragedy of Tower Cemetery

“How short the race our children ran

Cut down in all their bloom

The course but yesterday began

Now finished in the tomb.”

-Inscription at Tower Cemetery

“Transactions with the 'shining ones,' since they are not always benign, require a certain skill or things might take an odd turn.” - Roger Davis

In the hills of Savoy, on a discontinued stretch of Bannis Road a mile south of Adams Road, at the edge of a rocky wind that's now more hiking trail than avenue, lies a little stone walled graveyard.

One of more than twenty small burial grounds speckled throughout the town, at first glance Tower Cemetery appears remarkable only as yet another reminder of the earlier people whose homes once dotted these lanes in the more densely populated days of the 19^th century, when Savoy was a booming stagecoach stop boasting as many as three inns on its main drag.

A closer look at the ten stones that make up this one family plot suggests its more sorrowful history, the tale of one family that fared far worse than the average of their era. On a hushed winter day, the contemplative visitor may intuit much of the story of Orrin Tower and Florinda Granger and their vanquished line, a narrative whispered in etched stones and broken metal, an echo of long ago sadness that has given rise to a rich lore of prophetic visions and dark deeds.

For They Say that Florinda Granger was more than merely an unfortunate mother whose brood was cut down by illnesses and accidents; in the hands of Legend, she is the first witch of Savoy, whose forecasts of future events came at a terrible price.

Our most forthcoming source on this lore is none other than Roger Davis, himself the self-proclaimed “Witch of Savoy” these last decades, holding court at his Dragon House until his death two winters ago. Those unfamiliar with this intriguing local may consult my tribute to his life here, along with an investigation into the murky events surrounding his death and the hushed over arson at the Dragon House last year.

“From an early age she predicted future happenings,” Davis said of Granger in one of his rare surviving writings, “Her presence was all that was necessary to heal the sick. When she met Orrin, somehow, she caused him to believe that she was the most desirable woman he ever met.”

Granger married Tower in 1844, and they settled on land given by her father, Levi Granger, and Orrin ran a grain mill on the property.

It was said that she was born weak and consumptive, to a family thought to have long been secretly "of the craft."

According to the story, some of Florinda's visions and healings over the years were closely followed by tragedies within her own family.

From the headstones on Bannis Road, we know that the summer of 1851 was one of great strife, during which the Tower family lost first 3 year old daughter on July 28, and four year old twins Almina and Minerva on August 10, deaths that vital records of the time attribute to dysentery.

Three years later, on June 6, 1954, their two sons, 9 year old Elansford and 11 year old Wareham both drowned in their father's mill pond.

“It is supposed that he and his brother went in to bathe...” reads an inscription in the little cemetery.

Other oddities seem to have befallen the Tower family during their years on this Savoy hillside.  According to an item in a local paper from 1859, their home was struck by a bolt of lightning during a summer storm.  It reportedly rattled down the stove pipe and right into bed with another of the Tower's small children, setting the bed on fire, though no one was hurt.

Sinister rumors came to surround the misfortunes of the Tower children. Legend is rife with varied innuendo, some suggesting they were victims of some malevolent side effect of Florinda's powers, others implying a more direct villainy on the part of the father.

This was the version favored by Davis, whose account claims that in 1863, Florinda intercepted an attempt by Orrin and an anonymous drinking buddy to 'spirit away' then 13 year old daughter Lucy, after which things became eerily quiet in the Tower home. The latter day Witch of Savoy recalls:

“The waning moon that year coincided with Samhain, the end of the pagan year, Halloween. Both aspects aligning made it the optimum timing for endings of all things. All that day, Florinda was humming something under her breath, off and on. And that night she dropped a folded paper into the fire. As the flames consumed the paper, sending it up the chimney and its dancing sparks to the night above, a message was delivered.”

The next morning, the tale continues, the bodies of Orrin and his nameless cohort were found floating in the pond, fatalities written up to a drunken accident, though some suspected other forces at play.

According to local records, however, Orrin Tower passed on March 11, 1867. Tower appears to have served in the Civil War following a stint as one of the town's selectman. After his return, seven year old daughter Harriet succumbed to consumption in 1866, which is said to have struck both her parents the following year.  Florinda was declared dead two weeks after her husband, on March 24. She and Orrin were both 47 at the time of their death.

Two remaining scions of the Tower family survived a few years longer. Eldest daughter Lucy married Alfred Burnett, then fell to dysentery in 1871 at the age of 21; a final daughter Eunice died in 1875 at age 19, giving birth to a child who also died in the delivery.

Burnett, Lucy's husband, inherited the Tower house, which burned to the ground in 1915, leaving only the scant remains of a cellar hole just opposite the tiny cemetery.

A metal monument now stands in the center of the tiny burial plot, added sometime later than the graves, some of which have broken and otherwise become difficult to read. Where the names and vital dates of family members have been preserved on the hollow headstone-like structure, the plate containing the name of Orrin Tower has been conspicuously smashed out. It has been in this condition for at least twenty years.

In the etchings of stones slowly receding into nature is scattered sundry verses of poetic lament, such as this:

“Sweet children adieu a long adieu

Till we shall meet above

Then may we join the song with you

And sing redeeming love.”

A curious place, this quiet and secluded lot nestled in the trees, just down the road from the pond where the two boys met their doom, and less than a half mile from the hill where the town's more well known, modern witch set his humble and mysterious woodland cabin. Sheltered in forest shadows on this lower ridge of Borden Mountain, this cluster of artifacts mutters an underlying story of private suffering and unanswered questions... the sum tale of a family come and entirely gone from the world in less than 25 years.

Sources

Davis, Roger.  "Legends and Tales of the Berkshire Hills." Hoosac Trails V. 6, #4 [Dec.1993]
Miller, H. Elmer.  History of the Town of Savoy [1879]
Phinney, Jane B. Taking the High Road: Two Hundred Year History of a Hilltown [1997]
Sample, Stephen.  Berkshire Burial Grounds Within the State Forests. [1995]
Town of Savoy, Vital Records.  1840-1870
Berkshire County Eagle, July 15, 1859