The Buck Grave Stone

Jonathan Buck was a Puritan to whom witchcraft was anathema. When a woman was accused of witchcraft, he sentenced her to be executed. Then according to the Haverhill Gazette, "the hangmen was about to perform his gruesome duty when the woman turned to Col. Buck and raising one hand to heaven, as if to direct her last words on earth, pronounced this astounding prophecy: ‘Jonathan Buck, listen to these words, the last my tongue will utter. It is the spirit of the only true and living God which bids me speak them to you. You will soon die. Over your grave they will erect a stone that all may know where your bones are crumbling into dust. But listen, upon that stone the imprint of my feet will appear, and for all time, long after you and you accursed race have perished from the earth, will the people from far and wide know that you murdered a woman. Remember well, Jonathan Buck, remember well."

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In 1762 a group of 352 citizens of Massachusetts and New Hampshire petitioned the English General Court of Massachusetts for a land grant of 12 townships between the Penobscot and St. Croix Rivers. Deacon David Marsh of Haverhil, Mass. Was issued the grant in the name of all the petitioners. Marsh chartered the sloop Sally to survey and explore the new lands and the petitioners each posted a bond of fifty pounds and signed an agreement that cache township, within 6 years, must: (1) Be settled with 60 Protestant families. (2) Build 60 houses at least 18 feet square. (3) Be only 6 miles on the river of seacoast. (4) Have 300 acres of land fit for tillage. (5) Have a church with a minister settled. (6) Reserve 1 lot for parsonage purposes; 1 for the minister; 1 lot for Harvard College and for the use of schools.

Jonathan Buck of Haverhill was third on the list of signers and captain and owner of the sloop Sally.

Writers who have researched the legend of the Buck gravestone seem to conclude that it is a fiction concocted after the appearance of the image on the monument. No records have been discovered suggesting that any version of the legend predates the appearance of the leg. However, the Buck family has replaced the stone twice and the image returns each time.