There’s a lot of fun in the telling and re-telling old New Bern tales. This one was first harvested from musty Craven County court records by the New Bern Mirror, then gleaned from that newspaper’s archives by stalwart chroniclers Elizabeth Moore and Frances B. Claypool, only to later be republished – courtesy of Mrs. Jocelyn Paul Ipock – in a 1982 Quarterly Review of the Eastern North Carolina Genealogical Society. Who knows where else it’s been?
Our narrative begins May 25, 1778 in the courtroom of Justice Alexander Gaston where were gathered the accused, one John Brunny, and a bevy of witnesses anxious to testify about his alleged nocturnal invasion of the residence of Martha Hays. Mrs. Hays swore “on the Holy Evangelists of Almighty God” that she’d been rudely roused in “the dead time of night” by the barking of her dog and an awful commotion of falling bricks in her chimney. Scrambling out of the house in her delicates, the woman soon enlisted a small posse of neighbor men. They came armed and ready for mayhem, entered her home with a light but only discovered a sleepy drunkard sitting in a chair amidst the chaos of the front room. In addition to the blear-eyed trespasser, there was ash, broken masonry and a sturdy metal fish gig leaning on the hearth.
Mrs. Hays recognized Brunny as one of several sailors who’d visited her premises earlier in the evening of the 24th to drink rum. The neighbor men – William Hales, Elias Justice and a Mr. Lucas – agreed that Brunny was “much in liquor” and confirmed the story that Brunny himself admitted to Judge Gaston. Under oath Brunny stated that “he with some other sea-faring people came to the house of Mrs. Hays and drank some rum and water.” Further, he said he’d “bargained with a girl at the said house to come and visit with her that night.” However, when Brunny returned late that evening he found the place dark and the doors locked. Not to be deterred in his quest for the girl’s companionship – and being in liquor, of course – he hatched the booze-logical plan of lowering himself down the chimney using a fishing gaff.
Neither the gaff hook nor the masonry – nor Brunny, for that matter – were up to the task and he rapidly descended in an ignoble cloud of debris. The lusty, dusty sailor told his captors that night, and repeated in court, that he’d only come to see the girl and “had no intention to rob or injure any person.” Nevertheless, Justice Gaston charged him with breaking and entering and bound him over for trial in Superior Court on November 15, 1778. Released from jail on a $400 bond, the seaman promptly departed the county, not to be heard from again.
by Edward Ellis, Special Correspondent
Craven County native Eddie Ellis is a journalist, writer and historian. He’s the author of New Bern History 101 and other works about the area’s rich heritage.
More at edwardellis.com