Leftover Retch Phlegmball

by poputonian

Unbelievable.

Several people commented that they wanted Digby to make a stronger point-by-point refutation of Retch's The Real Story of Thanksgiving. But really, folks, is that the way radio guys work, by discussing details? C'mon. They paint pictures with words.

So, I had heard that one of R's ancestors, someone called T'mush Graungerball, an ol' bugger, had actually been executed in Plymouth Colony. But I never expected to actually find it documented in the original records.

From Plymouth Colony, Its History & People, 1620-1691 (Stratton, 1986), p199 (original quotations from Bradford's History and Plymouth Colony records):

Though fair-minded in determining guilt, the Plymouth leaders themselves acknowledged that their punishments were severe. Bradford wrote concerning the year 1642 that it was surprising to see how wickedness was growing in the colony, "wher the same was so much witnesed against, and so narrowly looked unto, and severly punished." He admitted that they had been censured even by moderate and good men "for their severities in punishments." And he noted, "Yet all this could not suppress the breaking out of sundrie notorious sins…espetially drunkennes and unclainnes; not only incontinencie betweene persons unmaried, for which many both men and women have been punished sharply enough, but some maried persons allso. But that which is worse, even sodomie and bugerie, (things fearfull to name,) have broak forth in this land, oftener then once."

The event which apparently provoked these observations from the governor was mentioned very briefly in court records of 7 September 1642: "Thomas Graunger, late servant to Love Brewster of Duxborrow, was this Court indicted for buggery wth a mare, a cowe, two goats, divers sheepe, two calves, and a turkey, and was found guilty, and received sentence of death by hanging untill he was dead." The executioner was Mr. John Holmes, the Messenger of the court, and in his account he claimed as due him £1 for ten weeks boarding of Granger, and £2/10 for executing Granger and eight beasts. Bradford described Granger as about sixteen or seventeen years of age. Someone saw him in the act with the mare, and he was examined and confessed. The animals were individually killed before his face, according to Leviticus 20:15, and were buried in a pit, no use being made of them. Bradford relates that on examination of both Granger and someone else who had made a sodomitical attempt on another, they were asked where they learned such practices, and one confessed he "had long used it in England," while Granger said he had been taught it by another, and had heard of such things when he was in England.

Wow. Retch's ancestor screwed a turkey.

I'm not too sure of the source of this next one, but it sounds about right:

"Wretch Flemball was deetayned for sundrie notorious sins upon returning from Quisqueya in Hispanolia wher hee had erectile-dysfunction with sum little boys, who hee disapointed very much."


This is the real story of Thanksgiving, people. Sexual perversion set loose by Retch's ancestors for its trek though American history. Read other entries on Sex and Morality in Plymouth Colony.

(I swear I have not been drinking.)