Beadle's Pocket Novels No. 121: Black Nick

# Black Nick (Beadle and Adams, 1878)

Frederick Whittaker's "Black Nick: The Hermit of the Hills; The Expiated Crime. A Story of Burgoyne's Surrender" presents a Revolutionary War narrative set during the British general's 1777 campaign. A Mohawk scouting party led by Chief Black Fox awaits a British spy called Night Hawk near Albany. Their meeting is violently interrupted by a supernatural creature—a towering skeletal figure in black with upright horns, brandishing javelins and emitting demoniacal laughter, calling itself Black Nick. The demon massacres the Indians before vanishing into a hollow tree. The terrified spy escapes. The narrative shifts to a Prussian hussar officer serving as aide-de-camp to General Schuyler, who rides toward "Haunted Hill," a mountain reputed locally to harbor a demon. The officer discovers smoke rising from the summit, arousing curiosity; Indians begin pursuing him up the mountainside.