Peter and Elizabeth Braam had come to America together in 1698. They were married in 1697, at the ages of 18 and 19, shortly before they left their homeland. Peter and his new friends in America built himself and his wife a lovely stone house, in which they would live together, and raise their first and only child, Engelina, who was born in early March of 1703.
Elizabeth and Peter, painted the night before their wedding day, in June of 1697. Their marriage took place in Haagse Bos, which is a popular nature park in the Netherlands. They were the only ones at their wedding, besides their friend William, who was a practiced priest, and wed the two.
Peter and Elizabeth, 27 and 26, pictured with their daughter Engelina, age 2, 1705.
Frakturs were used to document monumental moments, such as marriages and births. This is what Elizabeth and Peter's own marriage fraktur looked like!
This is the estate the Braam family lived in since late 1698, until death. It was originally built as one floor, with a storage space built upstairs, then later after the birth of their daughter, they added a small basement, and converted the storage space to a second floor to be used for Engelina's bedroom.
It is after they gave Engelina her new bedroom on the second floor when she turned ten, in 1713, that the mischief began to stir.
Engelina borrowed some of her mother's fabric, and began making herself a companion, her doll, Mabel. Mabel was almost finished when she realized she had no nose. She took the weather vane, which first came about in Greece, and then became popular throughout Europe, and eventually came to America along with the Braam's. She snatched it from the back garden, and snapped it in half with her bare hands! She used a part of the broken metal rod and stitched it to her doll's face. Elizabeth and Peter would often hear her talking to the doll, and thinking it was Engelina just playing, they continued to ignore it.
Engelina then took her father's book, De Bijbel in de Nederlandse Taal, which was a type of Dutch bible his mother has given to him when he was a child. This, she used as a spell book in an effort to possess Mabel, so that she may act as her servant. Engelina did not like the other kids who lived on the road, for they had only cared about popularity, and she wanted to scare them badly, so that they might lose their arrogance. And that is exactly what she planned to do with Mabel.
For years, Engelina cast spells on the other children, and possessed Mabel in order to frighten them away. Her plan worked, and the other kids started living a more fearful life. On Engelina's sixteenth birthday, her parents heard her upstairs, again speaking to the doll. They were worried that she was too old to be playing the way she seemed to be. Elizabeth and Peter grew concerned, and stormed up the stairs. They found Engelina unconscious on the ground, and watched her doll fly across the room and land harshly on the ground. They ran to the streets, screaming for help.
It was said amongst the town that Engelina had died that day, and Elizabeth and Peter Braam never returned to the house. They had begun to notice their child had odd behaviors, but they never saw this coming. The house stands vacant and decaying to this day, and some say Mabel can be seen sitting in the window at night.