Kingsport 1844: South Hill Station

22) South Hill Station
1 Circle Street, Downtown. Est. 1789

A) Miskatonic Coach & Mail
Situated on Circle Street opposite the Hotel Poseidon, South Hill Station occupies a wooden building adjacent a livery, a blacksmith, and a carriage-house. The station is operated by Miskatonic Coach & Mail, which runs a daily stagecoach between Arkham and Innsmouth. The station manager is Russell Van Horn, a former dragoon from the War of 1812 now charged with maintaining the hectic Kingsport office. MC&M handles U.S. mail contracts and private parcel shipping, and has recently partnered with Kirby Spencer to invest in Ezra Cornell’s telegraph line from Boston to New York. If Cornell’s project proves successful, Spencer hopes the Hotel Poseidon will host the Valley’s first telegraph line, connecting Kingsport directly to Arkham and Salem.

B) The Organ Grinder
A frequent inhabitant of Circle Street is Dario Martino, an organ grinder who plays an automata barrel organ designed by Oliver Moneypenny, the curator of Professor Riddle’s Cabinet of Curiosities (Encounter 27). Although he’s only twelve years old, Dario has the mannerisms of a veteran showman, and radiates a fearless bravado that occasionally crosses the line from charming to obnoxious. He’s accompanied by Pozzo, a spider monkey wearing a rhinestone vest and tiny red fez. Pozzo can perform numerous tricks, from staggering drunkenly when he smells beer to presenting his upturned fez for pennies.

Dario’s organ is a masterpiece. Made from mahogany and brass, it features thirteen tunes programmed into the barrel pins. The top of the organ unfolds to reveal a mock stage with several mechanical figures posed in a tableau vivant. When the crank is turned, the figures come to life in a whirling dance of clockwork, each performing its designated action in a repetitive loop as the music plays. While the craftsmanship of the figures is impeccable, they’re decidedly more sensational than the usual fare: a suggestively-articulated Salome dances over the severed head of John the Baptist, a Templar and Saracen hack at each other with swords, a Chinese mandarin puffs on a smoking opium pipe, a naked mermaid strikes a series of small chimes with a tiny mallet, and a tattooed Islander stabs a whale with his harpoon. The side of the organ is painted with an advertisement: “See Professor Riddle’s Cabinet of Curiosities! Located at 212 Carver Street.”

Dario’s Story
Dario enjoys bantering with travelers as they get off the coach. The boy is full of sound advice about Kingsport—he knows the cheapest lodgings, the freshest fish, the best switchel, the strongest beer, and the prettiest women. Getting Dario to drop his act and conduct an authentic conversation requires a 25¢ donation to Pozzo’s fez. If asked about the organ, he beams with pride—“She’s the best in America! Professor Riddle, he make the organ, but I train Pozzo myself!” He’s proud to show off the mechanism, and takes the opportunity to add more mineral oil to the Mandarin’s smoke chamber—“When I turn-a the crank, this wire here, she heat up, and the Chinaman, he smoke!” If asked about Professor Riddle or the Cabinet of Curiosities, Dario laughs—“Since il professore go cuckoo as Pozzo, I no seen him. He tell everyone, take a long holiday!” This doesn’t bother Dario one bit, as he now considers the organ his property. If pressed further about the dime museum, he just shrugs—“I no there in weeks. That testa di cazzo, he always there, and even Pozzo know, he’s bad news.” If asked about his family, Dario explains that he lives on Prospect Hill—“My papa, he work in glue factory, my mama, she make the boots. But I make the most money!”

C) Programmed Events
For three of the player characters, the adventure begins here! Dr. Montgomery St. John Lowell and Tobias Beckett live in Arkham, while Ulysses Everett Dixon took the train from Philadelphia to Arkham the day before.

October 27, 10:00 am: Arrival of the Arkham Stage
The trip from Arkham takes an hour traveling southeast over well-worn roads. The conveyance is a nine-passenger Concord coach, pulled by a four-hitch team and painted a lovely shade of red with a straw-yellow undercarriage. Bearing the name Miskatonic, the coach’s ornamental panels depict Kingsport Head on the right door, and Arkham’s picturesque Bowen Bridge on the left. Departing Arkham to a Sunday morning chorus of church bells, the ride is pleasant and uneventful. At one point, the coach parallels the new railroad tracks that will soon connect Kingsport to Arkham, the sound of the workers’ pickaxes ringing sharply in the air. One of the passengers remarks, “Working on a Sunday! So prideful.” The driver laughs ironically, then gestures to the gradient with his whip—“Looking at my own extinction, I am. Like a dodo bird. I’ll have to head West.”

The coach enters Kingsport on Back Street, takes a left onto Main Street, and pulls up in front of the station on Circle Street. As the driver halts the horses, a pair of African-American porters emerge from the office to exchange mailbags and unsling the passengers’ baggage from the roof. A devious Keeper may wish to spill one of Lowell’s trunks, tumbling strange scientific apparatus into the street for public inspection. Just as the luggage has been removed, hackneys roll up to the curb, their drivers offering to take travelers to the wharves, deliver them to lodgings, or carry them directly to “libation and vittles.” The stagecoach is scheduled to depart for Manchester-by-the-Sea at 10:30 am, and thence to Gloucester and onto Innsmouth. Across the street, Dario and Pozzo are entertaining a small group of onlookers—“Why you no in church? Even Pozzo here take-a communion!” As Dario switches the organ from “Jim Crow” to “Rock of Ages,” Pozzo adopts an attitude of mock solemnity and opens his mouth for a biscuit treat.

White Leviathan > Chapter 1—Kingsport 1844
[Back to Encounter 21, Hotel Poseidon | White Leviathan TOC | Forward to “Central Hill” ]

Author: A. Buell Ruch
Last Modified: 30 October 2021
Email: quail (at) shipwrecklibrary (dot) com
White Leviathan PDF: [TBD]