Harris, Rhoby Dexter

d. 1773.  William Harris's wife who bore him four children before the fifth died stillborn in December of 1763.  The death of her husband in 1765 and her last daughter in 1767 unbalanced her.  Her insanity increased in 1768 to the point where her sister Mercy Dexter came and confined her to the upper reaches of the house.  She was known to babble widely and, often, in French.  She would mumble about the sharp teeth of a glassy-eyed, half-visible presence.  She died in 1773 and is buried beside her husband in the North Burial Ground.  The name comes from Lovecraft's own maternal grandmother, Rhoby Place Phillips, and she bore the same number of children.

[The Shunned House - H.P.L.]