Built into the wall of Onchan churchyard, beside the road, is a large stone that people called the whipping post, and connected with punishments of the past. In 1768, Franklin writes, the vicar's wife, Grissel Quayle, took against it. She believed it had to do with pagan fertility rites and had it removed.
Not long after, a ball of lightning shot down her chimney and killed her in her bed. The people of Onchan drew the obvious conclusion and put the stone back in the wall, where it still is.
The vicarage had other troubles around then. According to the same article, the vicar, Thomas Thwaites, was accused by a farmer of killing his sheep with the evil eye. The farmer dumped the dead sheep on the rectory porch, and was himself jailed and publicly corrected at Douglas market for it.
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