Character from Wednesday by Alfred Gough & Miles Millar
A dead pilgrim with a grudge that outlasted his body — the founding father of Jericho who burned outcasts alive and got resurrected four centuries later to finish the job.
Joseph Crackstone founded Jericho in the 1600s and attempted to exterminate the local outcast community by burning them alive in what is now Nevermore Academy's site. He was stopped by Goody Addams — a psychic ancestor of Wednesday's — who used her abilities to defeat him. His body was entombed, his descendants (the Gates family) maintained his legacy of hatred, and four centuries later, Laurel Gates resurrects him to complete his original mission. Crackstone represents the show's engagement with American founding mythology — the pilgrims as literal monster-hunters, puritanical hatred as a force that doesn't die even when the people carrying it do. His resurrection is the season's climax, and it's Wednesday — another Addams psychic — who stops him, echoing her ancestor's original victory.
In life and undeath: a severe pilgrim in traditional 17th-century clothing — dark, austere garments, buckled shoes, wide-brimmed hat. Gaunt, stern face that looks like it was carved from Puritan disapproval. In his resurrected form: decayed and corpse-like but mobile, burning with fanatical purpose. His appearance is colonial horror — the founding father as literal monster.
Also known as: Crackstone, Joseph Crackstone