What happens in Chapter 1 of The Devil and Tom Walker?
Set in 1727 near Boston, the story follows Tom Walker, a miserly man stuck in a loveless marriage. He stumbles upon a shortcut through a swamp close to an old fort once used by the pirate Kidd. Deep in the swamp, Tom encounters a large, sooty figure — Old Scratch, the Devil — who tells him that he can have the buried treasure of Captain Kidd. The Devil offers Tom the treasure in exchange for his soul. Initially, Tom refuses, partly out of spite toward his wife. When she hears about the offer, she negotiates with the Devil herself and quickly disappears, leaving behind only her apron filled with a heart and liver. Tom, unfazed by her fate, accepts the Devil's deal and becomes a ruthless moneylender in Boston, amassing great wealth by charging exorbitant rates to desperate debtors. As he ages, Tom becomes increasingly fearful of his end and starts to act ostentatiously religious — carrying a Bible, attending church, and praying loudly — while still practicing his predatory lending. One afternoon, during a foreclosure, Tom foolishly claims he has made no deal with the Devil. At that moment, a black-cloaked horseman suddenly appears at his door. Tom is whisked away on a black horse, never to return. His house burns down, his treasure is found reduced to cinders and chips, and his horses are discovered dead in the stable.
Analysis
Washington Irving presents this tale as a recovered manuscript, which serves as a distancing technique that allows him to use sharp satire while keeping the folklore elements plausible. The swamp acts as the story's moral landscape: a decaying space where social respectability fades away and genuine exchanges occur. Irving's version of the Devil isn’t theatrical; he’s bureaucratic, keeping records of New England’s most notable figures — each great tree marked with a name, each felled tree representing a soul claimed. This detail is wickedly accurate, implicating not just Tom but the entire Puritan mercantile class.
Irving's control over tone is the story's most impressive craft move. He recounts Tom's cruelties — including the gruesome fate of his wife — with a dry, almost cheerful detachment that reflects Tom's own lack of morals, compelling the reader to fill in the horror that the narrator chooses to withhold. The wife’s fate, delivered with black comedy (only her apron and its contents remain), critiques a marriage built solely on mutual greed.
The story's final irony is structural: Tom's performative piety — the Bible on his desk and prayers on his lips — stands in stark contrast to true faith, and Irving emphasizes that no amount of religious showmanship can alter a contract that’s already been signed. The burning house and the ashes in the coffers symbolize a prosperity that was always empty. Irving's Faustian allegory resonates as distinctly American: the soul sold here isn’t for knowledge or power, but for money, and the buyer is a land speculator's worst nightmare — a counterparty who always collects.
Key quotes from Chapter 1
“The devil and Tom Walker. A Story of the Times of Governor Belcher.”
Irving's original subtitle anchors the tale in documented colonial history, blurring the line between legend and political satire from the first line.
“Let the devil take me if I have made a bargain!”
Tom's rash oath during a foreclosure negotiation — spoken for rhetorical effect — becomes the literal mechanism of his damnation, the story's darkest punchline.
“Since he had grown old, however, he grew thoughtful. Having secured the good things of this world, he began to feel anxious about those of the next.”
Irving's pivot sentence, delivered with deadpan economy, marks Tom's turn to ostentatious religion and exposes the same transactional logic he applied to moneylending.
Check your understanding
Ask about this work
The reader has this chapter in front of it — the summary, the analysis, the key quotes and the vocabulary — along with the rest of the book’s chapters. Ask what happens and why it matters, or push back on a reading.
It cites the chapter or the line it is working from, and it says so plainly when the guide doesn’t cover something. It’s instructed never to write an essay, a paragraph or an answer for you to hand in, and never to grade anything — it will show you how to approach the question instead. The reader is an AI, not a person, and its replies are written by Claude, from Anthropic. The people behind Storgy are at hello@storgy.com.
Sign in to ask the reader about this work — 1 credit covers three messages.
Create an accountSign inVocabulary in Chapter 1
- niggardly
- Extremely stingy and unwilling to spend money; miserly to an excessive degree, hoarding wealth rather than using or sharing it.
- usurer
- A moneylender who charges extremely high or illegal rates of interest, preying on people desperate for loans.
- fen
- A low, marshy stretch of ground that is waterlogged and boggy, often overgrown with reeds and difficult to cross.
- morass
- A stretch of swampy, treacherous ground that is soft and wet underfoot, making passage dangerous or impossible.
- caitiff
- An archaic term for a despicable, cowardly, or wretched person; someone regarded as base and contemptible in character.
- spectre
- A ghost or frightening apparition, especially one that haunts a particular place and fills those who see it with dread.
- extortioner
- A person who obtains money or advantage from others by threats, force, or abusive use of power or authority.
- psalm
- A sacred song or hymn, especially one from the biblical Book of Psalms, used here as a show of religious piety.
- catechism
- A summary of Christian religious doctrine in question-and-answer form, used for instruction; here carried ostentatiously as a sign of false piety.
- bullion
- Gold or silver in the form of bars or ingots, not yet minted into coins; raw precious metal stored as wealth.
- prodigal
- Recklessly wasteful with money or resources, spending extravagantly without thought for the future.
- penuriousness
- The quality of being extremely mean and reluctant to spend money; an almost pathological tightfistedness.
- ague
- A fever accompanied by fits of shivering and sweating, often associated with malaria; used here to suggest a terrifying physical shock.
- dint
- In the phrase 'by dint of,' meaning by means of or through the force of a particular effort or quality.
- apparition
- A ghostly or supernatural figure that appears suddenly and unexpectedly, causing fear in the person who witnesses it.
- wampum
- Beads made from shells, used by Native Americans as currency or for ceremonial purposes; here referencing buried Indigenous treasure.
- deacon
- A lay officer or minor clergyman in a Christian church; here used ironically, as the title is held by a corrupt and dishonest man.
- mortgage
- To pledge property as security for a loan, risking losing it if the debt is not repaid; here used to show Tom's ruthless financial dealings.
- zealot
- A person who is fanatically devoted to a religion or cause, often to an extreme and intolerant degree; here applied to Tom's sudden, showy religious fervor.