Issues → September/October 2008 → Features →
Ghosts and Haunted Places in New England
(page 2 of 3)
Harold was talking to the owner and the bartender when he felt someone's hand on his shoulder. He spun around, and no one was there.
"I turned my tri-field meter on, and it went thermal. I snapped a picture, but I couldn't see what I was doing, and I caught a corner of the bar. Whatever it was disappeared. About ten minutes later, the men heard someone drop one of the big steel tables in the upper bar. They searched the bar, but everything seemed to be in place.
At the time, the cameras were running, so the owner asked, 'What do you see through the infra-red?' We brought it down and hooked it up to his TV, and we picked up a spiritual voice of a woman calling the owner's name. This was accompanied by a floating ball of light." The men did not see the floating orb with the naked eye, nor had they heard anyone talking before they listened to the video. In addition, no women were present.
"We could never prove it to be a hoax. The owner and his father and a few family friends identified it as the voice of his deceased mother. He got out of the bar, gave the bar back to his father, went across the street, and opened up a pawn shop," Harold said. Harold will always remember this case because it was his first physical encounter with an entity.
Codville, ME: Cemetery
Bangor Ghost Hunters Association
Another memorable case was held at a cemetery in Codville, Maine. According to Harold Murray: "We were videotaping. We had five members and ten other people who were family members of the client. Over the first grave, there was a 'traveler' -- a ball of light. The camera picked it up. It was just going back and forth in a circle. At first we thought it was a firefly, but it didn't blink.
"We checked out the possibility that it was a car driving by, but there was no dirt road in that section of the woods or traffic lights. We found out later that it was a fresh grave. Someone had been buried that day, and we didn't know about it. We captured the light on video."
The cameraman recorded the light for two and a half minutes. Then Harold told him to stay there for five minutes and take more video, this time to the right of the grave. The entire time he was filming, the cameraman did not see the light in the viewfinder. The next day, the group returned to the cemetery and discovered that they had been filming over a fresh grave.
Waterbury, CT: House
Skeleton Crew Paranormal Research Society
One of the group's strangest investigations was conducted at a house in Waterbury, Connecticut. Jim (Petrino) said, "We got a call that some people were sitting on the front steps and would not go inside until we got there. When we arrived, the girls were trembling on the steps, and I thought, 'This must be a genuine good one.'... During the meeting, a twenty-year-old girl was crying and pointing hysterically, 'There it is! There it is! Can't you see it?'
"I said, 'No, we don't see it.' Rick and I said, 'No we don't see it.' She said, 'It's right there. Don't you see it?' We said, 'No, we can't.' " The young woman continued to point at an unseen presence for thirty minutes. At the end of the interview, the group was getting ready to leave when the young woman claimed she saw the ghost walking down the hallway into the bedroom.
Reader Comments
Comment from Eibhlin MacIntosh on October 14, 2008
Great story! There are so many wonderful haunted places around New England. Historical ghost stories, such as the Bridget Bishop one, are fascinating!
I'd love to know where this haunted bar is in Old Town, Maine. I'll definitely check out the Houghton Mansion and Connecticut's Carousel Gardens Restaurant.
I like websites such as HollowHill.com that list ghosts at places that everyone can visit. Around Halloween, those places are fun whether anything scary happens or not.
Comment from Kathy Bunnell on October 14, 2008
Check out the former Gardner Cinema, once home to the Orpheum Theater, in Gardner, MA -- part of Johnny Appleseed Country in North Central Mass. The ghost of a young girl whose visage has been seen in the theater's window late at night. A female voice comes through the air vents. Lights flicker, movie posters fall off the wall, and a door near the refreshment stand opens & closes on its own.
The "Ghost Hunters" TV show did an episode in 2007 on a grand Victorian home on West Broadway (Rte. 2A) in S. Gardner -- the Pierce mansion built in 1875 by chair factory owner Sylvester Pierce. The website "Massachusetts' Most Haunted Places" features the house and its 19-year-old female ghost from the late 19th century, a man who died in a 1963 fire, and a little boy. Footsteps, orbs and spirits in shadow await in the 26-room house. If you want to go, go quick. A non-profit organization said last summer it was interested in acquiring the mansion and turning it into a museum or cultural center.
Comment from ruth soppe on October 15, 2008
these sound like intriguing places to visit as I have always been fascinated by the paranormal. My first choice of course would be the Lizzie Borden home.
Comment from Denise Martinelli on October 15, 2008
New England really is a most haunted place! Check out the Old mystic Inn,(Hawthorne Room) in Mystic,Conn. or the John Stone Inn in Ashland,Ma. Spider Gates cemetery in Leicester,Ma and dont forget Salem, Ma! Especially at Halloween time...what a great time!
Comment from H BRINK on October 15, 2008
We are going to Salem for Halloween. See you there if you dare.
Comment from darleen shea on October 27, 2008
My daughter and I are going to stay at the Lizzie Borden house on Nov 1st. We are so excited and scared at the same time. I have always been interested in the paranormal and have bee wanting to do something like this for a long time.We are staying in the Andrew Borden room. There are alot of haunted places in New England. It is so much fun at this time of year I love Halloween. Wish us luck ...............
Comment from harold murray on April 27, 2009
recently the Bangor ghost hunters association returned to this location in old town upon doing research we come across this article. To give a update the bar is still experiencing unexplained activity we are currently re-investigative this location. Harold Murray director Bangor ghost hunters association.
Comment from Carol Corbett on September 4, 2009
There are several great books out on haunted places in New England...try Haunted Hikes of New Hampshire by Marianne O'Connor or Haunted Cemeteries and Haunted Pubs of New England both by Roxie Zwicker.
Comment from Dawn Sova on October 20, 2009
Take a look at The Herbert Hotel in Kingfield, ME-- guests have reported feeling and seeing "something" in several of the rooms -- images, different people, strange feelings that somebody is in the room.
Comment from MaryBeth Garbauskas on October 26, 2010
I grew up near a very cool cemetary in Naugatuck, CT it was called the \"Guntown Cemetary\" It was very old lots of headstones that dated back to the early 1800\'s I never experienced anything weird there however It seemed like it had great potential!! My neighborhood friends and my sister would visit it quiet a few times in the year but always there was a special visit close to Halloween; but not too close we did not want to tempt fate!!
Comment from Joseph Ferreira on October 30, 2011
Until it was recently sold, Belcourt Castle in Newport, RI, would have been the leading contender for most haunted site in New England. The hauntings are associated with the vast collection of antiques acquired by the Tinney family, who purchased Belcourt in the 1950\'s and only recently parted with the property. The castle was filled with relics of many past ages, many of them associated with apparently viloent deaths of their previous owners. A few of the more \"interesting\" items include:
A Medieval English salt chair in the ballroom: holding your hand over the chair, you can possibly feel a strong tingling sensation and, the closer your hand gets to the seat, the colder your hand gets. A scoffer once sat down abruptly in the chair, disregarding warnings and was aparently violently thrown across the ballroom. (Full disclosure - I was invited to try the hand test and I honestly believe felt the tingling and the cold in spite of the warmth of the day)
A suit of English armour in the ballroom: This suit of armour apparently didn\'t protect a previous owner, as attested by the rent in the helm. The armour is known to irregularly produce blood-curdling screams, presumably from whomever the suit failed to protect.
A mirror flanking the fireplace mantle in the parlour adjacent to the ballroom: Supposedly one of a pair of matching mirrors owned by Marie Antoinette. It is supposedly the last mirror she looked into prior to her imprisonment and execution by guillotine. Supposedly, no matter the circumstances, time of day or year, if you stand in front of this mirror, the mirror itself hangs pefectly still, yet the image reflected in the mirror sways slowly from side to side. (Full disclosure: I have seen this phenomenon occur twice. Once, I was invited to check everything around the mirror, which I did, and found no physical movement or anything to explain why the image continued to sway.)
Just some grist for the haunted tales mill...
Comment from Joseph Ferreira on October 30, 2011
The Carey Mansion in Newport, until recently a dormitory for Salve Regina University, was supposedly the site of a tragic hanging suicide by a nun, part of the order who ran an all-girls school prior to Salve\'s leasing of the property. The room in which this took place became infamous for sighs, moans, chill currents of air, sightings of a ghostly nun and a general feeling of dread by the occupants. Numerous students, assigned to live in the room, requested reassignment elsewhere due to reported incidents of hauntings. The room was eventually closed off and remained unused for the duration of the university\'s lease.
Registered users can add comments.
Registration is free, and just takes a moment.
Login or Register.