Baltrusis - Haunted Boston Harbor

Published by Haunted America

A Division of The History Press

Charleston, SC

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2016 by Sam Baltrusis

All rights reserved

Front cover: Photographer Frank C. Graces photo of the historic Boston Light on Little Brewster captures the eerie, something-wicked-this-way-comes vibe of the iconic, three-centuries-old lighthouse in Boston Harbor.

First published 2016

e-book edition 2016

ISBN 978.1.62585.502.2

Library of Congress Control Number: 2016936013

print edition ISBN 978.1.62619.956.9

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

After writing Haunted Boston Harbor, my internal batteries are recharged and Im grateful to have spent months exploring the mysteries of Boston Harbor as a tour guide with Boston Harbor Cruises. Thanks go to my spirit squad from the historical-based ghost tour Boston Haunts, including Nick Cox and Hank Fay, for helping me rouse the dead and give a voice to those long departed. The Haunted Boston Harbor boat tour I produced in 2014 on the Massachusetts Bay Lines Samuel Clemens helped shape the tone and lore featured in the book. Major thanks to the handful of paranormal investigators and researchers who helped make Haunted Boston Harbor a reality, including lighthouse expert Jeremy DEntremont, Rachel Hoffman, Tina Storer and James DePaul from Paranormal Xpeditions; authors Cindy Vallar, Joni Mayhan, MaryLee Trettenero and Peter Muise; Joe Jiggy Webb from the weekly podcast Paranormal Hood; and Jeffrey Doucette, a veteran tour guide who appeared in my first book, Ghosts of Boston: Haunts of the Hub. I would like to give my friend and copy editor Andrew Warburton a supernatural slap on the back. He helped me uncover some of the skeletal secrets featured in this monstrous project. Thanks to my mother, Deborah Hughes Dutcher, for being there when I need her most and my friends for their continued support. I would also like to thank Karmen Cook from The History Press for her help during the process of putting this book together. Special thanks go to folklorist and author Edward Rowe Snow. His passion for Boston Harbor lives on and is felt by the thousands who bravely creep through Fort Warrens dark hallway on Georges Island during the summer.

INTRODUCTION

The Lady in Black summoned me here. However, as I searched every nook and cranny of Georges Island during a five-month gig as a historical narrator in Boston Harbor, the ghost of Melanie Lanieras the Lady in Black is otherwise calledrefused to reveal herself. She was playing hard to get.

Something touched me in there, and it wasnt human! screamed a girl running out of the corridor of dungeons after a field trip to Fort Warren at Georges Island. It was the Lady in Black, she said convincingly.

The girl looked mortified.

This was just one of the strange events that occurred during the summer of 2014 when I gave historical tours with Boston Harbor Cruises and traveled on large vessels carrying passengers back and forth to various islands in the outer harbor. I spent most afternoons during the summer searching for a repeat experience of a shadow figure that Id seen there seven years before. No such luck.

I frequently heard screams emanating from Fort Warrens haunted ramparts. However, it was usually one of the kids touring the dark hallway in the southeast battery.

The location that Edward Rowe Snow said was the Lady in Blacks haunt was in the front of the fort. Its still accessible, but its extremely dusty and dark.

In 2007, I moved back to Boston from Florida and had a ghostly experience while touring the ramparts of Fort Warren at Georges Island. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed an all-black shadow figure. I looked again, and it was gone. At this point, I had never heard the Lady in Black legend. I just intuitively knew Georges Island had some sort of psychic residue. While researching Fort Warrens history, my interest in Bostons haunted past gradually became a passion. History repeats itself, and it was my job to uncover the truth and give a voice to those without a voiceeven though most of the stories turned out to be tales from the crypt.

Fort Warren, built from 1833 to 1861, served as a prison for captured Confederate soldiers during the Civil War. The spiral staircase leads to the bowels of the fort on Georges Island, which is home of the Lady in Black legend. Photo by Sam Baltrusis.

Discovered by John Smith in 1614, Boston Harbor is the most historic and arguably the most haunted port in America. This archival photo from 1906 captures the changing landscape of the waterfront, which was backfilled to accommodate the citys growing need for land. Photo by Detroit Publishing Company.

Lawrence, a fellow Boston Harbor Cruises tour guide and former park ranger, insisted that ghosts do not inhabit Georges Island, adding that the Lady in Black legend was completely made up by folklorist Edward Rowe Snow.

I spent so many nights there, I would know, he said, as we passed Nixs Mate en route to the mainland. However, I would say the island has a spirit. Some rangers say the islands energy, or spirit, welcomes people.

In hindsight, Ive decided that my encounter on Georges in 2007 was the islands spirit welcoming me. However, ghosts can almost certainly be found nearby.

While several of the thirty-four islands have paranormal activity, Boston Harbors Little Brewster is allegedly the most haunted. The mysterious Boston Light, one of the five remaining Coast Guardmanned lighthouses in America, stands eerily on the rocky, two-acre island. Its located behind Georges Island and can be spotted from the ramparts, which I explored regularly during the summer of 2014. While I was giving historical tours, the lighthouse was closed for much-needed repairs in preparation for its three-hundred-year anniversary.

Boston Light reopened in 2015 and has once again become a Boston Harbor hot spot.

Photographer Frank C. Grace, his father and I took a ferry out to Little Brewster. It was a rainy, overcast dayperfect weather for a ghostly encounter. Coincidentally, we visited hours before Boston Lights 299-year anniversary on September 14, 2015, and the island was buzzing with excitement from both the living and the dead. The volunteers at the historic lighthouse were quick to confirm that Little Brewster was indeed haunted.

You hear ghost stories all the time, remarked Val, a veteran tour guide. One day, I had climbed all the way to the top and I heard phantom footsteps behind me and there was definitely no one else in the lighthouse.