Published by Haunted America
A Division of The History Press
Charleston, SC 29403
www.historypress.net
Copyright 2013 by Sam Baltrusis
All rights reserved
Front cover: Memorial Hall, which is allegedly haunted by a Civil Warera soldier. Photo by Ryan Miner.
First published 2013
e-book edition 2013
Manufactured in the United States
ISBN 978.1.61423.975.8
Library of Congress CIP data applied for.
print edition ISBN 978.1.60949.947.1
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.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
Thanks to my spirit squad from Cambridge Haunts, including Ashley Shakespeare, Nick Cox and Hank Fay, for helping me rouse the dead and give a voice to those long departed. The ghost tour helped shape the tone and lore featured in Ghosts of Cambridge. Ryan Miner, the books photographer, deserves a special shout-out for working the graveyard shift and capturing Cambridges spooky, old-school aesthetic. Major thanks to the handful of paranormal investigators and researchers who helped make Ghosts of Cambridge a reality, including Adam Berry from Ghost Hunters, Gavin W. Kleespies from the Cambridge Historical Society, master psychic and East Coast medium Denise Fix, Joe Jiggy Webb from Paranormal Hood, MaryLee Trettenero from Spirits of Charlestown and archivist Christine Wirth from the Longfellow House. I would like to thank Andrew Warburton, my eagle-eyed Agent Scully and research assistant, who helped 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 friend Joe Keville for his continued support. My co-workers at Scout Magazines, including office manager Melinda LaCourse, deserve a supernatural slap on the back for their understanding while I simultaneously managed two magazines, including Scout Cambridge, and burned the midnight oil to write this book. I would also like to thank Jeff Saraceno from The History Press for his understanding approach to deadlines and his support during the process of putting this book together.
INTRODUCTION
Ive spent my whole life chasing ghosts. My earliest memory is of my biological fathers house in Chicagos South Side on a street called Loveland. My maternal grandfather, visiting from the Florida panhandle, set up a lawn chair in the front yard and just sat there for hours, gazing into the horizon, which included a red-white-and-blue water tower with the towns name etched in bold letters. My grandfather was a kindhearted man with salt-and-pepper hair and black, 50s-era glasses. My parents were fighting inside. I ran into the front yard to be close to him. He smiled at me.
A few months later, he passed. However, the serenity in that mans face has stayed with me for years. My mom, with long, Cher-like black hair, received the call that her father was in the hospital, dying from complications associated with diabetes. She was in tears, crouching on the floor and trying to shield me from the news. I was four years old.
My parents divorced, and we moved to Florida. We stayed in my late grandfathers house in a neighborhood called Avondale, and I had what would be my first encounter with a spirit. It was him, my grandfather, and he was smiling. After his passing, my mom said she felt his presence one night when she was home alone. An unseen force touched her hand to let her know everything was going to be OK. My mom knew it was her father but was too afraid. I never forgot.
Hes been with me over the years. Sometimes he shows up in my dreams, sitting in that chair with a familiar gaze. He usually doesnt say much, but I know that hes there. Then I wake up.
When I was younger, I believed in spirits. The first book I remember reading was Gus Was a Friendly Ghost by Jane Thayer. I checked it out of the library many times, and I would spend late nights in bed thinking about the history and mystery associated with the spirit realm. Ghosts were good.
As I started to develop intellectually, my theory was challenged. I repressed the initial encounter with my grandfather and spent most of my young adult life wearing paranormal blinders, or shrugging off the possibility that ghosts do, in fact, exist. I turned it offbut not for long.
I had my first spirited encounter as an adult while living in Somervilles Ball Square in the early 1990s. I recall seeing an apparition of a young girl who would play hide-and-seek in the hallway. She was a mischievous poltergeist, and I remember hearing phantom footsteps leading to our second-floor apartment.
Since returning to Somerville in 2007, Ive spent years investigating alleged accounts of paranormal activity at sites all over New England. Ive collected a slew of reports from these supposedly haunted locales, and the mission was to give readers a contemporary take on the bevy of site-specific legends. Ghosts of Cambridge is, in essence, a supernatural-themed travel guide written with a historical lens. Based on my research, the city is a hotbed of paranormal activity.
While digging up these tales from the crypt for my first book, Ghosts of Boston: Haunts of the Hub, I started spending hours in Cambridges Old Burying Ground. Ive always felt a strong magnetic pull to the dead mans dumping groundwhich boasts Harvard presidents and African American soldiers from the Revolutionary Warand I was interested in the subterranean Vassall tomb reportedly located beneath what was known as Gods Acre. One night, when I was setting up for a meeting at First Parish Church, I had a close encounter with an unseen force. The back door, which was oddly propped open by one of the cemeterys old-school gravestones, mysteriously closed. I heard what sounded like the floorboards creaking and then a second door slammed shut. I looked up and spotted something, or someone, out of the corner of my eye. He looked like a Revolutionary Warera soldier, and he was wearing a tricorn hat. I held my breath.
At this point, I didnt know about the legend surrounding Lieutenant Richard Brown, a British soldier who was shot in the face in 1777 by a Patriot sentry while descending Prospect Hill in Somerville. He was buried in the Vassall tomb and allegedly haunts Christ Church, which also abuts the Old Burying Ground. Apparently, his interment was so controversial that hundreds of crazed colonists ransacked the historic Anglican church. Browns spirit reportedly comes up, slams doors and blows out candles.
Wheres Waldo? A featured stop on the Cambridge Haunts ghost tour is Harvards hallowed Meyer Gate. The hidden plaque spotlights alum Ralph Waldo Emersons spirited quote: Cambridge at any time is full of ghosts.
