Holly Nadler - Ghosts of Boston Town: Three Centuries of True Hauntings

Copyright 2002 by Holly Mascott Nadler

All rights reserved

Historic photographs used by permission of Boston Public Library

Cover design by Chilton Creative

Text layout by Northeast Corner Designs

ISBN 0-89272-535-4

Library of Congress Control Number 2002106574

Printed at Versa Press, E. Peoria, Ill.

2 4 5 3 1

Down East Books Camden, Me.

Book orders: (800) 766-1670

www.downeastbooks.com

Cover photograph: Residence at corner of Dartmouth St. and
Commonwealth Ave., 1874. BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY PRINT DEPT.

In loving memory of my father Larry Mascott who, in the spirit of this book, has made a few posthumous appearances himself

Acknowledgments

WITH the endless research involved in a project of this nature, there is always a plethora of people to thank, from the friendly cop on the street corner who pointed me toward the haunted dorm, to the young man who left a message on my machine about that same dorm, only to be cut off mid-message, and who never returned my follow-up call. (Is he okay?!) But I absolutely must thank by name all the people who helped to connect me with what some might define as the ultimate unconnectable: Dick Mason, manager of the Omni Parker House; ghost-hunter Jim McCabe, who guides Bostons haunted walking tours and who was so generous with his private stock of information; Anita Canzian, Julie Moynihan, Stuart Sigman, Troy Siegfried, Susan Landry, Mary Lee MacCormack, Jeff Breeze, Amy Santinello, and Bob Saftel, all of whom pointed me in the direction of delicious stories; and my sidekick, Margaret Maes, who helped me track down leads and who would be plucky enough to sashay up to a grizzly bear and ask him if he has any ghosts in his cave.

Copps Hill Burial Ground, Hull Street, in the North End

Photographed c. 1890 BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY PRINT DEPT.

Introduction

BOSTON looks haunted.

Stop on any corner in the old historic neighborhoods and focus your stare like a cinematographer framing a shot for a movie scene. Do you notice the way the old gaslight casts a silver haze over the dark stone walls of the Victorian townhouse? And whats that shimmering behind the heavy red velvet drapes? Its a lady in white, isnt it? But why is she standing so preternaturally still? Is she even... alive?

In all the country New England holds the richest repository of stories of the supernatural. And why not? The region has all the elements of a ghost factory. First, you take a foundation of Native American culture trampled underfoot, its burial grounds shoveled aside for Colonial farms, townships, and homes. From a rational point of view, this shouldnt matter one bit, but it does, it does. Too many authentic hauntings have originated over the site of a desecrated cemetery for researchers into the paranormal to overlook this vital connection. What is termed in the para-business an energy vortex begins to emerge, and what you get is a hatchery for ghosts. Add to that the layers of colorful historyragtag militia vs. redcoats, Puritans vs. witches, pirates and smugglers vs. everyone, and haughty aristocrats, if not violently opposed, then discreetly resistant to ambitious immigrants. With all the murder, mayhem, and power grabs played out along the northeast seaboard, is it any wonder that Boston, the areas oldest, biggest, andin its own uptight, repressed waymost passionate city should be overrun with spirits?

I came to writing about Boston ghosts by the circuitous route of London and Marthas Vineyard. In the early 1980s I flew to England to visit my parents, incurable world travelers whod holed up for a season in a cozy, partially subterranean flat in the Kensington district. We attended a play a dayGod bless those London theatre ticket prices!and we became addicted to the citys vast roster of walking tours. My favorite was The Ghosts of London. Even undertaken in the light of a warm June afternoon, that one managed to scare the cookies out of all three of us!

I returned to the Vineyard inspired to start my own line of walking tours. From the outset I knew The Ghosts of Edgartown would be the jewel in the crown of my tour menu. Sure enough, now many years later, I can still expect a crowd of twenty, thirty, or even forty-plus people waiting for me to come give them the creeps on any given summer night. The walk-and-talk about ghosts led me to write a book about Vineyard spooks, and in 1994 Down East Books brought out Haunted Island . I recently received a call from a nice manager at Bunch of Grapes, the Vineyards year-round bookstore, to tell me that Haunted Island is their second biggest seller of all time. I share this information not so much to brag, but to point out how fascinated by ghosts we all seem to be.

In any event, for those Vineyarders who require a regular dose of metropolitan delights, Boston is our mecca. Once weve ferried over the seven miles of water that separate us from the mainland, were only a ninety-minute drive from town. I stay at a favorite B&B on Beacon Hillthat timeless stage-set for an Edith Wharton noveland it was there that I frequently found myself thinking about Boston ghosts.

You see, Im a bit of a ghost feeler (so was Edith Wharton, as youll discover in Chapter 8), officially known as a clairsentient. The most fully realized psychics are those who can see ghosts. Those of us who only feel them face a rockier road because, without always knowing why, were in a fairly regular state of mild-to-extreme anxiety. My first experience of this occurred at age six, when my Brownie troop enrolled in swim lessons. Although Id always been a contented pond bather and puddle splasher and a happy camper around neighbors pools, I froze at the edge of this municipal pool into which my sister Brownies had already gleefully leapt. I was paralyzed with fear, and when our troop leader tried to coax me into the water, I burst into big, wracking sobs. My next memory is of being hauled back into my clothes in the locker room, thrust into a station wagon, and returned to my mother, a Brownie reject if there ever was one.

Once I left the vicinity of the pool I was back to my chirpy young self. Eventually we got our own pool, and the woman hired to teach me to swim met with no quakes or shakes on my part. A year or so later I learned that a nine-year- old boy had drowned in that municipal pool not too long before my inauspicious first swim lesson.

But this encounter with pool anxiety wasnt just a one-shot deal. Every so often I stand beside a pool that really disturbs mesimply freaks me out! That first excruciatingand humiliatingexperience with my condition inspired me to search for answers. On the rare subsequent occasions when this feeling of dread has come over me, Ive investigated the biography of the pool in question, and in every case Ive discovered that within recent memory someone had indeed drowned in those deceptively clear aqua waters.

Thank God the sensation is more subdued when I intercept spirit life on land. If I reacted to every psychic imprint the way I do a pool-related death, Id have been locked up in the proverbial padded cell a long time ago. Instead, what I feel in many locations is a vague unease, an unmistakable wimp factor. If a house is haunted, Ill sense which room is primarily implicated. At one point I lived in a duplex where the dining room unsettled me, though it would have taken a high-test ghost seer to determine what precisely lurked within the rooms innocuous walls of pink floral wallpaper and white wainscoting. I avoided the dining room when I was alone in the house, though with friends seated around the table at night by candlelight you would never have mistaken it for a chamber of horrors.