Local Haunts
CHANCES ARE, YOUR FAVORITE NEW ENGLAND HAUNTS ARE JUST that—haunted. The region is rife with folklore and legend, much of it rooted in history, from the Salem witch trials onward. Not a believer? Go anyway—we’ve found plenty to give you goose bumps, from both this world and the next.
CHANCES ARE, YOUR FAVORITE NEW ENGLAND HAUNTS ARE JUST that—haunted. The region is rife with folklore and legend, much of it rooted in history, from the Salem witch trials onward. Not a believer? Go anyway—we’ve found plenty to give you goose bumps, from both this world and the next.
CONNECTICUT
Ghost Ship, Mystic
The employees of Mystic Seaport had always spun rumors of haunted sightings amid the many ships at the museum, but in the summer of 2005, the whaling vessel Charles W. Morgan drew a national spotlight when several visitors approached a staff member and complimented the performance of what they thought was an actor—a man belowdecks, dressed in period clothing and smoking a pipe—only to be told there were no actors onboard. The cluster of unrelated claims prompted the Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group to investigate. 860-572-0711, mysticseaport.org
NEW HAMPSHIRE
The Lady in White, Isles of Shoals, Rye
Windswept and lonely, the Isles of Shoals, some 10 miles off the state’s coast, look like the last place you’d want to honeymoon. But that’s supposedly where the infamous pirate Blackbeard took the last of his wives in 1720, and where he left her when the British authorities came after him. By many reports, she’s still there, looking always toward the sea as she awaits her absent beloved, murmuring, “He will return.” Island Cruises, 603-964-6446, uncleoscar.com
MASSACHUSETTS
Lizzie Borden Bed & Breakfast, Fall River
Lizzie Borden lived here until her acquittal for the murders of her father and stepmother, a crime that has been immortalized as a children’s nursery rhyme. Despite the home’s link to a gory history, spiritual occurrences are on the mild side: a heavy presence in rooms, and objects that aren’t where they were left, but no full-on apparitions. If you were to encounter a ghost, it would likely be that of one of the victims and not their alleged killer. Says co-owner Leeann Wilber: “Lizzie hated this house.” 508-675-7333, lizzie-borden.com
MAINE
The Spirit Bride, Cape Elizabeth
In July 1807, young bride-to-be Lydia Carver was aboard the schooner Charles when it wrecked just off Cape Elizabeth. She perished, and her body was found the next morning on the shore, with her wedding dress still packed in the trunk beside her. Carver was buried next to the Inn by the Sea. Now, as the Inn’s resident ghost, she still awaits the wedding day that never came dressed in a white gown. 800-888-4287, 207-799-3134, innbythesea.com
RHODE ISLAND
Sprague Mansion, Cranston
John Gordon was the last person executed in Rhode Island, but doubts about his guilt—and his death by hanging in 1845—linger at Sprague Mansion, the home of his alleged victim, businessman Amasa Sprague. Unaccounted-for footsteps, icy gusts of air and other disturbances have been attributed to Gordon, though some believe this to be the ghostly work of other unfortunate members of the Sprague line, which was plagued by accidental death, insanity and suicide. 401-944-9226, cranstonhistoricalsociety.org