Last Room at the Inn: A Cape Cod Ghost Story

I just started watching the new season of American Horror Story, and the first half of the show is set in Provincetown, Massachusetts. It's not the first time the show has invoked New England's weird history. The second season was also set in Massachusetts (at an asylum full of dark secrets), and the show has invoked the myths and legends surrounding the Salem witch trials a few times. 

In the new season, a writer and his family move to Provincetown in the off-season so he can focus on his work. I'm sure nothing good will come of it, and it reminded me of a story I heard recently from a friend. Like the fictional writer, my friend moved to Provincetown in the off-season to do some writing. And like the writer, my friend also encountered something strange. There's one big difference though - my friend swears his story is true. 

In the 1980s, my friend (whom I'll call James) moved to Provincetown to work on a book. To cover his expenses, he took a job as the front-desk clerk at an inn in town. He worked the nightshift. The inn (which is still in business today) had multiple buildings and many rooms. 

On his first night on the job, the owner showed him where all the room keys were. They were all organized very neatly, but there was one key kept separate from all the rest. 

Not the haunted inn, just a motel I liked the looks of...

"That room," the owner said, "Don't let anyone stay there except as a last resort. It's not... a good room." The owner's stern expression discouraged James from asking any questions. 

Fall turned into winter, and James didn't need to think about the unrentable room. Business was slow, and the inn never became full. But that changed one holiday weekend in February. The weather became unseasonable warm, and all the rooms filled up - except that one. It was the only room left.

James was at the desk at midnight when a car pulled up. The driver came in, and asked if a room was available. "There's no place else in P-town with a vacancy," he said. "I'll take any room you have."

James rented him the last room.

The next morning he told one of the housekeeping staff he had rented the last room. The housekeeper, an older local woman, looked at him in horror. "You're never supposed to rent that room!" she said. 

"I know," James said. "But we were totally full. Can you tell me why we're not supposed to rent that room out?"

"Only if you help me clean it," she said. "I hate going there alone."

After the guest checked out, James and the housekeeper went to the unrentable room. James was disappointed when they opened the door. It looked just like any of the other rooms, with a large double bed and small bathroom. There was nothing strange at all. They set about stripping the sheets.

"Many years ago," the housekeeper said, "a young woman checked into this room by herself. No one thought much of it. She stayed one night, and then added another night. In the morning, she didn't check out. I came into this room to see if everything was OK."

"It wasn't. She had shot herself in the middle of the night. She had put a pillow over her head to mute the sound, and there was blood and brains and feathers everywhere. It was horrible. The worst thing I've ever seen."

The housekeeper explained that the young woman's ghost still haunted the room. People would hear her crying at night when the room was vacant, and the housekeepers heard her footsteps when they came in to clean. 

James and the housekeeper finished making up the bed, left the room, and closed the door. "And that's why," the housekeeper said, "the owner doesn't like to rent the room. That's also why he put twin beds in there. It discourages people from taking the room. No one likes to sleep in small beds these days." 

James was confused. "But there aren't twin beds in there," he said. "There's just one big bed. We changed the sheets on a double bed."

The housekeeper opened the door to the room. Inside were two twin beds.

*****

That's a great story, and it's perfect for Labor Day as the summer vacation season winds down and we move into fall. Thank you, "James" for sharing it with me!

I have a few updates. If you want to hear some interesting stories about witches (not ghosts), I'll be speaking Thursday, September 9 at 7:00 pm for the History Project about "Witches, Sex and Queer People: 1644 - 2021." The talk is free. You can register and find more details here. 

Also, my new book Witches and Warlocks of Massachusetts is now available wherever you buy books. It contains more than 70 stories about Bay State witchcraft, from witch trials in the 1600s to paranormal encounters in the 21st century. It's what you want to be reading this fall as the days grow short and the weather turns cool! I wouldn't suggest reading it at a haunted inn, though...

Pine Grove Cemetery: Murder, Legends, and History on Cape Cod

We were down on the Cape last week, and one day we decided to visit Pine Grove Cemetery in Truro. I had read about Pine Grove in the past but never visited since it is off the beaten track. With so many things shut down this year we had ample time to explore this old cemetery.

There are two aspects to Pine Grove: the charming historic side, and the creepy uncomfortable side. Let's talk about the charming historic side first. Pine Grove was established in 1794 by Truro's Methodist church. Although the church is no longer there, the cemetery remains and is still in active use. Like much of Cape Cod, Truro's open spaces have been reclaimed by the forest. The cemetery was once in an open field behind a church but is now hidden in the woods down a half-mile dirt road. 

Photo from Digital Commonwealth. You can see the cemetery behind the church.

Pine Grove Cemetery today.

There are no houses on the dirt road, and Pine Grove is totally surrounded by the Cape Cod National Seashore. This means the cemetery is isolated and very quiet. When we went we were the only people there for well over an hour. 

The oldest grave at Pine Grove is that of James Paine, who was buried in 1799, while the newest burial seems to be from this year. There are over 800 monuments in Pine Grove in a variety of styles. We saw one old-fashioned death's head, several winged cherubs, and many willow-and-urn motifs. Lots of notable Cape Cod families are buried here.

So that's the charming part: an old cemetery full of historic gravestone down a quiet country road. Now here, unfortunately, is the creepy part: four women were murdered and dismembered here in 1969. That dirt road in the woods and the isolated cemetery seem more unsettling once you know that detail.

On January 24, 1969, two young women from Providence, Rhode Island checked into a rooming house in nearby Provincetown. Patricia Walsh and Mary Ann Wysocki, both 23, were introduced by the landlady to another guest, a 24-year old local carpenter named Antone "Tony" Costa. Costa, who was tall and clean cut, helped Walsh and Wysocki carry their bags to their rooms. Walsh and Wysocki vanished shortly afterwards. Their car was spotted abandoned near a marijuana patch behind Pine Grove cemetery, but then it too vanished.

The police began digging and found four bodies in the sandy soil behind Pine Grove. Two of them were Walsh and Wysocki. The other two were Sydney Monzon, 18, of Eastham, who had vanished on Memorial Day of 1968, and Susan Perry, 17, of Provincetown, who had been missing since September 8, 1968. The families of Perry and Monzon had assumed their daughters had simply run off. It was the Summer of Love, after all, and many young people were leaving home to become hippies.

Coverage of the crime from Life Magazine, July 25, 1969

The police soon located the missing car in Burlington, Vermont, where Tony Costa was paying for its storage. He was quickly arrested and charged with murder. Many local women, including the daughter of novelist Kurt Vonnegut Jr., testified that Costa had invited them to visit his marijuana patch behind Pine Grove cemetery. Luckily they had declined. 

The details of the murders are grisly. The four women had been all been dismembered. Blood stained rope was found tied to a tree and in Costa's room at the boarding house. The local DA claimed that cannibalism had also occurred, but that was later recanted. 

Photo from Life Magazine

Costa was charged with murdering three of the four women, but during his trial other suspicious incidents came up. He had driven to Pennsylvania with two young women who disappeared, as did a woman he lived with in San Francisco. A woman he dated had been found drowned in her bathtub. Costa was ultimately suspected of murdering eight women, but was convicted only of murdering Wysocki and Walsh. He received a life sentence. Costa committed suicide in his cell at Walpole State Prison in 1974. He was 30 years old.

Those are the facts in the case, but as you might imagine these murders have entered local folklore. It's hard for a small town to forget something so grisly and legends are often how communities remember their past. 

The most persistent legend I've read is that Costa used this brick crypt to dismember his victims. I'm not sure if that story is true. The crypt is in the cemetery, and I think the actual crimes occurred in the woods behind Pine Grove. Still, the crypt is the main destination for legend-trippers. Anomalous structures (like an empty crypt with an unlocked door) tend become the focus of legends.

Note: I didn't enter the crypt, but only stuck my phone inside. I think historically this crypt was just used to hold bodies awaiting burial - no one is entombed inside it - but it still felt wrong to go inside. In 2007, paranormal investigators reported some strange things in the crypt, including Electronic Voice Phenomena and the sudden loss of power to their equipment. But were these just the normal ghosts one would expect to find in an old cemetery, or were they associated with the 1969 murders?

The grave in the woods where the women was buried is long gone, hidden away by the undergrowth and trees, but Tony and I still walked down the dirt road behind the cemetery. It was very, very quiet in the woods. The cemetery had been full of birds and grasshoppers, but the woods were completely silent. It was unnerving. Maybe the birds just like the cemetery's open landscape more. Maybe the woods hold a memory of what happened. Either way, we were alone nearly a mile from the main road where something terrible had occurred. It was not a good feeling. 

I took a photo of this crossroads we came upon. There have been legends and myths about crossroads for millennia, and they are said to be places where people can encounter ghosts, underworld deities, and the Devil. When I saw this I thought,"This would be a really creepy place to be at Halloween." Apparently I was not the first person to think along these lines. Evelyn Lawson wrote the following in The Provincetown Register in 1969:

"As Dinis (the district attorney) talked... I felt my skin prickle in dread and disgust. The place where the bodies had been found... was near an old cemetery, not far from a back dirt crossroad, the typical traditional site for the witches' Sabbath..." (quoted in Life Magazine, July 25, 1969)

Just to be clear, no witches were involved in these murders. Modern witches follow a spiritual or religious path and don't sacrifice people in the woods. It's probably just a coincidence the murders happened near a crossroads, but it does add some creepy resonance to the situation, and there have been rumors that people conduct sinister rituals in the woods. I didn't see any signs of ritual activity and I think they are just rumors. Costa apparently was interested in the occult and had books about magic in his cell at Walpole, which has probably added fuel to the rumor that Satanic activities happen in the woods behind Pine Grove. 

Would I visit again? I'd definitely go to the cemetery again, which is beautiful and historic. The crypt was a little off-putting, but nothing too scary. The woods behind Pine Grove were pretty creepy, though, and I'm not sure if I would go back. A little advice: if you decide to visit please don't go alone. Even if there aren't any ghosts it is still an isolated spot where something terrible happened. It's better to be safe than sorry. 

Dining at A Haunted Restaurant

A few years ago we were in Provincetown for the annual Tennessee Williams Festival. We met a group of friends for brunch at Local 186 and, since it was a sunny September day, decided to eat outside. Little did we know what that brunch would bring...

One of my friends ordered a Belgian waffle, and when it arrived it came topped with a mountain of whipped cream and an enormous dusting of powdered sugar. It looked very tasty, but just as we were about to eat a gusty breeze blew in from the harbor. The powdered sugar blew off the waffle and all over the person who ordered it. To make matters worse he was wearing a black shirt.

He wiped off the sugar, ordered another Bloody Mary, and moved on. We all assumed the mishap was just caused by a random seaside breeze - but we may have been wrong. Local 186 is supposed to be haunted. Perhaps a ghost had caused the sugar incident?

Many restaurants, hotels and guest houses are allegedly haunted these days. I think in the more superstitious past people would be afraid to patronize a haunted establishment but now having a resident ghost is considered an extra attraction for a business. An establishment needs good food, attentive service, and preferably an undead entity. Owners publicize their ghosts in an attempt to entice customers. Modern capitalism can absorb everything, even the restless dead.

The ghost who supposedly haunts Local 186 was a businesswoman herself so she may not mind. Her name is Esther Chamberlain, and for many years she ran the restaurant and the guest house above it when it was called Esther's Inn. She was a formidable and driven entrepreneur, and even after death she is said to be interested in how the business is run. 

For example, several staff have said the ghost has rearranged silverware when they weren't looking. Here's a quote about Esther's ghost from Sam Baltrusis's book Paranormal Provincetown:

Jeffrey Doucette, a veteran ghost tour guide, said he's heard stories of table settings being rearranged and objects moving at Local 186 if guests or employees don't adhere to basic rules of etiquette. "I ran into one woman while I was giving the tour and she confirmed that the restaurant and inn's namesake was a bit of a stickler... The spirit seems to be interested in table manners..."

Esther's ghost is apparently polite and there aren't any particularly horrific stories about her. She doesn't sound sinister, just stern. 

We had dinner at Local 186 just a couple weeks ago. Our meal passed without incident (and was quite tasty) but I noticed the Ouija board that had been in the bar on past visits was gone. Paranormal investigator Joni Mayhan told Baltrusis that sometimes people playing with Ouija boards can accidentally summon sinister entities. I think that would be doubly the case for drunk folks at a bar. Maybe the ghost haunting Local 186 isn't really Esther at all? 

Perhaps the owner removed the Ouija board for psychic safety but there may be another reason. Baltrusis notes in Paranormal Provincetown that the website Building Provincetown claimed Local 186 was reputedly haunted. That has been taken down since Baltrusis's book was published in 2016 and there's no mention of it. I wonder if the new owner is downplaying the ghost angle? If so maybe that's why they removed the Ouija board as well. 

It's their business and they can market it however they please. But if Esther's ghost really does haunt Local 186 I am sure she will stick around to make sure patrons use the right fork and place their napkins in their laps. 

The Witch's Doughnuts: A Cape Cod Witch Story

It's a well-known fact that people in New England really like doughnuts, and our region is blessed with an abundance of doughnut stores. Maybe it's even an overabundance. Locals often joke about how many there, particularly Dunkin Donuts. There are in fact two Dunkin Donuts within a quarter mile of my house. Two! There's another one a half-mile away.

This is not something recent. Doughnuts have been popular here for centuries. As Keith Stavely and Kathleen Fitzgerald discuss in their 2015 book America's Founding Food, early New Englanders ate doughnuts at almost any meal. They were particularly popular served with cheese and bread and butter during the break on Sunday church services. There's nothing like some fried sugary dough to get you through the next hour-long Calvinist sermon.

Of course, good church-going folks weren't the only people who loved doughnuts. They were popular with more disreputable people like sailors (many ships had doughnut making equipment in their galleys) and even witches. 

That's right. Even witches liked doughnuts. And as the following Cape Cod legend demonstrates, witches became very unhappy when someone stole their doughnuts. 

Way back in 1780, a sailor was walking through the dunes of Truro to reach a ship whose crew he was joining. It was a long hard walk through the sand and his stomach was beginning to rumble with hunger. As he passed by a small rundown house he smelled the rich aroma of freshly-made doughnuts wafting from within.

Unable to resist the smell he knocked on the door. No one answered. The door was unlocked so he opened it and stepped inside. 

No one was home. Well, no one except a small black goat that sat by the fireplace. The sailor thought this was odd but he ignored the animal. His attention was captured by a tray of hot doughnuts cooling on the table. He couldn't resist. He grabbed the tray and ran out the door. 

As he hurried away through the dunes he ate one doughnut and then another. They were the best doughnuts he had ever eaten.

By the time he reached the ship he had eaten all of them. Sure, he felt a little guilty for stealing someone's doughnuts, but they were only doughnuts, right? As the ship sailed away from the Cape he thought he would never be caught. He thought he had gotten away with the perfect doughnut crime. 

He hadn't. That night as the sailor slept an old woman appeared to him. Angrily and without speaking a word she threw a horse's bridle over his head. The witch rode him up and down the Cape as he slept, digging her heels into his sides violently whenever he slowed his gait. In the morning his torso was covered in bruises shaped like a woman's shoe. 

She appeared to him again the next night, and the next. He tried to hide the witch's nightly visitations from the other crew members. He knew that sailors were superstitious and wouldn't want someone cursed by a witch onboard. They'd call him a "Jonah" and try to throw him into the sea. 

Unfortunately the witch's curse radiated out from him and everything he touched went wrong. After he was asked to pump the ship's drinking water it became brackish. When he was told to work in the ship's galley all the flour became moldy. He was exhausted, his body ached, and he was jinxed. 

The crew began to mutter about him, and the ship's captain pulled him aside. "Tell me the truth," the captain said. "Are you bewitched?" The sailor told the captain everything: how he had stolen the doughnuts, how he was being ridden every night, and how he was now cursed.  

When the sailor was done with his story the captain grabbed a musket and then pulled a silver button off his coat. He loaded the button into the musket and handed it to the sailor. 

"Use this tonight when she comes for you," the captain said. 

At midnight the crew was awakened by the sound of a single musket-shot. The next morning the sailor came up on the deck looking fresh and rested. The curse was lifted and the ship completed a successful voyage.

So there's the story. It sounds like a folktale to me, but some people claim it was true. The sailor eventually returned to Truro, and over a century later his grandson told the story to a reporter from The Boston Herald, where it appeared in the February 6, 1919 issue. The Harvard historian George Lyman Kittredge (author of 1929's Witchcraft in Old and New England) said he heard the same story from an old Truro native in the late 19th century. It is also included in Elizabeth Renard's book 1934 book The Narrow Land. 

The doughnut angle is unusual, but like so many folktales about witches it is mainly intended to educate the hearer about how to fight back against witchcraft. The point is not that the sailor stole doughnuts, but that he was bewitched and defeated the witch. It's an education in defensive magic (use a silver bullet!), not a morality tale. 

Still, I find the conclusion of this story troubling. Let's face it, the sailor committed a crime. I understand why the witch was so unhappy. I don't want anyone stealing my food, do you? Perhaps she should have gone to the local constable and pressed charges, but that might have raised some uncomfortable questions. ("Did you see the sailor steal your doughnuts ma'am?" "No, but my black goat familiar did...") Instead she took matters into her own hands. Perhaps the whole situation could have been defused if the sailor simply apologized or paid restitution. 

Also, like a lot of New England witch stories there is an uncomfortable gender-dynamic at play. The nighttime witch-riding feels like it has a sexual subtext, and is something that is always used by female witches against male victims. But is the sailor really a victim in this story, or a perpetrator who needs to be punished?

*****

Special thanks to Tony for the doughnut photo shoot!

Howling In The Woods: A Terrifying Tarzan In Wellfleet

Imagine yourself alone in the woods on a late autumn evening. The leaves are down and bare tree branches rattle in a chill wind blowing off the nearby ocean. It's quiet. All you can hear is the sound of dry leaves crunching underfoot. Maybe the smell of snow is in the air.

Suddenly, in the deepening gloom, you hear a howl. You can't tell where it's coming from but it sounds close. You pause. Maybe it was just a dog?

Then you hear it again. It sounds closer this time. It's definitely not a dog. Is it a human? Maybe, or maybe it's something you don't want to face alone in the dark woods.

The thing howls again, even closer, and fear overpowers curiosity. You run for home like the Devil himself is behind you. For all you know, maybe he is.

In December of 1939, the Cape Cod town of Wellfleet was plagued by someone (or something) that screamed and howled in the night. It was a season for strange apparitions on the Outer Cape, for the this was the same time that Provincetown's more famous Black Flash was running amok a few miles down Route 6. Unlike the Black Flash, though, no one ever saw the source of the strange howls that were heard in Wellfleet. He, she, or it remained unseen.

The noises were focused in Wellfleet's Paine Hollow neighborhood, and were heard only at night. Some locals jokingly said they were being made by Tarzan, but others took the noises seriously enough to form an armed mob:

‘Tarzan’, in case you don’t know, is the name of our local phantom, a sequel to Provincetown’s ‘Black Flash’, maybe. Anyhow, the people were out the other night, armed with clubs and hammers and shot guns to track down the source of the strange noises that had tormented them for days. They combed Paine Hollow with minute precision, but ‘Tarzan’ remained elusive. (The Provincetown Advocate, "Tarzan Is Making Wellfleet Uneasy", December 14, 1939)

I suppose the noises were most likely made by a hoaxer, but The Advocate also suggests it was a local bull unhappy that his owner had locked him up during deer hunting season. Whatever it was, it's never a laughing matter when armed people go stomping through the woods looking to find a monster. Anxiety was running high that year on the Outer Cape. A sea serpent had been found in January in Provincetown, fishermen were afraid Nazi U-boats were lurking under the waves, and the Black Flash had terrorized Provincetown a few weeks earlier. People were stressed and ready to shoot something.

Happily, no one was shot and I couldn't find any information about the Wellfleet Tarzan beyond that one article. Maybe the hoaxer quit when he learned about the armed mob, maybe the cow stopped complaining, or maybe Tarzan swung back to the jungle. Either way, Tarzan made an impression on the people of Wellfleet:

The residents scoff at the thought of a phantom ‘Tarzan’ swinging through the tree tops South Wellfleet, yodeling like a sick sea-clam to scare little boys. But the good neighbors look beneath their beds before retiring these nights - I betcha! (The Provincetown Advocate, "Tarzan Is Making Wellfleet Uneasy", December 14, 1939) 

The Black Flash of Provincetown: Hoax or Horror?

The first time I heard of the Black Flash was back in the early 2000s. I had bought a copy of Joseph Citro's Passing Strange: True Tales of New England Horrors and Hauntings (1997). This is an excellent book and I recommend it to anyone who is interested in local folklore and spooky stories.

It also contains a lengthy section about the Black Flash, a mysterious entity who supposedly terrorized Provincetown in the late 1930s and early 1940s. I have vacationed on the Outer Cape for many years and was intrigued to learn about this local legend. Provincetown has a lot of strange characters, but the Black Flash was strange even for P-town.

According to Citro, the Black Flash first appeared in the fall of 1938 when children in Provincetown reported a sinister figure lurking in the dunes or hiding behind trees. They described the entity as being about 8’ tall and dressed all in black. He wore a long black cape and black hood that covered his head. Some children also said he had long silver ears and flaming eyes.

At first the adults in town just dismissed these accounts as stories from kids with overly active imaginations. But that changed when an adult woman named Maria Costa encountered the Black Flash in October. She was walking by Town Hall when the Black Flash jumped out from behind the bushes and started to chase her. He made a strange buzzing noise like a giant insect. Costa was terrified and ran into a nearby coffee shop, where she hysterically explained what happened. Several customers ran outside but couldn’t find a trace of the Black Flash. He had vanished.

Other people were also accosted by the Black Flash that fall. For example, a teenage boy ran to the police station after the creature jumped out at him on his way home from the library. He was terrified and in tears, and told the police the Flash had spit blue flames at him.

The Black Flash had the ability to leap over tall fences, and some locals even said he had springs in his heels. For example, a man named Charles Farley saw the creature lurking in his backyard and fired his shotgun at it. The Flash just just laughed and jumped, unharmed, over an eight-foot fence. He then disappeared from view.

Commercial Street in Provincetown (from Wikipedia)

In another case, the police got a call one night that the Black Flash was in a school playground, which was surrounded by a tall fence. Four police officers entered the yard with flashlights and pistols drawn. They got a good look at the Black Flash, and one officer swore his face was really just a silver painted mask. They told the Flash to surrender or they’d fire, but the Flash just laughed and jumped over the 10-foot fence that surrounded the school. Then he once again disappeared.

According to Citro, the Black Flash terrorized Provincetown for about seven years. The last time the Flash appeared was in December of 1945. Four children from the Janard family were playing in their yard on Standish Street when they saw the Flash creeping toward them through the fog. They ran into their house, terrified. Their parents weren’t home and they didn’t know what to do.

They could hear the Flash turning the doorknobs of the house, trying to get in. The youngest children hid behind chairs, but the oldest boy, Allen, filled a bucket with hot water and ran up to the second floor. He could see the Flash outside right below him. He opened the window and dumped the bucket of water on the Flash’s head. The Flash let out a startled gasp, and then slunk off like a wet cat.

And that was the last time the Black Flash was ever seen in Provincetown.

All this may sound like an urban legend, but there is evidence that something really occurred. On October, 26, 1939, The Provincetown Advocate printed a front-page article titled "Fall Brings Out the Black Flash. Hard Winter Certain As Cabin Fever Stories Start." To quote from the article:

It ain’t usually until “cabin fever” time that the balmy stories start. After folks have been penned up here for too long a time, in too little space, with just the same faces to look at every morning, afternoon and evening, then the crazy yarns begin circulating.

But winter seems to be shutting in early this year. Here it is only October and the “Black Flash” has been prowling, scaring kids so that they won’t go out nights and won't go to bed, grabbing women, jumping over ten foot hedges with no trouble at all. “Chair springs on his feet” is the explanation.

On November 9, the paper ran a short follow up piece titled “Chief Denies Current Rumors.”

Chief of Police Anthony P. Tarvers this morning absolutely denied the rumors current that the so-called “Black Flash” had been captured. “As far as I am concerned, the Black Flash is dead and gone,” said the chief.

Those are the only newspaper accounts of the Black Flash that can be found. You might notice that according to The Provincetown Advocate, the Flash was only active for a few weeks, not several years. The more extended and elaborate stories that Citro cites didn't appear in the papers, but were collected by the writer Robert Ellis Cahill for his book New England's Mad and Mysterious Men, which was probably first published in the 1980s. (My copy doesn't have a publication date in it.)

Cahill went to Provincetown and interviewed many locals about the Black Flash. He includes their stories in his book, and has a few accounts that Citro didn't include in Passing Strange. For example, Cahill writes how a pool shark named Eight Ball Eddie was convinced the Black Flash was really a gay man in drag who got his thrills by scaring people. Note: Eight Ball Eddie said all this in much blunter and homophobic language than I'm using.

After sharing his theory with friends, the pool shark finally encountered the Flash on his way home late one night. Eight Ball Eddie described him as large tall man, but definitely a human in a costume, not a monster. He wore a black hood, and had silver eyes that glowed in the dark. Eddie told him to get out of his way, but the Flash didn't. Instead, he lunged at Eddie and slapped him on the face so hard Eddie fell over. The pool shark ran home in panic, pursued by the Flash until he reached his door. The next morning Eddie's face still bore a red handprint.He was less dismissive of the Flash after that!

There were several theories about who (or what) the phantom was. As mentioned above, a few locals thought the Black Flash was a gay tourist who had stayed past the summer season and was terrorizing the town from a shack hidden in the dunes. Others thought he might be teenager John Williams, who was quite fast and a weightlifter. But although Williams was athletic enough to be the Black Flash he was a sailor and often at sea when the Flash appeared.

Francis Marshall, a retired Provincetown police chief, told Cahill that the Black Flash was actually four men who terrorized the town as a hoax. Marshall refused to divulge their names, but said that two of them were already deceased by the time he spoke to Cahill.

Spring-heeled Jack (from Wikipedia)

So perhaps the Black Flash was really just a short-lived hoax whose legend grew in the telling, but there are interesting parallels between the Flash and Spring-heeled Jack, a legendary monster from England. Spring-heeled Jack was first seen in London in 1837; the last sighting was in 1904. Like the Black Flash, Spring-heeled Jack was described as tall human-figure dressed in black, often with a black hood on his head. Some witnesses said he had fiery red eyes, and others said he could spit out blue fire. He was called Spring-heeled Jack because he could jump so high people thought he had springs in his shoes.

All of this is very, very similar to the Black Flash. If you believe in the supernatural, were they the same entity? Or were people just telling similar stories?

I also see some similarities between the Black Flash and the scary clown hysteria that the US experienced last year. In both cases, people reported entities whose sole purpose was just to scare people. They both seem to be people in costumes, but there also seem to be some supernatural elements to the stories as well as human pranksters.

When I go to the Cape this summer I'll keep my eyes peeled for the Black Flash, but hopefully he won't slap me if I see him!

*****

In addition to the sources I cite, you can read more about the Flash in Provincetown Magazine, and in this great blog post by Theo Paijmans. I first wrote about the Black Flash several years ago but wanted to revisit this fascinating story now that I had more information.

Captain Snaggs and the Devil: Hell Comes to Cape Cod

Many years ago a sea captain named Jeremiah Snaggs lived on Cape Cod. Captain Snaggs was quite wealthy, but he didn't owe his success to hard work or even good luck. He owed it to the Devil.

When he was just a young seaman Snaggs had sold his soul to the Devil in return for money and success. The Devil kept his end of the bargain, and Snaggs became a rich man. For most of his life he didn't worry about keeping his end of the bargain. After all, it was many years away. Who had time to worry about Hell when there was so much money to make and spend?

But time goes by quickly, and eventually Snaggs was an old, sick man. As he lay in his bed, breathing what was probably his last breath, he could hear the Devil's heavy footsteps coming up the stairs to his bedroom. He was filled with fear and regret. He didn't want to go to Hell.

His fear filled him with the energy of a young man. He jumped out of bed, climbed out the window and ran like ... well, he ran like hell! First he ran to Barnstable, but as stopped to catch his breath he could hear the Devil coming up behind him. Oh no! He started running again, even faster, and made his way to Orleans, where he hid in a hollow tree.

As Snaggs hid in the tree he heard the Devil sniffing around nearby. The Evil One knew his quarry was nearby somewhere. While the Devil was poking around in the underbrush Snaggs crept out of the tree and set off again, running faster than he ever had in his whole life. He made it all the way to a cemetery in Wellfleet before he stopped.

He knew the Devil would catch up to him again, so he grabbed a pumpkin from a nearby field and carved a face into it. Then he covered a gravestone with his cloak, balanced the jack-o-lantern on top, and stuck a candle in it. As he climbed over the cemetery wall he glanced over his shoulder and saw the Devil run up to the jack-o-lantern. "I've got you now!' he heard the Devil say. Snaggs didn't wait to hear the rest of it. He just started running.

Snaggs ran for many miles until he reached Provincetown. Then he stopped. He had hit the end of Cape Cod. There was no place left to run.

A few minutes later the Devil came running up after him. "Ha! You can't escape me now!" the Devil said. He glowered evilly at Snaggs. Then he glowered some more.

Snaggs just stood there, waiting for the Devil to grab him. But the Devil didn't. Finally Snagg said, "Well, you caught me. Ain't you going to drag me to Hell?"

The Devil laughed with surprise. "What do you mean? We're already there. We're in Provincetown, aren't we?"

*****

Elizabeth Renard comments on this story in her book The Narrow Land: Folk Chronicles of Old Cape Cod (1934). She notes, "Many variants. Always the flight ends in Provincetown, and the conclusion is the same; but different captains and different towns are used for the starting point." The names may change but the point of this story doesn't: Provincetown and Hell are the same place. 

Why would this be? These days Provincetown is a very expensive (and primarily gay) resort town. Well, I suppose to some religious fundamentalists that sounds like Hell, but this story is older than Provincetown's gay history. 

I found an interesting explanation on the home page of Provincetown's Masonic Lodge. According to their history of the town, the area was first settled in 1680 by a ragtag group of fishermen, smugglers, and escaped indentured servants. Some of these outlaws made their living as "mooncussers." That's a quaint word for shipwreckers. They would place lanterns on the beach which passing ships would misinterpret as indicating a safe channel. When the ships sailed towards the lights they would wreck on the shore, allowing the mooncussers to pillage their cargo. 

Provincetown maintained its bad reputation even when the British stopped this deadly practice. Unlike it's stricter Puritan neighbors, Provincetown encouraged a freer practice of religion and allowed sects like Methodism to flourish. That doesn't sound like much now, but it was a much bigger deal in the past. In the early 20th century Provincetown became a popular spot for artists and playwrights, which I suppose also did nothing to help its reputation with its more conservative neighbors.

Although New England has a reputation for historically being uptight (perhaps deservedly), some towns were known to be a little wild. For example, Marblehead, Massachusetts was originally a lawless place, as was its neighbor Dogtown Common. We can safely add Provincetown to that list, whether or not Captain Snaggs really did make a deal with the Devil. But one man's Hell is another man's Heaven...

Three Provincetown Sea Serpents

I have been to Provincetown on Cape Cod many, many times. It's definitely the liveliest town on the Cape in the summer, and there's always something interesting to see when you walk down Commercial Street.

Outside the hubbub of the town, though, there are miles and miles of dunes and beaches. It gets pretty quiet out there, particularly in the off-season. It can feel like you're at the end of the Earth, where anything is possible. It's the type of place where monsters might appear...

In 1886, George Washington Ready of Provincetown saw a sea serpent off the shore of Provincetown. According to The Provincetown Advocate, the sighting started with a disturbance in the water:

It looked like a whirlpool and from his point of view appeared to be about 20 feet in diameter, from the center of which jets of spray looking like steam were ejected to the height of 50 feet. Intently watching this strange phenomenon he saw a huge head appear above the surface of the water and point for the shore. The head was as large as a 200 gallon cask, concave on the under side. Mr. Ready saw the creature coming towards the shore and secreted himself in a clump of beach plum bushes where he got a good view of the monster. 

And what a monster it was!

It was about 300 feet long and the thickest part, which was about the middle way, he judged as it passed, to be about 12 feet in diameter.... The most curious feature was the head. The open mouth disclosed four rows of teeth which glistened  like polished ivory and were at least two feet long, while on the extreme end of the head or nose extended a tusk or horn at least 8' long. The creature had six eyes as large as good-sized dinner plates and were three feet from the head. It could see behind, before and sideways all at once. Three of the eyes were fiery red and the others were green. 

Although it was ostensibly a sea monster, there was something vaguely infernal about the creature:

A strong sulphurous odor accompanied the creature and intense heat was emitted, so much that the bushes and grass over which he moved had the appearance of being scorched with fire. 

The creature made its way to a freshwater pond and burrowed down into the earth. The water in pond drained downwards after the creature, drying out the pond and leaving a hole "some 20 feet in diameter, perfectly circular, down which sounding leads have been lowered 250 fathoms and no bottom found."

Provincetown Harbor

That description is from the August 18, 1949 Provincetown Advocate, which is quoting from an 1886 Yarmouth newspaper. I don't think there are any bottomless pits in Provincetown these days, so either the hole collapsed in on itself or the story is one of those hoaxes 19th century newspapers loved to publish. I do find the "sulphurous odor" intriguing, though, because people who encounter Sasquatch often say he smells the same. Satan is also supposed to smell like sulfur, of course.

The November 16, 1950 Advocate has another interesting account of something serpentine, but this time seen in the air by a ship's crew on September 30, 1850 at 9:00 pm:

I observed in a N.E. direction, at an elevation of about 40 degrees, a halo resembling a serpent of fiery red color. It extended about 10 degrees in a S.E. and N.W. direction, the head somewhat elevated, with an immense curl or fold near the center. It moved off in a S.E. direction, but becoming less and less distinct until half past 9, when it entirely disappeared. I am unable to conjecture what may be the cause of this appearance, but guess it must be the veritable Sea Serpent, tired of swimming and desirous of a more conspicuous situation...

That account sounds less like a sea serpent and more like a UFO to me, but people didn't really have the concept of UFOs in 1850. It sounds like the crew definitely saw something strange in the sky, but again I am not sure if readers are supposed to take the suggestion it was a flying sea serpent seriously.

Provincetown dune shack

A more serious sea serpent appeared in Provincetown in January of 1939. Well, at least its skeleton did. Coast Guard crew at Wood's End found an 18 foot long skeleton on the beach.

It bears no resemblance to whale, black fish, shark, sea cow, or any other sea skeleton arrangement. The central section of the long spine is about eight inches in diameter and it tapers off at both ends.  It contains 71 vertebrae and on each side are the remains of two growths that may have been flippers. The skull is flat and narrow with jaws but no teeth. A hole about three inches in diameter extends through the skull (Provincetown Advocate, January 19, 1939)

The skeleton was shipped off to Harvard's Museum of Natural History for identification. Curator William S. Schroeder said that the skeleton came from a basking shark, not a sea serpent. Basking sharks are quite rare in New England waters, which is why no one in Provincetown could identify it.

If you're down in Provincetown this summer, keep your eyes peeled. Who knows? Maybe you'll see a fourth sea serpent, and maybe this time someone will prove it's real.

Provincetown's Haunted Guesthouse

I just came back from visiting Truro and Provincetown. It was so relaxing my mind has been emptied of almost all thought - but I do still have some folklore rattling around in there.

Topographically, the outer part of Cape Cod is an amazing place, with huge dunes, dense forests of scrubby pines and oaks, and, of course, the rough and stormy Atlantic Ocean. It's beautiful, magical, and weird, so it's not surprising there's a lot of interesting folklore from this part of Massachusetts, like the Black Flash, the haunted Martin House, and the enigmatic Jenny Lind Tower.

If you want to have an exceptionally magical and weird experience while you're out there, you might want to stay at the Carpe Diem Guesthouse in Provincetown. It's reputed to be haunted!

According to Mark Jasper's book Haunted Cape Cod and the Islands, employees at the guesthouse have reported recurrent paranormal activity in several areas of the 19th century building.

For example, a housekeeper working alone in the basement heard someone whisper in his ear and then touch his back, but couldn't see anyone when he turned around. Creepy. His experience was later confirmed by a guest using the outdoor hot tub, which is near a basement window. The guest asked the desk manager about the man and woman walking around in the basement wearing Victorian clothing. When the manager descended into the basement to investigate he found no one there. A housekeeper who lived in the basement has also claimed he saw a shadowy figure walking into his room.

Each guest room at the Carpe Diem is named after a famous writer, and the one named after William Shakespeare has also seen its share of strange occurrences. One employee often felt a watchful presence in this room, and a guest who spent the night there said she heard a voice telling her to "Get up and get out!"

The owners of the guesthouse think one of the ghosts may be a former manager named Kevin, who liked working there so much he decided to stick around after death. They don't know who the other ghosts are, but since the building was a 19th century funeral home I am sure there are plenty of candidates.

The ghosts at the Carpe Diem sound pretty mellow, and there no bleeding walls or glowing eyes staring in the window. If you want to have a gently creepy experience it sounds like a great place to stay!

The Black Flash of Provincetown

Here's another post about Provincetown.

Back in October 1938, Provincetown was haunted by a phantom that locals dubbed the Black Flash. Unlike your average ethereal wispy ghost, the Black Flash was nearly eight feet tall, unnaturally strong, and wore all black clothing, including a flapping bat-like cape. To top it off, he had glowing eyes and possibly breathed fire.

Some salient points about the Black Flash's behavior:

1. He could easily leap over 10 foot fences when being chased.

2. He liked to laugh malevolently. Once, after a villager shot him with a shotgun, he laughed AND leaped over a high fence.

3. He liked to jump out of dark alleys and scare people with his giant black cape. Sounds harmless, no?

4. He physically attacked when confronted. Two adult men both claim to have been overpowered by the Black Flash. So, maybe he wasn't harmless.

5. He terrorized P-town for seven years, until December of 1945.

The Black Flash was ultimately defeated by a group of small children. Al, Joey, Eleanor and Louie Janard were playing outside their family's house on Standish Street one foggy December day when they saw the Flash lurking on a hill nearby. Terrified, they ran inside. The Black Flash followed them, rattling the doors. Finally, Louie filled a bucket with hot water and dumped it on the phantom from an upstairs window. With a gasp, the Black Flash ran off. He was never seen again.

This story is recounted in a lot of New England folklore books, but the best account I've read is in Joseph Citro's Passing Strange. Citro in turn got his information from Robert Cahill, the now deceased Salem folklorist.

My general reaction to this story is "What the heck?" You read about a lot of ghosts and witches in New England, but not too many costumed marauders. Maybe the Black Flash was just a prankster, but he kept it up for seven years! (And apparently was immune to gunshot wounds...)

The Black Flash also seems very much like a product of his era. Costumed superheroes and villains first started to appear in the media during the Depression, and were most popular during WWII. His name and appearance remind me of Batman and the Flash, but the Black Flash's actions were a little more villainous.

*****

Author's note, 8/31/2017: I wrote this post more than eight years ago and it is still quite popular. I've learned more about the Flash since then! You can read an updated post here.

A Haunted Restaurant in Provincetown?

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I recently took the ferry down to Provincetown for the day.

Provincetown always seems infused with the supernatural to me. It's this hyperactive little beach resort surrounded by the vast coyote-haunted emptiness of the National Seashore, and the even vaster emptiness of the Atlantic Ocean, that is quite literally at the end of the world (or at least Cape Cod).

P-town has a lot folklore surrounding it. Of course it was the first place that the Pilgrims landed before they moved on to Plymouth, but it also supposedly has a haunted restaurant: the Martin House.



According to Thomas D'Agostino's Haunted Massachusetts, the Martin House is inhabited by multiple ghosts. One seems to be the spirit of Captain Tracy, who lived in the building in the 1700's. A misty outline of a sea captain has been seen in the upstairs dining room, accompanied by strange cold spots. The ghost of Mrs. Tracy has also been seen.

The other ghosts may be the spirits of runaway slaves who sought shelter in the Martin House when it was part of the Underground Railroad. A small family of African American ghosts has been seen in a secret passage between two chimneys, and the ghost of a young slave girl has been reported to play pranks on people who sleep in the small upstairs room.



Paranormal investigators don't think the ghosts are malicious, but simply curious. Unfortunately, the Martin House seems to be haunted by something worse than ghosts these days - a bad economy. It hasn't been open for business in a couple years, and is up for sale. If you have the money, you might be able to get a good deal on a famous building filled with spirits.