Is It Really A Ghost? Debunking Stories From New England Foklore

Here is a story sent by my friend Simon Young, which he found in the December 28, 1892 issue of The Shields Daily Gazette. This is a British newspaper, but for some reason they ran the following:

A "Ghost" In A Graveyard.

For some time past a "ghost" had taken up its abode in the graveyard at South Newburg, Maine, where it appeared at night, moving round among the graves, bearing a phosphoric light. The other evening a party of seven men and women went out to investigate, and found that the the apparition that was frightening the people was the reflection of a light from a neighbouring house, thrown back from a new and highly-polished marble headstone.

That's the end of the article. You don't see such short newspaper stories today, but the really interesting thing it was written just to debunk a ghost story. I do question whether the ghost is really debunked, though. After all, how could people see a light moving around the graveyard if it was just the light from a house reflecting off a gravestone? Gravestones don't move. Houses don't move. How did the light move?

Anyway, this story is a classic New England debunking story, and debunking stories form their own subset of folk tales. In general, a debunking story starts with a supernatural situation that foolish people believe to be true. It ends with the revelation that the strange phenomena were really caused by something natural. The foolish people just didn't realize what they were observing.

I've found debunking stories in all sorts of places, like folklore collections and town histories. Eva Speare includes several of them in her book New Hampshire Folk Tales, and prefaces them with this statement:

Psychologists often discuss the causes of the innate fear complex which exists in the subconscious mental states of sensible men and women even in this scientific twentieth century.

The following stories are printed because they demonstrate how easily this natural inheritance overcomes the common sense of normal human beings when suddenly confronted by mysterious events. 

According to one story, a house in Franconia was reputedly haunted. Everyone who tried to live in it was scared off by eerie noises that had no discernible cause. Word spread that a ghost inhabited the building and eventually the landlord, Simeon Spooner, could not find anyone to rent it. It sat empty.

A young widow named Priscilla Quimby arrived in Franconia with two small children. Money was tight for Quimby, and she needed someplace cheap to live. Spooner told her she could live in the haunted house rent free - if she dared. Having no other alternative, she accepted his offer and moved in.

At first things were quiet and peaceful in the house, but one night after the children had fallen asleep Quimby started to hear noises. They grew louder and louder, until the house was filled with horrible whining and screeching sounds. The widow grew frightened, but was determined to find the source of the noise, even if it meant confronting a ghost. She was going to fight to stay in her home! Her search for the sounds eventually led her up to the top floor, where in an unlit room she discovered ... a tree branch scraping against a window. The next day she cut the branch off and lived peacefully in the house for many years.

In another story, from 1820, Speare tells of a boy named Nat Huntoon who lived in Epping, New Hampshire. One day two of Huntoon's friends said they had heard the local Baptist church was haunted by ghosts. After school the three boys went to the church to investigate. As they stood on the front steps they heard horrible noises emerging from inside. Uncanny moans, heavy footsteps, and unearthly yells filled the air. The boys fled in panic.

Huntoon did chores for Esquire Daniel Ladd, and when he told Ladd what he had experienced Ladd set off for the church. En route Ladd met one of his friends, General Joseph Towle, who decided to accompany him. When they reached the church they paused outside. From within they heard strange noises, just like Huntoon described. Steeling themselves, they pulled open the church doors, but instead of ghosts or demons they saw that the church was instead filled with cows. The explanation? Apparently someone had left his cows in the middle of the road, and an annoyed neighbor decided to hide them in the church to get back at him.


Debunking stories sound plausible until you start to think about them closely. For example, the first story seems to make sense. There used to be a tree branch that scraped against a window at my office, and the sound was weird and annoying. We all knew it was a tree branch, though, and didn't think it was a ghost. But wouldn't the people in Franconia know what a tree branch sounded like? Couldn't they just see the tree branch when they stood outside the house? Also, you'd think Simeon Spooner would thoroughly investigate his property before letting someone stay there for free.

The second story seems even less plausible to me. The boys just happened to go to the church on the same day that someone happened to hide cows inside? But why did they think the church was haunted to begin with? And isn't hiding cows in a church some kind of criminal offense? The explanation raises more questions than it answers.

There are lots of other debunking stories out there. For example, an infamous fiery ghost ship called the Palatine was often seen off the coast of Rhode Island's Block Island in the 18th and 19th century. Reverend S.T. Livermore, in his book Block Island (1882), suggests that the fiery apparition was actually caused by gas rising up from the water. However, he also admits that no one has ever given a truly satisfactory explanation for the ghost ship. (Livermore is quoted in R. A. Botkin's A Treasury of New England Folklore.) Fiery gas does not rise up from the ocean waters at regular intervals off the coast of Rhode Island, though. The natural explanation doesn't make any sense.

Old debunking stories don't just apply to ghosts. A demon two girls accidentally summoned was explained away as a neighbor pulling a prank. That sounds like a good explanation, but only if you ignore another story about a similar demon where it clearly wasn't a prank. The hairy humanoid known as the Winsted Wildman was explained as an ape that had escaped from a circus - even though none had gone missing and apes can't survive a Connecticut winter. The "escaped wild animal" explanation continues to pop up even today. For example, the Truro panther was said to possibly be a domesticated panther that had escaped from its Provincetown owner. The only problem is that no one in Provincetown owned such an animal.

To be clear, I don't think every ghost or monster is real. It's important to be skeptical about supernatural phenomena. Otherwise we'd still be hanging our neighbors as witches, which no one wants. But arguing that supernatural phenomena
are just the result of people misinterpreting the natural world is too simple. It leaves out all the psychological, historical, and spiritual aspects that make folklore and the paranormal so interesting.

Ghost Stories and Lewiston Maine's Riverside Cemetery

One of the nice things about writing about folklore in New England is that in almost every place I visit there's some weird or interesting story.

Case in point: Lewiston, Maine.

Tony and I are alumni of Bates College in Lewiston, and this past weekend we went up to the campus for a volunteer event. It was nice to visit Bates again, and interestingly someone we met that weekend said he had heard Bates's Pettigrew Hall is haunted. I had never heard that, but I had once read somewhere that the college's Schaeffer Theater was haunted.

Do you see what I mean? I visit one small college campus and there might be two haunted buildings. Fantastic! However, I'm not writing about Bates today. Instead, I'm focusing on Lewiston's Riverside Cemetery, which is a short walk from campus on the banks of the Androscoggin River.

 

Back when I was a student I went to Riverside with a group of friends. I remember that it was a chilly spring day, and there was still snow on the ground. We hadn't heard any specific ghost stories about the cemetery, but we proceeded cautiously. It was sooo quiet, and we had all watched way too many horror films. There were five of us, and my friend John was bringing up the rear.

I turned around to say something, and noticed that John wasn't there. He had gone missing.

This made my hair stand on end. We were alone in the cemetery, so where had he gone?

It turns out he was hiding behind a gravestone, waiting to jump out and scare us. John was a big-time prankster, so he couldn't resist the opportunities a spooky cemetery provided. He once jumped out from under the bleachers wearing a rain coat and wielding a hockey stick while a friend and I were jogging on the track at night, so the attempted cemetery prank was really a minor one for him.

 

John felt like something spooky should happen in a quiet cemetery, but apparently some people have actually had weird and unusual things happen to them in Riverside Cemetery. Or perhaps it's not so unusual. Old cemeteries should always have a ghost or two in them.

The clearest account I have read appears in Michelle Souliere's book Strange Maine. Michelle was contacted by someone who shared their experience from October, 2007.

Three people who lived in Lewiston decided to take a walk in Riverside Cemetery on a bright October afternoon. The cemetery is on a bluff overlooking the Androscoggin, and it's a pleasant place to walk. The three sat on a bench overlooking the water for a while before deciding to visit the Libby Mausoleum. The mausoleum is secluded away from the main part of the cemetery in a wooded glen. (Note: Tony and I didn't take any pictures of the Libby Mausoleum on our trip. Sorry about that!)

As they approached the mausoleum they felt a strange, oppressive energy in the air. At this point I personally would have turned back, but instead they continued walking towards the stone structure. One the three decided to try to communicate with whatever entity was possibly present, but didn't receive any response. Well, at least not a verbal one.

The air grew increasingly cold, and one of the trio turned back. The person who had tried communicating with the presence gave up and lit a cigarette. As she inhaled, she heard a cracking noise. The top half of a birch tree near the mausoleum had split off and was falling right towards her! She and her friends ran, and the tree crashed to the ground right where they had been standing.

The three quickly left the cemetery, but continued to sense a strange presence around them for several days.

In addition to her book, Michelle Souliere also writes a blog called Strange Maine. The story about the Riverside Cemetery also appears there, and the comments are really quite interesting. Some people wrote to say that they too have had strange experiences at the Riverside Cemetery, and have photographed orbs of ghostly energy or seen spectral beings. Many others wrote to say that they visit the cemetery all the time and find it a peaceful place, including the Libby Mausoleum.

 

So is the Riverside Cemetery haunted or not? I'm not qualified to say, but I do think with paranormal phenomena you sometimes get whatever it is you are looking for. Personally, I have always liked cemeteries, and when I was a kid I used to sometimes ride my bike through one near my parents' house in Haverhill. Nothing really unusual ever happened, until one day when I was riding through it with my friend Bobby. We were being loud so I said something about how we needed to be quieter and more respectful of the dead.

Bobby said, "Ha! I'm not afraid of any ghosts."

Wham! As soon as he said it he lost control of his bike and fell off. He scraped up his knee pretty bad. We joked about the situation for a long time afterwards.

Was it a ghost that pushed over Bobby's bike? Again, I can't say, but it certainly does feel like something spooky should happen in quiet old cemeteries.

The grave of a soldier killed at the battle of Gettysburg.

Sadly, one thing that really does happen at the Riverside Cemetery is vandalism. Quite a few stones had been knocked over, which is sad. There is a lot of history in this and other cemeteries, and even if you don't believe in ghosts you should be respectful of the dead. 

By the way, recently I've been the guest on two awesome podcasts. If you want to hear me talk about New England witchcraft (and who wouldn't), check out New World Witchery, an excellent blog and podcast. If you'd rather learn about farming folklore, listen to the Ghost Fawn Farm Podcast. It's planting season so why not learn some strange old Yankee folklore?