H.P. Lovecraft, Rhode Island Witches, and Weather Magic

H.P. Lovecraft (1890 - 1937) is one of America's best-known horror writers. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, he wrote dozens of stories which appeared in the pulp magazines of the 1920s and 1930s. He was very popular with pulp readers, but didn't make much money from his writing, and died in poverty at the age of forty-seven from stomach cancer. 

His work became better-known after his death, particularly when it started appearing in cheap paperback editions in the 1960s, and he's now quite famous. Novelist Stephen King and director Guillermo del Toro both cite him as an influence, and his stories have been turned into many movies, games, and toys in the years since his death. 

H.P. Lovecraft in 1934

Lovecraft was a big fan of New England folklore, and often incorporated it into his fiction. For example, stories like "The Dunwich Horror," "Dreams in the Witch House," and "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward" all include concepts and imagery borrowed from traditional New England witch-lore. Lovecraft also wrote about New England witch legends in the many letters he wrote. And when I say many letters, I do mean many. It's estimated he wrote 87,000 letters to friends, colleagues, and fans. Around 10,000 of those letters still exist today. 

Recently, I've been reading a collection of some of those letters: A Means to Freedom: The Letters of H.P. Lovecraft and Robert E. Howard: 1930 - 1932. Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian, was another well-known pulp writer, and A Means to Freedom collects the correspondence he and Lovecraft shared. Most of their letters are about history and politics, but Lovecraft does mention witchcraft in some of them. 

Arnold Schwarzenegger in CONAN THE DESTROYER (1984)

For example, in a letter from October 4, 1930, he discusses witch legends from North Kingstown, Rhode Island. First, he lists several that were allegedly gathering places for witches, including "Hell Hollow, Park Hill, Indian Corner, Kettle Hole, and Goose Neck Spring." At Indian Corner, a large rock supposedly oozed blood when the moonlight shined on it. 

Then Lovecraft tells the following story:

Witch Rock, near Hopkins Hill, is the site of a cabin where a monstrous old witch dwelt in the 1600s, and the ground around it is so accursed that it is impossible to plough it. If anyone traces a furrow, the ploughshare is mysteriously deflected. The old witch, incidentally, still skulks nearby in the form of a black crow or black cat - her present abode being an underground burrow (A Means to Freedom, p. 66). 

That's a nice, spooky New England witch story, and Lovecraft appears excited to share it with Howard, who lived in Texas, where they sadly lack centuries-old witchcraft legends. 

Lovecraft probably found that story in Charles Skinner's 1896 book, Myths and Legends of Our Own Land, where it appears on page 32 of volume two. In turn, Skinner took it from a story that appeared in newspapers around the country in 1886. It's not clear if there ever really was a suspected witch at Hopkins Hill in the 1600s, or if the legend was just created for the newspapers. 

My copy of Myths and Legends, which I bought years ago before it was available online.

Lovecraft also probably found the list of witches' gathering places in Skinner's Myths and Legends, where it appears on page 30 of volume two. Somewhere along the way, though, a few typos were made, either by Lovecraft or the person who transcribed his handwritten letters for publication, because Skinner lists Pork Hill and Goose-Nest Spring, not Park Hill and Goose Neck Spring.  

Lovecraft also tells Robert E. Howard some witch-lore that he heard from a friend. Lovecraft writes:

Rumors and and whispers directed against eccentric characters were common all through the 18th and into the 19th century, and are hardly extinct today in decadent Western Massachusetts. I know an old lady in Wilbraham whose grandmother, about a century ago, was said to be able to raise a wind by muttering at the sky (A Means to Freedom, p.74).

An editor's note in A Means to Freedom indicates the "old lady" was the journalist and author Edith Miniter, who was Lovecraft's good friend. ("The Dunwich Horror" was at least partly inspired by time he spent visiting her in Wilbraham.) When the letter was written, Miniter would have been around 63 years old. I don't know who her weather-witching grandmother was, but that might be a good research project for a Lovecraft fan who is into genealogy. 

Also, please email me if you know how to raise a wind by muttering at the sky. Summer's coming, and it would be a nice skill to have on a hot, humid day. 

Brookline's Haunted Schoolhouse: Stalked by an Angry Ghost

A few weeks ago, Tony and I paid a visit to Larz Anderson Park in Brookline, Massachusetts. Although it's a popular place for dog walkers, and well-known for its Auto Museum, we went there for a different reason. We wanted to see a schoolhouse that was once haunted by a vengeful ghost.

Built in 1768, the schoolhouse in question is a charming, one-room building known as the Putterham School, and originally stood at the intersection of Grove Street and Newton Street. In addition to being a school, the building may also have served as a synagogue and a Catholic church after World War II. It was moved to Larz Anderson Park in 1966, where it now serves as a museum. 

I love a historic building, but I love a historic building with a ghost story even more. According to Ken Liss, president of the Brookline Historical Society, the Putterham School was allegedly haunted for seven years by an angry ghost. Well, at least according to a local legend, that is.  

Here's how the school supposedly became haunted. Sometime after the Revolutionary War, a young man named Samuel Frothingham fell in love with the Putterham School's teacher. Unfortunately for him, she loved another man, and rejected Samuel's advances. 

Samuel did not accept rejection lightly. He became so distraught that he stopped eating, growing ever more emaciated. He eventually starved to death, but not before he wrote a message on the chalkboard, "berating the teacher for her betrayal and saying the note would appear every year until she died"(Brookline Tab, October 25, 2018, "Spooky Brookline: ghost stories").

True to his word, the angry message appeared on the blackboard every year for seven years, until the teacher eventually died. I don't think her death was connected to being haunted, but I'm sure the ghostly messages didn't help her mental health. As far as I know, Samuel Frothingham's ghost never haunted the schoolhouse after her death. 

To use a modern term, Samuel Frothingham seems a little bit like a stalker, doesn't he? The schoolteacher wanted another man, but rather than move on, Samuel starved himself to death and then sent her nasty messages from beyond the grave. This doesn't seem like a very mature reaction. Even though she was haunted for seven years, I think the teacher made the right choice. If Samuel was that creepy while dead, think how bad he would have been while alive?

The Deadly Ghost of Harvard College: Killed by a Prank

I'm giving a tour of Harvard Square for a group of friends this weekend, and have been trying to find good ghost stories I can tell. Cambridge is an old city and Harvard is America's oldest college, so there must be ghost stories, right? 

No surprise, there are a lot of ghost stories about Harvard Square, including this one from a 2012 Boston.com article titled "Nine ghost stories in haunted Cambridge." The author of the article heard it on a Harvard Square ghost tour:

... an incident that happened at the Porcellian Club, one of the oldest, secretive final clubs at the school. A group of men wanted to trick a skeptical man into believing ghosts were real. 

A man dressed as a ghost and woke the other man up, who then swallowed his tongue and died. The man now allegedly haunts the hall as a warning. 

I like a good Scooby Doo story (you know, one where the ghost is fake at the end), but in this one, the fake ghost results in a real ghost. It's an added twist. If it's true I feel bad for the poor skeptic, forced to spend eternity as the very thing he didn't believe in! 

I was curious about where this story came from, since it's so good. When did it happen, and to whom? I did a little browsing in my library and found some clues. My friend Sam Baltrusis had written about it in his 2013 book Ghosts of Cambridge, and happily Sam cites the source, an 1846 book by Felix Octavius Carr Darley. 

But Sam doesn't say the dead skeptic haunts the Porcellian Club, and neither does Darley. In fact, the title of Darley's book is Ghost Stories; Collected with a Particular View to Counteract the Vulgar Belief in Ghosts and Apparitions. Yes, you read that title right. Darley's book is a collection of ghosts stories aimed at counteracting the belief in ghosts. Darley doesn't believe in ghosts, and doesn't want you to either. It's an entire book of Scooby Doo stories.

"It's not your undead mother, it's just a dog."

Every ghost Darley writes about is revealed to have a logical, non-supernatural explanation. That undead noblewoman haunting a French chateau? It's really just a dog that sneaks into the bedroom at night. That demonic figure seen in an old German town? Just a local priest in disguise scaring people away so he can have some peace and quiet. That pale wet hand a sleeper on his face feels at midnight? Just someone trying to see if his sister has rented out his bed to a lodger. 

The Harvard ghost story was told to Darley by Washington Allston, a prominent 19th century painter. He's not particularly well-known today, but he was very popular in his time. He was so popular, in fact, Boston named one of its neighborhoods after him. Allston graduated from Harvard in 1800, and claims the ghost story happened while he was a student there. It goes something like this...

Washington Allston, Self-Portrait, 1805. He's projecting "Timothee Chalamet
chaotic twink" energy. 

One night a group of Harvard students were telling each other ghost stories, but one student was skeptical ghosts existed:

The thing was too absurd in itself to gain his belief. He would never believe in ghosts till he should see one with his own eyes. As for fearing them, "he would like to see the ghost that could frighten him"(Darley, Ghost Stories, p. 13).

Upon hearing this, one of the other students decided to test the skeptic's bravery and disbelief. He didn't necessarily believe in ghosts either, but he didn't like the skeptic's attitude and wanted to play a trick on him. 

The next night, he dressed up in a white sheet and snuck into the skeptical student's bedroom. The skeptical student reached under his bed, pulled out a pistol, and fired at the 'ghost.'

Happily, the trickster knew the skeptic kept a loaded gun under his bed, and had secretly removed the bullets earlier (but not the gunpowder). The skeptic didn't know this and thought the gun had fired after the gunpowder went off. Upon seeing the ghost was unharmed after being shot, the skeptic panicked. 

Instantaneously the appalling belief came over the mind of the unhappy beholder that he was actually in the presence of a spirit from the other world. All his preconceived opinions - all his habits of thought, all his vaunted courage vanished at once. His whole being was changed; and he instantly fell into the most frightful convulsions (Darley, Ghost Stories, p. 14).

Uh-oh. The prank had gone too far. The student continued to convulse. The fake ghost and some other students tried to help him, but were unable to revive him.

Convulsion succeeded convulsion; and the unfortunate youth never recovered sufficient consciousness to be made aware of the trick that had been played upon him, until the melancholy scene was closed by his untimely death (Darley, Ghost Stories, p. 14).

The moral of this story is, obviously, don't pretend to be a ghost. Reading it reminded me of something that happened when I was a freshman in college. A friend and I were jogging around the track one night when another friend of ours, a notorious prankster, jumped out from under the bleachers wearing a hockey mask and waving some kind of weapon. My friend and I briefly panicked, thinking we were about to be attacked by a homicidal killer, but we soon realized it was just our friend and the weapon was just a hockey stick. Lucky for him we didn't go into deadly convulsions! Still, it's interesting that college student behavior hadn't changed much over 200 years.

It's also interesting to see how different the story in Boston.com is from the original version. For one thing, the Boston.com story is more specific than the original. Washington Allston doesn't say it happened at the Porcellian Club, but I suppose it could have, since he was a member. He also doesn't say the student choked on his own tongue, just that he died of convulsions. But most importantly, he doesn't say the student came back as a ghost. 

The whole point of Darley's book, including Allston's story, is that ghosts aren't real. Darley wants to convince people ghosts don't exist. If the student came back as a ghost, it would defeat the whole purpose of the book. But I suppose that wouldn't make it a good story for a ghost tour. Someone obviously read Allston's story and decided to embellish it for the tour. 

Personally, I'm a little skeptical that even Washington Allston's original story is true. Wouldn't it be better known that some Harvard students scared another student to death? Wouldn't they have been arrested? Or was there some conspiracy of silence? It sounds like the premise for a good horror movie, particularly if the dead student's brother started murdering the other students while disguised as a ghost. I Know What You Did Last Summer of 1799! And of course it would have a sequel, I Still Know What You Did Last Summer of 1799. 

Rutland's Abandoned Prison Camp: Ruins, Graffiti, and Maybe A Ghost or Two?

Back in March, Tony and I took a road trip to Rutland, Massachusetts to visit an abandoned prison camp located in Rutland State Park. Rutland is located west of Worcester, and we had never been there before. It's a very beautiful part of the state and I recommend visiting. 

One small caveat, though. I don't recommend visiting when there's been a huge ice storm, like we did! A big nor'easter had hit the state the day before our trip, and while it brought only rain to Boston, Rutland had been hit with ice, which we didn't realize until after we were beyond Worcester. All the trees in Rutland were covered with glittering ice, making them very sparkly and captivating, but the two mile walk from the Rutland State Park parking lot to the prison camp was treacherously slippery. It took us a lot longer than we anticipated to walk to the camp. I have learned my lesson to check the local weather forecast before heading on a road trip! 

Solitary confinement cells. 

According to the signs in the park, the prison was conceived in 1898 as a "temporary industrial camp for prisoners... to rehabilitate them for their return to society while reclaiming wasteland and abandoned property..." Four years later, a Rutland farm from the 1700s was repurposed and used as a kitchen, dining area, and housing for the camp. The inmates also built additional structures, and an abandoned schoolhouse was incorporated into the prison as well. 

In 1905, a tuberculosis outbreak necessitated the construction of a hospital, which remained in use throughout the prison's history. The park's signage notes the following: "While most of the prisoners of the camp were minor offenders, some patient prisoners in later years were 'lifers' and murderers, so the hospital was a secure facility." The camp also had 150 acres of farmland which were used to raise livestock (including prize winning horses) and grow enough fruits and vegetables to feed the inmates. They even produced excess to sell locally. The fruits and vegetables were stored in an enormous underground root cellar, which still exists. 

The entrance to the root cellar.

Inside the root cellar.

Sometimes in old movies, prisoners are shown breaking big rocks into little rocks. There is some truth to that, at least at the Rutland prison, which had a rock crushing plant that made concrete, gravel, and sand for road repairs. It sounds a little grim. The solitary confinement cells, the ruins of which are still standing, are also very small and grim. They're covered with colorful graffiti and don't have any bars on them now, but it was easy to imagine how dark and confining they would have been in the prison's heyday. We didn't visit the nearby cemetery of unmarked prisoner graves, but I think that sounds grim as well. 

The prison camp was closed in 1934 because the land it stood on was part of the watershed of the newly created Quabbin Reservoir. There certainly is a lot of fresh water in Rutland State Park, including a giant beaver pond that we walked past on the way to the prison's ruins. We didn't see a beaver, but we did see some of their lodges. 

Beaver pond with a beaver lodge. 

Just in case you don't know where you're going...

I couldn't easily find any spooky legends associated with the prison camp. The blog Haunted New England mentions a legend that the ghost of the warden's wife still haunts the prison, but they couldn't find many other details. And in the comments on Abandoned Wonders, I found the following comment from 2019:

This place is incredibly haunted. Within the last 10 years, a group opened something in the tunnel area and called a non-human entity into the camp. Be advised! It followed me home and stuck around for about 3 months. Not fun.

Those were the only legends I could find about the camp. Overall, I found the prison camp interesting but not really spooky. We were the only people there for most of our visit, which was great, but also be aware that the area is isolated. As always, travel with a friend if you're wandering out in the woods, particularly to the ruins of an abandoned prison. 

A view inside the root cellar.

Walnut Cemetery: A Ghost, A Crossroads, and A Poetic Tragedy

I was chatting with someone a while ago, and they asked if I had ever visited Walnut Cemetery in Haverhill, Massachusetts. I was born and raised in Haverhill, but had surprisingly never been to this particular cemetery. After they told me it was haunted, I decided it was finally time to pay a visit. It's an interesting place, and I have lots of thoughts. 

Walnut Cemetery is located in one of the more rural areas of Haverhill. I couldn't find what year the cemetery was started, but it's quite old, with a few gravestones dating back to the 1700s. It's still active today, with newer burials and monuments being added. The newer section is well-maintained, but the older section is a little rough looking. It looks, in fact, like a haunted cemetery. There are a lot of tall weeds. Tree branches have fallen on the graves. Some of the oldest monuments are covered in lichen. We went in the winter, so it may just have been between scheduled maintenance. The older section of the cemetery is also on a rocky hill, so perhaps it is harder to cut the grass there. But whatever the reason, the old part of Walnut Cemetery looks a little spooky. I can understand why someone might think it's haunted. 

The cemetery is said to be haunted by a ghost known as the Woman in White, who roams through it at night. You don't even need to go inside the cemetery to see her - the Woman in White has also been seen by motorists just driving by. Some people say she's terrifying, but others say she is simply eerie and mysterious. As with so many things, I think your mindset might influence what you see. If you go expecting something scary, that's what you'll probably encounter. 

When we visited, I noticed that Walnut Cemetery is located within a triangular crossroads. There's a lot of interesting folklore associated with crossroads, so perhaps it's not surprising there are legends associated with this particular cemetery. The ancient Greeks and Romans believed that crossroads were sacred to Hecate, the goddess of witches, and to Hermes, the divine messenger who guided the dead to the underworld. In England, Scotland and Ireland, people who died by suicide were buried at crossroads, often with stake in their heart. Something similar happened more locally in 1680 in Hampton, New Hampshire, when the citizens of that town buried accused witch Eunice Cole at a crossroads with a stake in her heart. For good measure, they placed a horseshoe on her chest to keep her in her unhallowed grave. And in the American south, legends say that if you want to sell your soul to the Devil, you can find him at a crossroads at midnight. 

Speaking of triangular shapes, paranormal investigator Fiona Broome thinks Walnut Cemetery could be linked to a ley line triangle connecting several weird, legendary places in New England. Ley lines are straight lines that connect important locations on a map, and some people believe these lines conduct mystical energy across the landscape. I can't say if that's true or not, but it's another interesting idea to consider when thinking about Walnut Cemetery. Ghosts plus a  crossroads plus ley lines must all add up to something, right? Well, it may not, but it's still fun to think about. 

Broome and several other ghost hunters investigated Walnut Cemetery back in 2009. They perceived several spirits, including a woman in black, an undefined male spirit, and possibly the restless spirit of a small child. They did not encounter the Woman in White, however. 

Who exactly is the Woman in White? Some people think she is the ghost of Lydia Ayer, the most famous person buried in the cemetery. Ayer was immortalized by the Haverhill poet John Greenleaf Whittier in his 1868 poem "In School-days." In this autobiographical poem, Whittier recalls an incident from his childhood, when he lost a spelling bee to a girl in his class. The girl was Lydia Ayer. Rather than revel in her victory, Ayer instead felt sorry for Whittier.

'I'm sorry that I spelt the word: 


I hate to go above you, 


Because,’ - the brown eyes lower fell, - 


'Because, you see, I love you! ' 



Still memory to a gray-haired man 


That sweet child-face is showing. 


Dear girl! the grasses on her grave 


Have forty years been growing!

He lives to learn, in life's hard school,

How few who pass above him

Lament their triumph and his loss,

Like her, - because they love him.

It's a melancholy poem, and justifiably so, because Ayer died in 1827 when she was just fourteen years old. It's clear that her death made a big impact on Whittier. The poem itself also made a big impact. "In School-days" was one of Whittier's most popular poems, and is often still taught to students today. 

Death is the great equalizer, but Lydia Ayer is the star attraction for living visitors to Walnut Cemetery. A wooden sign points towards her grave, which is marked with a large, handsome memorial that was put up in 1937 by a local civic organization. But is her spirit the Woman in White? 

I'm not sure. Ayer died when she was just a young teenager, and the Woman in White is usually described as a woman, not a young girl. Maybe people only see that the ghost is female, and can't really discern her age, and think she is a full-grown woman. Or maybe Ayer's ghost actually looks older than fourteen. After all, she's over two-hundred years old. Or maybe it's not her ghost at all. And of course, this could all just be a legend. There may not be a ghost at all. 

Women in white are a classic form that ghosts appear in, and stories about them can be found all over the world. In a sense, a Woman in White transcends the story of an individual and partakes in a greater, archetypal identity. In his book Daimonic Reality (2003), Patrick Harpur says the following about "white ladies":

"A ghost? Possibly. But it is a distinguishing characteristic of white lady apparitions they are not individually identifiable. They have deeper resonances than the shade of a historical personage. The time and location are suggestive... an hour and place of transition, of in-between. "

He goes on to say: 

"... white ladies do not speak. But their silence is eloquent. Their appearance itself is the message: enigmatic, often sinister, pointing towards the unknown."