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. 

An Old Haunted House in Cambridge

I am one of those people who actually likes winter. Once the grim darkness of early January is gone winter here in New England is actually pretty nice. There is a certain clarity to this time of year. The leaves are down and I can really see the landscape in all its contours. Rocks and boulders that are hidden most of the time are visible now, and its easier to see those hardy birds who haven't flown south.

It's also a good time to do stuff around the house. For some reason, when February comes I always like to make traditional New England recipes. Yesterday I made cranberry bread, and today I'm cooking pumpkin soup. There's just something homey about winter. The nesting impulse from autumn continues into these months, but without the pressure and commercialism of the holidays.

Of course, the spooky vibe from Halloween continues as well. It's still dark and dead outside, and it still seems like a good time for ghost stories. (Really, is any time not good for ghost stories?) Here's one from a friend who for many years lived in the Cooper Frost Austin House, which is the oldest house in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

The Cooper Frost Austin House

The Cooper Frost Austin House was built in 1681 by Samuel Cooper. Cooper and his family were prominent members of Cambridge society, with several of them serving as deacons in the Puritan church or in municipal leadership positions. The house remained in the same family for 250 years (!) until 1913, when it was given to the organization now called Historic New England. The house is open several times a year for tours, and is worth visiting if you enjoy early Colonial architecture.

My friend was one of several resident caretakers who have lived in the house since 1913. When he was moving in, he met with the previous caretaker to see if there were any tips he needed to know. She gave him an overview of the property and the grounds, and explained the multiple rules for living in a historic house. And then she said:

"Oh, and by the way, I think there's a ghost in the house."

"A ghost?" my friend said.

"Yes, a ghost. I've sensed a presence in the house, particularly in the east bedroom upstairs. It feels like a woman, and sometimes it feels like she's watching me when I sleep. But don't worry! I don't think she's malevolent."

And with that she left, and my friend was left alone in the house. Naturally, he had already selected the east bedroom as his new bedroom.

Months went by, and my friend didn't experience anything strange. He slept through the nights without feeling any unusual presences. However, something weird happened one day when he was at the Boston Public Library. He had gone to the library to research the history of the house, and he mentioned to a young man working at the reference desk that he was now living in the Cooper Frost Austin House.

"The Cooper Frost Austin House?" the young librarian said. "Ugh. I've been inside that house and I'll never go back there again."

"Why? What happened?" my friend said.

"I spent the night there one time. Never again! A friend of mine was living there and asked me to house sit while he was out of town. At first everything was fine. It's a great old house and I was happy to have it all to myself, if even just for a weekend."

"That night I went to bed, and fell fast asleep. I was sleeping deeply when I started to have this uneasy feeling. It felt like someone was ... watching me. When I opened my eyes I saw a woman standing at the foot of the bed, staring at me. She had on old-fashioned clothes, and she didn't look happy to see me. I screamed and she vanished into thin air. I sat downstairs wide awake for the rest of the night, and I've never gone back inside that house."

Of course, the librarian said he had been sleeping in the east bedroom when he had seen the ghost.

My friend ended up living there for many years, and said he never saw the ghost, but occasionally people who visited him said they sensed something in the house. Personally I've spent a lot of time in the Cooper Frost Austin House and never saw a ghost.

I did ask my friend who he thought the ghost might be. His only thought was that she might be Susan Austin, who was born in the house and lived there in the 19th century. Susan Austin was apparently very attached to the house.

Why is Susan Austin haunting the house? That is, if there is even a ghost and if she is actually it. There's no good answer to that question. Instead, all we have are some good spooky stories from an old New England house. But sometimes spooky stories are enough, particularly on a cold winter day.

Celebrate H.P. Lovecraft's 125th Birthday This August

Cancel that clambake and skip the trip to the beach. This August you need to celebrate the 125th birthday of Howard Phillips Lovecraft!

H.P. Lovecraft, for those who don't know, was one of America's most influential fantasy and horror writers. Born into a wealthy Providence family on August 20, 1890, Lovecraft should have led a life of privilege and ease. Things didn't quite work out that way. His life is almost was almost as strange as his fiction.

After his father died in an insane asylum, little Howard and his mother went to live with her father in his Providence mansion. As a boy he was spoiled by his aunts and grandfather, but his mother told him he was too ugly to be seen in public and let him believe until he was three that he was a girl. Unsurprisingly, his mother also later died in an insane asylum and Lovecraft himself suffered from unspecified nervous and mental disorders throughout his early years.

H. P. Lovecraft

Lovecraft was quite intelligent. He never finished high school due to those nervous disorders but did read widely in his grandfather's extensive library. (It even included an original copy of Cotton Mather's Magnalia Christi Americana, which makes me jealous!) When his grandfather lost his money and died Lovecraft and his two aunts fell into poverty. Due to his many neuroses and his belief that he was of a superior social class Lovecraft never found full-time work. Instead, he dabbled in amateur journalism and wrote an estimated 100,000 letters. That's right - one hundred thousand letters. And they were long! At one point he sent one aunt a forty page letter every week.

Because he wrote so many letters, we know that he was quite racist. In his letters he railed against blacks, Jews, Mexicans, the Irish, French-Canadians, Asians, Italians, and even people from Finland. In short, he said didn't like anyone except white people of Anglo-Saxon descent. He also expressed strong homophobic opinions in some letters. On the other hand, he briefly married an Eastern European Jewish woman, and was good friends with several gay writers, including the poet Samuel Loveman, who served as his muse for several years. These actions seem to contradict all vitriol he included in his letters, and even the racism in those decreased as he grew older. He died in 1937 at the age of 47.

Lovecraft was a big tangle of neurotic contradictions, but in spite of this - or maybe because of this - he posthumously became the 20th century's most influential horror writer. He moved horror fiction away from the standard Gothic tropes of witches, ghosts and old castles into a new direction featuring extra-dimensional alien gods, hidden lost races, and secret tomes of blasphemous horror. He also liberally sprinkled New England history and folklore into his stories. If you've never read any of his fiction, "The Dunwich Horror," "The Shadow Over Innsmouth," and "Dreams In the Witch House" are good places to start and have a strong New England flavor.

The Call of Cthulhu (2005)

There are two big celebrations happening this August to mark Lovecraft's 125th birthday. For you cineastes, the Brattle Theater in Cambridge is holding an H.P. Lovecraft film festival from August 20 to August 24. They are showing a nice assortment of movies. Some are based closely on Lovecraft's writings, like the recently filmed but retro-spooky black and white films Call of Cthulhu (2005) and The Whisperer in Darkness (2011), which try to capture what a Lovecraft movie would look like if it were filmed during his lifetime.

The Crimson Cult (1968)

Other films update his stories and put them in a more contemporary setting. The Dunwich Horror (1970) takes Lovecraft into the Age of Aquarius, with Dean Stockwell as a dreamboat wizard aiming to destroy the world and Sandra Dee under attack by psychedelic hippies, while The Crimson Cult (1968) sets "Dreams In the Witch House" in swinging England, with Christopher Lee, Barbara Steele as a body-painted witch, and a brawny guy in a leather jockstrap. The New England flavor is gone, but these movies are so groovy it doesn't matter!

From Beyond (1986)

From Beyond (1986) gives Lovecraft the 1980s schlock treatment. When a group of scientists stimulate their pineal glands, they suddenly see the invisible extra-dimensional monsters that constantly surround us. Uh-oh! The monsters can see them as well. Rubbery special effects, leopard print lingerie, and lots of slime ensue.

In the Mouth of Madness (1994)

Other films are inspired by Lovecraft but aren't based on a specific story. Hellboy (2004) makes Lovecraftian monsters and sorcery into an action blockbuster. John Carpenter's In the Mouth of Madness (1994) features a book so terrifying it drives its readers insane - and maybe worse. Lovecraft's work is quite popular overseas; in the Japanese film Marebito (2004), a lonely man exploring tunnels below the Tokyo subway system encounters a mysterious woman with strange appetites.

I'm sure that diehard fans will be flocking to Providence for NecronomiCon, a convention about all things Lovecraftian happening August 20 - 23. The convention features a wide variety of activities. If you're feeling brainy, you can listen to panelists discuss topics like "The Undying Leaders’: Ultraterrestrial Demonologies, Cthulhoid Conspiracies and the Rise of Lovecraftian Parapolitics." And when your brain tires out, there are games, an art show, the Eldritch Ball, and readings from horror authors. A good spooky time for everyone!

New England Folk Medicine: Job's Tears

A few weeks ago I was in the Caribbean on a group tour. We visited a lot of beautiful lush islands, including Dominica.

While we were in Dominica we took a bus high up into the hills (really high!) to see the Trafalgar Falls. After parking we trekked off down a trail through the rainforest to see these two two falls, one of which is hot from volcanic activity, while the other is quite cold. We took photos, admired the foliage, saw a land crab hiding in its hole, and then headed back to the parking lot.

Adjacent to the parking lot was a souvenir market where a bunch of local women were selling their wares. I looked at soaps, hot sauce, small raffia animals, etc. Nothing really stood out. Then I noticed one woman selling what looked like necklaces made of spices and white beads.

"Smell it," she said. "It will keep your closet fresh. It has cocoa beans, nutmeg, bay leaves, turmeric and ginger."

I inhaled. It smelled like autumn in a chocolate factory. 

"What are these white beads?" I asked.

"Those are Job's tears," she said. "They grow down near the river banks here."

Job's tears?

"I'll take it!" I said. Actually, I took three, because they were three for five dollars, which seemed like a bargain.

If you think you've stumbled onto the wrong blog, rest assured there is a connection to New England folklore. Job's tears were used in 19th century New England folk medicine.

Job's tears are technically the seed of the coix lachryma plant, which is native to Asia but now grows in warm climates worldwide. When the seeds are harvested they become hard and white. Mostly used for decorative purposes, various systems of folk medicine also prescribe them as cures for different ailments.

In late 19th century New England, for example, it was believed that teething children should wear Job's tears to soothe their teething pains. The folklorist Fanny Bergren documented this in Boston, Portland, Maine and in Boston, Cambridge, and Peabody, Massachusetts.

A pharmacist in Peabody sold them in his store specifically for this purpose, but local mothers also believed they could prevent or cure sore throats and diphtheria. Bergren notes that one mother brought in a string of the beads she had purchased and showed them triumphantly to the pharmacist. The beads, which were white when she bought them, were now dark and stained.

She explained to the pharmacist that the dark stains had been caused when the beads drew the diphtheria out of her sick child's body and into the necklace. The pharmacist, however, suspected it was just dirt from the child's neck.

I'm not sure why people thought Job's tears would cure sore throats and diphtheria. I suppose I can understand the connection to teething babies, since the small white beads resemble baby teeth, but the sore throat connection is unclear to me. If you have any information on this please let me know!

The plant and its beads are of course named after Job, the Biblical character who suffers miserably after God and Satan decided to test his faith. They heaped a lot of suffering upon him, and although he wept a lot Job did not lose faith in God. Job's tears are also called Saint Mary's tears, Christ's tears, and David's tears. With all those Biblical connotations its no surprise they are often used to make rosaries, which seems like a better idea than using them to heal diphtheria. We now live in a world with effective vaccines, so maybe if I lived in the 19th century I would think otherwise.

I found much of the information for this post in Fanny Bergren's article, "Some Bits of Plant-Lore" in the Jan. - Mar. 1982 issue of The Journal of American Folklore.

Old Burying Ground in Cambridge, and Maybe Some Ghosts

Tomorrow is Memorial Day, so I suppose it's appropriate that I stopped by Cambridge's Old Burying Ground yesterday on my way to see a matinee. I've walked by this historic cemetery for years and have never gone inside.

I'm glad I did. Like most cemeteries it was very peaceful inside, even though it's only a few steps from the Harvard Square T-stop. In fact, tt was so peaceful someone was sitting in the lotus position meditating.

The Old Burying Ground dates back to the early 1600s, and has lots of gravestones in the three classic New England styles: skulls, cherubs, and willow and urn.

A very ornate death's head.

Another ornate carving, this time of a cherub.

This cherub looks a little dour.

Willow and urn.

There are also some things I hadn't really seen before. Some of the gravestone inscriptions are in Latin. Not just a little Latin, like "Requiescat In Pace," but paragraphs of dense Latin.

Break out the Latin dictionary!

 The Latin-inscribed markers all seem to be for Harvard faculty and librarians. If you were erudite while alive, you might as well let people know it after you're dead too.

In addition to the Latin gravestones, some other stones had elaborately unfinished backsides. Take a look at this one.

But from the front, it's just a standard gravestone.

The Old Burying Ground is host to several soldiers from the Revolutionary War. There's a prominent marker for several Cambridge men who were killed at the Battle of Lexington and Concord, and two African-American soldiers from the Revolution are also buried in the cemetery. I didn't find their markers, but one of the men was named Neptune Frost, which is an amazing name. The other black soldier's name was Cato Stedman, so they both had Latin names.

I assumed there must be a ghost story associated with the Old Burying Ground, but there really isn't anything definite. Sam Altrusis, in his book Ghosts of Cambridge: Haunts of Harvard Square and Beyond, claims that the Old Burying Ground is indeed full of spirits, but they're not particularly malevolent or active. None of them are identified by name. It sounds like they're just hanging out enjoying the peaceful surroundings.

If you do want someplace a little more haunted, you might visit Christ Church Cambridge, which is located next door. The church is supposedly haunted by the ghost of a British soldier who was buried inside the building during the Revolution. His burial so angered the local Patriots that they rioted and vandalized the building, and his spirit has haunted the place ever since. The lesson to this story? Be nice to dead people, and they'll be nice to you.

Is Mrs. Claus a Wellesley Graduate?

Well, not quite.

But she was first mentioned by Katharine Lee Bates, a Massachusetts native and Wellesley professor, in the year 1889.

In her poem Goody Santa Claus on a Sleigh Ride Bates wrote,

Santa, must I tease in vain, Dear? Let me
go and hold the reindeer,
While you clamber down the chimneys.
Don't look savage as a Turk!
Why should you have all the glory of the
joyous Christmas story,
And poor little Goody Santa Claus have
nothing but the work?

Katharine Lee Bates is probably best known for writing America the Beautiful, but introducing Mrs. Claus is also an important accomplishment!

The term "goody" here is not Mrs. Claus's first name (that's unknown) but is short for "goodwife", an old New England term for a married woman. Perhaps Mrs. Claus was a native New Englander who later in life moved to the North Pole?

Katharine Lee Bates herself never legally married, but instead spent twenty-five years in a Boston marriage with Katharine Coman, a Wellesley professor of economics. The relationship only ended when Coman died in 1915.

"Boston marriage" is another interesting term, and was applied to two unmarried women who lived together for a long period of time. Were Bates and Coman lesbians in the modern sense of the word? Like Mrs. Claus's first name, we'll probably never know.

Finally, what about the phrase "savage as a Turk"? If you've ever met anyone from Turkey you'll know they're no more savage than anyone else, so what's up with Bates's Turkophobia?

I think in part it comes from 19th century ethnocentrism - I seriously doubt there were any Turkish students at Wellesley in 1889. The savage Turk image may also come from the old tradition of mummer's plays, which have been performed at Christmas in Britain for centuries and in New England during the 18th century. One of the main characters in these plays is the Turkish Knight, who slays Saint George. Happily, George is brought back to life and everyone (including the Turkish knight) sings, dances and gets drunk. I guess there are no hard feelings!

I got some of this information from Amy Whorf McGuiggan's Christmas in New England. The information about Bates's Boston marriage is from the History Project's Improper Bostonians.

Occult Secrets for Flag Day

Flag Day is coming up on June 14. It's not really an official holiday anywhere except Pennsylvania, but Quincy apparently has the longest running Flag Day parade in the country. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

The origins of the American flag are murky at best, and there are several stories about it. The Betsy Ross one is the most famous, but here's a good one I found in The Occult Conspiracy by Michael Howard. It's kind of weird, and set in Massachusetts.

In December of 1775, a group of American revolutionaries (including Benjamin Franklin and George Washington) gathered at a house in Cambridge. They had been charged with designing an appropriate flag for the new nation. As they debated over various designs, an elderly man entered the room. He was a guest of the family that owned the house, and carried with him a large trunk of occult books and arcane manuscripts. A vegetarian and friend of Benjamin Franklin, he was introduced solely as the Professor.

As if this weren't unusual enough, he was "extremely knowledgeable about the historical events of the previous centuries as if he had witnessed them. " (I put the italics in there, so you can cue the spooky music.)

The Professor had several suggestions about how the flag should be designed, which the revolutionaries accepted. Before leaving for the night the Professor predicted America would become a great nation and "a future leader of civilization."

That's it! That's the end of the story as Michael Howard tells it.

Naturally, when I read this I was intrigued, and poked around on the Web.

It seems like Michael Howard found this story in Manly Hall's Secret Destiny of America. Hall, an American Freemason and Rosicrucian, claimed the Professor was really the Count St. Germain, a semi-mythical immortal Rosicrucian who has for centuries influenced the course of history. Yikes!

Perhaps Dan Brown can incorporate this into his next novel. Anyway, be sure to celebrate Flag Day in whatever occultish way you please!