Ghosts Steal the Spotlight at the Huntington

This area probably has more weird folklore per square foot than any other part of the country. You're most likely walking past a haunted building or site of strange happenings every day without even knowing it.

Just this week I realized I had been doing this myself. I was looking through Holly Mascott Nadler's Ghosts of Boston Town when I came upon the chapter about the Huntington Theatre. I've walked by this building for years, and seen several shows there, without knowing there was a legend attached to it. In fact, multiple legends!

According to Nadler's book, there are several ghosts haunting this historic 1925 building. A misty woman in a white dress is sometimes seen hovering around dress rehearsals. Known appropriately enough as the Lady in White, it is believed she is the spirit of a wardrobe mistress. The ghost is harmless, but still can cause quite a shock when she appears to the unsuspecting.

Boston's Huntington Theatre

A second ghost is believed to be local actor Henry Jewett. The Huntington Theatre was built as a home for Jewett's theatrical troupe in the 1920s, but the timing was unfortunate. Talking motion pictures were providing cheaper entertainment for the masses by the time construction was completed, and the troupe disbanded in 1930. Jewett died that same year, and the building ironically became a movie theater. Maybe his spirit is still annoyed about thsi? A portrait of Jewett as MacBeth hangs in the Huntington's lobby today.

Other ghosts have been encountered on the catwalks above the stage, and in the building's various storage rooms and workshops. At least one actress has reported feeling hands on her neck and hips when she was completely alone in a quiet part of the building. Creepy!

The last ghost in the Huntington (for now) is a grainy, shadowy figure called the Sentry. The Sentry's footsteps are often heard in the halls outside the Green Room, and it has been seen many times. Many actors consider the Sentry a benevolent and protective spirit who watches over them.

As far as the restless dead go, the Huntington's ghosts seem like a harmless bunch. Don't let them stop you from buying a ticket! It seems like they're as devoted to the stage as their living counterparts are.

The Charlesgate: Terror in a Luxury Setting

The Charlesgate is a beautiful old building near Boston's Back Bay Fens, and used to have a reputation as one of the most haunted spots in Boston.



The Charlesgate was built in 1891 as a luxurious residential hotel, but was sold to Boston University in 1947, and later to Emerson College. Both schools used it as a dorm. Students who lived there in the 1980s and '90s told many tales of ghosts and strange phenomena. Here is a selection:

A male freshman sleeping in room 623 awoke one night to find a strange man floating in the air above his bed. It sounds like a bad dream, the but the story was verified by the floor's resident adviser, who saw the floating man when he came to investigate the freshman's scream.

Students using Ouija boards in the building encountered malevolent entities with names like DLD and Mama, who talked about windows into the spirit world and could shatter glass.



A female student sleeping on a bottom bunk felt someone climb onto the top bunk late at night. Her room mate was away, however. When she looked on the top bunk in the morning, the sheets were wrinkled as if someone had slept in it.

Girls talking in a room were terrified when the door slammed shut and the lights went out. In the darkness, they had strange entities moving around the room. When the lights came back on, the walls and ceiling had been gouged and scarred.



Emerson College sold the dorm to a developer in the 1990s, and it's once again high-end luxury residences. It doesn't seem to be haunted anymore. Either the ghosts either departed with the students, or the new residents are too discreet to talk about any supernatural happenings.

I got this information from Holly Mascott Nadler's Ghosts of Boston Town. An interesting fact about the author: she once wrote for the TV show Laverne and Shirley!