Haunted Happenings and Theater People in Kennebunkport

The other day I was at the Boston Athenaeum poking around in the library's folklore and occult collections. These books are kept way, way down in a deep dark windowless basement, which seems appropriate for the subject matter. The basement is brick-floored, low-ceilinged, adjacent to the Old Granary Burying ground, and probably very old.

Many of the Athenaeum's occult books are from the 19th century, and cover topics like spiritualism, astrology, and the local witch trials. Their covers are made from well-worn leather, and their pages are musty with age. Quite a few of them are in German. I haven't found a copy of the Necronomicon yet, but it's probably just sitting somewhere waiting to be shelved.

So, in this very atmospheric situation, the book that strangely caught my attention was Prominent American Ghosts (1967) by Susy Smith. The pages are not musty, and it's a light blue hardback. And let's face it, the name Susy Smith doesn't sound very ominous.

Her name may not be ominous, but a little poking around on the web revealed that Susy Smith (b. 1911, d. 2001) was quite prolific as an occult author. She wrote thirty books, including How to Develop Your ESP (2000), The Enigma of Out of Body Travel (1965), and The Afterlife Codes: Searching for Evidence of the Survival of the Human Soul (2000). Smith was a psychic and channeler, and had her first experience with a ghost when she encountered her deceased mother's spirit. After this encounter she began experimenting with the Ouija board, which led to a lifelong fascination with ghosts and the paranormal.

In short, Smith knew her stuff about ghosts (and may still, if her spirit is hanging around this material plane). To research Prominent American Ghosts, Smith traveled across the country from New Orleans to Hawaii interviewing people who had seen ghosts and visiting haunted locations. Happily for this blog she also visited New England, and wrote about a haunted house in Kennebunkport, Maine.

The house in question is the Gideon Merrill house, which was built in 1754. It remained in the Merrill family for a couple generations before it was sold to undertaker Samuel Lewis in 1830. Lewis only practiced his trade in the house for a short time before moving and selling the property to the Wells family, who owned the property until 1940, when they in turn sold it to Robert Currier, a theatrical producer from New York City who ran the Kennebunkport Playhouse.

Theater people and ghosts apparently go together like peanut butter and jelly. Currier was nonplussed to find an old coffin in the house's basement (perhaps leftover from the days of Samuel Lewis), but he was a little more surprised when guests began to see ghosts in the house. Currier's guests, primarily actors and singers, consistently saw the same two ghosts: a pleasant-looking young woman in Quaker clothing, and a gloomy-looking man dressed like a soldier. Currier and his friends nicknamed the soldier Ned after a book they were reading called Dead Ned; the Quaker woman was nicknamed Nellie. 

Psychically sensitive people who stayed in the house would see Ned and Nellie, but even those who didn't see them experienced strange phenomena. Doors were slammed by invisible hands, footsteps were heard when no one was present, and cold areas chilled guests to the bone. A professional medium named Leslie Tolman (aka Madame Shah) left the house in a panic in the middle of the night and advised Currier to sell it immediately. Dogs barked at unseen presences.

Singer Jane Morgan

The singer Jane Morgan, who had a top ten hit in 1957 with "Fascination" and was Currier's sister, reported that doors would unlock themselves. Morgan was afraid to spend the night alone in the house, and thought that Ned had murdered Nellie when she didn't requite his love.

Most of the phenomena were focused around two parts of the house: the attic, and a bedroom on the second floor. This bedroom was once inhabited by Old Lady Wells, a local herbalist and rumored witch. For the last twenty-four years of her life Old Lady Wells spent most her time confined to this room, leaving only to bring herbs up to the attic to dry. Some guests who slept in this bedroom saw the friendly Quaker ghost, but on one occasion another guest was awoken in the middle of the night when a window shattered. He assumed a rock had been thrown through the window, but nothing was found either inside or outside the building.

Strange noises have been heard in the attic, and cats ran worriedly up and down the stairs that led to that space. One night an actress who had driven up from New York pulled into the driveway of the house. It had not yet been opened for summer and no one was staying there. Then why did she see a flickering light shining out of an attic window? Unnerved, the actress refused to go inside until she found a friend in town to accompany her. They found the doors locked and the house unoccupied. When they went upstairs to the attic they found it empty ... except for a candle stub on the floor.

The Kennebunkport Playhouse burned to the ground in 1971, ending the influx of theater people into town. The Gideon Merrill house is still standing but I didn't find any recent reports of hauntings there. Perhaps the actors and other show business types were easily spooked or enjoyed telling each other scary stories, particularly when they were staying in a historic New England home. Or perhaps people drawn to work in the theater are just more psychically sensitive than the rest of us.

No one ever identified who Ned and Nellie might really be, and the connection with Old Lady Wells is suggestive but vague. Witches tend to hang around as ghosts after they die, but why wasn't the ghost of Old Lady Wells ever seen? The answers to these questions might have to wait until the next actor or actress takes up residence at the Gideon Merrill house.

 I think the Gideon Merrill house is still standing, but I don't know if Ned and Nellie are still wandering through its rooms. We might have to wait for another actor or actress to stay there to get the answer.

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Other than Prominent American Ghosts, my other main source for information was this page on SoMeOldNews.com. It seems to be referencing a newspaper article from the 1960s, which leads me to believe the ghosts haven't bee seen for a while.

The Little People with the Deadly Stare

This post is probably better suited for Lent, but I thought I would share it now because it is also a little bit spooky, and seems appropriate for a rainy gloomy Sunday like today. So here goes!

*****

The Passamaquoddy Indians live in northern Maine on the Canadian border. They dwell primarily in two areas, Indian Township in Princeton and Pleasant Point Reservation in Perry. Many Passamaquoddy also dwell in Canada across the border, which was drawn through their ancestral lands centuries ago.

Most Native American folklore from New England is full of interesting supernatural beings, and Passamaquoddy lore is no different. Their stories tell of demi-gods, thunderbirds, and talking animals. They also tell of magical little people.

The Passamaquoddy claim there are two types of little people associated with their tribe. The first are the Nagumwasuck, who live alongside the Passmaquoddy on their reservation and have a society that parallels the human one. When a human dies the Nagumwasuck mourn. When a human baby is born the Nagumwasuck celebrate. When a church was built on one of the reservations the Nagumwasuck made a tiny version of their own.

Although they are hideously ugly and don't like to be seen, the Nagumwasuck overall are benevolent. Not so their cousins the Mekumwasuck. The Meckumwasuck are quite short (about three feet tall) and have extremely hairy faces. They live in the woods outside human society and dress in outlandish clothing. Overall this doesn't sound so bad, but here's the kicker: anyone the Mekumwasuck looks directly at will sicken and die.

Yikes.

The Passamaquoddy converted to Catholicism centuries ago, and apparently the Mekumwasuck converted along with them. These dangerous creatures now watch over the church, and will punish anyone who tries to violate the Catholic Church's rules.

For example, back in 1970 several men broke into a Passamaquoddy church to steal the sacramental wine. This was a bad idea. The Mekumwasuck appeared and chased off the men, who were terrified. One of the would-be-thieves tried to escape through a window but got stuck. The little people beat him until he broke through the window and ran off into the night.

Even minor infractions can draw the attention of the Mekumwasuck. In 1971 the local priest gave the community permission to hold a dance in the church - even though it was Lent. (If this were a horror film the ominous music would play.) People were uneasy because dancing during Lent didn't sound quite orthodox, but about seventy-five people still came out for it.

Shortly after the dance started a teenage boy nervously said the thought he had seen a Mekumwasuck lurking nearby. He asked his cousin if he could see it. At first the cousin refused to look, fearing the entity's deadly stare, but finally worked up his courage and looked. He too saw the Mekumwasuck.

Clearly this was a bad omen. Within minutes everyone fled the dance. Happily no one died that night, but if they had not heeded the Mekumwasuck's warning who knows what might have happened? It was the last time anyone tried to hold a dance during Lent.

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I first read about the Mekumwasuck in Joseph Citro's book Passing Strange (1996), but it seems like the story originally appears in Katharine Briggs's A Dictionary of Fairies (1976). The Passamaquoddy information is one the few New World sections in Briggs's book, which covers mostly European fairy lore.

Interestingly, Briggs claims she was given the information by Susan Stevens, an anthropologist who married into the Passamaquoddy. Stevens was actually serving as a chaperone at the Lenten dance that ended so abruptly. That means that story actually happened and is not just a traditional tale handed down over time.

Briggs suggests that the Mekumwasuck are basically European gargoyles adopted into a Native American culture, but I think she has it backwards. Native Americans in New England already had traditions about magical little people well before the Europeans arrived, and these traditions changed based on the situations the different tribes found themselves in.

For example, while the Mekuwasuck kill anyone who desecrates the Catholic Church, the similarly-named Makiwasug of Mohegan folklore are less malevolent and less focused on Christianity. While the Makiawasug also do not like being looked at they will not kill anyone who sees them, but instead will simply steal their belongings. Sometime in the past the Passamaquoddy and the Mohegan probably shared similar beliefs about the little people, but those beliefs have diverged over time based on their subsequent histories.

Bigfoot in New England: Sixty-Seven Credible Sightings?

A few weeks ago I was at the supermarket and something caught my eye while I waited in the checkout line. It was this:

How could I resist? I'm a big Sasquatch fan and have been ever since I was a child. Well, to be honest when I was a child I was really more terrified of Sasquatch than a fan, but I guess I've been interested in him in one way or another for most of my life. He was a big part of the 1970s cultural milieu when I was growing up and it's been interesting to see how this hairy humanoid has once again become a big part of American culture these days. Thank you internet and reality TV!

1970s children's TV show Bigfoot and Wildboy

What's inside Newsweek's Bigfoot: The Science, Sightings, and Search for America's Elusive Legend? You'll find brief interviews with Bigfoot researchers, theories about the creature's origin, and lots and lots of photos. There is also some nice historical information about Bigfoot, including mention of Connecticut's Winsted Wildman (who was seen in the 1890s) and a Sasquatch tale told to Teddy Roosevelt by a hunter.

There was some other weird and interesting stuff in the magazine, like a photo of an alleged fossilized Bigfoot head from Utah. The concept of a petrified Bigfoot head is pretty cool, regardless of whether the rock pictured actually is one.

Fossilized Bigfoot head or just a rock?

My favorite part of this magazine is the map showing how many credible Bigfoot sightings have been reported in each state. The map is based on data kept by the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization (BFRO). Here is the breakdown for New England at the time of publication:

Connecticut: 5
Maine: 13
Massachusetts: 22
New Hampshire: 13
Rhode Island: 5
Vermont: 6

That makes a total of sixty-seven credible sightings. New England may be one of the best regions for healthcare and education, but we are seriously lagging behind other states in our Bigfoot sightings. Washington is the leader with 613 sightings (!), California is next with 431, and Florida comes in third with 306. New Englanders, we need to step it up!

Unfortunately, the magazine doesn't define what makes a Bigfoot sighting credible. (The BFRO notes that they won't publish fake or joke reports, but I'm not sure how they determine what's fake.) I think in general a credible Bigfoot report is one that follows the current cryptozoological model in defining Bigfoot as "a large, hairy, bipedal non-human primate that is distributed over the North American continent to varying degrees of concentration." In other words, Bigfoot is basically an unknown species of animal that we just haven't captured yet. If your report fits into that view of Bigfoot it is credible.

That's the approach taken on reality shows like Finding Bigfoot, where researchers tramp around in the woods looking for physical evidence. Evidence consists of things like footprints, scat, hair and even sometimes structures made from branches. The magazine has a photo of one such structure and speculates it may have been used as a hunting blind by the creature. When walking through a park near my house in Boston I found a very similar structure (see below). Was Bigfoot visiting Boston, or was this just made by teenagers who wanted a place to smoke pot?

 

Personally, I don't think Bigfoot is just an undiscovered species of primate, and happily Newsweek's Bigfoot magazine does give some space to alternate theories in a brief section called "Wild Theories." Among those theories are the following:

Bigfoot is actually the Biblical Cain, cursed by God to be extra hairy and wander the Earth for committing the first murder. This theory has its origin in Mormon elder David Patten's encounter with a large hairy creature in 1835. The creature said it was indeed cursed to roam our planet forever and lure men into evil.

Bigfoot is an extraterrestrial and comes from another planet. After all, they are sometimes seen in conjunction with UFOs.

Bigfoot is an extradimensional being who can teleport and appear anywhere, even inside people's homes. Some are good, but some might just be evil...

Some Native American groups think that the large humanoid is a spiritual being here to offer guidance. 

I'm a fan of wild theories. Although a lot of Bigfoot stories match the cryptozoological model, many of them don't. Sometimes Bigfoot has six fingers and long beautiful hair. Sometimes he only has three toes or cloven hooves. Sometimes he wears clothing or has a black dog with him. Sometimes he communicates telepathically.

Those weird stories are best explained by weird theories. Are they less credible than thinking that Sasquatch is an undiscovered primate? Definitely, but many people don't think any theory about Sasquatch is credible. A lot Americans believe that Bigfoot just doesn't exist.

There's a spectrum of credibility, with our current scientific knowledge at one end (there is no Bigfoot) and some of the more creative spiritual explanations at the other (Bigfoot is really Cain or maybe an extradimensional being). I'm a fan of the strange and unusual, so I hope people keep reporting Bigfoot sightings that stretch our sense of what is possible.

A UFO Sighting in Malden: Reality, Daimons and Hoaxes

Did a UFO land outside Boston earlier this month?

According to MUFON (the Mutual UFO Network), a Malden resident reported seeing something strange the evening of December 10 in the skies over either Malden or Revere. (The two towns are adjacent so I understand how it could be hard to tell where it was.)

The witness was out walking around 11:00 pm when he saw something unusual flying above him. The object was described simply as "an odd light" which hovered and then landed on the ground. After it landed the witness saw a red light shining through the trees but was unable to make his way to it.

It was dark and too far away to see it, but I swore I saw a red light on the ground. So I tried to get closer to it, but the only way was through a forest and it could have been miles away. I was unarmed and had no flashlight so I did not proceed, but I am in the morning. Waited to see if it would go back up for a few minutes. It didn’t and I went home.

I have a lot of friends who live in Malden and have been there innumerable times, so I definitely find this story interesting. The town is densely settled but also has a lot of forested land. In particular I'm thinking of the the Middlesex Fells, a 2,500 acre park that is partially located in Malden. It has lots of rocky hills, woods, lakes and even some open fields that might be large enough for a UFO to land in. It's also a great place to hike!

A photo from Woonsocket, Rhode Island taken in 1967. Real or fake? From this great site.

I have two initial and immediate reactions whenever someone claims to have seen a UFO.

First, I ask myself, "Did they really see something mundane and mistakenly think it was some kind of weird flying craft?" Maybe it was a plane, or a meteor, or a satellite. The MUFON website itself notes: "Please remember that most UFO sightings can be explained as something natural or man-made." The witness in this case claims that it was definitely not an airplane or helicopter. They are familiar with those because a relative was in the Air Force. Interestingly, when the witness tried to take a photo with their iPhone it immediately lost all power. Hmmm. I don't think your standard 747 makes phones shut down...

Second, I ask myself, "Is this person playing a hoax?", which might be the case here. I'm not sure what an anonymous hoaxer gains by posting something to an online UFO site, but there are plenty of hoaxes online. The details in this report are a little hazy which does make me a little suspicious. For example, where was the witness when they saw the UFO? How could they see the light on the ground if it was miles away and in the woods?

After I have those two immediate reactions I will sometimes think about this passage in Patrick Harpur's 1994 book Daimonic Reality:

Charges of fakery, lies and hoaxing are leveled at all paranormal phenomena. ... It is nowhere more true than in UFOlogy, where debates run for decades about whether "contactees" really contacted aliens or whether they were lying. I suspect that, reality being what it is, the they themselves don't know half the time. In other words, I prefer to see hoaxing as a daimonic quality inherent in, and continuous with, anomalous events - which are neither "genuine" nor "fake" but, in a deeper sense, both. 

Oooooh! That's a philosophically shifty paragraph if there ever was one. I tend to think of things as being either real or fake. Were there really weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Do vaccines really cause autism? Is the Earth really round? We should be able to determine what's true or false.

The key word in Harpur's argument is "daimonic," which refers to the daimones, minor spirits in ancient Greek mythology who filled the world. The singular form is daimon, which the English word "demon" is derived from. The daimons weren't necessarily evil, though. Some were good, some were bad, and a lot them were just tricky. They could bring dreams to people who were sleeping, or visions to those who were awake.


Harpur claims that although we think of these daimons as purely mythological (if we think of them at all), they are still here, but rather than flying around in the material world they are now lurking in our psyche waiting to play tricks. He quotes Jung to support his argument:

There are no conclusive arguments against the hypothesis that these archetypal figures are endowed with personality at the outset and are not just secondary personalizations. In so far as the archetypes do not represent mere functional relationships, they manifest themselves as DAIMONES, as personal agencies. In this form they are felt as actual experiences and are not "figments of the imagination", as rationalists would have us believe.

Harpur further claims that these daimons want our attention, but since we ignore them they tend to show up as weird anomalous phenomena like Bigfoot, ghosts, spectral animals, and of course UFOs.

Sometimes they show up on their own, but sometimes the daimons will unconsciously urge people to imitate them or pretend they have seen them. They get humans to do their work for them. So that guy who dresses up like Bigfoot to tromp around the woods may have been inspired to do it by the daimons. That UFO hoaxer who posts a fake sighting online might have been inspired by these tricky spirits as well. A good hoax serves the daimons' purpose: to remind us that not everything is rational and that weird things still lurk out there in the darkness.

You may not buy Harpur's theory, but I find it interesting. It's exciting to think that strange entities are still out there in the world, either hiding in our psyches or in the woods in a Massachusetts town with two subway stations.

PS - It seems like there are a lot of UFO sightings in New England during the winter. Does anyone know if that is true? Is it just because it gets darker so much earlier? Please share your thoughts on this subject if you have any. 

Snow Magic

There's an old New England saying that a green Christmas means a full graveyard. This is one of those classic reverse weather predictions, like a sunny Groundhog's Day indicating winter will last a long time. In this case, mild Christmas weather means the winter will be ferocious later on.

Friends in Vermont have posted pictures of snow, but we're definitely going to have a green Christmas down here in southern New England. But who knows? Myaybe we'll get walloped with snow later in the winter. Last year it was so warm and humid on Christmas that I saw a salamander on our front porch, and we all know what the rest of the winter was like for Boston.

So, in case we do get some snow this year, here are some snow charms from 19th century New England.

• It's a sign of coming snow if your wood sizzles when you put it on the fire. 
• The day of the month of the first snow storm indicates the number of storms in the year. So, it it snows on the 2nd you'll get two storms, if it storms on the 3rd you'll get three, etc. Let's hope the first storm doesn't happen on the 31st.
• If the bottom of your teakettle is white when you take it off the stove, it means a snow storm is coming. 
• Wish on the first snowflake of the season and your wish will come true. (It flurried here in October so it's too late for me!)

Those are from Fanny Bergen's book Current Superstitions (1896), but here are a few more from Clifton Johnson's What They Say in New England (1896).

• Snow that comes in the old moon will stick around for a long time; snow that comes in the new moon will melt away fast. 
• A snowy winter indicates a good harvest. 

Perhaps we shouldn't be too upset that we're having a green Christmas. According to Johnson, if the sun shines through the branches of an apple tree on Christmas it means there will be a good apple crop. I do like a good apple...