The World of Lore: Dreadful Places

by Aaron Mahnke

  To make matters worse, the student discovered that he was unable to move. According to the story, the ghostly floating stranger attacked the student, who screamed in horror. A resident assistant and a handful of other students ran to help, and all of them claimed to see the same ghostly figure for a moment. And then it vanished.

  Another student reported waking up to see a black cloud hovering near the ceiling of his dorm room. As he watched it, the dark mist moved across the room and vanished through the wall. There have been tales of unusual Ouija board encounters, unusual dreams, and strange sensations in places closest to the building’s most tragic events. On their own, they are curious stories; together, though, they paint a haunting picture.

  Another story-filled hotel in Boston is the Omni Parker House. It opened its doors in 1855, which makes it the oldest continuously operating hotel in the country. In the 1920s, most of the original building was torn down and replaced with a new, fourteen-story structure. But with all that history comes a lot of baggage.

  The most frequent story told in the hotel is that of a ghostly older man seen walking the halls late at night. Those who have seen this figure describe him as bearded and dressed in Victorian-era clothing. Members of the hotel staff claim it’s the spirit of Harvey Parker, the man who built the original hotel nearly two centuries ago.

  If so, Mr. Parker gets around. Not only has he been seen in the halls of the ninth and tenth floors, but on at least one occasion a guest has witnessed him inside one of the rooms. One woman who stayed in Room 1012 awoke in the night to find the man standing at the foot of her bed. She locked eyes with the ghostly figure for a moment before he spoke. “Are you comfortable?” he reportedly asked. We can probably guess what her answer was.

  Most stories, though, are focused on the third floor. Guests there have reported hearing sounds late at night that they identify as a rocking chair, slowly creaking back and forth. Other guests report that the elevator has an eerie tendency to stop on the third floor—with no one inside. The spirit they blame for that is Charlotte Cushman.

  Cushman was born right there in Boston and quickly rose to become one of the most famous American actresses of the mid-1800s. She toured most of the English-speaking world with theater productions, selling out everywhere she went. But in 1876, she was at the end of her battle with breast cancer, and died of pneumonia at the Parker Hotel that February. Her ghost, some say, never checked out.

  In the 1940s, a traveling liquor salesman apparently killed himself in Room 303, and that tragic event has left an indelible mark on the hotel. Guests in the past have complained about the constant smell of whiskey, while others claim they witnessed odd shadows in the room. Shadows, they say, that moved.

  Other reports claim that the bathtub faucet would turn on all by itself. Guests have heard noises and felt cold spots, all of which create an environment that’s a bit too unsettling for their tastes. Since then, the hotel has permanently closed the room, converting it into a storage space. The hauntings have reportedly stopped.

  Clearly, these spaces have played host to the highs and lows of human life. Somewhere between the wealthy and celebrated and the tragic and painful, something has taken hold of them. Whether it’s ghosts or just the echo of a dramatic story, that’s ultimately up to the people who experience the effects.

  But the story that just might be Boston’s darkest is actually set seven miles to the east, in the middle of a busy harbor. It’s easy to overlook it now, but 150 years ago, one island played host to an emotional tale filled with loss and misfortune.

  And some say that story has never really ended.

  SHADOWS

  George’s Island isn’t large by any stretch of the imagination, but it was big enough for early settlers to use it for farming. In 1825, though, the government purchased it for another purpose: coastal defense.

  This little island seemed like the perfect place to build a fort, which they did. But by the time they finished it in 1847, it was already outdated. They called it Fort Warren, after a local American Revolutionary War hero, and it remained in use for another century before closing its doors just after World War II.

  Now, admittedly, there aren’t any records that support the tale I’m about to tell you, and I know that makes for wobbly history. But the reality is that sometimes the only evidence of something historical is the folklore that it leaves behind. It’s like a shadow, in a way; it hints that something bigger and more real is there, even if we can’t see it. And in this case, it’s a story that’s worth repeating.

  During the American Civil War, both sides of the conflict found themselves with a unique problem that none of them could have prepared for. Through the course of battle, prisoners were taken. And prisoners of war needed to be kept somewhere. Sometimes, as was the case in Richmond, Virginia, an out-of-the-way place was taken over and converted into a prison camp. Other times, old forts were used. And that’s what happened in Boston.

  In October 1861, about 750 Confederate prisoners arrived on the island. Some were political figures, like Confederate vice president Alexander Stephens. Most, though, were just soldiers, captured in battle. Thankfully, when compared to how prisoners were treated in places like Andersonville in Georgia or Belle Isle in Richmond, the Fort Warren prisoners were treated humanely and with dignity. But they were prisoners nonetheless.

  One of those prisoners, according to the legend, was a man named Andrew Lanier. Shortly after his arrival, Lanier is said to have written a letter to his wife, Melanie, telling her what had happened and where he was. But when she received the letter, Andrew’s wife didn’t do what most of us would have done. Melanie didn’t resign herself to waiting. She didn’t weep and accept defeat. She took action.

  When she got her husband’s letter, Melanie saddled her horse and made the journey north to Massachusetts, eventually arriving in the town of Hull in late December 1861. Now, Hull is important because it’s on the coast, and just about a mile across the water to the north is a fort. Fort Warren, in fact.

  As the story goes, Melanie hacked off her long hair with a knife, dressed up in a man’s clothing, and then tucked a pistol and hand axe into her belt. I can’t think of anything more hardcore, honestly. This was a woman on a mission.

  She climbed into a rowboat one night in January 1862 and made her way alone across the channel. When she arrived on the shore of George’s Island, where Fort Warren sat waiting, Melanie hid the boat and threaded her way through the dark toward the prison. And then she whistled a song in hopes that her husband would hear it and recognize her. He did, and he whistled back.

  Once she found the window where Andrew was standing, she managed to slip through. A grown man could never have done it, but she was smaller. And braver. Honestly, she traveled hundreds of miles from her safe home in the South just to willingly slip inside a northern prison. All for love.

  What happened next is a bit of an action movie montage. It’s that scene in The A-Team where they build the tank out of a bulldozer, some sheet metal, and leaf blowers equipped with artillery shells. The Laniers rallied the other prisoners, and together they began digging a tunnel. Their goal was to dig their way to the interior of the prison, overpower the handful of guards who were on duty, and then arm themselves for battle.

  It was a solid plan, and they labored at the tunnel for weeks. All the while, the men worked together to hide Melanie from the guards. They each gave her a portion of their food. They kept her safe. And they dug. Each and every night, armed with that little hand axe, they dug. Until the night they made a mistake, and one of the guards heard the digging.

  The alarm was instantly raised, the tunnel was discovered, and each of the prisoners was pulled out. When the last man was yanked free, Melanie jumped out of the darkness and drew her pistol, pointing it at one of the officers. Before she could pull the trigger, though, the man slapped the handgun aside, and
it fired as it struck the stone floor.

  There was silence for a moment. No one spoke. Not the guards, not the prisoners. It was as if the shot had silenced them all, and for a moment, there was no sound except for the slowly diminishing ring of the gunshot. And then Andrew Lanier toppled over, a red, bloody wound in his gut. The pistol had found a target after all.

  Melanie would follow her husband soon enough, it turns out. For her crimes, she was sentenced to death, but before they executed her, she asked for more appropriate clothing. Something more feminine. Something befitting a lady. All they could find, though, was a large black robe.

  Melanie Lanier was hanged in that black robe. After all she’d been through, after all she’d done, she was finally reunited with her husband. Death, as is so often the case, turned out to be the Great Connector, bringing the lost and separated back together in the end.

  Of course, it could all be fantasy. The tale of Melanie Lanier is one that defies historical research, only appearing for the first time in a 1944 book about the fort. There’s no record of a woman ever being hanged in the prison. No record of a tunnel. Nothing that can definitively prove the legend’s accuracy.

  But stories have a way of pointing toward the truth. And while that truth might or might not be the tale of one woman’s love for her husband and how she gave everything to set him free, it might be something else. Maybe the story, like so much of folklore, was born out of a need to explain things.

  You see, ever since the 1860s, people on the island have frequently reported odd sightings. Shapes that seemed to slip past the corner of their eye. Police have seen things there, as have tourists, and historians, and even researchers from MIT. Dark shapes outside the fort, moving against the walls. As if something were trying to find a way inside.

  Shapes, according to the reports, that resemble a figure…dressed in a long black robe.

  MAKING A HOUSE A HOME

  Admittedly, there are a lot of cities around the United States with histories full of tragedy and suffering. But few have seen so much across such a broad space of time. Boston is unique in its dark, unfortunate beauty.

  Every city has a ghost story, though. Or a collection of them. They’re as common as the people who tell them. People who believe, deep down, that something darker is going on beneath the surface of the place they live.

  Think of it this way: our houses are really nothing more than walls and floors enclosing a space. But that’s not what makes a house a home. It’s the people inside, the personal touches, the familiar objects. They transform a building into a home.

  And that’s what folklore does. It finds a way inside. It dresses up a sterile place and gives it life. True or not, it’s essential. I have to wonder: without folklore, can anyplace ever really feel like home?

  One of the things I find fascinating is just how many important figures called the Omni Parker House home, if only for a while. The hotel has experienced a nearly endless parade of history right through its hallways. Ho Chi Minh worked there for a year in 1912. And before Malcolm X stopped calling himself Malcolm Little, he worked as a busboy there in the 1940s.

  The hotel has had countless famous guests…and some that were more infamous. John Wilkes Booth stayed there just eight days before he killed Abraham Lincoln. He came to Boston to visit his brother, also an actor, but while he was at the Parker Hotel he slipped over to a nearby firing range to practice using his pistol.

  The most famous guest at the Parker House, though, might just be Charles Dickens. He’d been to Boston before, way back in 1842. But he was a struggling author back then, and so when he arrived in 1867, things were very different. He was a literary superstar.

  He lived at the Parker for over five months beginning in the fall of 1867. While there, he performed his novella A Christmas Carol for sellout crowds. And all that performance meant he needed to practice. According to the hotel, Dickens would stand in front of his mirror for hours on end, working through his performance and trying to get it just right.

  Two years later, Dickens died back home in England, but some say that Boston, and specifically the Parker, always had a special place in his heart. Perhaps he left a bit of himself there. Because that would explain another of the hotel’s odd stories.

  The mirror Dickens rehearsed in front of has long since been moved to another location in the hotel, out in a public area. And because of that, it requires regular cleaning. A few years ago, one of the hotel workmen was walking through the hall when he noticed that the mirror had condensation on it. The sort you might expect if someone had leaned in and breathed really heavily on the glass.

  So he stopped, pulled a cloth out of his pocket, and proceeded to clean the mirror. When he was done, he turned around and looked to see if anyone was nearby, someone who might have done it. But the hall was empty.

  When he looked back at the mirror, the fog had returned. He cleaned it a second time, and then watched in horror as it appeared once more, just a few inches from the first spot. It was as if someone were standing at the mirror with him, breathing on the glass. But there was no one else there.

  As you might imagine, the man refused to ever clean the mirror again.

  WHEN JOSEPH ASCH opened his new Asch Building in 1901, it was hailed as a modern marvel. It was a massive ten-story block of stone and iron, and it was said to be every bit as solid as it looked. But it was inside the building that the true breakthroughs could be found.

  It had freight elevators, wide-open floors, and fire exits. In fact, Joseph Asch was so proud of his modern building that he called it “fireproof.” And for a city in desperate need of more factory space for its massive garment-making industry, it was perfect. So business partners Max Blanck and Isaac Harris signed a lease for the eighth floor.

  And business was good. Soon they expanded upward, taking over the top three stories of the building. Their shop, the Triangle Shirtwaist Company, became the premier manufacturer of the most popular type of shirt in the country. But they also became sloppy.

  On March 25, 1911, a fire broke out in a pile of scrap cloth. The building might have been billed as fireproof, but inside it was overcrowded and full of flammable materials—perfect conditions for a horrible tragedy. Less than an hour later, it was over. Some workers had burned to death. Others had fallen ten stories to escape the flames. All told, 146 people had lost their lives.

  Today, the building is part of the New York University campus, but its tragic past hasn’t completely evaporated. For years, witnesses have reported the telltale scent of smoke throughout the halls. Others have heard voices. Sometimes it’s just a faint whisper, while other times it’s a frightening cry for help. Most people, though, just sense an overwhelming air of darkness.

  Whether it’s the tragic past of countless historic buildings or the personal darkness of the people who lived inside them, New York—it seems—is a city overpopulated by ghosts.

  And if you know where to look, the stories they tell will leave you feeling haunted.

  OVERCROWDED

  New York City is a monster. There’s no better way to say it. It’s so large and unwieldy that it operates more like a country than a metropolis. Yes, it’s beautiful. It’s full of life and culture and a depth of social awareness that few other cities in the world can match. But it’s also a beast. In a lot of ways, New York City is like an Olympic athlete: mortal like us, yes, but there’s very little about it that we’d consider average.

  And it’s old, too. Europeans have been in the area for over four hundred years, a century and a half longer than America has been a country. It’s played host to everything from rebellion and war to epidemics and terrorism. And all of that death and violence leaves a veneer of darkness on New York, like soot from a wildfire.

  The trouble with a city so large, though, is that it’s easy to live inside it and be completely unaware of the stories
you’re standing on top of. Take Washington Square Park, in Greenwich Village. It was established in 1827 as a public space, kicking off the construction of all the beautiful things you see there today. The arch, the fountain, all those amazing flowers and trees…and twenty thousand dead bodies.

  That’s because prior to being a public space, Washington Square was a potter’s field, a graveyard for the poor and unidentified. Then, in the early nineteenth century, as yellow fever rolled across the city like a tidal wave, thousands of victims were added to the burial ground there. The graves are shallow, sometimes just a foot or two below the surface. And because of the sheer number of them all, they’ve never been removed.

  Just three blocks north of Washington Square Arch, there’s an innocent-looking brownstone with a story of its own. You see, sometimes we bury the dead and they stay there, in the ground below our feet. Other times they refuse to go away, becoming dark roommates in an already overcrowded city. That was the experience of actress Jan Bryant Bartell, who moved into 14 West 10th Street way back in 1957.

  For sixteen years Bartell lived in the building while suffering through what she claimed was intense paranormal activity: shadows that moved, sounds that echoed from empty rooms, even objects that levitated. She claimed it was all a result of the dozens of deaths that had occurred in the building since the 1850s, and she wasn’t alone in that theory.

  Decades earlier, in the 1930s, a woman and her mother both reported seeing a white-haired man in a white suit. He turned to the women and reportedly spoke to them. “My name is Clemens,” he said, “and I has a problem here I gotta settle.” And then he vanished.