In the basement of the building there is an archway that leads to the old underground tunnel system that travels underneath Portsmouth’s streets. Although the tunnel entrance is walled off in brick, you can hear that it is hollow on the other side. What purpose does this particular tunnel serve? Well, no one is absolutely certain, but there are several valid theories. Some people think that the tunnel system may have served as part of an underground movement in the 1800s, known as shanghaiing. This practice involved the kidnapping of local men. The men were then brought through a network of secret tunnels that ran beneath the city. They were then sold to sea captains and were forced to work off their debts aboard their ships, which were sometimes at sea for two to three years. In some cases, these men had expensive bar tabs that they couldn’t afford to pay, and the bar keeper would make a secret arrangement with a ship’s captain to pay off the bill, thereby allowing the captain to take on the captive’s service.
Portsmouth has many buildings that were connected to the Underground Railroad. This network of hidden rooms and tunnels connected safe houses, which slaves in the nineteenth-century United States used to escape to freedom. There are numerous homes that have been discovered throughout the area with connections to these secret rooms or tunnels. In addition, some tunnels in Portsmouth were used to move ale throughout the city, as Portsmouth was home to the largest brewery on the East Coast in the 1800s—the Frank Jones Brewery. Frank Jones had tunnels constructed between his warehouses along the Portsmouth waterfront and also throughout the brewery complex on Islington Street.
It is completely fascinating to stand in the basement of Molly Malone’s and think of the different reasons this tunnel exists, but what may seem fascinating to one person may be a little unnerving for another. One very distinct story about the basement comes from one of the waitresses at the pub. The incident in which she was involved took place at the end of her shift, just as the pub was closing for the night. The basement only has one way in—through the kitchen and then down the staircase. She claimed to be alone when she said she saw someone standing in the far end of the basement. She was quite curious and stared at the figure in the shadows. The figure wore a long white coat. She said it looked like a man from size and stature, but what she couldn’t see was his face. She kept staring at him until the figure moved very quickly toward her, brushed by and went up the stairs. She followed right after him only to see him disappear around the corner at the top of the stairs.
The waitress thought she may have just seen a cook she had not been introduced to yet. What justified the thought to the waitress was that cooks wear long white coats, and that certainly must have been what she had seen. The waitress returned back to the basement to finish up her duties for the night. When she looked down into the basement again, she saw the figure in the white coat standing there. How could this be? She couldn’t understand, as there is only one way into the basement, and he would have had to walk right by her. At this point she said that she got her nerve up and she walked down to the end of the basement. As she approached, the figure backed up until it had backed right up into the wall. She said that she was so certain of what she had seen that there was no doubt in her mind it was a ghost. More recently, another waitress experienced what she had described as the same type of entity in the basement, but she did not know of this other encounter. Upon further research, it was discovered that in the 1950s, the basement of the building was used as an apothecary, where it would not be uncommon for someone to wear a long white lab coat while preparing medicines.
The business was sold to a new owner in 2006, and the current owner has become a believer in ghosts, as well. In fact, he has become so unnerved by the spirit in the basement that he does not go down there alone. His office is located in the basement, and he said he can absolutely feel something down there with him. On one occasion, he heard the upstairs door close and lock when there was no one around. He went upstairs, unlocked the door and opened it to find no one around. This happened several times in a row. At times the lights went out after the door closed. In another encounter, he heard footsteps on the basement stairs. When he stepped out of his office, there was a tray stand set up at the bottom of the stairs, but no one was around.
Andrew Corbin, the current owner (who used to work at the haunted Ffrost Sawyer Tavern in Durham) has said that there are often ice-cold breezes in the restaurant, where there is no source for a draft. Customers have said they’ve seen people come in and sit down and disappear right before their eyes after a few moments. One night while I was in having dinner, Andrew asked me to walk around and take some pictures, since it was a fairly quiet night. He pointed out an area in the first floor dining room, where he was having strange feelings. I took a series of digital pictures, and three out of the four pictures I took revealed a distinctive orb, or spirit energy, that was moving about the area he had indicated.
Andrew’s brother also experienced disturbances in the basement. One night when the lights unexpectedly went out, he used his camera phone to shoot pictures in the darkness. One of the images shows a yellow shape that he believes is the spirit of a little boy.
Once, one of my more skeptical tour guests excused himself to the restroom on the second floor and didn’t return for about a half an hour. When he came back he said that the strangest thing had just happened to him. He said when he approached the men’s restroom, he found the door closed, so he knocked on the door. When there was no response he started to push open the unlocked door only to hear a loud, gruff voice shout out, “I’m in here!” He said he closed the door and stood there for twenty minutes. The gentleman said that after awhile he knocked on the door again. There was no response, and when he opened the door there was no one inside. This is a small bathroom with no windows and no other exit. He said he saw no one leave while he stood there and waited.
With all of the vivid activity, we decided to do a haunted dinner. We invited friends of ours, including psychic intuitive and shaman Chris Bashaw. Throughout the event he continually picked up on a variety of spirits moving throughout the room that we were in. When we went downstairs, he felt the basement spirit moving around as if he was hurrying around doing his work. Chris envisioned moving shadows in one of the storage closets in the basement. Many people who brought cameras that night captured orbs throughout the building, and one woman even claimed to have caught the image of a hooded woman in one of the downstairs windows. The laser temperature sensor that guests were using fluctuated as much as thirty degrees in just one spot, possibly picking up on the spirited activity around the group. After that event, Andrew said the mysterious goings-on increased, perhaps because the event changed the energy levels, which caused the ghosts to act up.
Should you pay a visit to Molly’s, I recommend their award-winning seafood chowder. It is a local favorite. They have a terrific variety of imported Irish brews, but my personal favorite is the Strongbow hard cider that is served on tap. It is outstanding. They often have live Irish folk music players on Thursday nights. You may even catch a glimpse of my tours in there; we visit quite often and our investigations are still ongoing.
The year I spent doing research for the haunted pub tour proved quite fascinating. On my regular tour, one gentleman from Portland told me as we walked by the pub one night that I would find out that there are five spirits in the building. He then proceeded to point out configurations of five throughout the building. Five posts, stairs, windows, wires and so on. It seemed very intriguing to think that there might be so much activity in one location. I’ve found out that currently, there may very well be five spirits haunting Molly Malone’s—or maybe even more.
COUNTRY TAVERN, NASHUA
“Yeah, we’ve got a ghost.” That was the response I heard from Camille Lebbos, who owns the historic Country Tavern in Nashua, when I asked about the haunted history. While he didn’t seem especially forthcoming regarding stories of the location’s haunted history, there is no mistaking the fascinating legends about this
location. Should you look into the tales told by the previous owners of the tavern you’ll discover this “ghost” has a name and a very unfortunate tale.
Built in 1741, the Country Tavern started out as a quaint little farmhouse in the quiet Nashua, New Hampshire countryside. The land that is now Nashua was once part of Massachusetts and was settled in 1655. After much configuration and rearranging of state lines, the official city of Nashua was finally established in 1836. The name Nashua comes from the Nashuway, who named the river running through the city “Nashua.” In the Penacook language, the name means “beautiful stream with a pebbly bottom.”
There are numerous tales of a lady ghost from the Country Tavern, in Nashua.
Nashua village quickly became an early textile hub, with the building of three cotton mills in the early nineteenth century. Railroad lines connected Nashua to other vital points in New England, and in the 1850s there were over fifty trains arriving and departing in the city. After World War II, the textile mills moved south and Nashua adapted and developed other thriving industries. Money Magazine has twice named the city the “Best Place to Live in America.”
The tale of Elizabeth Ford is most tragic and quite unsettling, to say the least. Elizabeth was the young and beautiful wife of a much older sea captain. When Captain Ford returned from one of his long journeys at sea, far beyond nine months, he arrived home to find his wife had given birth to a baby that most certainly was not his. Enraged by her behavior, he snatched the wee babe from Elizabeth’s arms as she pleaded for mercy. It is said that he then locked Elizabeth in a closet in the house for three days. During that time, he killed the child and buried the body on the property near the home. It is impossible to imagine the thoughts in Elizabeth’s head as she worried about the safety of her child while she was held prisoner.
When the captain finally let Elizabeth out, she was horrified to hear that he killed her child. Anger overcame her as she confronted her husband, and he stabbed her to death. Following her murder he buried her body on the property, reportedly underneath one of the large trees. For the next two centuries it was whispered that Elizabeth haunted the house. Some people thought she was wandering the property seeking the body of her murdered child.
Eventually the property changed hands, and in the early 1980s the Country Tavern opened. The property has been converted into a pleasant location for fine dining. The old barn was converted and opened up to the house for additional dining space. With the property now open to the public, rumors of Elizabeth’s ghost haunting the property became all too real.
Patrons at the tavern relayed their experiences with Elizabeth. The stories told of a playful spirit who liked to have fun. One regular guest said that he vividly recalled seeing Elizabeth when he was a child enjoying dinner with his family. He said Elizabeth appeared to him and other children in his group and that he rolled a ball back and forth across the floor toward her and she rolled it back to him. Elizabeth was known to move items around after shelves were cleaned, almost as if she was decorating to her own liking.
There was a story of a flying coffee cup that flew across the dining room and smashed on the wall. Several people watched in disbelief as it ascended and flew through the air. Plates have been known to slide across tables in front of shocked guests and even a butter dish was known to take a journey across the room. The belt on a coat that belonged to one of the staff members disappeared, yet after a thorough search it reappeared in the bathroom. Elizabeth has been also seen peering from the windows of the dining room after everyone has gone home for the night.
Elizabeth was described as a beautiful young woman, and she was only twenty-two when she was killed. Her hair was long and white, despite the fact she was so young. Her sweet expression and lovely face were said to be quite haunting to those who saw her.
The owner was a bit unsettled about the ghostly activities when a few people became annoyed at Elizabeth’s playfulness and left the restaurant when the dishes on the table moved. It was decided that a psychic should be brought in to help Elizabeth pass peacefully to the other side. A medium from Gloucester, Massachusetts, was brought in and a séance was held. Elizabeth made an appearance on that evening, and it was thought that her spirit was released from the house and that she would finally be at rest. It is hoped that she was reunited with the spirit of her child.
After the séance, some time had gone by and the Elizabeth’s ghost was not seen or heard from. Some of the employees truly missed her spirit, as some had become so accustomed to her presence. Some had felt quite sad that they had never said goodbye to Elizabeth.
In 1993, the television show Hard Copy was interested in paying a visit to the tavern after reading about Elizabeth in a recently published book. Once again, the medium from Gloucester was called in to see if Elizabeth was still around. After just a few minutes in the tavern, she realized that Elizabeth was back, perhaps confirming that death isn’t final. Rather, it is a place to cross over and be at peace. The tavern then made an appearance on the popular show Unsolved Mysteries.
The business changed hands a couple of years later in 1995, but Elizabeth still makes her presence known by opening and closing doors and breezing past the many visitors to the tavern. You might be surprised to find this little piece of haunted history along the very busy Route 101. When you’ve found your way to the Country Tavern and you’re enjoying a drink (try their signature Oatmeal Cookie Martini) and you see something out of the corner of your eye, it might just be Elizabeth. In her own way, this beautiful ghost may show you that there may quite possibly be life after death.
BLASER’S FIRESIDE TAVERN, HOPKINTON
Ten minutes west of Concord, New Hampshire, in Merrimack County, is the beautiful town of Hopkinton. The town’s original name was “Number Five,” and the settlement began to grow in 1737. Native American attacks were commonplace in the town’s early days, and there were accounts of kidnapping and sneak attacks upon the townspeople. Bands of Native Americans hid out in the woods and accosted travelers along the road. Some attacks were directed at the town garrison. In the late 1700s, there was a lot of controversy over the new minister in town, Pastor Jacob Cram. Numerous committees were formed and meetings were held, as there was much dispute over his religious teachings. The townspeople were involved for a few years in attempting to sort the out the issues. In fact, a number of ministers from communities as far as fifty miles away were dispatched to help settle the matter. The decision of the townspeople was to ask the pastor to step down and continue the manner in which he preached somewhere else. He left the community shortly thereafter.
On January 6, 1836, the town saw its one and only hanging. Abraham Prescott was considered a “feeble minded youth” by the area residents of the day. He was a protégé under the protective wing of Chauncey Cochran, a successful businessman and family man. Abraham thought with Chauncey’s wife out of the way, he would be taken into the family and inherit his sizable property. He is said to have lured the wife away to a quiet place, where he murdered her. He confessed to the murder and the execution was delayed once, but he eventually faced the gallows. In the northern area of town there was an unusual rock formation that resembled an amphitheater; this was to be the site for final justice. A drum and fife accompanied the large crowd of townspeople who had assembled to witness his execution. He was said to look emotionless, almost as if he was already dead. The two massive granite boulders are still on the site of the hanging, although there are probably few in town these days that know of the story.
Originally built as a private home in 1858 by Joseph and Lucinda Mills, who came from Dunbarton, New Hampshire, Blasers Fireside Tavern overlooks the breathtaking mountains and the man-made Kimball Lake. When they passed on, the property was left to one of their two sons, Frank. Their other son, Jeff, lived just next door.
Frank soon married, but in 1924 his beloved wife passed away. Frank was devastated by the loss of his wife and in his despair, he committed suicide. The current owner, Nancy B
laser, told me that she had met two of Frank’s nieces, and they described the tragic incident. Frank was known for always wearing farmer’s jeans with a front chest pocket. He wedged a gun in the opening in the jeans and pointed the barrel at his chin, then pulled the trigger. It was a horrifying discovery.
His son inherited the property and sold it a short time later to Harold Kimball. Harold was a very wealthy and influential businessman from New York who purchased the property as a hunting retreat. He employed many of the residents of Hopkinton to work his various business ventures. He also employed people to dig—by hand—into the earth behind the property and create Kimball Lake. The house was later sold by Harold and it became a restaurant. In 2000, Blaser’s Fireside Tavern opened up. Patrons go to the tavern for the incredible four-season view and for the delicious food, but most who visit for the first time don’t expect to encounter a ghost!
The sign for the Fireside Tavern was designed to reflect the view and scenery of the location.
Haunted Pubs of New England Page 7
