by Tim Weisberg
Within Wareham’s borders is the coastal village of Onset. Its seaside bluffs and abundant ocean view made it a destination point for the wealthy and the famous in the early 1900s, and at one time it was known as Hollywood East for the celebrities that would often vacation there.
In its own way, Wareham still has a connection with the Hollywood of today. Oscar-winning actress Geena Davis, who starred in such paranormally themed films as Beetlejuice and The Fly, is a Wareham native.
The Fearing Tavern
One of the oldest structures in Wareham is the Fearing Tavern. Along with having perhaps the coolest name of any haunted location, it’s also a spot where the ghosts are directly related to its history.
The original part of the building dates back to 1690, when it was built by Isaac Bump and his family. Israel Fearing later took ownership and added another portion to the building in 1765, and it remained in his family for hundreds of years. During its long history, the sixteen-room Fearing Tavern has served as a tavern, courthouse, town hall, post office, private residence and is now a museum housing a collection of antiques from the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Wareham’s Fearing Tavern has a mysterious past as well as a haunting present.
As a Wareham resident and host of a paranormal radio show, I was able to convince the town’s historical society to allow myself and some colleagues the opportunity to conduct a paranormal investigation of the tavern, the first time it had ever been done. We had heard stories about a ghostly woman seen sitting in a rocking chair by schoolchildren on a tour, but we mainly wanted the chance to investigate it because of its long and rich history.
I had an opportunity to talk with one of the last residents to live in the tavern before it was turned over to the town in the 1950s. He told me that when he lived there with his family as a child, it was just like any other house in town. He had indoor plumbing, electricity and all the other modern amenities of the time. However, in 1958, the historical society restored it to its original colonial condition, and it remains so today.
There are two unique features to the tavern that are a prominent if unsolved part of its history. The first is a hidden room wedged between two bedrooms on the second floor, and the other is that two black bands are painted around its dual white chimneys and have been since colonial times. Many historians believe that the black bands were a sign that the owners were loyal to the British crown during the Revolution, and the hidden room was used to hide Redcoats from the militia. The other school of thought is that the black bands indicated that the home was part of the Underground Railroad in the 1800s, and that the hidden room was used to house escaped slaves en route to Canada.
In my research, I found at least one other home less than a mile from the tavern that had a similar hidden room, this one in the basement. The owners of that particular home had passed down a story of its use as part of the Underground Railroad, as the home had not been built in the time of the Revolution.
Adding to the legend is the rumor of a hidden tunnel under the foundation of the tavern that leads under the street and comes out under the Tremont Nail factory across the way. During the early part of Wareham’s history, a cotton mill stood on the site of the current nail factory, right along the shore. Historians speculate that aside from Loyalist or Underground Railroad implications, such a tunnel might have also been used to carry goods back and forth from the tavern to the water.
It is this rumored tunnel that led to one of the more frightening pieces of evidence of the paranormal I’ve ever experienced. In our investigation of the tavern, we brought along our good friend and EVP specialist Mike Markowicz. EVP is an acronym that stands for electronic voice phenomena, when ghosts can imprint their own voices on audio recordings through manipulation of energy. These voices are not audible during the course of the investigation but are discovered later upon review of the tapes.
Mike has his own unique system of conducting EVP research, and it includes using ten condenser microphones (like you would find in our radio studio) strategically located throughout the location, tied into one central mixing board and then recorded digitally on a laptop. With his ultrasensitive and high-end equipment, it’s not uncommon for Mike to leave a location with dozens of solid EVPs, while other investigators using hand-held recorders might be lucky to come across one or two prime examples in their entire career. It was with this equipment that Mike captured a statement that to this day sends a shiver down my spine.
In the basement of the tavern, our team was searching for evidence of this supposed underground tunnel. Matt Moniz, my Spooky Southcoast cohost and a paranormal investigator for more than twenty years, began using a broomstick to thump on the concrete portion of the floor to check for hollow spots. When we found one, we immediately began clearing off the dirt from the floor with our feet, making one large collective swooshing sound. Within that sound, perhaps using the kinetic energy of our motion to draw power, an evil sounding voice came through to make a startling pronouncement: “Hey Ashford…I killed Grandpa, Ash. I just knew that you’d feel the pain!”
Our sweeping motion stopped for a moment, before we picked it back up again. Once again, the voice came through with creepiness: “Then consider [sic] it...a gift.”
This didn’t sound like a confession; it sounded like the gleeful remembrance of a twisted individual. Although no historical society records mention any Ashford associated with the Fearing Tavern property, whatever happened may have been something deemed too heinous to keep in the permanent record in those days.
Other strange phenomena have been captured during our investigations into the tavern: a glowing orb of light dubbed Tinkerbelle caught on video darting among nineteenth-century toys in an empty room; a loud and animated conversation clearly heard between two women on the second floor of the tavern while everyone who was in the building was listening to it intently from the first floor kitchen; an EVP of a young girl’s voice inquiring in sing-song innocence “Wanna play dress-up?”; another of an iron gate being slammed shut when no such gate is believed to have ever been a part of the tavern.
This is just a small sampling of the evidence we’ve captured in this location that has led us to dub it Wareham’s most historic haunt. Some of the EVPs captured also make reference to the Revolutionary War and the king of England.
The Revolutionary War wasn’t the last time the British visited the tavern, either. In 1814, the British warship Nimrod invaded Wareham. The most feared vessel during the war between the young United States and the mighty Great Britain, the Nimrod came to town to investigate allegations that the cotton mill was producing weaponry and that privateers were looming in the waters around town. The British troops landed in Wareham, set fire to the mill, stopped in for a drink at the tavern and marched back to their ship. However, Captain Israel Fearing wasn’t about to let them get away easily and cornered them with about a dozen men at his side. The British troops then took two citizens hostage in order to ensure their safe escape and later dropped the hostages off at Cromesett Neck on western edge of Wareham before heading back into the waters of Buzzards Bay.
Some say that at night, if you’re around the area of the Tremont Nail factory and the Fearing Tavern, you can still hear the British soldiers’ calls and the firing of their muskets.
Ghosts of Glen Charlie
In East Wareham, there is the long and winding Glen Charlie Road that connects the town to the southern tip of Plymouth. Once an area heavily populated by Indians, it is surrounded by ponds that feed off the Agawam River as well as a large cranberry bog, a recreational campground and a few wooded spots that have yet to be developed. It makes for a spooky drive late at night through its twists and turns that force you to drive at a slower pace and leave you susceptible to a spirit sighting.
That’s exactly the case around the S curve of road that rides alongside the cranberry bog, where the ghosts of three cranberry workers are often spotted crossing Glen Charlie Road to the wate
rs across the way. According to legend, they were immigrants who were killed in some sort of harvesting accident on the bog in the early part of the twentieth century, and their spirits seem to be a residual haunt that often frighten motorists.
Wampanoag spirits are also said to haunt the Glen Charlie area, as is the mysterious Woman in White. She is often reported strolling through the yards of homes near Glen Charlie Pond, with her long, flowing gown glowing with a luminescence that appears as bright as the moonlight itself.
Glen Charlie was also in the vicinity of the Agawam Nail Works, begun by Samuel Tisdale in 1836. It was one of many such factories in Wareham that utilized the bog iron found in abundance in the manufacturing of iron tools and goods. Agawam ceased operation in 1869 upon Tisdale’s death. On December 3, 1885, the Boston Daily Globe printed a story about the Glen Charlie area, mostly about how it was a favorite spot of American statesman Daniel Webster in his day. However, there was this interesting passage about the observances of those who lived near the old nail works even after its closure:
Whenever a tempestuous storm is raging in this locality, a most singular specter exhibits itself about the old place. In the mill, life and activity seemed to reign. The old furnaces, as in years past, are seen again in full blast; while from the stacks fire is shooting heavenward. In the works everything appears full of life. Bosses and firemen that have long ago passed away can again be seen busy at their respective duties. The huge old rolls groan and snap under their heavy weight, while the old familiar “side” waterwheel is again observed at these times running like a race-horse.
The article goes on to state that everyone who occupied the home near the site of the works reported the exact same occurrence. While the nail works itself is now long gone, its spectral occupants continue to roam Glen Charlie.
Across town in what was formerly known as South Wareham was the Weweantic Iron Company. Originally built in 1835, it later burned to the ground after a deadly explosion that killed many of the ironworkers. Almost immediately after came reports of their tortured souls wandering the grounds of the works. Each time the company rebuilt—there were three more fires after the first explosion—the works would burn again in devastating fashion. Locals began to speak of some sort of curse over the land where the works was built, that it might have been a sacred Indian site at one time.
The Glowing Woman
Along the shores of Onset Bay, there are reports of a female apparition often seen walking along the beach. She looks toward the water, perhaps awaiting a returning love out at sea. She is often reported with a glowing blue hue about her. What makes this particular report interesting is that the same type of apparition has also been seen across the Cape Cod Canal in the town of Sandwich. Is it possible that this same female spirit crosses the canal, ethereally oblivious to its rapidly moving currents?
The Houses of the Unholy
Near the center of Onset is a collection of athletic fields and a playground known as Lopes Field. Surrounding the complex are a number of dilapidated former summer homes that have not been inhabited for some time. Families at the playground, and often teenagers who visit it on warm summer nights, report shadow figures darting among the houses and the sounds of breaking glass filling the night air, even though few windows actually remain in many of the homes.
Those who have dared to enter the homes are shocked at the sight that awaits them. In the center of one house is a large pentagram drawn on the floor, leading to speculation that the abandoned homes have been used for some sort of satanic worship.
In reality, the old homes are not that far from a neighborhood that used to be known for a high amount of drug trafficking until a recent crackdown by the Wareham Police Department. What’s more likely is that heroin users would break into these homes in order to get their fix in privacy, and that would account for much of the shadowy movement and broken glass. The pentagram is also likely the work of some of the teenagers who have gone into the homes in order to fool around and keep the legend going.
The Weirdness of Wickets Island
Overlooking the bluffs of Onset Bay is the statue of a Native American maiden, who has drawn more than her share of odd glances because, well, she’s bare-breasted. But what few stop to ponder is exactly what she’s looking out toward.
In Onset Bay stands Wickets Island, four-and-a-half acres of land that has had a tragic history. In some of Wareham’s earliest histories, the island was owned by an Indian named Jabez Wicket who lived on the island in the late 1700s and was passed on to another Indian named Jesse Webquish. The island was eventually sold for private use, and a grand home was built, standing until it burned down in 1980.
The Wampanoags of today, however, believe that the sale of the island was actually illegal, and that they are still the rightful owners of Wickets. They cite the Indian Non Intercourse Act of 1790, which states that lands owned by Indians couldn’t be sold to the state or to non-Indians unless approved by Congress. Since that never happened, they believe the island to still be under their control.
In 1815, a violent storm eroded away much of Wickets Island and, according to Daisy Lovell’s Glimpses of Early Wareham, published in 1970 by the historical society, many ancient Indian graves were washed into the bay. Perhaps it is the restless spirits of these Wampanoags who are often sighted to this day staring back at the mainland from along Wickets’s shores.
There are no structures remaining on Wickets and no inhabitants on the island, but occasional ghostly smoke is seen billowing from phantom fires. Those who have been out in the bay in their boats for night cruises often report the sound of drums beating from behind the trees on the island.
The island was sold in 2003 after the family that last owned it had to sell it as part of bankruptcy proceedings. It was purchased for the bargain price of $625,000 by a developer who has since put it on the market for $2.6 million but is also hoping to construct a home on the island that will fetch up to $5 million when completed.
It’ll be interesting to see if whoever spends all that money to purchase Wickets Island can endure the spirits that claimed it as their home first.
Getting in the Spirit
Anyone who visits Onset is taken aback by its beauty. Alongside its glistening shoreline stand amazing Victorian homes, still as splendid today as they were when they were built more than one hundred years ago.
Sporting the Queen Anne style that was popular during the Victorian age, the homes look like gigantic dollhouses in the middle of a picturesque seaside village. Most visitors to Onset just figure they’re part of the village’s past in which the wealthy and powerful would summer along its bluffs—but there’s something more spiritual to it than that.
In the world of the paranormal, March 31, 1848, is a very important date. It’s when the two Fox sisters—Maggie, age fifteen, and Kate, age twelve—began experiencing strange rappings on the walls of their home in Hydesville, New York. They eventually became celebrated mediums and helped give birth to the spiritualism movement, in which followers believed the dead could speak through mediums and offer advice from the great beyond. Spiritualism enjoyed a long run from that fateful date until well into the early part of the twentieth century, and it peaked in the late 1800s with more than eight million followers in the United States and Europe.
Many followers of the spiritualist movement were upper-class citizens, people in high positions and of great wealth. It is rumored that Abraham Lincoln attended many séances around Washington, D.C., and that he allowed his wife, Mary Todd Lincoln, to have mediums present in the White House.
In 1877, a group of wealthy businessmen known as the Onset Bay Grove Association saw the resort area that was then known as Pine Point as the perfect place to build a spiritualist camp. The association had taken its name from Oknowam (another form of Agawam), which was Wampanoag for “the sandy landing place.” The camp was dedicated on June 14 of that year and became one of the country’s premier spiritualist camps, rivaling Lily Dale in New
York for its sense of community and Victorian splendor.
However, rising skepticism of the spiritualist movement soon put a target squarely on Onset. A book called Some Account of the Vampires of Onset, Past and Present, published by the Press of S. Woodbury and Company of Boston in 1892, portrayed spiritualism in a negative light, attempting to debunk many popular mediums as frauds and many of the cornerstones of the movement as hoaxes. Of course, none of the material in the book is at all directly related to the Onset camp, but that didn’t stop it from tarnishing the camp’s image.
To counteract some of the negative publicity of the book, the Onset Bay Grove Association decided to erect a memoriam to the Native Americans whose spirits they believed helped guide them in their lives. In 1894, work was completed on the On-i-set Wigwam, which would honor the Wampanoag heritage while offering a place for spiritualists to convene and worship. A healing pole in the center of the octagonal wooden structure helped cure what ailed visitors on a physical, emotional and spiritual level.
The On-i-set Wigwam was built in 1893 and is still in use for spiritualist services today.
More than one hundred years later, the wigwam still stands, with the plaque hanging over the entranceway that reads, “Erected to the Memory of the Redmen, 1893. Liberty Throughout the World and Freedom to All Races.” Not far from the wigwam, the First Spiritualist Church of Onset still conducts regular services as part of the more modernized version of the Spiritualist Church.
It’s no surprise that ghosts should be associated with an area where many share a belief system that actually welcomes and invites their presence. So many stories have come out of the cottages that surround the wigwam and the Victorian houses that dot the waterfront, but unlike other ghost stories in which the spirit is a tragic figure, these spectral visitors are considered old friends there to lend a ghostly guiding hand.
