Ghosts of the SouthCoast

by Tim Weisberg

  THE TRI-TOWN REGION: MARION, MATTAPOISETT AND ROCHESTER

  Just west of Wareham is what is known to locals as the Tri-Town region, consisting of Marion, Mattapoisett and Rochester. It’s a unique dichotomy of three towns that in some respects could not be any more different, yet they share a common bond among them.

  Originally, the three towns were actually villages under the general domain of Rochester, when Marion was known as Sippican after the Wampanoag tribe that inhabited the area.

  Sippican broke off first, incorporating as Marion in 1852 after Revolutionary War hero Francis Marion. It later became a favorite spot of U.S. presidents Grover Cleveland and Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Mattapoisett—a Wampanoag word meaning “a place for rest”—followed suit in 1857. Over time, Marion and Mattapoisett developed as seaside communities with many wealthy residents, while Rochester maintained more of a rural, agricultural identity.

  Even today, each town has fewer than six thousand permanent residents, and the small-town feel of each community means they often consider their ghosts to be almost part of the family.

  The Ghost of Lillard Hall

  Elizabeth Sprague Taber was Marion’s greatest benefactor during its formative years. Upon her death, she left instructions in her will for the founding of a private school on the shores of Sippican Harbor on a piece of land she owned. In 1876, Tabor Academy opened, named per her instructions after Mount Tabor near the Sea of Galilee, where the transfiguration of Jesus Christ is said to have taken place.

  Tabor Academy has become of one New England’s most prestigious schools since its founding, partly due to the guiding hand of Walter Huston Lillard, who served as headmaster of Tabor from 1916 until 1942. During that time, Tabor enjoyed its largest growth, and the freshman dormitory was named Lillard Hall in his honor.

  Throughout the years, a legend has developed in which a male student, either homesick or distraught over bad grades, hanged himself on the top floor of Lillard Hall. While there is no official mention of such a suicide at Tabor Academy, true believers cite that it happened in the early days of the institution when such things would not be made public.

  Lillard Hall at Marion’s prestigious Tabor Academy.

  Reportedly, students living in Lillard Hall can hear strange voices and other sounds coming from the room where the boy hanged himself. The room is still assigned to incoming freshmen, and legend has it that those who stay in the room often suffer from feelings of dread and despair and are also prone to bad grades. Is there something negative that is somehow attached to the location that led the boy to commit suicide? Is his spirit now trapped in limbo and somehow affecting the current residents of where he met his untimely end?

  Ellis–Bolles Cemetery

  It’s all too easy to consider a cemetery to be haunted, but think about it—if you were a ghost, wouldn’t the cemetery be the last place you’d want to hang around? It is one thing if, for reasons unknown, a spirit is somehow imprinted to the place where the physical body died. But to think a spirit would want to willingly stay where the body is laid to rest is pretty macabre, even when we’re talking about a ghost.

  Yet so many cemeteries and graveyards are reputedly haunted, and paranormal investigators just starting out continue to use them as their training ground. But in one Mattapoisett burial ground, the paranormal might not be so benign.

  Ellis–Bolles Cemetery gets its name from the Ellis and the Bolles families that make up a majority of the plots, which date back from the early 1800s until around the 1950s. It stands in the middle of a nearly deserted and mostly dirt road called Wolf Island Road that, at night, increases the creepy factor on the way to the cemetery.

  The most prominent legend associated with Ellis–Bolles, like most good ghost stories, has its roots in truth. During King Philip’s War, the wooded areas of Rochester and Mattapoisett made a strategic hiding point for both sides. It’s alleged that in the vicinity of where the cemetery now stands, there was an ambush and the captured prisoners were subsequently hanged from the trees on Wolf Island Road. No one is exactly sure which side ended up on the business end of the noose, and the ghostly shadow figures often reported to be dangling from the branches in modern times offer no indication as to who won that particular scuffle.

  The Ellis–Bolles Cemetery has some spooky gravestones and some even spookier legends.

  Another Wolf Island Road legend has grown over the years, this one with nothing more than its continued telling to back it up. According to the tale, in the early 1970s a carload of teenagers were cruising around in a Ford Mustang and went speeding down the dirt road. At some point, the driver rammed his Mustang into a tree and everyone in the car was killed instantly.

  According to the legend, if you head out onto Wolf Island Road, park your car and blink your headlights three times, off in the distance you will see another pair of headlights blink back in your direction, before you hear the loud roar of a Mustang’s engine and see the headlights speeding toward you, even though you can’t quite make out the car to which they belong. You can feel the ghostly vehicle and its occupants as it passes through your car, but by that point the only thing you’ll see are taillights fading in the distance out your back window.

  Of course, this is also a common story associated with many other graveyards—I know of at least one in Massachusetts that shares a similar lore—but that doesn’t stop the locals from passing it on.

  In the trips that I’ve made out to Ellis–Bolles Cemetery, there has never been a phantom Mustang and I have yet to see hanging Wampanoags or colonists in the trees, but I have acquired interesting evidence. When we began Spooky Southcoast radio in 2006, cohost Matt Costa and I decided we should check out Ellis–Bolles one night on our way into the WBSM studios. Armed with digital cameras and tape recorders, we spent about an hour poking around not long after the sun had gone down.

  In looking at one grave, Matt noticed strange pitting on the granite of the tombstone and pointed it out to me. I responded by saying, “That’s weird,” and on the audio tape we caught an EVP that sounded to me as if it was a voice repeating the word weird. It had a high-pitched squeak to it, almost as if it was a female voice. It is not uncommon for the voices on EVPs to repeat what the investigator has said, and often times it is done so in a mocking fashion.

  We sent the EVP out to different experts to have it analyzed, and what came back was very interesting. One analysis placed it outside the normal human speaking range and determined that was being said was actually something more akin to Marion or Miriam. Now, Ellis–Bolles is only a stone’s throw from Marion, so that’s one possibility. But we also went back on a return trip along with our show’s science advisor, Matt Moniz, and discovered a grave near the spot the EVP was recorded with the name Mary.

  On that return trip, the two Matts were investigating a grave with a symbol on it while I was on the other side of the cemetery and we each had a recorder rolling. Matt Costa was recording on analog tape, while Matt Moniz and I each ran digital, albeit at two different settings. When Costa asked Moniz about the symbol, Moniz informed him it was a Freemason symbol. Immediately after, we caught an EVP repeating the word Freemason—on all three recorders. Even more incredibly, I was standing about twenty feet away from the two Matts when it imprinted on my recorder.

  Whatever may be present at Ellis–Bolles Cemetery, it definitely seems to have strength greater than that of your usual graveyard ghost.

  The Biggest Mystery of Rochester

  The town of Rochester is mainly an agricultural community, comprised of cranberry bogs and farms. They have a county fair each year that is a testament to the spirit of community and the blue-collar nature of this farming town.

  Another testament is just how tight-lipped they seem to be about many of their ghost stories. Even at a time when talking about the paranormal is almost considered normal, it’s hard to get a Rochester resident to open up about any experiences they may have had.

  However, I have had a
few off-the-record discussions with residents who tell me it’s not uncommon to be driving along these rural roads late at night and see spectral beings out walking the fields. While there haven’t been strong enough intelligent haunts to put Rochester on the paranormal map, it seems as though there’s plenty of residual activity going on.

  The other thing that amazes me about Rochester, though, is that these same people who are so reluctant to share their ghost tales are more than willing to describe the mysterious lights they may have seen in the sky one night. With all its open space, Rochester is a prime spot for catching a glimpse of a UFO. So if you’re ever in the area, keep your eyes to the skies!

  What in Hell’s Blazes?

  Even though the Hell’s Blazes Tavern is technically in Middleboro, it is right along the edge of Rochester, and since Middleboro isn’t part of the SouthCoast as we’re defining it, we’ll allow Rochester to adopt it for a few moments while we discuss another of the area’s longest-standing haunts.

  Originally built in 1690 (the same year as Wareham’s Fearing Tavern), Hell’s Blazes was at one point the oldest continuously operating tavern in the United States. However, a 1971 fire and subsequent rebuild may have altered the original tavern—but not its ghosts.

  Like the Fearing Tavern, Hell’s Blazes has the perfect name for a haunted spot. According to legend, it got its name from the glow cast on the tavern from a nearby smelting furnace back in the colonial era. As stagecoach riders would pull up and see the orange glow cast on the tavern, they’d remark how the place looked “hotter than Hell’s blazes.” But some believe the name may have something to do with all the restless spirits that roamed the property.

  Those who frequented the tavern in its original incarnation have had the most profound experiences, directly connected to nearly three hundred years’ worth of history while bellying up to the bar. In the 1960s, the Standard-Times newspaper ran a series of articles about an alleged haunting at Hell’s Blazes that included slamming doors, rapping and knocking sounds. Workers reported feeling a presence around them, like something was always standing right behind them but when they would turn around, there was nothing there.

  Once the oldest operating tavern in the United States, Hell’s Blazes is yet another SouthCoast spot with an appropriately spooky name.

  After the fire, only the original carriage house remained. The tavern was rebuilt to look like it was from the 1600s and had much of the rustic charm of the original, but apparently the spirits didn’t feel the same way. Reports of ghostly activity waned over the building’s last thirty or so years, both among the patrons and the employees. Two former chefs, who each had spent considerable time as the only person in the building during their tenure, both refuted the idea that Hell’s Blazes is haunted.

  That doesn’t sway the belief of another gentleman who told me of his lone paranormal experience coming on the Hell’s Blazes property. A serviceman, he was called for an emergency at the tavern late on a spring night in the early 1980s. It was a misty night, and the air was thick and heavy. He knew of the tavern’s haunted reputation—his mother had worked there in the 1960s and told tales about stacking dishes neatly at night and coming in to find them in disarray the next morning—but he didn’t consider himself a believer until this particular night.

  After he was finishing up his repair work, he and his brother got into their truck, started it and prepared to drive down the driveway that led from behind the tavern back to the main road. As they entered the cab of the truck, they saw a woman come from around the end of the building, wearing what he described as a “dark, old-fashioned-looking cloak.” He thought she looked as if she was from another time, as she crossed the driveway and entered the double-gated animal pen across the way. But as they drove past, they could see no trace of her—she had vanished in a matter of seconds. That’s when he knew he had seen a ghost.

  In 2004, Hell’s Blazes closed and was sold to the owner of a dismantling company who wanted the site for its land and was rumored to be demolishing the buildings to make room for his salvage yard. The tavern and carriage house still stand, perhaps because the restless spirits within them won’t have it any other way.

  The Kinsale Inn

  Mattapoisett’s Kinsale Inn is the quintessential New England seafront inn—and for good reason. It is, according to its website, “the oldest seaside Inn in the nation still operating as an Inn in its original structure.”

  Built in 1799, the property has also seen a blacksmith shop, general store, a tavern, two separate dwellings and numerous other incarnations in the past two hundred-plus years. Joseph Meigs, the original owner of the property, wanted to build himself a home and provide a spot for weary seafarers to have a drink and enjoy themselves. Two centuries later, that vision is still going strong.

  Formerly known as the Mattapoisett Inn, it had established a reputation for excellence even before the Irish Restaurant Company purchased it in 2004 and renamed it the Kinsale Inn. With an emphasis on creating a traditional Irish pub atmosphere, the latest stewards of the historic property are living up to, if not exceeding, the standards set by those before them.

  But when they purchased the inn, they got more than just the restaurant, function facilities and guest rooms that were on the deed. They also became stewards of at least two ghosts as well.

  The most commonly sighted is that of a sea captain seen in one of the bedroom windows, looking out toward the sea. He also is reported to roam the halls with his heavy boots, making a thunderous sound. According to the inn’s website, “the most famous person to live in the Inn was Captain Bryant, a Mattapoisett whaling captain and first Governor of Alaska.” According to the site, Bryant would sit on the upper porch of the inn and write his memoirs, which were never found.

  This ghost could indeed be that of this Captain Bryant, who is believed to be Charles R. Bryant. Despite numerous Mattapoisett histories listing him as the first governor of Alaska, no official Alaskan histories I could find list him as ever being the head of the territory-turned-state. Instead, Charles R. Bryant served as a special agent of the Treasury in the early days of Alaska, immediately following its purchase from Russia in October of 1867.

  The other reported spirit is that of a young girl called Sarah by the locals. For whatever reason, she wanders the hallways of the inn searching for her father. In her never-ending quest, Sarah is known to knock over items, open doors and rattle the bottles at the bar. One medium I spoke with told me of how she went to the Kinsale Inn to dine with her husband, only to have Sarah sit next to her the entire time and look at her forlornly.

  FAIRHAVEN AND ACUSHNET

  In 1652, the English settlers continued to expand westward from Plymouth and Rochester when they purchased the lands that would eventually become known as Fairhaven and Acushnet. Although it would be another seven years before the two towns would actually be settled, Fairhaven eventually became the home port to many sea captains and their crewmen while Acushnet was more agricultural.

  Both Fairhaven and Acushnet were originally part of the Dartmouth settlement, before breaking off and falling under the settlement of New Bedford when the eastern portion of Dartmouth seceded in 1787. Fairhaven and Acushnet later seceded from New Bedford in 1812.

  Fort Phoenix

  In the late 1700s, Fairhaven was thrust into prominence as the colony prepared for revolution. Just off its shores was the site of the first naval action of the Revolutionary War, when on May 13, 1775, Nathaniel Pope and Daniel Egery, sailing on the sloop Success with a crew of twenty-five men, captured two British ships.

  Fairhaven’s Fort Phoenix has not only the spirits of soldiers past but also some more current ghosts out for a jog along its beaches.

  Realizing that Fairhaven’s harbor would need protection, construction of Fort Phoenix on Nolscott Point began in June of 1775 under the guidance of Captain Benjamin Dillingham and Eleazer Hathaway, his brother-in-law.

  An interesting note about Dillingham—he was a descendent
of Edward Dillingham, one of the founders of the Cape Cod town of Sandwich. The original Dillingham House near the center of that town is rumored to be haunted by the spirits of Edward and Branch Dillingham, a later descendent of Edward who hanged himself on the property in 1813. It was formerly a bed and breakfast until it closed to the public in recent years.

  A descendent of Benjamin Dillingham bearing the same name later became a prominent businessman on the islands of Hawaii in the late 1800s. There are still stories on the islands about the Dillinghams who haunt them—including Gaylord Dillingham, who was shot down in World War II and whose spirit is legendary among the students at an all-girls’ school on the island of Oahu.

  Returning to the subject of Fort Phoenix, it was completed in 1777, and on September 5, 1778, the British landed four thousand troops not far from the fort and laid siege to the entire area. Fort Phoenix was abandoned and destroyed by the Redcoats, who also burned down many homes in the village of Fairhaven. Major Israel Fearing marched his company of more than one hundred men from Wareham in order to assist Fairhaven in driving out the British and is recognized for his efforts with a plaque at Fort Phoenix. Of course, he did so by leading his men not from the front of the company but from the rear, threatening to shoot any man who attempted to flee the battle.

  Fearing was also the owner of the Fearing Tavern in Wareham and helped defend its shores from the British in the War of 1812, a key figure in SouthCoast paranormal lore.