by Hans Holzer
Carol woke up, but the dream was so vivid, it stayed with her for weeks, and even when she contacted me, it was still crystal clear in her mind. One more curious event transpired at the exact time Carol had overcome the evil figure in the dream. Her grandmother, whom she described as “a very reasoning, no-nonsense lively Yankee lady,” had a cottage right in back of Carol’s parents’. She was tending her stove, as she had done many times before, when it blew up right into her face, singeing her eyebrows. There was nothing whatever wrong with the stove.
Carol had had psychic experiences before, and even her attorney husband was familiar with the world of spirits, so her contacting me for help with the house in Maine was by no means a family problem.
I was delighted to hear from her, not because a Maine ghost was so very different from the many other ghosts I had dealt with through the years, but because of the timing of Carol’s request. It so happened that at that time I was in the middle writing, producing, and appearing in the NBC series called “In Search of...” and the ghost house in Maine would make a fine segment.
An agreement was arranged among all concerned, Carol, her husband, her parents, the broadcasting management, and me. I then set about to arrange a schedule for our visit. We had to fly into Rockland, Maine, and then drive down to Port Clyde. If I wanted to do it before Carol and her family were in residence, that, too, would be all right though she warned me about the cold climate up there during the winter months.
In the end we decided on May, when the weather would be acceptable, and the water in the house would be turned back on.
I had requested that all witnesses of actual phenomena in the house be present to be questioned by me.
Carol then sent along pictures of the house and statements from some of the witnesses. I made arrangements to have her join us at the house for the investigation and filming for the period May 13–15, 1976. The team—the crew, my psychic, and me—would all stay over at a local hotel. The psychic was a young woman artist named Ingrid Beckman with whom I had been working and helping develop her gift.
And so it happened that we congregated in Port Clyde from different directions, but with one purpose in mind—to contact the lady ghost at the house. As soon as we had settled in at the local hotel, the New Ocean House, we drove over to the spanking white cottage that was to be the center of our efforts for the next three days. Carol’s brother Robert had driven up from Providence, and her close friend Marion Going from her home, also in Rhode Island.
I asked Ingrid to stay at a little distance from the house and wait for me to bring her inside, while I spoke to some of the witnesses, out of Ingrid’s earshot. Ingrid understood and sat down on the lawn, taking in the beauty of the landscape.
Carol and I walked in the opposite direction, and once again we went over her experiences as she had reported them to me in her earlier statement. But was there anything beyond that, I wondered, and questioned Carol about it.
“Now since that encounter with the ghostly lady have you seen her again? Have you ever heard her again?”
“Well about three weeks ago before I was to come out here, I really wanted to communicate with her. I concentrated on it just before I went to sleep, you know. I was thinking about it, and I dreamed that she appeared to me the way she had in the dream that followed her apparition here in this house. And then I either dreamed that I woke up momentarily and saw her right there as I had actually seen her in this bedroom or I actually did wake up and see her. Now the sphere of consciousness I was in—I am doubtful as to where I was at that point. I mean it was nothing like the experience. I experienced right here in this room. I was definitely awake, and I definitely saw that ghost. As to this other thing a couple of weeks ago—I wasn’t quite sure.”
“Was there any kind of message?”
“No, not this last time.”
“Do you feel she was satisfied having made contact with you?”
“Yeah, I felt that she wanted to communicate with me in the same sense that I wanted to communicate with her. Like an old friend will want to get in touch with another old friend, and I get the feeling she was just saying, ‘Yes, I’m still here.”’
I then turned to Carol’s brother, Bob Olivieri, and questioned him about his own encounters with anything unusual in the house. He took me to the room he was occupying at the time of the experiences, years ago, but apparently the scene was still very fresh in his mind.
Mr. Olivieri, what exactly happened to you in this room?”
“Well, one night I was sleeping on this bed and all of a sudden I woke up and heard footsteps—what I thought were footsteps—it sounded like slippers or baby’s feet in pajamas—something like that. Well, I woke up and I came over, and I stepped in this spot, and I looked in the hallway and the sound stopped. I thought maybe I was imagining it. So I came back to the bed, got into bed again, and again I heard footsteps. Well, this time I got up and as soon as I came to the same spot again and looked into the hallway it stopped. I figured it was my nephew who was still awake. So I walked down the hallway and looked into the room where my sister and nephew were sleeping, and they were both sound asleep. I checked my parents’ room, and they were also asleep. I just walked back. I didn’t know what to do so I got into bed again, and I kept on hearing them. I kept on walking over, and they would still be going until I stepped in this spot where they would stop. As soon as I stepped here. And this happened for an hour. I kept getting up. Heard the footsteps, stepped in this spot and they stopped. So finally I got kind of tired of it and came over to my bed and lay down in bed and as soon as I lay down I heard the steps again, exactly what happened before—and they seemed to stop at the end of the hallway. A few minutes later I felt a pressure on my sheets, starting from my feet, and going up, up, up, going up further, further, slowly but surely...and finally something pulled my hair! Naturally I was just scared for the rest of else night. I couldn’t get to sleep.”
I thought it was time to get back to Ingrid and bring her into the house. This I did, with the camera and sound people following us every step of the way to record for NBC what might transpire in the house now. Just before we entered the house, Ingrid turned to me and said, “You know that window up there? When we first arrived, I noticed someone standing in it.”
“What exactly did you see?”
“It was a woman...and she was looking out at us.”
The house turned out to be a veritable jewel of Yankee authenticity, the kind of house a sea captain might be happy in, or perhaps only a modern antiquarian. The white exterior was matched by a spanking clean, and sometimes sparse interior, with every piece of furniture of the right period—the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries—and a feeling of being lived in by many people, for many years.
After we had entered the downstairs part where there was an ample kitchen and a nice day room, I asked Ingrid, as usual, to tell me whatever psychic impression she was gathering about the house, its people and its history. Naturally, I had made sure all along that Ingrid knew nothing of the house or the quest we had come on to Maine, and there was absolutely no way she could have had access to specifics about the area, the people in the house—past and present—nor anything at all about the case.
Immediately Ingrid set to work, she seemed agitated.
“There is a story connected here with the 1820s or the 1840s,” she began, and I turned on my tape recorder to catch the impressions she received as we went along. At first, they were conscious psychic readings, later Ingrid seemed in a slight state of trance and communication with spirit entities directly. Here is what followed.
“1820s and 1840s. Do you mean both or one or the other?”
“Well, it’s in that time period. And I sense a woman with a great sense of remorse.”
“Do you feel this is a presence here?”
“Definitely a presence here.”
“What part of the house do you feel it’s strongest in?”
“Well, I’m being told to g
o upstairs.”
“Is it a force pulling you up?”
“No, I just have a feeling to go upstairs.”
“Before you go upstairs, before you came here did you have any feeling that there was something to it?”
“Yes, several weeks ago I saw a house—actually it was a much older house than this one, and it was on this site—and it was a dark house and it was shingled and it was—as I say, could have been an eighteenth century house, the house that I saw. It looked almost like a salt box, it had that particular look. And I saw that it was right on the water and I sensed a woman in it and a story concerned with a man in the sea with this house.”
“A man with the sea?”
“Yes.”
“Do you feel that this entity is still in the house?”
“I do, and of course I don’t feel this is the original house. I feel it was on this property, and this is why I sense that she is throughout the house. The she comes here because this is her reenactment.”
I asked her to continue.
“I can see in my mind’s eye the house that was on this property before, and in my mind I sense a field back in this direction, and there was land that went with this!”
“Now we are upstairs. I want you to look into every room and give me your impressions of it,” I said.
“Well, the upstairs is the most active. I sense a woman who is waiting. This is in the same time period. There are several other periods that go with this house, but I will continue with this one. I also see that she has looked out—not from this very same window, but windows in this direction of the house—waiting for somebody to come back.”
“What about this room?”
“Well, this room is like the room where she conducted a vigil, waiting for someone. And I just got an impression where she said that, ‘She’ meaning a schooner, ‘was built on the Kennebec River’...It seems to be a double-masted schooner, and it seems to be her husband who is on this. And I have an impression of novelties that he has brought her back. Could be from a foreign country. Perhaps the Orient or something like that.”
“Now go to the corridor again and try some of the other rooms. What about this one?”
“I sense a young man in this room, but this is from a different time period. It’s a young boy. It seems to be 1920s.”
“Is that all you sense in this room?”
“That is basically what I sense in this room. The woman of the double-masted schooner story is throughout the house because as I have said, she doesn’t really belong to this house. She is basically on the property—mainly she still goes through this whole house looking for the man to come home. And the front of the house is where the major activity is. She is always watching. But I have an impression now of a storm that she is very upset about. A gale of some kind. It seems to be November. I also feel she is saying something about...flocking sheep. There are sheep on this property.”
“Where would you think is the most active room?”
“The most active room I think is upstairs and to the front, where we just were. I feel it most strongly there.”
“Do you think we might be able to make contact with her?”
“Yes, I think so. Definitely I feel that she is watching and I knew about her before I came.”
“What does she look like?”
“I see a tall woman, who is rather thin and frail with dark hair and it appears to be a white gown. It could be a nightgown I see her in—it looks like a nightgown to me with a little embroidery on the front. Hand done.”
“Let us see if she cares to make contact with us?”
“All right.”
“If the entity is present, and wishes to talk to us, we have come as friends; she is welcome to use this instrument, Ingrid, to manifest.”
“She is very unhappy here, Hans. She says her family hailed from England. I get her name as Margaret.”
“Margaret what?”
“Something like Hogen—it begins with an H. I don’t think it is Hogan, Hayden, or something like that. I’m not getting the whole name.”
“What period are you in now?”
“Now she says 1843. She is very unhappy because she wanted to settle in Kennebunk; she does not like it here. She doesn’t like the responsibilities of the house. Her husband liked it in this fishing village. She is very unhappy about his choice.”
“Is he from England?”
“Yes, their descendants are from England.”
“You mean were they born here or in England?”
“That I’m not clear on. But they have told me that their descendants are English.”
“Now is she here...?”
“She calls Kennebunk the city. That to her is a center.”
“What does she want? Why is she still here?”
“She’s left with all this responsibility. Her husband went on a ship, to come back in two years.”
“Did he?”
“No, she’s still waiting for him.”
“The name of the ship?”
“I think it’s St. Catherine.”
“Is it his ship? Is he a captain?”
“He is second-in-command. It’s not a mate, but a second something-or-other.”
“What is she looking for?”
“She’s looking to be relieved.”
“Of what?”
“Of the duties and the responsibilities.”
“For what?”
“This house.”
“Is she aware of her passing?”
“No, she’s very concerned over the flocks. She says it’s now come April, and it’s time for shearing. She is very unhappy over this. In this direction, Hans, I can see what appears to be a barn, and it’s very old fashioned. She had two cows.”
“Is she aware of the people in the house now?”
“She wants to communicate.”
“What does she want them to do for her?”
“She wants for them to help her with the farm. She says it’s too much, and the soil is all rocky and she can’t get labor from the town. She’s having a terrible time. It’s too sandy here.”
“Are there any children? Is she alone?”
“They have gone off, she says.”
“And she’s alone now?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Can you see her?”
“Yes, I do see her.”
“Can she see you?”
“Yes.”
“Tell her that this is 1976, and that much time has passed. Does she understand this?”
“She just keeps complaining; she has nobody to write letters to.”
“Does she understand that her husband has passed on and that she herself is a spirit and that there is no need to stay if she doesn’t wish to?”
“She needs to get some women from the town to help with the spinning.”
“Tell her that the new people in the house are taking care of everything, and she is relieved and may go on. She’s free to go.”
“She said, ‘to Kennebunk?”’
“Any place she wishes—to the city or to join her husband on the other side of life.”
“She said, ‘Oh, what I would do for a town house.”’
“Ask her to call out to her husband to take her away. He’s waiting for her.”
“What does Johnsbury mean? A Johnsbury.”
“It’s a place.”
“She asking about Johnsbury.”
“Does she wish to go there?”
“She feels someone may be there who could help her.”
“Who?”
“It seems to be an uncle in Johnsbury.”
“Then tell her to call out to her uncle in Johnsbury.”
“She says he has not answered her letters.”
“But if she speaks up now he will come for her. Tell her to do it now. Tell Margaret we are sending her to her uncle, with our love and compassion. That she need not stay here any longer. That she need not wait any longer for someone who cannot return. That
she must go on to the greater world that awaits her outside, where she will rejoin her husband and she can see her uncle.”
“She is wanting to turn on the lights. She is talking about the oil lamps. She wants them all lit.”
“Tell her the people here will take good care of the house, of the lamps, and of the land.”
“And she is saying, no tallow for the kitchen.”
“Tell her not to worry.”
“And the root cellar is empty.”
“Tell her not to worry. We will take care of that for her. She is free to go—she is being awaited, she is being expected. Tell her to go on and go on from here in peace and with our love and compassion.”
“She is looking for a lighthouse, or something about a lighthouse that disturbs her.”
“What is the lighthouse?”
“She is very upset. She doesn’t feel that it’s been well kept; that this is one of the problems in this area. No one to tend things. I ought to be in Kennebunk, she says, where it is a city.”
“Who lives in Kennebunk that she knows?”
“No one she knows. She wants to go there.”
“What will she do there?”
“Have a town house.”
“Very well, then let her go to Kennebunk.”
“And go [to] the grocer,” she says.
“Tell her she’s free to go to Kennebunk. That we will send her there if she wishes. Does she wish to go to Kennebunk?”
“Yes, she does.”
“Then tell her—tell her we are sending her now. With all our love....”
“In a carriage?”
“In a carriage.”
“A black carriage with two horses.”
“Very well. Is she ready to go?”
“Oh, I see her now in a fancy dress with a bonnet. But she’s looking younger—she’s looking much younger now. And I see a carriage out front with two dark horses and a man with a hat ready to take her.”
“Did she get married in Kennebunk?”
