Ghosts or Guilt?

There they were, standing at the foot of the bed, just looking at her, not saying a word.  She was lying on the 18th Century bed in the 17th Century summer house on the coast of Maine, the house she had acquired in payment for the loans she had made to her paramour, the house that had been in her paramour's family for centuries, the house that would now belong to her descendants. . . Three ghostly women dressed in clothing of an earlier time, stood in silent witness, staring at the woman who had taken their family home, a home that had been theirs since the beginning of their time. . . a home that had been meant for their family alone . . . they stood silently staring at the young usurper who lived to tell the tale.

Bats in the Belfry? Guess again!

An educated woman, the wife of a preacher, and a born-again Christian, told Marash Girl one autumn that there were ghosts living in her attic.  Ghosts?  Marash Girl asked, and from her tone of voice, the friend knew Marash Girl was not buying her "ghost" story. 

"Come by and hear for yourself!" the friend challenged Marash Girl.

Marash Girl agreed to go visiting, thinking, "Could there be bats in the belfry?'  (Just joking!) When she arrived at the house to check out those "ghosts" in the attic, there were indeed footsteps running back and forth across the ceiling/qua attic floor.  

"Those aren't ghosts," said Marash Girl!  "They're squirrels! It's nearly winter, after all, and it's cold outside!  You need to call someone to catch those varmints before they take over your house!"

Sure enough, when the friend called an animal exterminator (NOT a ghostbuster), the exterminator's traps were soon alive with grey squirrels, and the footsteps in the attic were no more.

Even if there were ghosts in the attic, Marash Girl's friend wouldn't have been able to hear them walking across her attic floor, now, would she?

Haunted? Highfield Hall, Falmouth, Massachusetts

Always on the alert for hauntings, especially at Halloween, Marash Girl checked  to see if there were any houses in Falmouth, Massachusetts, reputed to have haunts . . .  and sure enough, she found reference to a house at 56 Highfield Drive . . . 

Convincing Marash Boy that there was nothing to fear, she coerced him into driving her through downtown Falmouth, across the now bike-pathed railroad tracks,  up a wooded hill to a magnificently restored mansion, a mansion with the words HIGHFIELD HALL emblazoned on the front.  Could this be the house that we had been searching out?  It certainly looked in amazingly spiffy condition for any ghost to even consider entering. . .

Thus Marash Girl had the courage to enter (as Marash Boy left in a hurry, supposedly, to search out a safe parking spot) and ask, "Is this the house that has a ghost?"  Immediately, the lady at admissions called over a volunteer, and said in low tones, "This one is yours!"

As it turned out, the volunteer tour guide was a former history teacher from the area, and knew everything that there was to know about this mansion and its ghost.  [Rather than going into the full history of the house here, let me refer you to the book, RING AROUND THE PUNCH BOWL, and/or the website, http://www.woodsholemuseum.org/woodspages/sprtsl/v17n1-HighShep.pdf

Highfield Hall, built in 1878 as the stately home of the Beebe Family, was "one of the first grand summer compounds to be built on Cape Cod" by the very family whose home on Beacon Street, Beacon Hill, Boston, was taken by eminent domain and torn down when the Massachusetts State House needed to expand.   The Beebe home in Falmouth was in extreme disrepair when, "in 2000 Town Meeting Members authorized Falmouth Selectmen to take Highfield Hall and six acres by eminent domain, and in 2001 the Town signed a lease with Historic Highfield to renovate and operate Highfield Hall. The extraordinary restoration effort that followed was made possible through donations totalling in excess of $8,000,000 — almost all of which were contributed by private individuals."

So where was the ghost?  According to our guide, visitors looking up at the house from the grounds below have, on occasion, spied a ghostly apparition looking out of the second floor bedroom window, an apparition said to be the ghost of Mary Louisa Beebe who died of cancer at the young age of 45 in that very room.

Looking out of the second floor bedroom window, Marash Girl stands where the ghost has  reputedly stood gazing out of the window at the sunken gardens below.

Standing at the back of Highfield Hall stands Marash Girl with her camera held out in front of her for protection, looking for the apparition in the center uppermost window.

Is there an apparition that the camera detects, an apparition that the naked eye cannot?

The ice house . . . if no longer ice, then what may lurk within these walls?

A convoluted path behind the mansion and beyond the ice house 
leads into the deep, dark  woods . . .  And what may emerge from these woods on 
Halloween night?

Hunting the haunting at Dunkin' Donuts

The brave souls that work at Dunkin' Donuts, Blakeslee, PA

Granted it was October, the week before Halloween, but certainly that could not account for all of the  promises of haunted houses in the Poconos.  We had stopped at the Sunoco Station (across from Dunkin' Donuts) at the confluence of Pennsylvania Routes 940 and 215 in Blakeslee, to gas up and get directions to Jim Thorpe, Pennsylvania (not his house, but the town named in honor of him).  The gal behind the counter gave us the directions and when we asked if any of the buildings at Jim Thorpe were haunted, she answered, "Oh, if you're looking for haunted, the Dunkin' Donuts across the street is haunted.  I work there, so I know!"  A haunted Dunkin' Donuts?  This Marash Girl had to see with her own eyes, so to cheer her up on a dreary, foggy, misty day, a day that was too fog-filled to travel to Easton, (the aborted plan for the day,) Marash Boy decided to take Marash Girl to breakfast at the haunted Dunkin' Donuts.  And there she was, the girl from the Sunoco station, the girl with tatoos on her arms, serving coffee at Dunkin' Donuts.  "Hi," said Marash Girl.  "Is this the Dunkin' Donuts that's haunted?" Marash Girl asked looking around and up at the ceiling for any such signs. 

"It sure is," answered the girl with tattoos on her arms.  A tall young man with dark hair came walking over.  "Just this morning at 10 AM,  I heard a voice calling my name and when I turned around, there was no one there."  "I heard it, too," said the girl with tattoos on her arms.  "What has been happening?" Marash Girl asked, fascinated. . . "Well, see this lever which we depress to pour you a cup of coffee?  This lever locks when it's in the up position; no way can it accidentally depress.  But the other day, hot coffee started pouring from the spout, spilling everywhere!"  "And when I opened up yesterday morning," added the tall young man,
"I felt a dark presence behind me, but when I turned around, no one was there!"  The gal with tattoos on her arms continued.  "See this white funnel?  There is no way it can leave its position in the pot, but the other day it went flying through the air; that flight was even caught on camera!"  "And this coffee filter full of grounds went flying out of the pot several weeks ago, while we were all on the other side of the store; we saw it happen!"  Marash Boy, looking for a plausible reason for all this paranormal activity, suggested that there must have been a farmhouse on this land that was demolished in order to build the Dunkin' Donuts, and that the haunting presence was unhappy with having his abode displaced.  The young man working behind the counter said that there had been a restaurant at those crossroads for many years, and that the land under the building was swampland.  "That would explain it," said Marash Boy. "The ghost was probably an integral part of the restaurant that was demolished."  "Does anything ever happen at night?" Marash Girl asked.  "Don't know," answered the young man with the blonde hair.  "I'm never here at night."  "I wouldn't be here either," answered Marash Girl, laughing.  As they left, Marash Boy and Marash Girl spied  3 large boulders, reddish in color, (could they be gravestones?) set in front of the building, the very color of the orangish red on the leaves in the forest and the orangish red of the Dunkin' Donuts sign.  

"Quite unusual for the typical Dunkin' Donuts,"  Marash Boy commented; "This franchise must be  privately owned by the ghost!" 

HAUNTED: THE STONE ARCH BRIDGE, JEFFERSON COUNTY, NEW YORK

No sooner had I written my post on the Stone Arch Bridge  (which took several hours with all the photos), the post disappeared.  Now this is the first time that has ever happened.  Do you think it was the ghost's doing?  Well, I'm going to try again with a humbler post and see how it goes.

Very kich. The Stone Arch Inn, located down the street from the Stone Arch Bridge, uses the image on its place mats.  Should we bother going to the bridge? After all, it's raining out.  Maybe it's enough that we look at the images on the wall of this restaurant (scroll down to see them).  My husband overhears the one line that will get me to risk my camera in the rain for the sake of some photos.  The barmaid says, "But the bridge is haunted."  "Did you hear that?" my husband asked me.  "The bridge is haunted."

Peaceful as it seems, does evil lurk beneath?

The story goes that in 1880, the German Swiss immigrants Henry & Philip Hembt built a road over Callicoon Creek connecting the old Newburg-Cochecton Turnpike and Callicoon Valley, a road that was important for commerce.  Less than two years later, in 1882, a hex murder was committed on that bridge, labeling it forever as haunted.  This is what happened.  Adam Heidt thought himself cursed by George Markert's hex, a hex which was making Heidt's life miserable.  One dark night, Adam & his son, with the hope of ending the hex, attacked Markert, killed him, and threw him over the bridge into the cold waters below.  It is said that on cold dark nights, Markert's ghost can be seen walking over the bridge, a bridge which is now a preserved historical structure.  I wonder if the ghost is included in that historical preservation.

They say that on dark cold nights, the ghost appears.

Is that the ghost reflected in the waters below?

Is that the ghost walking over the bridge? No, it's not dark enough! It's just Marash Boy looking for the ghost!

Below are the images of the three arched stone bridge that line the walls of the Stone Arch Inn; over the years, the bridge has captured the imagination of all who live in and around Jeffersonville, New York.

 

Can you find the ghost in any of the images above?

Emily - The Haunted Bridge: Gold Brook Covered Bridge, Stowe, Vermont

Emily's Covered Bridge -  Gold Brook Bridge in Stowe Hollow, Vermont, better known as the haunted bridge or Emily's Bridge . . . we wouldn't have thought to look for it if it hadn't rained for 5 days and we weren't looking for something--anything-- to take our minds off the rain. Even with a map, we had difficulty finding Emily's covered bridge.  The street signs were missing (the only streets we saw in all of Stowe that were missing signs, or so we thought) and the turn off to the bridge was significantly unmarked.  (Was this Emily at work?)

Gold Brook

The only way we found the bridge was by following Gold Brook up the mountain (granted the brook after all this rain was more like a river rushing down the mountain!)

Emily -- Emily, where are you, I called as I walked through the covered bridge,

snapping photos and bravely holding my camera in front of my face. 

But Emily must have mistaken my camera . . .

She must have mistaken my camera for a cross,

because I never did see or hear any sign of Emily.

Can you see Emily anywhere in these photos?

Let me know if you see her!

Safe at last! Although I did have to go back through the bridge to get to our car, believe me, I kept the camera in front of my face and kept shooting photos; just wanted to be on the safe side, as it were! Let me know if you'd like to check out the set of photos I took on the return through the bridge for a possible sighting of Emily!

As Emily is known to come out at night, I asked my husband if he'd like to return at night,  just to see if we could meet up with her.  "Oh, no!" he answered. "I'd be too scared!"

By the way, bridges were covered in New England in order to keep them free of snow and ice and to keep the horse-drawn carriages from slipping off into the freezing waters below. In Massachusetts, we call these bridges Kissing Bridges, as the bridges would keep sweethearts in Puritan New England hidden just long enough to steal a kiss without being seen!

For more information on Emily's Bridge, go to http://www.coveredbridgesite.com/vt/emilys.html