Hollow Hill

Nashua, NH – Schoolhouse Cemetery Orb

Schoolhouse cemetery photo, Nashua, NH

Schoolhouse Cemetery, Nashua, NH
31 October 1999, about 8 p.m.

Fiona’s comments: After my camera refused to work on Halloween night at Blood Cemetery in Hollis, I visited Schoolhouse Cemetery in Nashua, NH, to prove to myself that there was nothing wrong with my camera or the film.

Schoolhouse Cemetery never felt very haunted. I’ve heard no local tales about it. Frankly, it’s on busy Daniel Webster highway, across the street from Bickford’s, with a large apartment complex in back of it.

Generally, I stay out of it to because I’m concerned about the living, not the dead who might be there. The cemetery has no light in it at all. The deeper you go into it, the creepier it gets. But I can’t say that it’s a really “haunted” feeling–just creepy.

On Halloween night, the highway was nearly deserted. I knew I could take photos at the entrance to the cemetery, without risking intrusion, flares, or reflections from apartment or shopping center lights. As you can see, it was very dark that night.

The orb surprised me when I picked up my prints. When I show my “ghost photos” and negatives, this is the one that impresses most professional photographers.

Schoolhouse Cemetery - no orb At right is the second photo I’d taken. (It’s my habit to take two photos in a row, as quickly as possible, without moving or even breathing between the pictures.)

As usual, these two photos were taken within seconds of each other from the same location.

The schoolhouse is boarded up. There are many headstones in the cemetery, but only one shows in the photo.

Camera: Olympus AF-1, point-and-shoot
Film type: Kodak Gold ASA 800 color film, 35mm
Negative shows: Same image. No splash of chemicals, no marks on the negative.
Developed and printed by: Shaw’s Supermarket overnight photo service

Portsmouth, NH – Real Ghosts, Private Home – pt 4

This concludes a true story that began at Portsmouth – real ghosts, private home

OUR LAST NIGHT IN THIS HAUNTED HOUSE

Our last night in the house, the footsteps returned, louder than ever. It was late in June, and about three o’clock in the morning. I remember hearing the footsteps, pounding up the varnished pine stairs as my family slept. Hard, leather-soled shoes.

For some reason, I thought that I was the only one who heard them.

Then the noise woke up my husband, and he leaped from the bed and turned on the lights. He shouted into the hall, and the steps paused.

My husband returned to bed, but sat up, prepared to go out to see who it was if the noise resumed.

It did. The footsteps suddenly continued, like someone was now running up the final few steps to the second floor where we slept.

Then the noise stopped, as if the person waited one or two steps from the top. My husband and I both went out to the stairway, turned on the lights, and saw nothing unusual. After checking the locks on the front and back doors, we left the lights on and nervously returned to bed.

Adrenaline pumping, I checked the stairs and hallway many times that night, but it remained silent. Something felt malicious to me, but that was probably my imagination after too little sleep, and the accumulated stress.

We moved out the next day. (My now ex-husband’s independent summary of the footsteps that night, are on the …Other notes page.)

THE FIRE WARNING WAS REAL

The night after we moved out, a huge Victorian house in back of ours burned to the ground. The distance between that house and ours was about 100 yards, at the most.

Our house would have been filled with smoke. The fire would have been seen from the window where — in my dreams — I’d seen fire reflected.

We were miles away, sleeping peacefully under the stars on the first night of a well-deserved camping vacation. When I saw the newspaper the next day, I was both stunned and relieved.

Someone else lives in “our” house now. It’s been fixed up, and the neighborhood may be improving after all. Perhaps we made a poor financial decision, but I don’t regret leaving that house after all we witnessed there.

1999 UPDATE

I took photos of the house on Sunday morning, Oct. 17th, but I felt as if someone was watching me from the house. Perhaps someone was; it’s certainly odd for a woman to stand in front of your house with two cameras, taking pictures. Nevertheless, when I picked up the prints, something about one photo nagged at me. It didn’t look right. One of the windows had a reflection that didn’t seem right to me.

Below, I scanned the section exactly as it appeared in the print, and an enlargement of it on the right. To me, it’s the man’s face, looking to the right, with an indented scar beneath his right cheekbone. He’s wearing round, dark sunglasses from either the 19th century or the hippie era. He has long-ish, light colored hair, and he’s slightly balding at the top.

From a 19th-century Portsmouth city directory, I know that the first inhabitants of the house were probably a man from England, his brother, and his son. All of them worked with leather, making shoes at a local factory, I think.

He’s the man in brown that I’d seen in the house. I’m certain of it.

Ghostly man in wondow of Portsmouth house. Close-up of ghostly face in window.

But, maybe I’m just jumping at shadows, and perhaps you see something different in the image… even just the reflection of the lilac bush in front of it.

You can read more about this photo, and see a sketch of the man, at Portsmouth – portrait of a real ghost

Portsmouth, NH – Real Ghosts, Private Home – Other Notes

(Additional notes from a story that started on Portsmouth, NH – real ghosts, private home.)

Haunted house in Portsmouth NH

Author’s comment: My ex-husband wrote this before reading my notes about what happened.

“One night, at about 3AM I clearly heard someone coming up the stairs to the bedrooms. We lived in one of those old Cape Cod type houses, built around the turn of the century. The stairs had no carpet on them and the hallway was quite bare with excellent acoustics. I called out, ‘Hello?’ wondering if it was a burglar or other intruder.

“We had only lived in the house for less than a year. The previous owner had myriad tenants who rented rooms. There was a distinct possibility that one of these ex-tenants came back from a night of drinking or drugs and had mistaken our home for theirs.

“I could tell that the person on the stairs had stopped right at the top step or the one right below it. I turned on my light, got out of bed, and looked at the top of the stairs and no one was there.

“There was no possibility of someone running down the stairs before I got there. There was no place to hide. There was no possibility of there being someone making the noise outside of the house. The footfalls were definitely on the stairs. I remember hearing that slight crunch of that stuff between your shoes and the treads of the stairs. Someone had definitely been walking up the stairs. But no one was there.”

Is this a real haunted house? Those who lived there in the early 1990s would say that it is. We have tried to conceal the actual location of this private home and ask those who recognize it not to bother its current residents. They have enough problems, if the house is still haunted.

[2016 update: The current residents say that they’re not troubled by any ghosts at the house. But, if a ghost did show up, they’d be fine with any benign spirit.]

Wentworth by the Sea, NH and ME – Ghosts Revisited

Hotel Wentworth ghost hunting — Hotel photo modified from a picture by Chip Griffin.

On the northeast side of Portsmouth, at New Castle, a grand Victorian hotel overlooks sailboats, fishing boats and yachts.

For generations, the Wentworth Hotel, also called Wentworth-by-the-Sea, or “Hotel Wentworth,” was a summer destination for wealthy families.

Built in 1874, this hotel was synonymous with ‘opulence’ through the 1960s. However, times changed and – by the late 1970s – the next generation showed less interest in their parents’ vacation choices.

As a guest during the waning days of the Wentworth’s popularity, I encountered some of the hotel’s ghosts.

An Encounter with a Wentworth Ghost

At that point, the fourth floor was dusty and abandoned.

Decades earlier, it had housed servants. Usually, they were a mix of English and Irish immigrants. They’d arrived with affluent families staying at the hotel.

But, by the late 1960s, the fourth floor was strictly off-limits to small children… which was exactly why I went there.

I’d sneak off when my parents were busy with golf lessons, formal afternoon tea, or while they were swimming laps at one of the hotel’s pools.

My first trip to the fourth floor wasn’t an idle visit. I’d seen a woman in a long dark dress, and a white apron and cap, dash up a narrow staircase from the third to the fourth floor.

After waiting until she was near the top of the dusty stairs, I followed her.

But, at the top of the stairs, she’d vanished.

I thought she’d slipped into one of the tiny servants’ rooms on that floor, but I couldn’t find her anywhere. I roamed from one room to the next, noting torn floral wallpaper, rickety wooden chairs and sagging cots.

Eventually, I realized that the only footprints in the dusty hallway were mine.

That was the first of many encounters with ghosts on the fourth floor and the turrets of the Wentworth Hotel.

Every summer, I explored the “off limits” areas of the hotel. Now and then, I’d see an odd flickering light or shadow. Sometimes, I’d see translucent apparitions, and follow them. But – always – they’d vanish.

Those ghostly encounters are among the reasons I developed a lifelong fascination with ghosts and haunted places.

A Return to the Wentworth Hotel

In February 2008, I returned to the Wentworth. I was taking pictures and double-checking my stories for Weird Encounters, the sequel to the book, Weird Hauntings. (As I did in Weird Hauntings, I’ve described some of my favorite first-person tales of real ghosts.)

Entering the front door of the Wentworth hotel was like returning home. It took me a minute to get my bearings. The hotel has been remodeled at least once since I was a guest.

But, because I’d spent so many childhood summers at the Wentworth, I had no trouble finding my way back to the fourth floor and its cozy rooms.

Today, they’re not dusty little rooms any more. The Wentworth is a Marriott hotel, so the fourth floor is as opulent as the rest of the resort.

Still Haunted… but only by the very best ghosts, of course

On the fourth floor, I could feel that familiar, homely ‘ghost feeling’, especially at the staircase landings near the hallway ends.

Twice, I saw figures appear and vanish, but perhaps that’s because I expected them. One was a man dressed in black tie formal attire… or he may have been a butler or valet.

The other figure seemed female, but I didn’t see more than a filmy outline that disappeared in a split second.

It may have been coincidence that the door to one of the most haunted rooms was unlocked and unoccupied during my visit.

Haunted New Hampshire's Hotel Wentworth To me, that suite of rooms feels happily haunted, perhaps by a man of the sea.

He’s a loner. He won’t bother anyone who doesn’t welcome his presence.

I had the idea that he was pleased that I remembered him, and left the door open.

I didn’t see anything, but I smelled the faint aroma of good pipe tobacco.

I said that I was glad to see him. But, of course, I didn’t actually see anything unusual. It just seemed the polite thing to say.

After that, I left… with a smile. The Wentworth is still a sort of “second home” for me, and my memories are happy ones.

In the future, I’ll return to the Wentworth. On this short tour, I was able to confirm that the ghosts are still there. There’s something very comforting about that.

Gilson Road Cemetery, NH – 8. First 2008 Update

Late yesterday (12 June 2008), I returned to Gilson Road Cemetery in Nashua, NH. Our group’s ghost hunting results were surprising. I’ll publish photos and more details, later, but here’s a summary of what we found:

We tried several kinds of dowsing rods to see what they indicated. The “hot spots” were somewhat predictable.

The Fisk graves – the oldest headstones in the cemetery – produced strong pulls on the dowsing rods. They’re the tall stones immediately after the gate, and directly in front of you. I’ve seen EMF spikes there in the past, though I can’t say that they “feel” especially haunted, most of the time.

(Note that the small Fisk gravestone is the only one in the cemetery with a death’s head on it.)

Joseph Gilson’s headstone – a low, white stone near the front center of the cemetery – is where research groups and I have noted many anomalies including paranormal cold spots. It was active last night.

Slightly northwest of the Searles’ graves (near the pink orb note on the map linked above), we found some of the most intense and unexplained activity. That’s the same area where we first confirmed that hiking compasses can work as EMF detectors.

By contrast, we noted little energy at Walter Gilson’s stone and the back left corner of the cemetery, where so many have had spectral encounters.

With two researchers using dowsing rods independently, we were able to confirm activity in several other spots around the cemetery. Most of those locations were not marked graves.

If you’re ghost hunting at Gilson, check in front of the largest tree at the back of the cemetery. (That tree is inside the walls.) Also do readings at the boulder at the back right (SE) corner of the cemetery.

The woods behind the cemetery appear to be as active as ever. If you’re looking for a full, ghostly apparition, Gilson cemetery may be one of your best chances of seeing one. The figures generally look solid and real… until they vanish into thin air.

In fact, Gilson cemetery raises so many questions about hauntings, and it is such a reliable site, I recommend it for beginners who need research experience… if you have nerves of steel, that is.

Many psychics describe Gilson as one of the most haunted places they’ve ever visited. In addition to very obvious manifestations, the more chilling aspects of Gilson are what you sense and can’t easily explain.

But, even if you aren’t especially psychic, you may be in for a scare at Gilson.

In the past month, people have reported hearing voices so loud at Gilson cemetery, they sounded as if the person was right next to them… except that no one appeared to be there.

Several people have seen the ghostly, hooded figure that chases people out of the cemetery.

And, as usual, electrical circuitry can fail… but usually just inside the walls of the cemetery. This includes cameras that seem to jam, digital voice recorders that stop working or record unearthly sounds, and cell phones that lose signal.

Over the past few years, I’ve also received hundreds of reports about new and freshly charged batteries losing their power completely. (In groups I’ve accompanied to the site, I’ve seen that several times, ourselves.)

Even talking about Gilson can be… interesting. My software usually works smoothly, but it took six tries to publishing this article. The server simply stopped. And, even when the article finally appeared, it was missing an earlier note about the uploading difficulty. It took two more tries to add this note to our post.

Gilson Road Cemetery is still one of my favorite haunted locations.

In the summer, if you visit Gilson cemetery shortly before dusk, wear bug spray. In the warm weather, the mosquitoes are aggressive as night approaches.

Bradford College, MA, Ghosts – 5. Denworth Hall

Bradford College, Bradford, Massachusetts – 11 March 2000

Denworth Hall and Theatre

(Note: It took two tries to write this, the morning after our visit to Bradford. Somehow, my computer saved the later Tupelo Pond page over the Denworth page. This never, ever happens. I’m reluctant to say this bizarre error confirms that the ghost in Denworth does not like to be talked about… but I’ll mention it anyway.)

We approached Denworth Hall from the underground tunnels. The Denworth Theatre doors were well-locked, in preparation for the performance that night. We did, however, have access to the stairwell.

I was still fairly certain that the Denworth Theatre ghost stories were colorful only because the people who told them were involved in theatrics. Theatre ghosts are nearly always dramatic, but rarely mean or tragic. Mostly, they’re flamboyant and sometimes humorous.

I didn’t expect any significant encounters, and I was barely interested in getting into the theatre when the doors seemed to be locked. I was eager to get to Tupelo West.

One of our investigators, Ann, found an unlocked entrance. I shrugged and figured, “why not,” as I followed the group.

THE COSTUME ROOM

A short series of stairs led from the landing to a brief, very dark corridor with an unlocked door to the costume room. It was dismal out, there were no windows in this corridor, the floor was dark brown, and there was no reason for the hall to be light. However, there was no reason for it to be as dark and murky as it looked, either.

Ann backed away from the costume room and out of the short corridor, looking deathly pale. She said that she couldn’t go in there.

I was still under the illusion that the Denworth ghost was seriously overrated.

I strode into the corridor, encountering no negative energy until I reached the door to the costume room. As I reached for the doorknob to support me, I was hit with a wave of sadness and revulsion.

Like Ann, I backed out of the corridor. However, the corridor was suddenly lighter, as it should have been in that setting. Ann tried entering that area again, and reported that it was fine now.

The others explored the costume room. I could not go back in there.

Instead, I checked the bathroom on the other side of the corridor. It was as if its threshold shut out the energy just outside its door. The bathroom seemed clear, cheerful, and fine.

I later found out that the bathroom is a relatively recent addition to that area.

THE GHOSTLY GIRL ON THE STAIRS

Then I waited in the stairwell, on a landing, while most of the group explored adjacent areas. My attention was drawn up the stairs when I heard a softly whispered song, or the start of one.

Looking up past the next landing, I saw the shadow of a girl on the wall. It was faint, but this was not a psychic vision. It existed in reality, for anyone to see if they knew what to look for, and where. I half-expected to see a young teen stroll down the stairs, caught exploring the otherwise-locked theatre.

As I watched, the outline became more defined. I began to see a girl’s figure on the actual stairway, stepping from the third step down to the second. This seemed like a psychic vision, but she may have been seen by others.

At first, I saw a fleeting flash of something that was rust-colored. It could be her clothing, or her hair. Watching her was like seeing a transporter problem on Star Trek. I was reminded of the episode where Barclay is in a malfunctioning transporter, and something wormlike was trying to gnaw on his arm. The image was misty as in that episode.

This psychic vision (?) “blinked” in and out, and I caught merely split-second images. The girl seemed to be wearing a drop-waisted dress, with a full skirt that’s a little longer than modern-day clothing. It was like a homemade dress from the Flapper Era. I saw a grey dress, but it could have been a white dress in the shadows, or a black dress that was barely materialized in the vision… or another color altogether. It did not seem to be a print fabric.

The girl had long hair, fairly straight. I don’t know the color. It was not pale like the coloring of the girl in the Academy building.

THE GHOST BEGAN TO SING

Her form did not get clearer past that point, but her voice did. She was singing a song that started “Hush, Little Baby.” Her voice was lovely, with perfect pitch and a quality that suggested that she’d had singing lessons. It had a soft edge to it, which reminded me of Marilyn Monroe’s “Happy Birthday, Mr. President,” but this was a more throaty and clear voice, without any attempt at babylike cuteness.

As she continued to sing, I realized that I’d never heard this part of the song before, but it seemed to segue into an old favorite, which I’ve always called the “Mockingbird Song.” I’ve just never known how that song starts. I think that’s what I was hearing, in Denworth.

At that point, the stairwell seemed to spin wildly around me. I was overwhelmed as an energy surge hit, and I could see that the girl was singing to a doll. It was a large doll, and I think it was wearing a floral dress with a ruby or maroon collar. It was the size of a newborn baby, perhaps the smallest “Saucy Walker” doll of the early 1950’s.

I was struck by the tragedy of it. I was far too close to this girl, psychically. I knew that she had been driven mad by some horrific events linked to the theatre. Nobody that mature (probably 18 years old, or so) sings that seriously to a doll.

Ann speculated that the girl was raped and then lost the baby. I honestly can’t tell what happened. The girl was mad, that’s all I know.

EMF EVIDENCE

After a few minutes, Alan took my EMF meter, and he and James went up the stairs to where I’d seen the ghost. I could see the ghost linger for a moment, then dash up the stairs as her nerve failed her.

Alan apparently got some significant EMF readings in that area, but some (not all) could be attributed to a fuse box (?) at the top of the stairs.

We discussed what we experienced for a few more minutes, and then solemnly left the theatre building.

ECHOES IN THE TUNNELS BENEATH THE BUILDING

We exited through the tunnels, which seemed tame by comparison, now. I felt terribly nauseated by the encounter with the ghost, and knew she was in a frustrated rage because she thought we were deserting her. I had the strong psychic impression that the ghost didn’t want us to leave, but I also knew that we’d not accomplish anything by staying with her.

Ann said that she could hear the girl crying, “Wait! Wait! Don’t leave!” as we walked through the tunnels. Ann said that the girl’s voice echoed in the tunnels.

It was pretty awful.

Samantha asked if there was anything we could do, to help the ghost. I replied that you can help a ghost that is rational but confused. It’s unlikely that anyone can help a ghost that is as far over-the-edge as the ghost in Denworth.

In my opinion, the simplest conclusion would be to tear that building down. Perhaps then the ghost will be released from whatever compels her to remain there.

Next page: An odd but uneventful walk past Tupelo Pond