by Hans Holzer
“No.”
“Where did she get married?”
“I don’t get that.”
“Is she ready to go?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Tell her to get into the carriage and drive off.”
“Yes, she’s ready,”
“Then go, Margaret—go.”
“She says, many miles—three-day trip.”
“All right. Go with our blessings. Do you see her in the carriage now?”
“Yes, the road goes this way. She is going down a winding road.”
“Is she alone in the carriage?”
“Yes, she is, but there is a man driving.”
“Who is the man who is driving?”
“A hired man.”
“Is she in the carriage now?”
“Yes, she is.”
“Is she on her way?”
“Yes.”
“All right, then wave at her and tell her we send her away with our love.”
“She looks to be about twenty-two now. Much younger.”
“She’s not to return to this house.”
“She doesn’t want to. She grew old in this house, she says.”
“What was the house called then?”
“It was Point something.”
“Did they build the house? She and her husband?”
“No, it was there.”
“Who built it?”
“Samuel.”
“And who was Samuel?”
“A farmer.”
“They bought it from him?”
“Yes, they did. She says the deed is in the town hall.”
“Of which town? Is it in this village?”
“Next town. Down the road.”
“I understand. And in whose name is the deed?”
“Her husband’s.”
“First name.”
“James.”
“James what. Full name.”
“It’s something like Haydon.”
“James Haydon from...? What is Samuel’s first name?”
“Samuels was the last name of the people who owned it.”
“But the first name of the man who sold it. Does she remember that?”
“She never knew it.”
“In what year was that?”
“1821.”
“How much did they pay for the house?”
“Barter.”
“What did they give them?”
“A sailing ship. A small sailing ship for fishing, and several horses. A year’s supply of roots, and some paper—currency. Notes.”
“But no money?”
“Just notes. Like promises, she says. Notes of promises.”
“What was the full price of the house?”
“All in barter, all in exchange up here.”
“But there was no sum mentioned for the house? No value?”
“She says, ‘Ask my husband.”’
“Now did she and her husband live here alone?”
“Two children.”
“What were their names?”
“Philip. But he went to sea.”
“And the other one?”
“Francis.”
“Did he go to sea too?”
“No.”
“What happened to him?”
“I think Francis died.”
“What did he die of?”
“Cholera. He was seventeen.”
“Where did they get married? In what church?”
“Lutheran.”
“Why Lutheran? Was she Lutheran?”
“She doesn’t remember.”
“Does she remember the name of the minister?”
“Thorpe.”
“Thorpe?”
“Yes. Thorpe.”
“What was his first name?”
“Thomas Thorpe.”
“And when they were married, was that in this town?”
“No.”
“What town was it in?”
“A long way away.”
“What was the name of the town?”
“Something like Pickwick...a funny name like that...it’s some kind of a province of a place. A Piccadilly—a province in the country she says.”
“And they came right here after that? Or did they go anywhere else to live?”
“Saco. They went into Saco.”
“That’s the name of a place?”
“Yes.”
“How long did they stay there?”
“Six months in Saco.”
“And then?”
“Her husband had a commission.”
“What kind of commission?”
“On a whaling ship.”
“What was the name of the ship?”
“St. Catherine. I see St. Catherine or St. Catherines.”
“And then where did they move to?”
“Port Clyde.”
“...and they stayed here for the rest of their lives?”
“Yes, until he went to sea and didn’t come back one time.”
“His ship didn’t come back?”
“No.”
“Does she feel better for having told us this?”
“Oh yes.”
“Tell her that she....”
“She says it’s a long story.”
“Tell her that she need not stay where so much unhappiness has transpired in her life. Tell her husband is over there....”
“Yes.”
“Does she understand?”
“Yes, she does.”
“Does she want to see him again?”
“Yes.”
“Then she must call out to him to come to her. Does she understand that?”
“Yes.”
“Then tell her to call out to her husband James right now.”
“He’ll take her to Surrey or something like that, he says.”
“Surrey.”
“Surrey. Some funny name.”
“Is it a place?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Does she see him?”
“Yes.”
“Are they going off together?”
“Yes, I see her leaving, slowly, but she’s looking back.”
“Tell her to go and not to return here. Tell her to go with love and happiness and in peace. Are they gone?”
“They are going. It’s a reunion.”
“We wish them well and we send them from this house, with our blessings, with our love and compassion, and in peace. Go on, go on. What do you see?”
“They are gone.”
And with that, we left the house, having done enough for one day, a very full day. The camera crew packed up, so that we could continue shooting in the morning. As for me, the real work was yet to come: corroborating the material Ingrid Beckman had come up with.
I turned to Carol for verification, if possible, of some of the names and data Ingrid had come up with while in the house. Carol showed us a book containing maps of the area, and we started to check it out.
“Look,” Carol said and pointed at the passage in the book, “this strip of land was owned by John Barter and it was right next to Samuel Gardner...and it says John Barter died in 1820...the date mentioned by Ingrid! Ah, and there is also mention of the same Margaret Barter, and there is a date on the same page, November 23, 1882...I guess that is when she died.”
“Great,” I said, pleased to get all this verification so relatively easily. “What exactly is this book?”
“It’s a copy of the town’s early records, the old hypothogue, of the town of St. George.”
“Isn’t that the town right next door?”
“Yes, it is.”
“What about the name Hogden or Hayden or Samuel?”
“Samuel Hatton was a sailor and his wife was named Elmira,” Carol said, pointing at the book. Ingrid had joined us now as I saw no further need to keep her in the dark regarding verifications—her part of the work was done.
“We must verify that,” I said. “Also, was there eve
r a ship named St. Catherine and was it built on the Kennebec River as Ingrid claimed?”
But who would be able to do that? Happily, fate was kind; there was a great expert who knew both the area and history of the towns better than anyone around, and he agreed to receive us. That turned out to be a colorful ex-sailor by the name of Commander Albert Smalley, who received us in his house in St. George—a house, I might add, which was superbly furnished to suggest the bridge of a ship. After we had stopped admiring his mementos, and made some chitchat to establish the seriousness of our mission, I turned to the Commander and put the vital questions to him directly.
“Commander Albert Smalley, you’ve been a resident in this town for how long?”
“I was born in this town seventy-six years ago.”
“I understand you know more about the history of Port Clyde than anybody else.”
“Well, that’s a moot question, but I will say, possibly, yes.”
“Now, to the best of your knowledge, do the names Samuel and Hatton mean anything in connection with this area?”
“Yes, I know Hatton lived at Port Clyde prior to 1850. That I’m sure about.”
“What profession did he have?”
“Sailor.”
“Was there a ship named the St. Catherine in these parts?”
“Yes, there was.”
“And would it have been built at the Kennebec River? Or connected with it in some way?”
“Well, as I recall it was, and I believe it was built in the Sewell Yard at the Kennebec River.”
“Was there any farming in a small way in the Port Clyde area in the nineteenth century?”
“Oh yes, primarily that’s what they came here for. But fishing, of course, was a prime industry.”
“Now there’s a lighthouse not far from Port Clyde which I believe was built in the early part of the nineteenth century. Could it have been there in the 1840s?”
“Yes. It was built in 1833.”
“Now if somebody would have been alive in 1840, would they somehow be concerned about this comparatively new lighthouse? Would it have worried them?”
“No, it would not. The residence is comparatively new. The old stone residence was destroyed by lightning. But the tower is the same one.”
“Now you know the area of Port Clyde where the Leah Davis house now stands? Prior to this house, were there any houses in the immediate area?”
“I’ve always been told that there was a house there. The Davis that owned it told me that he built on an old cellar.”
“And how far back would that go?”
“That would go back to probably 1870. The new house was built around 1870.”
“And was there one before that?”
“Yes, there was one before that.”
“Could that have been a farmhouse?”
“Yes, it could have been because there is a little farm in back of it. It’s small.”
“Now you of course have heard all kinds of stories—some of them true, some of them legendary. Have you ever heard any story of a great tragedy concerning the owners of the farmhouse on that point?”
“Whit Thompson used to tell some weird ghost stories. But everyone called him a damned liar. Whether it’s true or not, I don’t know, but I’ve heard them.”
“About that area?”
“About that area.”
“Was there, sir, any story about a female ghost—a woman?”
“I have heard of a female ghost. Yes, Whit used to tell that story.”
“What did he tell you?”
“That was a long time ago, and I cannot recall just what he said about it—he said many things—but she used to appear, especially on foggy nights, and it was hard to distinguish her features—that was one of the things he used to tell about—and there was something about her ringing the bell at the lighthouse, when they used to ring the old fog bell there. I don’t recall what it was.”
“Now the story we found involved a woman wearing a kind of white gown, looking out to sea from the window as if she were expecting her sailor to return, and she apparently was quite faceless at first.”
“I don’t think Whitney ever told of her face being seen.”
“Do you know of anybody in your recollection who has actually had an unusual experience in that particular area?”
“No, I don’t.”
“Commander, if you had the choice of spending the night in the house in question, would it worry you?”
“No, why should it?”
“You are not afraid of ghosts?”
“No. Why should I be?”
“They are people after all.”
“Huh?”
“They are just people after all.”
“Yes.”
“Have you ever seen one?”
“No, I was brought up with mediums and spiritualists and as a kid I was frightened half to death, I didn’t dare go our after dark, but I got over that.”
“Thank you very much.”
“The lighthouse and the gale...the ship in a gale...it all seems to fit...,” Ingrid mumbled as we got back into our cars and left the Commander’s house.
And there you have it. A woman from the big city who knows nothing about the case I am investigating, nor where she might be taken, still comes up with the names and data she could not possibly know on her own. Ingrid Beckman was (and is, I suppose) a gifted psychic. Shortly after we finished taping the Port Clyde story, I left for Europe.
While I was away, Ingrid met a former disc jockey then getting interested in the kind of work she and I had been doing so successfully for a while. Somehow he persuaded her to give a newspaper interview about this case—which, of course, upset NBC a lot since this segment would not air for six months—not to mention myself. The newspaper story was rather colorful, making it appear that Ingrid had heard of this ghost and taken care of it...but then newspaper stories sometimes distort things, or perhaps the verification and research of a ghost story is less interesting to them than the story itself. But to a professional like myself, the evidence only becomes evidence when it is carefully verified. I haven’t worked with Ingrid since.
As for the ghostly lady of Port Clyde, nothing further has been heard about her, either, and since we gently persuaded her not to hang on any longer, chances are indeed that she has long been joined by her man, sailing an ocean where neither gales nor nosy television crews can intrude.
* 115
A Plymouth Ghost
I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT the Plymouth where the Pilgrims landed but another Plymouth. This one is located in New Hampshire, in a part of the state that is rather lonely and sparsely settled even today. If you really want to get away from it all—whatever it may be—this is a pretty good bet. I am mentioning this because a person living in this rural area isn’t likely to have much choice in the way of entertainment, unless of course you provide it yourself. But I am getting ahead of my story.
I was first contacted about this case in August 1966 when a young lady named Judith Elliott, who lived in Bridgeport, Connecticut, at the time, informed me of the goings-on in her cousin’s country house located in New Hampshire. Judith asked if I would be interested in contacting Mrs. Chester Fuller regarding these matters. What intrigued me about the report was not the usual array of footfalls, presences, and the house cat staring at someone unseen—but the fact that Mrs. Fuller apparently had seen a ghost and identified him from a book commemorating the Plymouth town bicentennial.
When I wrote back rather enthusiastically, Miss Elliot forwarded my letter to her cousin, requesting more detailed and chronological information. But it was not until well into the following year that I finally got around to making plans for a visit. Ethel Johnson Meyers, the late medium, and my ex-wife Catherine, always interested in spooky houses since she used to illustrate some of my books, accompanied me. Mrs. Fuller, true to my request, supplied me with all that she knew of the phenomena themselves, who experienced them, and such information about
former owners of the house and the house itself as she could garner. Here, in her own words, is that report, which of course I kept from the medium at all times so as not to influence her or give her prior knowledge of the house and circumstances. Mrs. Fuller’s report is as follows:
Location: The house is located at 38 Merrill Street in the town of Plymouth, New Hampshire. To reach the house, you leave Throughway 93 at the first exit for Plymouth. When you reach the set of lights on Main Street, turn right and proceed until you reach the blue Sunoco service station, then take a sharp left onto Merrill Street. The house is the only one with white picket snow fence out front. It has white siding with a red front door and a red window box and is on the right hand side of the street.
1. The first time was around the middle of June—about a month after moving in. It was the time of day when lights are needed inside, but it is still light outside. This instance was in the kitchen and bathroom. The bathroom and dining room are in an addition onto the kitchen. The doors to both rooms go out of the kitchen beside of each other, with just a small wall space between. At that time we had our kitchen table in that space. I was getting supper, trying to put the food on the table and keep two small children (ages 2 and 5) off the table. As I put the potatoes on the table, I swung around from the sink toward the bathroom door. I thought I saw someone in the bathroom. I looked and saw a man. He was standing about halfway down the length of the room. He was wearing a brown plaid shirt, dark trousers with suspenders, and he [wore] glasses with the round metal frames. He was of medium height, a little on the short side, not fat and not thin but a good build, a roundish face, and he was smiling. Suddenly he was gone, no disappearing act or anything fancy, just gone, as he had come.
2. Footsteps. There are footsteps in other parts of the house. If I am upstairs, the footsteps are downstairs. If I am in the kitchen, they are in the living room, etc. These were scattered all through the year, in all seasons, and in the daytime. It was usually around 2 or 3 and always on a sunny days, as I recall.
3. Winter—late at night. Twice we (Seth and I) heard a door shutting upstairs. (Seth is an elderly man who stays with us now. When we first moved here he was not staying with us. His wife was a distant cousin to my father. I got acquainted with them when I was in high school. I spent a lot of time at their house and his wife and I became quite close. She died 11 years ago and since then Seth has stayed at his son’s house, a rooming house, and now up here. He spent a lot of time visiting us before he moved in.) Only one door in the bedrooms upstairs works right, and that is the door to my bedroom. I checked the kids that night to see if they were up or awake, but they had not moved. My husband was also sound asleep. The door was already shut, as my husband had shut it tight when he went to bed to keep out the sound of the television. The sound of the door was very distinct—the sound of when it first made contact, then the latch clicking in place, and then the thud as it came in contact with the casing. Everything was checked out—anything that was or could be loose and have blown and banged, or anything that could have fallen down. Nothing had moved. The door only shut once during that night, but did it again later on in the winter.