Ghosts of the SouthCoast (10 page)

The Seamen's Bethel welcomes all beliefs, including belief in the paranormal.

Melville visited Seamen's Bethel in 1840 while the seeds of
Moby Dick
were fertilizing in his mind, and the spot where he sat is immortalized with an inscription. Fans of his work often come here to see the spot and soak up the historic atmosphere within its walls—but they're not prepared for the spirit that may greet them.

The ghost of a former clergyman who served at Seaman's Bethel is said to roam the chapel, and his footsteps can be heard on the creaking wooden floor. The legend says that he was distraught over being unable to get the rowdy whalemen to see the error of their wicked ways and beg for the Lord's forgiveness, so he committed the ultimate sin and killed himself in the chapel
itself, most likely by hanging. He hoped to make the people of the waterfront realize what true sin is, and that his death would make them repent. Modern reports say that those who enter the chapel and are disrespectful of it or God will feel the clergyman's wrath.

Located in the city's north end, Brooklawn Park features picturesque running and walking trails and is the home to youth baseball and softball leagues. It's a relaxing spot in the middle of the hustle and bustle of the city, but it's also the home to a mysterious creature that was seen in the late 1960s.

Witnesses described a manlike creature with hoofed feet running through the park and emitting a high-pitched laugh. They described as a real flesh-and-blood being, one that would stop and stare at park patrons before dashing off again.

Sightings seemed to have dropped off after the initial rash around 1968, but many who heard the stories back then still won't visit the park at night.

The
Charles W. Morgan
now resides in the seaport of Mystic, Connecticut, but the whaling ship and the ghost that haunts it originally belonged in New Bedford.

Built in the city and launched from its harbor in 1841, the
Morgan
made over thirty-seven whaling voyages in eighty years of service. It eventually fell into disrepair, however, and was moved to a private residence in Dartmouth until it sailed to Mystic in 1941 to begin extensive restoration.

The
Morgan
is now one of the top tourist attractions at Mystic Seaport and is said to be inhabited by the spirit of Gerald, a nineteenth-century seaman who still works on the ship as he did more than one hundred years ago.

The initial investigation was done by the Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group, under the direction of Dr. Andrew Laird, after receiving numerous reports about spirit activity on the
Morgan
through the years. When the group received three similar reports from three different groups that described an encounter with a spirit aboard the ship, it decided to investigate.

Aboard the ship, Laird saw the apparition of Gerald, marking only the second time in his twenty-plus years of investigating the paranormal that he
saw an actual ghost. Gerald's presence may have been tied into the fact that the
Morgan
was about to undergo an extensive restoration of the main hull that should be completed soon. The project, estimated to cost around $3.5 million, involved replacing the 30 percent of original timber still on the ship, which falls below the waterline. It was replaced by new live oak, including some two hundred trees donated from along the Mississippi coast that were uprooted in Hurricane Katrina—which, naturally, could bring some of their own ghosts with them as well.

Even now, nearly seventy years after the
Morgan
left New Bedford, its residents still call for Mystic to return the ship to its native port. Maybe then, Gerald can return home as well.

In 1659, English settlers paid the sum of “20 coats, two rugs, two iron pots, two kettles, a little kettle, eight pairs of shoes, six pair of stockings, one dozen hoes, one dozen hatchets and two yards of broadcloth” to Massasoit for what was known as Ye Freeman's Purchase, a large tract of land that would eventually split into Fall River and Freetown, including the villages of East Freetown and Assonet (an Indian word to describe its rocky geography). It was the last land purchase made from the Wampanoags before the outbreak of King Philip's War.

Included in the deal was “a debt satisfied to John Barnes,” which allegedly was for a large alcohol tab Massasoit had racked up in Barnes's tavern.

An interesting note regarding Freetown history: In 1699, the town voted to erect a meetinghouse to comply with the law of the colony, but it wasn't completed until 1713. It took even longer to find a clergyman to serve the town because they were more liberal in their beliefs and couldn't agree on who would suit the congregation as a whole. It wasn't until 1747 that they finally agreed on someone, and even then they forced him to sign a contract that stated that the town wouldn't pay his salary and, instead, he'd have to live on donations.

Lakeville, meanwhile, was part of the Middleboro settlement all the way until it was incorporated as its own separate town in 1853 and named for the large ponds found throughout.

Assawompset Pond in Lakeville has the distinction of being the site where King Philip's War began. It was here that Metacom's men supposedly murdered John Sassamon and stowed his body under the pond's ice.

For that reason alone, we can deduce that the spectral Wampanoag seen walking along its shores and even atop its waves is Sassamon himself, but the pond has even deeper roots to his people that extend for thousands of years before the English ever stepped foot near it.

Assawompset
is Wampanoag for “place of the white stones,” which could be a reference to the quartz that is found in abundance throughout the area, the same mineral that records energy and is a factor in paranormal activity. The Indians would summer at Betty's Neck, find these stones and use them in their medicine rituals.

The pond is also a major component in one of the Wampanoag's greatest mythological tales. Maushop, a giant from ancient times who is sort of the tribe's creator god, was beloved by the Wampanoags. This brought great anger to the Pukwudgies (puck-wudge-ee), small troll-like creatures who were known as tricksters to the Wampanoag people.

Lakeville's Assawompset Pond is the site where King Philip's War essentially began and its haunted history lives on.

According to Christopher Balzano on his Massachusetts Paranormal Crossroads website:

Standing between two and three feet tall, the Pukwudgie looks much like our modern idea of a troll. His features mirror those of the Native American in the area, but the nose, fingers and ears are enlarged and the skin is described as being grey and or washed-out, smooth and at times has been known to glow.

What makes these monsters dangerous is the multitude of magical abilities they use to torment and manipulate people. They can appear and disappear at will and are said to be able to transform into other animals. They have possession of magical, poison arrows that can kill and can create fire at will. They seem to often be related to a tall dark figure, often referred to in modern times to shadow people. In turn the Pukwudgies control Tei-Pai-Wankas, which are believed to be the souls of Native Americans they have killed. They use these lights to entice new victims in the woods so they may kidnap or kill them. In European folklore these balls of energy are known as Will-o-the-Wisps and are said to accompany many paranormal occurrences. Modern paranormal investigators call them orbs, and catching one on film is the gold standard of field research.

At the behest of his wife, Quant, Maushop rid his people of the Pukwudgies by shaking them and throwing them to the farthest reaches of civilization. However, they regrouped and returned, this time with far more evil intentions. Soon, they were kidnapping children and burning down homes, and in some cases killing the Wampanoag people. Maushop tried to have his five sons kill all the Pukwudgies, but the little demons overpowered each of them. Finally, Maushop tried to do the job himself, but they led him into the waters of Assawompset Pond and attacked him with their poison arrows.

One version of the myth suggests they killed Maushop, while another says that he grew despondent over the death of his sons and simply gave up the fight. Either way, it signaled the end of Maushop in Wampanoag lore, but it was only the beginning of the legend of the Pukwudgie. They are
still reported today—mostly in the Freetown State Forest, discussed later in this chapter—and Balzano actively documents Pukwudgie sightings on his website and in his books.

While the spirit seen haunting Assawompset Pond is more likely Metacom or John Sassamon, it could also be the final resting place of the great Maushop. Only the Pukwudgies know for sure.

Just down the road from Assawompset Pond is the site of the former Lakeville Hospital, which originally opened as the Lakeville State Sanatorium in 1910 to treat those infected with tuberculosis.

Unlike the physically imposing insane asylums in Danvers and Taunton that were designed by Thomas Kirkbride, the Lakeville “San” was designed by John A. Fox to feature open-air verandas, as fresh air exposure was thought to alleviate the symptoms of TB and create a more homelike atmosphere.

Lakeville Hospital will soon be demolished, but don't expect its ghosts to go easily.

Still, abuse of patients did occur with frequency, including blasting cold water in the faces of patients in body casts or shoving their faces in their food. As TB waned in the second half of the twentieth century, the San was renamed Lakeville Hospital and turned to more general care before eventually becoming a long-term care facility until it closed for good in 1991.

Since then, the buildings have stood abandoned but guarded. Unlike other former hospitals and asylums that have become a haven for paranormal investigators and legend trippers alike, Lakeville has round-the-clock security to ward off those who attempt to trespass.

After it closed, the town sold the property for commercial development, and there were plans to demolish it in 2003. However, it still stands as of this writing, another example of how the ghosts might just be standing in the way of progress.

Many people who have walked by the hospital have reported hearing screams coming from the inside—but even creepier are the reports of the laughter of children. There was a children's ward in the old sanatorium, and the front building that was erected in the 1960s had a children's wing on the third floor. There are also rumors that some of the children who perished from tuberculosis in the early part of the twentieth century were buried in unmarked graves somewhere on the property, but a project manager for the site found no records of any burials in state documentation.

One paranormal investigator who has had the opportunity to investigate haunts all over the country told me Lakeville Hospital still remains his holy grail. His mother worked there before it closed, and she told him that even then, the staff would whisper about the ghostly children on the third floor who would throw open doors and bang on the windows, as if they were trying to escape.

As pointed out on the website
HauntedLakeville.com
, the town of Lakeville has nearly one cemetery per square mile of land—twenty-eight in all. While many of them are family plots from the early days in the town's history, there is only one that can claim to be truly royal.

The Royal Wampanoag Cemetery sits on an isolated stretch of Route 105 on the shores of Little Quitticas Pond. In all, there are only a little more than twenty graves in the cemetery, each one a Native American and many believed to be relatives of Tispaquin, including Amie, Massasoit's only known daughter and Tispaquin's wife. Known as the Black Sachem for his darker skin tone, Tispaquin was one of Metacom's trusted lieutenants. When Metacom surrendered and was killed, Tispaquin surrendered a few days later, after Benjamin Church gave his word that his life would be spared. The promise was not kept, however.