Ghosts of the SouthCoast (3 page)

The Wampanoags, however, were not happy with the idea of their people being subjected to the laws and courts of the colonists. As noted by Christopher Balzano is his book
Dark Woods: Cults, Crime and the Paranormal in the Freetown State Forest
:

As all of the events of the past few decades—the murder of his brother, the followers leaving by the dozens, and the killing of men found guilty with no evidence—swirled about him, the paranormal stepped in. In an often overlooked nod to the unknown, a total lunar eclipse occurred. The Native Americans in the area saw this as a sign of war and Philip used this to fuel their desire for change.

A band of Pokanokets soon attacked colonial homes and lay siege to the settlement of Swansea. This ignited what would become known as King Philip's War, even though to this day it is unknown whether those Pokanoket were acting on Metacom's orders.

Winslow led the English and Metacom led an army of Indians that included other tribes as well as his own. Battles raged across New England throughout the rest of 1675 and into 1676, with the Indians first taking the upper hand and then the colonists, with their vast weaponry and resources, eventually battling back. On August 12, 1676, Metacom was captured near Mount Hope in Bristol, Rhode Island, by Captain Benjamin Church and his militia and was shot and killed by John Alderman, a Praying Indian. Alderman kept one of Metacom's hands as a prize, and other body parts were scattered throughout the colony. Legend has it that Metacom's head was staked on a long pole and kept at the entrance to Plymouth for more than twenty years.

The final confrontation of King Philip's War came on August 28, 1676. Church and his men captured the last remaining Wampanoag captain, Anawan, at the rock that now bears his name in modern-day Rehoboth. Even today, Anawan Rock is cited as one of the area's most haunted locations, with reports of phantom fires, phantom drumbeats and a disembodied voice that yells, “
Iootash
!” said to be a Wampanoag phrase meaning “stand and fight.”

Anawan's capture signified the end of the war, but its dark history was only beginning to take its grasp on the region.

As we will see, many of the SouthCoast sites associated with King Philip's War are considered haunted by the spirits of those who gave their lives in the conflict. Because of the tragic way in which they met their end, their spirits
are forever tied to the spot, their psychological imprint embedded upon it even in these modern times. Most of us have heard tales about homes that are haunted because they're built on an old Indian burial ground. Considering the loss of life endured during King Philip's War, the entire SouthCoast is one big Indian burial ground.

But are the heinous scars of war the reason why this region has so many ghosts lurking in its shadows, or is it possible that King Philip's War itself was just another example of a deeper, darker plague that has loomed over the area since time began?

Enter the Bridgewater Triangle, a cursed paranormal vortex that is either the direct result of the tumult of King Philip's War or one of the factors that caused it. This area, which covers about two hundred square miles south of Boston and just north of the SouthCoast, has endured reports of just about every kind of paranormal phenomena.

The term Bridgewater Triangle first came into existence in the work of investigator and author Loren Coleman. Known for his work in the field of cryptozoology—the study of hidden or unknown animals, such as Bigfoot—Coleman began referring to the mysterious area as the Bridgewater Triangle in correspondences beginning in the late 1970s. He also wrote about it in a 1980
Boston Magazine
article, before formally introducing the term to the world in his 1983 classic
Mysterious America
.

At the time, paranormal enthusiasts and followers of the weird knew all about the supposed Bermuda Triangle, the mysterious spot in which many ships and aircraft were said to have disappeared. With all the reports of strange phenomena Coleman was receiving from eastern Massachusetts, he eventually came to realize that much of it was centered on a specific hot spot, and he gave it a catchy name to equate it in people's minds with its Bermudan counterpart. Coleman's original Bridgewater Triangle was much more condensed, but modern reinterpretation of the triangle extends it with the towns of Abington, Freetown and Seekonk as its vertices.

The exact points aren't important, however; further work from Coleman and researchers such as Chris Pittman and Christopher Balzano has shown that the triangle is gradually extending beyond any preconceived borders and
the heightened amount of paranormal activity extends to the SouthCoast and beyond into northeastern Rhode Island.

Balzano has also noted that the triangle area has unusually high rates for both crime and mental illness in comparison with locations outside of it. In fact, one of the most controversial films ever produced in the Bay State, Frederick Wiseman's
Titicut Follies,
was banned upon its release in Massachusetts because of the way it portrayed the mentally ill residents of Bridgewater State Hospital—even though the commonwealth declared it was due to privacy issues. Watching the way the staff handles the patients in that film is allegorical to how we're treated by the Bridgewater Triangle—the inmates are already a little bit crazy, but the asylum is only making it worse.

The triangle area was considered to have a certain power long before the English settlers first trekked through it. At its center is the Hockomock Swamp, which at six thousand-plus acres is the second-largest wetland in Massachusetts. At least thirteen rare and endangered species live in the swamplands—and possibly some hereto undiscovered ones as well—and archaeologists have found materials around the swamp that date back some nine thousand years.

The name
Hockomock
comes from the Wampanoag languages, and means “place where spirits dwell.” The Wampanoags felt that both good and evil spirits resided near the swamp, which if properly revered could bring great fortune in hunting and fishing but if mistreated could bring doom and destruction.

As civilization has encroached upon it, attempted to develop it and continually misunderstood it, the swamp may have gone into permanent negative mode.

Those who visit the swamp have reported seeing thunderbirds (mysterious birds the size of a full-grown man), pterodactyls, dogs with glowing red eyes, huge snakes, black panthers and, perhaps most notably, a Bigfoot-like creature traipsing about the area.

UFOs have been reported flying over the swamp as far back as May of 1760 and again in 1908. They are commonly sighted throughout the Bridgewater Triangle in modern times, but reports of a “sphere of fire” (according to Pittman's website) appearing over the skies 150 years before the first airplane certainly makes the triangle sightings historic.

With all the mysterious phenomena that take place within the triangle, ghosts actually tend to fall by the wayside when investigating the area.
However, it was within the Bridgewater Triangle that I had my first ghostly experiences.

In my teenage years, I had relatives living in the small town of Halifax, on the outer eastern edge of the Bridgewater Triangle. My aunt and uncle purchased a home that, while not terribly old, stood on what had been farmland since the first settlers came in the late 1600s. It was country living at its finest, and I often spent time there during the summer.

During their first years there, it became apparent that they weren't alone in that house. Shadows would move along the walls down the hallway. Faucets would turn themselves on in the middle of the night. The door to the closet in a child's bedroom would fly open no matter how many times he'd made sure it was shut tight.

I experienced it for myself firsthand the night the bulkhead doors to the basement continually slammed open and shut, even though we had secured them with a wooden two-by-four between the interior handles. Each time we ran down there and locked it down, I still thought we were just the victims of some prank—until I walked down and could still see the heavy metal doors flopping open and shut on their own in the still night air. The topic of the paranormal was something in which I'd always been interested, but after that night, it consumed me. I would soon find out that the ghosts of the SouthCoast were all around me. I just had to know where to look.

W
ith all the stuffy science and background information out of the way, now we can get to the fun part: the ghosts themselves.

With the current paranormal media explosion—everything from books, magazines, reality television shows and films like
Paranormal Activity
—it's becoming more accepted to talk about things like ghosts and hauntings. While many still scoff at such a notion, and others may deem it a slight against their chosen belief system, it's still easier today to walk into your public library and ask the reference librarian about ghost stories from your town than it was ten or twenty years ago.

With that in mind, more and more historical locations are willing to use ghosts as a way to connect with a new, younger audience. You need only do a Google search for “historic ghost tours” to see there's practically one in every city and quite a few towns as well. On my radio show,
Spooky Southcoast,
we've come up with a simple saying that summarizes how we view the place of the paranormal in learning about our past: come for the ghosts, stay for the history.

That's the approach we'll take with
Ghosts of the SouthCoast
as well. While others might try to spook readers with chilling tales of terrorizing screams and ghostly hands knocking on the window, in this volume we'll treat the ghosts for exactly what they are: a direct link to our past, a (formerly) living example of the SouthCoast's diverse history. Throughout, I'll try to offer some personal insights and anecdotes from my own adventures investigating
the paranormal in the area, and you'll see they're more likely to raise an eyebrow than they are the hair on the back of your neck.

Still, it might not be a bad idea to lock the front door and turn on all the lights as we head into the unknown.

The town of Wareham lies along the beginnings of the Cape Cod Canal, and its official nickname is Gateway to Cape Cod. It's considered the easternmost edge of what we call the SouthCoast and has as much in common with its Cape-side counterparts as it does with the other SouthCoast communities.

Wareham was originally named Agawam after the Wampanoag tribe that inhabited it. In 1666, the Plymouth colony purchased Agawam from the Indians and later renamed it Wareham in homage to a town in Dorset, England, of the same name. It was incorporated as its own town in 1739.

Within Wareham's borders is the coastal village of Onset. Its seaside bluffs and abundant ocean view made it a destination point for the wealthy and the famous in the early 1900s, and at one time it was known as Hollywood East for the celebrities that would often vacation there.

In its own way, Wareham still has a connection with the Hollywood of today. Oscar-winning actress Geena Davis, who starred in such paranormally themed films as
Beetlejuice
and
The Fly,
is a Wareham native.

One of the oldest structures in Wareham is the Fearing Tavern. Along with having perhaps the coolest name of any haunted location, it's also a spot where the ghosts are directly related to its history.

The original part of the building dates back to 1690, when it was built by Isaac Bump and his family. Israel Fearing later took ownership and added another portion to the building in 1765, and it remained in his family for hundreds of years. During its long history, the sixteen-room Fearing Tavern has served as a tavern, courthouse, town hall, post office, private residence and is now a museum housing a collection of antiques from the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.

Wareham's Fearing Tavern has a mysterious past as well as a haunting present.

As a Wareham resident and host of a paranormal radio show, I was able to convince the town's historical society to allow myself and some colleagues the opportunity to conduct a paranormal investigation of the tavern, the first time it had ever been done. We had heard stories about a ghostly woman seen sitting in a rocking chair by schoolchildren on a tour, but we mainly wanted the chance to investigate it because of its long and rich history.

I had an opportunity to talk with one of the last residents to live in the tavern before it was turned over to the town in the 1950s. He told me that when he lived there with his family as a child, it was just like any other house in town. He had indoor plumbing, electricity and all the other modern amenities of the time. However, in 1958, the historical society restored it to its original colonial condition, and it remains so today.