HGB Ep. 586 - Houghton Mansion and the Masons

Moment in Oddity - Indiana Bell building rotation (Suggested by: Duey Oxberger)

The Indiana Bell building was constructed in 1907 and stands at 240 N Meridian St, Indianapolis, Indiana. By 1929, Indiana Bell company determined that they required a larger building to accommodate their business needs. At the beginning, the company thought they would just demolish their current building and build a new one. However, after hiring Vonnegut, Bohn and Muller Architects for the demolition and rebuild of the structure, the architects told Indiana Bell that the building itself did not need a demo job, just a rotate job. If the building was rotated 90 degrees and shifted 100 feet west, the company would end up with the extra space they desired to build on an addition. As reported in different newspaper articles, the rotation launched on October 14, 1930. During the 31 day process, there were rollers, T5-ton jacks and 18 men involved. Amazingly, business as usual continued within the building while the 11,000 ton structure was in the process of rotation. The rotation rate was calculated at 15 inches per hour. This rate meant that the employees working within could not even feel the movement of the building. At the end of the process, the architectural team was able to place the building within one-sixty-fourth of an inch from the original calculated location! We are always amazed at stories where buildings are picked up and moved to a different location. But to move an eight story, 11,000 ton building while employees continued to work within, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Astor Place Riot

In the month of May, on the 10th in 1849, angry crowds rioted outside of Astor Place Opera House in lower Manhattan, New York. British actor William Charles Macready and American actor Edwin Forrest were to perform "Macbeth" inside the opera house. Both were well known Shakespearean actors and a conflict had developed between the two of them. Three days before the riot, Forrest's supporters had bought hundreds of tickets for seats in the theater. Most of the audience were working class New Yorkers. The protestors had brought objects like rotten eggs, potatoes, apples, lemons, shoes and bottles filled with stinky liquids. The protestors began with hissing and booing during Macready's performance and then began hurling the objects at the stage. Some of the theater goers even ripped up their seats. The riot was fueled by anti-British sentiment, especially with the Irish immigrants who faced discrimination and viewed Macready as a symbol of British dominance and the upper class. On May 10th, police were concerned about the level of man-power they had available if a more serious riot occurred. The state's Seventh Regiment were assembled in Washington Square Park, as well as mounted troops, light artillery and hussars, to a total of 350 men along with the 100 police officers outside the theater alone. By the time the play opened at 7:30 p.m., 10,000 people filled the streets surrounding the theater. The rioters broke theater windows and attempted to set fire to the building. By the end of the riot, between 22 and 31 people were killed and 259 were injured including both civilians, police and militia. The Astor Place Riot is also known as the Shakespeare Riot. It is reported that prior to the riot, New York had not known so much gunfire and death since the Revolutionary War.

Houghton Mansion and the Masons (Suggested by: Nicole Cardarelli)

The Houghton Mansion in North Adams, Massachusetts was named for the family that commissioned its construction. Their biography is ripe for ghost stories with a tragic car accident leading to further deaths from broken hearts and suicides. The house then spent nearly a century hosting a chapter of the Masonic Order. The Masons have always carried an air of mystery around their organization with rumors of bizarre rituals, sacrifices and hidden knowledge. Many former Masonic temples and centers pop up on haunted lists and we have featured a few. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Houghton Mansion.

North Adams, Massachusetts was settled by Europeans in 1745, during King George's War, when Fort Massachusetts was built along the Hoosac River. That fort would be burned during the Siege of Fort Massachusetts in 1746 when 21 militiamen were no match for a French and Indian battalion numbering 1,000. The Fort was later rebuilt and then refortified for the French and Indian War in 1754. After that, it fell into disrepair. The North Adams Women's Club raised funds to reconstruct the Fort and was reopened as a memorial in 1933 that could be toured. That shut down in the 1960s and the Fort was demolished. A commemorative plaque with a reconstructed chimney are all that remains. The town of North Adams was named for Samuel Adams and became a mill town since water power could be generated from the confluence of the Hoosic River and various manufacturing was the main industry. Everything from clothing to marble to ironworks to cabinets were produced. In the mid 1800s, Arnold Print Works became one of the world's leading manufacturers of printed textiles and this company was started by Albert Charles Houghton (Hoe-ton), or A.C. as most people called him.

A.C. Houghton was born in 1844 in Vermont. A.C. was a driven man from an early age and founded the Houghton Chemical Works of Stamford before he was 21-years-old. He also got involved in real estate and started amassing a small fortune. Cordelia Smith of Stamford became his wife in 1866 and they would have five daughters: Laura, Florence, Susan, Alice and Mary. In 1868, A.C. opened the Parker Mill in North Adams and he would move the family there in 1870. In 1881, he became the president of the Arnold Print Works. And he even dipped his toes into beer when he took over the A.J. Houghton Brewing Company out of Boston when his father, A.J. Houghton died in 1892. There were 31 breweries in Boston at the time. The Stony Brook area had 24 alone and only one of them is still active today. Many of the buildings are gone too, but the A.J. Houghton one is still there at the corner of Station and Halleck Streets. The brewery specialized in Vienna Lager and also made Pavonia Lager Beer, Vienna Old Time Lager and Rockland Ale. That shut down in 1918 due to Prohibition. Houghton became director of the Boston & Albany Railroad in 1895. In 1896, A.C. became the first mayor of North Adams and he served two, one year terms.

It was after this that A.C. decided to build his third home in North Adams. This would be his most extravagant house and was designed in the Neo-Classical Revival style. The outer clapboards are thinner at the base to make the house appear taller. It stood three stories and had a roof of Spanish tile. Behind the house, a formal garden was planted. There was a large horse barn on the property as well. In 1900, A.C. and his wife Cordelia moved in with their 23-year-old daughter Mary who had decided not to marry and planned to just care for A.C. whose health was failing. At this point, Florence, Susan and Alice had all married and were raising their own families. Laura had died in infancy. 

Cars were all the rage by 1914 and the Houghtons decided to buy their first automobile. This was a seven passenger Pierce-Arrow touring car. There was just one problem. The Houghtons had no idea how to drive a car. They decided to send the man who had been the keeper of their horses and carriages to go learn how to drive the car. His name was John Widders and he had also been a family friend. Now he was their official chauffeur. A.C. decided to travel to Bennington, Vermont and he told Mary that she could bring a friend. She asked her childhood friend Sybil Hutton to join her and Sybil's husband Robert came along. The group set out in the Pierce Arrow for the pleasure drive with Widders at the wheel. This drive would be anything but pleasurable. 

First, the road they were driving along was under repair. This was a road designed for carriages, not cars. The road was very narrow, so two cars could barely fit when passing. As Widders made his way up the gentle grade of Oak Hill Road, he saw a team of horses parked ahead on the right side of the road. He passed them on the left, but there wasn't enough road there and the tires on the left side of the car left the road, causing the car to tilt off the road. They had been heading uphill and so the car rolled down the embankment and rolled three times before coming to a stop. Mary was still in the car, but everyone else had been thrown from the car. This was a car with no roof, so you can imagine that if Mary was still in the car, that wasn't a good thing. She was mortally injured, but still alive. She was taken to North Adams Hospital where she passed away later that day. Sybil Hutton had been killed instantly with the first roll. Dr. Hutton, A.C. and Widders all walked away from the accident with minor injuries.  

Widders was riddled with guilt and the following morning, he was found dead in the cellar of the horse barn with a bullet in his head. He had apparently taken his own life with a horse pistol. The investigator for the State of Vermont exonerated Widders and said that the soft shoulder of the road was to blame. But that mattered little since Widders was no longer alive. The family had him buried in their family plot at South View Cemetery, so they didn't blame him either. A.C. Houghton would die 10 days after the accident. Some say that it was from injuries caused by the accident, but others claim he died from a broken heart. He was 70 years old. 

Cordelia Houghton remained in the house until her death four years later in 1918. By this point, Florence had moved into the house with her husband, William Gallup, to care for her mother. The couple remained in the house until 1926 and they sold it to the local Masonic order, which is today the Lafayette-Greylock Freemasons. This was formed from a merger of two lodges with the original dating back to 1847. The Masons would remain in the house for 90 years. They pulled out the formal garden and constructed their lodge building on the spot. 

Freemasonry claims to go back to the Middle Ages, but the oldest document referencing the Masons is the Regius Poem from 1390. The First Grand Lodge of England formed in 1717 from four lodges. The fraternity spread throughout Europe and then came over to the American Colonies. Many of the Founding Fathers were Freemasons. Forty-four signers of the Declaration of Independence belonged to the Fraternal Order. President George Washington laid the cornerstone for the U.S. Capitol on September 18, 1793 and paintings about the moment feature him wearing his Masonic apron during the ceremony. He placed an inscribed silver plate under the cornerstone and to this day, nobody can figure out where the cornerstone is located. Metal detectors have been unable to find that metal plate. Our Supreme Court was shaped by Chief Justice John Marshall, also a Mason. The goal of Freemasonry is to spread the ideals of the Enlightenment and contribute to social improvement. They founded orphanages and homes for widows and the elderly. We've talked about several here on the podcast. And while they have done many good things, there are those that claim there is a dark side to Freemasonry.

Now much of what we are going to share here is based on conspiracy theories and such, but its extremely intriguing and we find some of it compelling. Many members of the Freemasons and Eastern Star join for the camaraderie and business dealings. Most probably don't know the ancient origins of their rituals and maybe think its all just a fun little aside. Few reach the upper echelons of membership and probably are never taught some of the darker things. Now there really may be nothing to any of this, but let's be honest, if you have secret handshakes and hide your rituals and membership is by "invite only," you are asking for scrutiny. Anyone who has been inside these old Masonic Lodges has probably gotten a weird feeling because of the symbology all around them from the black and white checkerboard floors to carved chairs and sculptures of ancient deities and the head dude is called the Worshipful Master. The weirdest temple is in DC. The Masonic Lodge in DC is called the House of the Temple and was inspired by the Mausoleum at Halicarnassus - so yeah, a tomb. It was one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. The interior has black statues representing Egyptian figures made from black marble. That marble came from Lake Champlain and took 15 years to find. They are all carved from that one piece and the carving was done inside the temple. Greek figures adorn the lamps and chandeliers.

Freemasonry communicates secretly through symbolism. Washington, D.C. was laid out specifically according to Mason design. From overhead, one can see the pentagram that Masons have as one of their symbols. The square and compass are other symbols laid out in the street plans and such for D.C. The most obvious symbol is the Washington Monument. We all know that it is meant to be a giant phallic symbol. It measures 66,635 inches tall and 6,660 inches long at the base. And what does that phallic symbol need to be complete? A womb, right? That would be the domed Capitol Building. In ancient mythology and the mystery religions of Egypt, placing this phallus and womb in this way was like setting up an energy generator and this was to draw up the seed of Osiris from the Underworld. For those that don't know the Egyptian myth behind this, Osiris and Isis were brother and sister and also became husband and wife. They also had a brother named Set who was jealous of Osiris and he killed him one day so that he could be king. Set cut Osiris' body into 13 pieces and scattered them. Isis was devastated and managed to collect 12 pieces, but she never found his phallus. She had great magical powers and brought Osiris back to life. She fashioned him a phallus from a magical obelisk and soon becomes pregnant. After this, Osiris descended to the underworld and he is lord of that domain. their son Horus then became king of Egypt. Another location where you can find this design is St. Peter's Square. There's a giant obelisk and then St. Peter's Basilica as the womb. 

Francis Bacon was an English philosopher and the father of empiricism. He was a part of the scientific revolution and he wrote a book titled "New Atlantis" about a utopian island. Bacon believed that America was the New Atlantis. He was influential to some of the Founders. Thomas Jefferson wrote, "[Francis] Bacon, [John] Locke and [Isaac] Newton. I consider them as the three greatest men that have ever lived, without any exception, and as having laid the foundation of these superstructures which have been raised in the Physical and Moral Sciences." Thomas Jefferson was also the man who suggested that the Capitol should resemble the Roman Pantheon, which was a circular domed rotunda dedicated to all pagan gods. Some believe that Bacon was the father of Freemasonry in America.

Masonic lodges offer three masonic degrees and these are Entered Apprentice, Fellowcraft and Master Mason. Most Masons fall into those degrees, but there are masonic bodies that offer higher degrees to Master Masons, all the way up to the 33rd degree. That's what Shriners are - 33rd degree Masons. Their main ritual reflects on this character named Hiram Abiff, which Masons claim was the chief architect of King Solomon's Temple. The Bible does mention a master craftsman named Hiram in 1 Kings 7:13-14 and he cast the bronze furnishings and ornate decorations for the temple. The King of Tyre sent building materials for the temple and his name was also Hiram, but it isn't believed by Masons that this was Hiram Abiff. The Masonic ritual reenacts his murder at the hands of three fellowcraft masons. He is ambushed while leaving and tied up. The three demand to know the secrets of a master mason and he refuses to tell them. Each one asks and then strikes him with a mason's tool. The first two hits injure him and the last kills him. His body is hidden under a pile of rubble temporarily and then the assailants retrieve it at night and take it outside the city of Jerusalem and bury it in a shallow grave. Hiram's body is found later by other masons and given a proper burial. King Solomon declares that the secret word of a master mason is now lost, so he replaces it with another secret word. And that is the main secret the upper echelon of Masons are keeping. 

Other rituals conducted by the Masons are to raise Osiris, who was called Apollo by the Greeks. Ancient myths believe that Apollo will be raised again and indwell a man and take his place leading a new Golden Age. And just to really add something to this, you know the missions to the moon were called Apollo and then a number. Buzz Aldrin is a Mason and he carried a special deputation with him that was intended to establish territorial jurisdiction on the moon for the Grand Lodge of Texas. Oh and in the Bible, in Revelation 9:11 is says, "They have as king over them the angel of the bottomless pit. His name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in Greek he is called Apollyon."

I was checking out this particular orders Facebook page and just a couple posts down was this:

Umm, why are they using the image from the movie poster for The Exorcist for whatever this is?

The Masons couldn't upkeep the house after 90 years and in 2017, sold to hotel developer Benjamin Svenson for $160,000. The Houghton House today is still privately owned and no longer open for tours or investigations, which is a real bummer. The house still looks much like it did when the Houghtons lived there. Siding covers the clapboard now and the Spanish tile roof was replaced with asphalt. Its also said to be the most haunted place in North Adams. Masons, visitors and investigators all have reported hearing the disembodied voices of a man and a lady thought to be Mr. and Mrs. Houghton. Shadow figures were also seen many times. And Mary Houghton’s former room was always a place that made people feel an overwhelming sense of sorrow. There also is the spirit of a young girl in the basement who is thought to go back to a house that was on the property before the Houghton Mansion. The mansion was built on the basement and foundation from that previous house. The young girl is seen walking across the basement and fading into the walls. The lockers in the Mason's locker room would open and close on their own.

There are those who believe that the activities of the Masons may have conjured entities in the house as well and it DOES seem that most Masonic buildings have some kind of haunting going on inside. Same for the Odd Fellows. Could it be their use of real human bones in rituals, particularly in the past? Talk about causing unrest! Queenofdan on Reddit said, "I slept over at that place a good dozen or so times, and every time is different! We’ve had moments that were so dramatic we would run to each other like toddlers and huddle, and other times not much happened except we’d spook ourselves with anticipation. But that place is definitely spooky." Another group caught an EVP of who they thought was Widders saying, "I have a heavy heart."

Hometown Ghost Stories are Dave and Rob and they investigated in 2014 and they decided to try out the claim that a certain door will close when A.C. is asked to do it. The first time they asked, the door closed immediately. The second time they asked, it didn't close and then they said, "Let's do a countdown to three and on three, close the door" and sure enough, the door closed on three. Rob was in Mary's bedroom by himself when he heard a massive bang that startled him so much that he jumped to his feet and knocked over an end table. He tried to see what in the room could've made the sound and he couldn't find anything. Dave tried an experiment where he knocked on a wooden altar in the middle of a room and asked something to knock in return  and something did. He tried it again with the same result. When they reviewed the footage, they noticed they captured a shadow figure moving left to right when the knocking sounds were made. Rob was investigating Widder's bedroom later and wasn't really getting anything and then all of a sudden there was a drastic drop in temperature in the room and Robe could hear footsteps moving up the hall and then he heard a door slam. He thought maybe it was Dave, but when he radioed him, he found out that Dave was out in his car in the parking lot.

Ghost Adventures hit the Houghton Mansion early on with it being their second episode of Season 1. On the episode, a member of the Masons told Zak that he was in the mansion one day, standing near the side entrance hall when he heard the side-entrance door open and close and then there were footsteps. He assumed someone had come in and he looked and saw snowy footprints on the ground in the hallway leading away from the door. There was no snow on the ground, so this wasn't surprising. What was surprising is that the footsteps just stopped abruptly and there was no one else in the house that he could find. The crew were shown a wall that was made from rock taken from the Hoosac Tunnel. This was a tunnel that stretched nearly five miles and was constructed from 1851 to 1875. Two hundred men lost their lives during the construction and people started calling it "The Bloody Pit." There are those that think these stones are cursed because they came from the Bloody Pit, particularly with the tragedy that befell the Houghtons. A former president here, Josh Mantello, told Zak that members would use audio recorders in the house to see if they could catch anything and that in Mary Houghton's former room they caught screams and someone yelling "Get out!" Mantello also said he saw a full-bodied apparition on the third floor, standing in a doorway at night. They also captured a picture of a ghostly face in a third-floor window. In the basement, Mantello and others have been tapped on the shoulder by something they couldn't see. During the investigation, they capture a wispy human-shaped shadow bolt from the left side of the hall to the right side and they hear an audible yell from a woman. They also hear footsteps in Mary's room. They hear the sounds of doors shutting while in the Masonic Temple. They capture an EVP of a man saying "Ran for help." Could this have been John Witters?

The Central New Hampshire Paranormal Society and Boston Paranormal Investigators investigated the mansion in 2014. They share on the BPI blog, "The session in the bedroom was interrupted by Eric Perry who took David out of the room for a minute. David came back in and informed us that there was an incredible amount of activity in the basement and that they eventually had to leave as several of the group members just sighted a full body apparition of a little girl." So the rest of the group heads to the basement and they didn't see the apparition but, "We were asking several questions about the little girl entity and when we played back a set of three questions. We heard an audible ‘yes’ when we asked if she like animals." And they continue, "After another short break we headed to the Ball Room. A large room that was directly below the Masonic Temple and an addition attached to the backside of the property. The site for the addition sat on what was once Mary Houghton’s garden and we could have told you that in retrospect because the room smelled of flowers. You can imagine the excitement from the group when we walked into this grand room and all smelled the same sweet scent...After another break it was time to head to the third floor. This is where the servants quarters were located including the room of John Widders, the Chauffeur who in his guilt shot himself in a barn formally on the property. We spent about 20 Minutes in his bedroom...The Freemason guides indicated that although his presence was felt around the house, it came and went periodically. During our time in the room, one of the investigators meters constantly went off, but other than that it was pretty quiet. That is, until we moved over to the next room. We started asking for anything/anyone to give us a sign, specifically for John Widders. Several of us took photos which led to one of the more interesting ones of the night. The photo of the potential shadow person or black mass that can be seen in the anomalies section of the report. After this point, a spirit box that was on and had been left by the other group started getting active. Immediately we all turned toward the box and were startled by what could not be mistaken for anything other than ‘Get Out’. We confirmed this with one another before we heard it again. As we started to get uneasy it took a third time for us to pack up and immediate leave the floor. We did not want to be where we were not welcome."

Irene Loewenson wrote in The Williams Record in October of 2019, "Williamstown resident James 'Cricket' Wondoloski, [estimates] that he has spent the night in the purportedly haunted North Adams mansion 13 times. Wondoloski would stay in the mansion with a group of friends who were also interested in ghost-hunting. On his first overnight, he and his friends saw a lantern-like light float up the stairs and heard creaking but did not see anyone walking. Then, the light went out. 'We all freaked out,' he said. 'And then we were quiet and we could hear footsteps right above our heads… We went up, and there was nobody there...It was quite fun to go...Sometimes a lot of things happened. Sometimes nothing happened.' On more eventful nights, he has felt a 40-degree gust of air in the middle of summer, heard a girlish giggle and been scratched on the back of his neck, he said. His friend reported feeling a tug on his ponytail." 

The Houghton family endured a tragedy no family should ever have to experience. Is the pain from the car accident somehow locked into the house, trapping those connected to the accident? And what about the Masons? Were they just interacting with the former owners or did they conjure some entities themselves? Is the Houghton mansion haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 585 - S.K. Pierce Mansion

Moment in Oddity - Bone Collector Caterpillar (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

The vast majority of caterpillars are herbivores. They can quickly consume all the leaves and blossoms of your favorite garden plant. There are some caterpillars however, that fall into the category of carnivorous, believe it or not. One of these carnivorous caterpillars is known as the 'bone collector caterpillar'. This interesting little fella is found on the island of Oahu, Hawaii. Describing the insect as unique is an understatement. The caterpillar is a scavenger for the most part, but it is also known to be cannibalistic at times. Yes, they will also eat their own kind. This strange insect will pull its meals from spider webs. Sounds dangerous for the caterpillar, right? Well not entirely, the creatures disguise themselves with the cadavers of other insects that they find. This helps to camouflage them while pilfering their next meal from unsuspecting spiders. These carnivorous caterpillars happily feast on the leftovers that a spider has hanging around its web. The caterpillar's corpse costume hides them from the unwitting spider hosts. This newly discovered insect was happened upon by Dr. Daniel Rubinoff and his colleagues while hiking the Waianae mountains nearly 20 years ago. But only recently had an article published about it in April of 2025. At the time of its discovery, the group was searching for the Hawaiian case caterpillar who shares the same genus as the Bone Collector caterpillar. The Dr. stated, “We see this little, tiny sac covered in bug bits, and honestly, we weren’t sure what it was,” says Rubinoff. “And then we take it back [to the lab], and we realize there is a little caterpillar in there.” A caterpillar that masquerades in a macabre mask and gives us Buffalo Bill, Silence of the Lambs vibes, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Brahms Born

In the month of May, on the 7th, in 1833, composer Johannes Brahms was born in Hamburg, Germany. Brahms composed over 200 songs in his lifetime including orchestral, choral, piano, symphonies and chamber works, including his German Requiem commemorating the death of his mother. In his early years, he studied music with his father who was a horn and double bass musician. By the age of seven, Johannes was sent for piano lessons with F.W. Cossel then, three years later, Brahm graduated to lessons from Cossel's teacher, Edward Marxsen. As a teen, Johannes earned money for his family by playing near the docks of Hamburg. He also spent time composing and giving recitals. In 1853, Brahms was recommended to composer Robert Schumann and the two struck up a friendship. Due to the praises of Schumann in a public article, Brahms became well known in the world of music. Brahms was influenced by composers like Schumann, Beethoven, Mozart, Bach and Wagner just to name a few. Though he never married and was not apt to showing his emotions in his personal life, his musical compositions displayed deep and emotional spectrums. Pieces would range from intense energy and drama, to impeccable lyricism. Despite not easily showing outward emotions, Brahms loved spending time with children and dogs. After his good friend Robert Schumann died in 1856, Brahms offered Clara Schumann, Robert's widow, emotional support and assistance. Although Johannes and Clara developed a strong connection historians debate whether or not they ever became more than that. In April of 1897, Johannes Brahms passed away from cancer of the liver, less than a year after the death of Clara Schumann.

S.K. Pierce Victorian Mansion (Suggested by: Missy Crawford and Brittany Cox) 

One can't miss the S.K. Pierce Mansion in Gardner, Massachusetts. This magnificent mansion is a huge Victorian that takes up the whole corner of West Broadway and Union Street. The grand exterior makes it very inviting, but the ghost stories connected to this place might just make you think twice before entering. There are those that claim this home is the second most haunted house in Massachusetts. Some owners have been chased out by spirits. There could be more than a dozen spirits here and one of them may be the furniture magnate for whom the house was built and named: S.K. Pierce. Join us for the history and hauntings of the S.K. Pierce Mansion.

Just last month, April 2025, the S.K. Pierce Victorian mansion was listed for sale. HGB clubhouse perhaps? It's a little steep at $1.2 million, but it has a fascinating history. The mansion is located at 4 West Broadway in Gardner, Massachusetts. Gardner was first settled by Europeans in 1764 and incorporated into a township in 1785. The town was named for Colonel Thomas Gardner, an American politician and soldier who was fatally wounded at the Battle of Bunker Hill. Woodworking factories and sawmills were the initial industries and this would grow into a furniture manufacturing powerhouse that included twelve furniture factories. So many chairs were made here that Gardner became "The Chair City of the World." They averaged 1.2 million chairs a year. To recognize this, the town has a twenty foot chair monument. A little fun fact is that an employee of one of these furniture companies, Edward G. Watkins, created a time recording device in 1888 that was used to record employees work schedule. You know, a time clock. And it was because of this that we get our saying "punching the clock." Gardner became the City of Gardner in 1923.

We've talked in other episodes about lumber barons and robber barons. Perhaps there was such a thing as a furniture baron? Ok, so that's our creation, but if there was such a thing as a furniture baron, Sylvester Knowlton Pierce would have been one. I guess the term magnate fits better. Pierce was born in 1820 in Massachusetts and went by the nickname S.K. He married Susan Elvira Jackson in 1845 and the couple had one son in 1856 whom they named Frank. S.K. amassed a large fortune with his furniture empire and he decided it was time to build himself a home befitting his station in life.

Construction began on S.K.'s masterpiece of a Victorian mansion in 1873. Architects E. Boyden and Son designed the mansion in the Second Empire architectural style, so it basically looks like the Addams Family house. The current paint job is dark gray with black shutters, so that fits with that imagery perfectly. We're not sure what color it was originally. When the mansion was completed two years later, it was three stories tall and had a basement that had a tunnel that led across the street to a furniture factory. There were 26 rooms that included 10 bedrooms, a formal dining room, billiards room, two parlors, library and four bathrooms. S.K. spared no expense in the construction and he made sure the house was as modern as possible. There were two cisterns that collected rainwater from the slate roof, so the Pierce's had running water in the house. There was gas lighting and there were speaking tubes and electric bells for communication throughout the house. A dumb waiter could reach all three floors. The interior decor was gorgeous with 16 types of wood and hand-carved moldings and cornices, a walnut staircase, Tiffany glass everywhere, crystal chandeliers and massive doors that were nine-feet tall and constructed from solid black walnut. And when we say "solid" we mean solid. The doors weighed over five-hundred pounds apiece. A tower with a circular staircase led up to a widow’s walk,so the family had sweeping views of South Gardner.

Tragedy struck right after the Pierces moved into their dream home. Susan contracted a bacterial infection, that we have heard was the flesh-eating kind, and she passed away only a few weeks after moving into the house. S.K. grieved her for a year, but when a woman thirty years younger than his wife caught his eye, he got over his sorrow. This was Nellie West and he married her in 1878. They would have two sons together, Stuart and Edward. Together, the Pierces became the social hub of Gardner. They hosted P.T. Barnum and other prominent people in the area. After ten years of marriage, S.K. passed away in the house in 1888 and he left the house to Nellie who remained in it until her death in 1902. Then the house passed onto the three Pierce boys who fought over ownership of the house and the furniture business. Frank and Stuart finally gave up and left the house to Edward. The Freemasons used the house for meetings at this time and Edward hosted some famous people at the house including President Calvin Coolidge when he was a Senator for Massachusetts, Norman Rockwell and Bette Davis. Another tragedy for the Pierce family took place here when Edward's two-year-old daughter contracted a bacterial infection and died in the house. Not sure if it was the same kind that Susan died from. About that same time, The Great Depression began and it hit the furniture business hard. Edward couldn't keep up with the house, so he and his wife opened it as a boarding house. This part of the history is murky. The sensational stories claim that the place was a brothel that hosted gambling and drinking. A lady of the evening was said to have been killed here in what later came to be known as the Red Room. Of course, we found no newspaper accounts to support this.

A Finnish immigrant named Eino Saari was sleeping in his bed when a fire broke out in 1963. When the firemen arrived, they found a weird situation. Saari had been mostly consumed and the bed was badly burned, but the fire hadn't spread to any other part of the room. This sounded like a classic example of spontaneous combustion. A young boy drowned in the basement as well during this time. Many people had died here. Edward maintained ownership of the house until 1965, when he had to sell it out of the hands of the Pierce family and a good friend named Jay Stemmermen bought the house and allowed him to live at the house until he died in 1967. By the 1980s, Stemmerman had abandoned the house. Jay was an artist and he created some weird pieces while at the house that he left behind. Paintings depicted half-man, half-beast creatures. Other pictures depicted orgies.

The mansion was slated to be demolished in 1996, but fortunately, that didn't happen. The Victorian was bought in 2000 by Suzanne and Mark Veau (Vo) and they renovated the house. Weird stuff started happening in the house and they eventually invited TAPS to come investigate and after that, they decided to start hosting ghost tours of the house. They put the house on the market in 2007 when they divorced and had to keep reducing the price before anyone would buy it because of the haunted reputation. The couple who did buy it in 2009 had no idea about the hauntings. They just thought they were getting a great deal. Amityville anyone? LOL! Although we don't believe that house had any hauntings. Anyway, Lillian Otero and Edwin Gonzalez became the new owners. After they purchased the house in 2009, they had so many paranormal experiences that they moved out of the house. The couple claimed that the ghosts in the house were angry and threatening and that one of them had even possessed Lillian. They claimed the place had been their dream home, so something must have happened to them. We'll get more into their experiences in a minute. When the couple moved out, they handed the keys over to a woman named Marion to be the caretaker and despite new owners, she has remained the caretaker to this day.

The Dark Carnival is a circus-themed haunted attraction that was established in 2010 and provided high intensity scary shows across the state of New Jersey. They worked with top animators and prop masters in the haunt industry to keep their shows cutting edge. In 2015, they - and the "they" is Rob and Allison Conti - decided to go a different route and they acquired the S.K. Pierce Mansion from Edwin and Lillian and set about restoring it further. And Yes, Lillian and Edwin owned the house for seven years, but only lived in it for two of them. Their website says, "The Dark Carnival will open the Mansion to the public for overnight rentals for the brave souls who wish to experience the Mansion during it's darkest hours, and for historical ghost tours where guests can learn about both the positive and negative history of this home. During the Halloween season we plan to open the basement only of the Mansion (weekends only in October) for what will truly be a one of a kind SK Pierce themed Halloween attraction as it will be the only haunt in the country that combines the haunt industry and the paranormal industry. As guests travel through the bowels of the Mansion, they will encounter 30-35 of our trained actors, high end illusions and animations, and may even get a glimpse of the truly paranormal. Best of all, since this attraction is only in the basement, guests can have some scares in the spirit of the season without ever affecting the majesty of the main levels of this marvelous home."

And, whelp, that never seemed to happen. The website is set up for tours, so we believe they did offer those through the years. And now the place is on the market for over $1 million. Today, the house sits on .23 acres and has 9 bedrooms and 3.5 baths with that gray exterior adorned by black shutters. The listing agent isn't shy about the haunted reputation and is using that as an angle to sell the house. And there are many stories to back up those paranormal claims. Residents of the house and guests have all claimed to experience paranormal activity. Full-bodied apparitions were seen and furniture would move on its own. Disembodied chanting and voices have been heard. The screens have come flying off the windows. There have been foul odors and weird temperature changes. And probably the weirdest claim is a sound like a lion's roar, which could shake the house. Visitors claim to be pushed by something they can't see. One was almost pushed down the stairs and another felt as though something tried to force them out a third story window.

There are estimates of thirteen ghosts here with a few of them being identified. These include S.K. Pierce himself, Susan Pierce, Edward Pierce, a Pierce nanny named Mattie Cornwell, David - the red room strangler - and the prostitute he murdered in the red room, a young boy, a younger girl, Eino Saari and some unnamed dark entities in the basement. A neighbor living next door had seen lights turn on and off in the mansion when it was empty. The fire alarms would go off as well with no fire and she would see shadows moving inside. Clearly, Mark and Suzanne experienced some stuff.

Edwin Gonzalez knew in his gut that something was wrong with the house before they put in an offer in 2009. When he and Lillian toured the house, he felt a weird pressure in certain rooms and even became nauseous a couple times. He hoped it was just lunch because Lillian really loved the house. After they closed on the house and moved in, they met their neighbor and he asked them about their children. Edwin and Lillian were confused because they didn't have kids. They explained they had no children and the neighbor looked confused. He asked, "Who was the kid that I saw earlier in the house today?" Edwin asked, "What do you mean?" The neighbor explained that he saw a boy who was probably five or six years old looking out of one of the windows on third floor and then almost immediately that same boy was looking out of a window on the opposite end of the house. Edwin just said there was no way because only he and Lillian were in the house and that it would be impossible for anybody to move that fast in the house because that person would literally have to go through a wall to do it that fast. Lillian and Edwin didn't immediately think they had a ghost though. Maybe just a weird neighbor.

But it wasn't a weird neighbor who slammed one of the big doors downstairs in the middle of the night, awakening Lillian and Edwin. They would also hear loud knocking and the doorbell went off by itself later that week. Edwin worked from home and he made the former nursery his office. He was working in there late one afternoon when the image of a man appeared and rushed towards him. The vision was so real that Edwin threw up his hands to protect himself and squeezed his eyes shut. When nothing happened, he opened then and looked around the room and there was no one there. He checked the house and he was alone. It really freaked him out. He believed this was the spirit of Eino Saari. One morning Lillian was awakened and told by a voice to get up and get dressed and go into the basement and start digging. She dug around in the kiln and found a bone. Edwin had a doctor's appointment the next day and he took the bone with him. The doctor confirmed that the bone was human. It was the pelvic bone of a teenage female. The police came to investigate the house and took the bone. No one knows who the bone belongs to, but there is some lore that claims S.K.'s son had impregnated a servant girl and did away with her. Lillian and Edwin's stories and this discovery of bones led to a book written by Joni Mayhan entitled "Bones in the Basement: Surviving the S.K. Pierce Haunted Victorian Mansion."

This excerpt is from the first chapter of that book. (Read excerpt) 

Joni was a part of investigations in the house and during one they recorded this EVP saying "Franklin." (SK Pierce EVP Franklin) And they got this through the Spirit Box in the basement. (SK Pierce Ghost Box Devil) Is this confirming a demon in the basement? And there's this chilling EVP. (SK Pierce EVP Help Me) A female voice calling out for help? Joni told the Dark House Podcast during an interview that she felt the spirits turned negative on Edwin and Lillian because they weren't upkeeping the house. Once the current owners came in and started pouring money into repairs, the hauntings became much more friendly.

Ghost Adventures visited in 2013 on the invite of Lillian and Edwin. They caught the sound of several loud bangs that seemed to get progressively louder. Aaron was touched on the shoulder by something on the third floor and when he and Zak ask who is up there, they hear an audible "me." The 3rd floor X camera captures a ball of light that moves above the mirror and disappears into the room that Zak and Aaron are standing in front of. The Spirit Box says "he's here", "David?", "hi", "no", "not sure" and "Lillian." The only EVP they captured said, "go to sleep."

A woman named Jeanne visited the house in October 2022. She wrote on Facebook, "A tour was taking place while I was there. These were guided tours and they started in the basement & worked their way up. When I got home & looked at my photos, I could clearly see a man, with his hands behind his back, on the first floor. But, up on the 3rd floor, there was a young boy, pointing down to us. The tours were by group, guided and if they were only on the first floor, who is that young boy on the 3rd floor? You can see the man on the 1st floor window on the right. The boy is on the top floor, middle window." (We'll post picture.) There is clearly a little head up in that window.

Jason Hawes returned to the mansion in 2025. This was his third visit and he said he's always had activity there. Upon entering, Jason and his friend JV immediately heard a bang coming from the basement. They put a REM pod on the kiln. They hear a noise that sounds like a bunch of boxes falling over. And then an audible whisper. The REM Pod went off a minute later when they asked if the person who was hurt was there with them. They heard whispering again. They think they picked up the sound of a cat later and there are reports of a ghost cat. This was a really interesting investigation, especially with all the audible voices. The caretaker/manager that we mentioned earlier, Marion, shared a picture with the guys of a figure captured in a window and it sure looks like a woman. 

The Stromedy Channel on YouTube featured a tour of the house and Marion shared a picture of something taken down in the basement on there that we'll share on Instagram also. They used a phone app for a Ghost Box and got some interesting stuff that mostly felt negative telling them to leave and go and they felt like many spirits were trying to talk to them, but this one male spirit was in charge and not letting them. The group went upstairs and used a real Spirit Box and thought they were communicating with Maddie and the story they got was that Maddie was dragged out of this room, down to the basement and killed and that Sylvester is the bad guy in the house. They also did a sort of Estes Method, but not with noise cancelling headphones, so not sure I would trust this. But during that they got that this was a family secret and a son was involved. Something interesting did happen during this when they asked Maddie to give a sign. A chair in the corner started rocking on its own. There is nothing historically to back up this story, but maybe it was just hidden well and we do have this pelvic bone that was found. Where did that come from? We will warn you if you go to watch this video that they are part of this new generation of  YouTube ghosts shows and so the camera movements are very jerky and there is a lot of silly scared reactions to everything. 

This mansion is just glorious to look at and the fact that it possibly has spirits inside it, makes it even more enchanting. Many people have had experiences here. We hope that whoever buys it next, does indeed open it to the public as there had been a waiting list of over 3,000 people wanting to overnight at the place. Is the S.K. Pierce Mansion haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 582 - The Mount

Moment in Oddity - Emma Gatewood (Jenny Lynn Raines)

Back in 1955, there was a little granny by the name of Emma Gatewood who one day told her family that she was "going for a hike in the woods". Emma was 67 years old and known by all as Grandma Gatewood. She was a mother of 11 children and grandmother of 23 grandchildren. She was a strong woman after growing up doing strenuous manual labor on the family farm as a child and later marrying Perry Clayton Gatewood who set her to work building fences and mixing cement. Unfortunately, he also physically abused her for more than 30 years. The Monday that Emma told her family that she was going out for a hike, little did they know that diminutive Grandma Gatewood was setting out to establish a record. The 'woods' that Grandma was referring to was the Appalachian Trail and through her grit and determination, she became the first woman to solo hike the entire 2,168 mile trek. She did so with minimal equipment which consisted of the following:  a homemade denim bag with essentials like a blanket, shower curtain, cup, canteen, small pot, spoon, Swiss Army knife, first-aid kit, pins, flashlight, rope, raincoat, warm coat, and a change of clothes, as well as her trusty Keds sneakers. The journey took Grandma Gatewood 146 days and she was not only the first woman to hike the entire trail, but she went on to become the first person to hike the trail three times. Her hiking style was somewhat unconventional as she hiked without a map, tent or sleeping bag and she occasionally relied on the kindness of strangers for food and additional shelter which was more than her shower curtain and minimalist approach could provide. Taking up hiking at an older age is admirable, but accomplishing such a feat as hiking the whole Appalachian Trail not only once, but three times at the age of 67, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Susanna M. Salter elected the first female mayor in the U.S.

In the month of April, on the 4th, in 1887, Susanna M. Salter was elected the first female mayor in the U.S. in Argonia, Kansas. In the late 19th century the women's suffrage movement was gaining strength, bolstering the push for women's right to vote and have a voice in civic life. That burgeoning push for social change inspired many women to step up to challenge the opposition of societal norms. The movement was supported by organizations like the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and this is how the environment changed and America's first female mayor's story began. In Argonia, Kansas, there was a group of men who believed that there was no place in politics for women. As a spoof, the men decided to add the name of Susanna M. Salter to the ballot for the position of mayor. The men, thinking it was a great joke, believed that the prank would emphasize their point of view. Mrs. Susanna Salter was an active, respected and beloved member of the community. The men's goal of nominating Salter without her knowledge was to prove their point that women had no purpose in politics. Their intention was to humiliate Mrs. Salter and to discourage all women from striving for equality, especially in the world of politics. When word spread of the men's antics, Susanna's supporters quickly turned the prank into a full blown campaign. Many rallied for the unexpected nominee and to the pranksters' chagrin, Susanna M. Salter won by a landslide with over 60% of the vote. Not only did Ms. Salter break a glass ceiling, she proved that women do indeed have a seat at the political table.

The Mount (Suggested by: Mary Larkin)

Edith Wharton was a woman ahead of her time when she was born into her upper-class New York family. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and is considered one of America's greatest writers. She inspired countless other authors and gave the world a glimpse into the rich of the Gilded Age. Wharton also wrote ghost stories. She believed in ghosts. The home that she built, that is known as The Mount, is said to be haunted. Join us as we explore this interesting woman's life and the history and hauntings of The Mount.

The Mount is located in Lenox, Massachusetts in the highland area of western Massachusetts known as The Berkshires (Burk sheer z). The man who named them was the royal governor between 1760 to 1769, Sir Francis Bernard. The name came from an area in England known as Berkshire. Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick from his home that had a view of a Berkshire mountain that looked a lot like a white whale when covered with snow. Melville described that whale as a "grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air," which supports the theory that he was inspired by the mountain. Someone else who found inspiration at the Berkshires was Edith Wharton.

George Frederic Jones was a wealthy man from real estate investing and the profits of his family-owned bank, the Chemical Bank of New York. That bank was one of the 3rd largest banks in the United States all the way up until 1995. Legend claims that this Jones family is the one that inspired the saying "keeping up with the Joneses." George was born in New York in 1821. In 1844, he married Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander. Lucretia came from a wealthy family and grew up on her grandfather's estate that was called "The Mount." Frederic's parents didn't approve of Lucretia and they told their son that if he continued to court her, they would not give him a sailing boat he wanted. Frederic married Lucretia anyway. They would experience times of financial hardship, which was worsened by an addiction Lucretia picked up. While on their honeymoon in Paris, Lucretia saw all of the lovely clothes made and sold there and she became a "clothes-a-holic," wearing only clothes imported from Paris. The couple would have three children, Frederic, Henry and Edith. Edith was the youngest and born twelve years after Henry in 1862.

The family lived in a brownstone at 14 West 23rd Street in New York City when Edith was born. That brownstone no longer stands and was replaced with a building housing apartments and several businesses. Starbucks is currently at 14 W. 23rd St. Friends and family called Edith "Pussy Jones." Although Edith was born during the Civil War, her family wasn't affected much by the war. After the war, they traveled extensively through Europe, visiting Germany, Italy, Spain and France. France became a favorite of the family and many of them would die in France in their elder years, including Edith. Women were encouraged to find themselves a good mate and raise children at this time in America, but that wouldn't suit Edith at all. She pushed back against the female fashion of the time and the etiquette. And she wanted a good education. Her father didn't agree with that and so she had to turn to books and self-education. These were restricted to educational type books as Lucretia feared that Edith would be hard to marry off if she got the wrong ideas from novels. She forbade her daughter to read any novels until she was married. It was said that Edith obeyed her mother on that point. Edith said of her reading, "No children of my own age…were as close to me as the great voices that spoke to me from books. Whenever I try to recall my childhood it is in my father’s library that it comes to life."

From her travels, Edith became fluent in French, Italian and German. She also came to appreciate art and architecture. Edith developed her writing skills and she wrote a book of poetry at the age of sixteen, which the family published privately. At that same time, she was secretly writing a novella. She didn't tell anyone because her mother had squashed an earlier effort she made at writing a novel when she was eleven. Edith made her "debut" into society when she was seventeen. She didn't care for the parties and dances and all the rituals of high society. This will be made clear in her novels in which she skewered these trappings of the Gilded Age. She courted a couple of young men. The first, Henry Leyden Stevens, did propose marriage, but it ended shortly thereafter. Just before that, Edith's father died while the family was in Cannes, France. The year was 1882. She courted another young man, but no proposal came from that. The years passed and Edith obtained the age of twenty-three without a proposal. She was reaching "old maid" status.

Edith's brothers, Frederic and Henry, had a good friend named Edward Wharton, whom everyone called Teddy. He was born into the priviledged life as well, growing up in a wealthy family. He graduated from Harvard and came into his trust fund, which he used to travel. In 1883, he met Edith while they were both in Bar Harbor, Maine. They courted and married in New York in 1885. They purchased an estate in Newport, Rhode Island in 1893. This was a described as a summer "cottage," but we ran across a listing for it in 2019 that had it for sale for $11.7 million. It's utterly gorgeous. Although Edith was wealthy, she didn't removate Land's End into an extravagant place. She cherished simplicity. Edith so enjoyed the decorating of Land's End that she co-authored a tome on design and architecture with Ogden Codman, Jr. titled "The Decoration of Houses" in 1897. It was her first major book. Her time in Newport inspired the novel "The Age of Innocence." After ten years, Edith was done with the community of Newport and its stuffiness. The Whartons decided to buy a property in the Berkshires and build their own estate. This would be The Mount.

The original property was 113 acres and the Whartons were excited to bring a mixture of culture and traditions from their travels through France, Italy and Britain to the decor of the house and the landscape. Edith poured herself into The Mount, so when one sees this grand place, they really are seeing Edith Wharton. The Belton House in England inspired some of the design of the main house.  That house too is reported to be haunted. The spirit is described as being a black-clad spirit that haunts the bedchamber reserved for royal visits. Construction began in 1901 and finished in 1902 and the Whartons hired architect Francis L.V. Hoppin to design the Georgian-Revival manor. The exterior features white stucco and there are dozens of windows framed by dark green shutters. The ground floor has stonework on the outside. The west end of the house is three stories and the garden side is two stories. The manor is capped by a balustrade and cupola.

Ogden Codman, Jr. helped Edith with the interior design. Their main focus was on symmetry, proportion and functionality. The entrance hall features a statue of Pan. There was a library filled with books. The Main Staircase is lined with Rococo-style paintings and leads to the Gallery, which is Italian with archways and terracotta tiles and rows of windows to help show off the art the Whartons had collected. The Dining Room has two French doors leading out onto the back veranda and dark murals on the walls featuring fruit and flowers. There were no overhead lights or square tables in the room because Edith detested both of those things. And although she was about simplicity, many of the walls have embossed designs on them and the crown molding is ornate. Several ceilings also have embossed and elaborate designs. The bedrooms were on the second floor. Edith had her own room and did most of her writing in bed in the morning. She also had an office for writing. There was a sewing room on this floor, as well as a personal maid's room and closets. The main floor had the butler’s pantry, brush room for cleaning shoes and outdoor wear, and offices for household management. The ground floor had the kitchen, a scullery, laundry room and servants' dining room.

Edith designed the formal gardens herself in an Italian style, so they were laid out like rooms. The walled garden had walks and a rustic fountain with a lion's head spout. Her niece was well known landscape architect Beatrix Farrand and she helped Edith design the entrance drive into the house and the kitchen garden. There were walking trails and natural wooded areas. There were also terraced lawns and a French flower garden with a small pool that featured a dolphin fountain in the center. Sweet ferns and grass-covered steps were part of the alpine rock garden. The landscape underwent an extensive restoration that started in 1999 and took several years. Other buildings on the property included a Georgian-Revival gatehouse and stable and Lord and Burnham Greenhouse. BTW, a company bought all the plans and materials and such in 2018 and so is still manufacturing the greenhouses.

Edith wrote of her house, "On a slope over-looking the dark waters and densely wooded shore of Laurel Lake we built a spacious and dignified house, to which we gave the name of my great-grandfather’s place, the Mount…There for ten years I lived and gardened and wrote contentedly…” The Whartons had many servants that had been with them for years and a few Edith considered to be friends. She wrote, "Several of our servants have been with us for so long that I know to the full the strength of feeling one has about such irreplaceable friends." Most of their work was done in the southern wing. Edith wrote forty books in forty years and her most prolific years came at The Mount. It wasn't a happy time for Edith and Teddy though. They were ill-matched and spent the early years of their marriage traveling and raising dogs. They had little in common and Teddy was mentally unstable. Edith took on a lover named Morton Fullerton. She wrote to him of The Mount, "I am amazed at the success of my efforts. Decidedly, I’m a better landscape gardener than novelist, and this place, every line of which is my own work, far surpasses The House of Mirth." That novel she published in 1905. She would also write Ethan Frome here, which was published in 1911. That same year, the Whartons decided to separate and sell the house. Their divorce would be finalized in 1913. Although Edith only spent ten years at The Mount, it is the home she is most known for and it is her legacy. She moved permanently to France.

Edith didn't leave Paris when World War I broke out. She jumped into the war effort through charities and humanitarian groups. These included setting up tuberculosis sanitariums, refugee hostels, work for the unemployed and schools for refugee children.She even went to the front lines to document experiences in writing. For all of her work, she was awarded the French Legion of Honor. After the war, she left Paris for a suburban villa in a small village. In 1920, Edith wrote The Age of Innocence, which was first published in serial form in the magazine Pictorial Review. In October of that year, it was published in book form and went on to win the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Wharton was the first woman to receive a Pulitzer. The novel is set in the New York of Wharton's childhood and was said to be a kinder and gentler version of her work The House of Mirth. The novel reflects on the prewar world that was now lost and Wharton was sad for that. Many of our listeners may have seen the 1993 film of the same name by Martin Scorsese and starring Michelle Pfeiffer as Countess Olenska, Daniel Day-Lewis as Archer, and Winona Ryder as May Welland Archer. Winona Ryder was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance.

Edith only returned to America twice after move to Paris. She spent her latter years writing, gardening and raising dogs. She received an Honorary Doctorate from Yale in 1923. She is remembered as one of America’s greatest writers and the fact that wrote over 40 books in 40 years is an impressive feat not matched by many. She died on August 11, 1937 at the age of 75 at Pavillon Colombe. She is buried, in the Cimetière des Gonards in Versailles. As for The Mount, it became a private residence for a time and then a girls' dormitory for Foxhollow School. It sat vacant for a few years and then a theater group called Shakespeare & Company moved. The Edith Wharton Restoration acquired the property and restored it to its original condition and opened it as a museum. They continue to manage the property that sits on just 50 acres of the original plot. None of the furnishings belong to the Whartons as Edith took everything with her when she moved to Europe. The one exception is the library that has 2500 books that belonged to Edith. All forty of the books she wrote are in the library too. The books are written in several languages and feature a range of subjects revealing how varied Edith's interests were. Many of the books have personal annotations by Edith. The Terrace Cafe has food offerings. Events and weddings can be booked for the property. Group tours and ghost tours are offered. Meaning, The Mount is haunted!  

Wharton was interested in paranormal activity because she had experienced it herself. Many people who read Wharton may be unaware that she not only wrote ghosts stories, but she was very good at crafting them. Edith wrote in the preface to her book Ghosts, which was a compilation of what she felt were her best pieces of supernatural fiction, "I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m afraid of them." She had a fear of ghosts that went back to her childhood. She was sick with typhoid fever when she was nine and almost died. While her mother wouldn't allow her to read novels, a couple of her friends snuck her some books and she wrote of one of the books, "To an unimaginative child the tale would no doubt have been harmless, but it was a 'robber-story' and with my intense Celtic sense of the supernatural, tales of robbers and ghosts were perilous reading." Edith wrote that after she recovered from her illness, "I came to myself, it was to enter a world haunted by formless horrors. I had been a naturally fearless child; now I lived in a state of chronic fear. Fear of what? I cannot say – and even at the time, I was never able to formulate this terror. It was like some dark, indefinable menace, forever dogging my steps, lurking, and threatening; I was conscious of it wherever I went by day, and at night it made sleep impossible, unless a light and a nursemaid were in the room." That didn't keep her from being a fan of the genre as she got older. She would read the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, M.R. James and she said of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw it "stands alone among tales of the supernatural." And her childhood fear gave her inspiration for her own ghost stories. Her first ghost story was titled "The Fulness of Life" and it was published in 1893. The last story she ever wrote was also a ghost story titled "All Souls." Interestingly, she did say during an interview that she couldn't bear to sleep in a room with a book containing a ghost story until she was almost 30 and "I have frequently had to burn books of this kind because it frightened me to know they were downstairs in the library." Now she just might be a ghost herself.

When The Mount was the Foxhollow School for Girls, the first stories of paranormal activity were reported. This started in 1942. The girls reported hearing unexplained noises and having things disappear. When the theater company moved in, the actors reported similar activity that the female students had reported. They too heard weird sounds and they often saw a figure in period dress. Through the years, guests and staff have reported seeing pale faces gazing out of windows from rooms that are empty. Disembodied footsteps are heard in the hallways. Female visitors have had their hair pulled in Teddy's former study. Ghost Hunters visited the location twice - once in 2009 and again in 2015 - and captured audio and visual evidence that included disembodied footsteps and voices.

One of the spirits thought to be here is said to belong to a chambermaid of Edith's named Catherine Gross. The story about her claims that she became pregnant from a lover who rejected her and she hanged herself from the upstairs landing. People claim to see her hanging from that spot. There is also the ghost of a male apparition with glowing eyes. This was seen by a contractor doing renovations in an upstairs apartment. A shadow figure has been seen wandering in the woods near the house and this has been reported for decades. Another ghost seems to belong to Edith's caretaker and chauffer, Charles Cook. This apparition hangs out in the stables mostly and appears many times as a shimmering ball of light. A whispered "goodnight" is heard often as well. We have also seen some stories that claim Wharton is here, although she clearly didn't die here, so maybe she just visits a home that once meant a lot to her. Another female ghost is sometimes seen appearing with sunken eyes and cheeks looking out the window of Edith's bathroom. The Mount's Rebecka McDougall explains that "the ghost tours bring the property to life in an altered, shadowy light. We share stories from former residents, staff and visitors of ghostly encounters and the unexplained" and recent visitors have "mysterious movements and the feeling of an unseen hand on their shoulder."

Seeing this extraordinary house during the day would be amazing. Going on a flashlight tour of the house at night would be a lot of fun. It seems as though there are many spirits here, perhaps conjured by the lovely ghost tales Edith Wharton spun. Is The Mount haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 502 - USS Salem

Moment in Oddity - Magnetic Termites

Magnets can be a fun thing to play with when you are young. The opposite poles on small magnets pushing away from each other or grabbing different metals and comparing the strengths of the pull can be entertaining. Even sweeping a magnet through sand to see what particles may attach to the magnet can be interesting. But what if insects could detect the earth's magnetic poles? Let me introduce you to the Magnetic Termites of Australia. Now, these insects cannot be picked up and stuck onto your refrigerator like a traditional magnet, but what is special about them is that their mounds orientate so that the thinnest points always are formed North to South and they are only found in the northern territory of Australia. This method of architecture reduces the termite mound's exposure to direct heat from the sun, thus keeping the colony more consistently at their optimal temperatures. There have been scientific studies that revealed that the termites are able to use subtle changes in daylight as well as the earth's magnetic poles to determine their mounds architecture. Magnets can be fascinating but insects using the magnetic poles of the earth to benefit their survival certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Cy Young's Major League Debut

In the month of August, on the 6th in 1890, pitcher Cy Young made his major league debut. His birth name was Denton True Young but the nickname of Cy was established due to his fastball pitches which left the fences looking like a cyclone had hit them. This led the press to give him the moniker of Cy. In 1889 he began his professional baseball career in the minors with the Tri-State League in Canton Ohio. He was quickly brought up to the majors to sign with the Cleveland Spiders which had moved from the American Association to the National League just the year before. During his debut game Young pitched a three hit eight to one win over the Chicago Colts. At the time Cy was known for the power behind his hard throwing pitches and according to his long time catcher, Chief Zimmer, he would often times put a piece of beefsteak inside his catchers glove to give him some extra padding against Cy's fastball. That's one way to tenderize a steak. Young continued to excel and play for the major leagues until 1911. He passed away on November 4th, 1955 and during his baseball career established many pitching records. To this day the Cy Young award is bestowed annually in both the American and National League. 

USS Salem (Suggested by: Jared Rang)

The USS Salem was the flagship of the 6th Fleet and is nicknamed "The Sea Witch." She was first launched in 1947 as a Naval cruiser and was fortunate to never see any battle. But that didn't keep her from being linked to death with reports of onboard deaths ranging from 75 to 100. And that has left ghosts on this now floating museum in Quincy, Massachusetts that we had the opportunity to explore when we visited Salem in August of 2022. Join us for the history and hauntings of the USS Salem!

"Hey Jared, thanks so much for joining us" (Intro Jared)

Quincy is a suburb of Boston that was originally settled by the Massachusetts indigenous people. They had cleared many trees from the land that they called Passonagessit, which means "Little Neck of Land." This made it suitable for farming and Europeans settled in 1625, naming it Mount Wollaston for their leader. The next leader of the colony changed the name to Ma-re-Mount meaning "Hill by the Sea." Quincy became the new name and was incorporated in 1792. The name is in honor of Colonel John Quincy, the grandfather of Abigail Adams. Residents of Quincy actually pronounce it as KWIN-zee, which is why we are pronouncing it that way. The town became a shipbuilding center. Many famous warships were built at the Fore River Shipyard and one of these was the USS Salem.

We started our visit to Quincy, Massachusetts with breakfast at a place called McKays. When we left the restaurant, we noticed two very old historic homes right across the street. Imagine our excitement when we found out that they were once the homes where Presidents John Adams and John Quincy Adams were born. John Adams was born at the rear of the lot in 1735 and John Quincy Adams was born in the house that was on the corner in 1767. John Adams drafted the Massachusetts State Constitution at that house. That document would serve as a model for the United States Constitution. John Adams wasn't actually that in to politics. He once wrote, "I should have thought myself, the happiest man in the world, if I could have retired to my little hut and forty acres and lived on potatoes and seaweed." That little hut was actually a fairly nice sized two-story wooden house. 

Jared was a wealth of knowledge when it came to understanding the types and classes of warships. (Jared Ships) (Jared Ships 2) (Jared 2)

The USS Salem was ordered in June of 1943 and had its keel laid down on July 4, 1945 at the Fore River Shipyard by the Bethlehem Steel Company and measured over 716 feet when completed. The ship was named Salem in honor of Salem, Massachusetts and was the third ship to bear that name. (Jared Salem) The Salem was launched on March 25, 1947 and commissioned at the Boston Navy Yard on May 14, 1949. Captain John C. Daniel was in command from the beginning until February 1950. Her first trip was to Guantanamo Bay for training and shakedown exercises and the Salem would make so many trips to and from Guantanamo Bay that sailors started calling her the "Gitmo Express." Captain Edmund B. Taylor took over as commander in 1950 and guided the ship to the Mediterranean to begin her first tour as the Sixth Fleet flagship. The Salem stayed for a few months and was relieved by the Newport News in September 1950. (Jared Salem Guns)

The Salem would return to the Mediterranean for seven deployments as fleet flagship. This would take her to ports in Malta, Italy, France, Greece, Turkey, Lebanon, and Algeria. The Salem spent a few weeks in Boston for repairs and then joined the Atlantic Fleet for maneuvers in January of 1951. She was christened the "Pride of the Fleet" and received the Fleet Battle Readiness Pennant after a competition within the Atlantic Fleet. In November 1951, the ship received her fourth commander, Captain William K. Romoser. By February of 1952, the Salem was back in the Mediterranean and taking part in Exercise Beehive II with military units from Britain, Italy, France and Greece. These exercises were to test Malta's air and coastal defense. It was back to Boston after this  and then back to the Mediterranean for her fourth deployment, which involved Exercise "Weldfest," another NATO exercise involving intensive air and sea action between more than 100,000 troops to test the effectiveness of the West's plans for the defense of Southeastern Europe and the Turkish straits at the time.

(Jared Deaths) Yeah so let's share some details about those incidents. On August 12, 1953, the Ionian earthquake hit the southern Ionian Islands of Greece, measuring 7.3 on the Richter scale. Several other earthquakes would also hit in the month of August, leaving nearly every home on the island of Kefalonia leveled. In the end, six hundred people were killed and most of the survivors moved elsewhere. The Salem was the first American ship to arrive on the scene and she became a floating hospital. The ship also provided relief supplies until her stock ran low just four days later. Death toll numbers for victims who died on the Salem range from 75 to 100, so basically the Salem was a floating morgue during that time. She was relieved by the Des Moines as flagship on October 9, 1953. She was supposed to return to her home port of Boston for repairs, but instead went to the Brooklyn Shipyard to get her radar upgraded. When she arrived, she was docked next to the pier and another ship was tied up to her. A fire broke out on the other ship, which was a lake cruiser. The fire was tamped down quickly, but some men had been injured and were moved to the hospital on board that other ship. As the fire crews were gathering up their gear, a five inch ammo magazine detonated. That explosion took much of the hospital with it, so the men injured in the fire and explosion were brought over to the Salem and seven of them died onboard. The Salem returned to Boston on October 24th for an overhaul.

The years 1954 and 1955 had the Salem traveling from Boston to Guantanamo Bay to the Mediterranean where there were more war games with the Atlantic Fleet. The cruiser left Boston on February 16, 1956 to conduct training exercises at Guantanamo Bay in preparation for a 20-month cruise as the "permanent" flagship of the Commander, 6th Fleet. After the exercises, Salem returned to Boston briefly and then headed over to the Mediterranean on May 1, 1956. The Suez Crisis broke out while she was on her way and the cruiser was diverted to Rhodes in the Eastern Mediterranean where she joined the fleet as flagship. The Suez Crisis was part of the Second Arab-Israeli War, which was an invasion of Egypt by Israel. The United Kingdom and France joined Israel in an attempt to regain control of the Suez Canal. And for people who don't know, the Suez Canal is a 120 mile long artificial waterway that facilitates trade between Europe and Asia. This connects the Mediterranean Sea to the Red Sea through the Isthmus of Suez. During that time, some of the men on another ship loaded one of the guns with ammo after it had already been loaded causing an explosion that killed one man instantly and injured five others, who were brought over to the Salem. They died on board the cruiser. The Salem has seen a lot of death for a ship that never saw any battles. 

The Salem had its moment in the Hollywood sun when it was used in the 1956 film "The Battle of the River Plate." She portrayed the German pocket battleship Admiral Graf Spee and no effort was made to cover her distinctive hull number of 139 because in reality, the German navy often disguised their raider ships to look like neutral ships and at the time of this battle, the United States was still neutral. In the Spring of 1957, the USS Salem's turret #3 won the coveted Gold E for outstanding gun crew. The following year, the cruiser was sent to Norfolk to be scheduled for inactivation. The cruiser escaped that by being called up again to travel to Lebanon to help against a coup. But then she did head back to Norfolk where she was decommissioned on January 30, 1959. She was berthed in the Atlantic Reserve Fleet in Philadelphia. The Salem was surveyed in 1981 to see if she could be reactivated. She was found to be in excellent condition, but funding to reactivate Salem and her sister Des Moines was not secured from Congress. So she sat some more.

It would be in October of 1994, that the Salem would return to her birthplace, Quincy, Massachusetts. There she became the centerpiece of the United States Naval and Shipbuilding Museum. She was recommissioned 46 years to the day of her original commissioning, May 14, 1995, as a member of the Historic Naval Ships Association. She serves as a museum housing the USS Newport News Museum, The US Navy Cruiser Sailors Association Museum, and the US Navy SEALs Exhibit room. The Navy Squadron Patch for USS Salem is a tip of the hat to Salem and features a witch flying on a broom with a little black cat joining her. (Jared 3 - his favorite area) (Kelly to Jared)

*Rabbit Hole: The USS Salem is the Home of Kilroy. “Kilroy Was Here” was a logo that was popular during the forties, fifties and sixties. The scrawled message was first seen in Europe and the Pacific during WWII. The logo featured a face with a big long nose and two large round eyes looking over a wall with the big nose hanging over the wall. Hands gripping the top of the wall were also often drawn with the image. This image was usually seen in newly liberated areas. GIs enjoyed leaving the image in places it wouldn't be expected or hard to get into. Hitler actually became obsessed with finding this Super Spy GI Kilroy. And a story claims a toilet was built for Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin at the Potsdam Conference in 1945 and after Stalin used it he asked an aide who Kilroy was. The story behind Kilroy is this. James J. Kilroy of Halifax, Massachusetts was an inspector of the riveting gangs in the Fore River Shipyard during WWII and after he inspected and counted the amount of rivets done by various crews, he would write in yellow chalk on the steel, “Kilroy was Here.” Most of the time, this message wasn't able to be removed before the ships left Quincy, so that message traveled around the world and became a thing.*

The USS Salem is said to be in the top seven of haunted warships in the world. Travel Channel's Most Terrifying Places featured the Salem in October of 2019. (Jared 5) There are several areas that have quite a bit of activity with the Surgery Room being one of the most active. They hear the screaming of women and babies crying in here because several women gave birth on the ship after the earthquake. The berthing area where the sailors bunked is where children who came on board and died seem to have come in the afterlife. Greek nursery rhymes are heard down here. Some of the spirits reputedly here include a burning man who smells of death and hides in the berthing area beneath the third mess hall. This area was once used as a morgue. There is a young Greek girl missing part of her face who may be a seven-year-old spirit visitors call Lucy. Apparently her mother is here with her too and they dislike another spirit here named Robert. 

A former ghost tour operator named John still gives tours even though he is dead. And there are some entities referred to as The Scratchers who like to claw at the legs of visitors. And someone or groups of someones like to bang the freezer near the pantry. Some investigators have used Ouija boards in the Mess Hall and the boards have spun on their own. Once a group asked what the intentions of the spirits there were and the answer was "murder." A trickster ghost named Skip likes to pretend to be other spirits. Latches slam on their own and chairs have been pulled out and tossed across rooms. And this is really bizarre, people have heard the drill turning on in the dentist's office. Peter Blumberg runs the print shop on the cruiser, which yes, does actually still run, and he said that he saw a shadowy figure appear down a dark hallway. The figure seemed to stare at him for a while and then descended a stairway.

YouTuber Exploring with Josh visited the ship in 2022. The caretaker, Don Decristofaro, who is also a former Naval officer, told them that the week before they visited, another group of three ghost hunters saw a full-bodied apparition in the Volunteer's Lounge. Only they didn't know it was a spirit at the time until they asked Don about other people being on the cruiser. It smelled like cigarette smoke in there and a chair had been pulled out when Don ran in to see what was going on. The guys said the man was wearing a green jacket. Don has worked at the ship for over sixteen years and he told them that he doesn't feel comfortable going anywhere forward of his office. He says that area feels very dark. His hair used to be much longer and every time he would come on the ship, The Chief would yank his hair. The Chief was the man responsible for making sure things ran properly on the ship and respectfully and he likes to hang out in the Galley. There were four guys on Josh's team and while they were recording Don giving them a tour of the ship, they captured a dog bark. There is said to be a ghost dog on ship and she likes to hang out in the barber shop for some reason. 

The group heard disembodied footsteps and caught several EVP responses. They got confirmation that somebody did die during surgery while investigating the surgical room. They captured the creepiest EVP session we've ever heard and it scared Josh enough that he was tempted to stop recording. On a the previous recording they captured a Class A "We are" and then there was a third word that was unintelligible. So Josh did another session asking if they could repeat what they said after "we are." What they captured was angry screaming. He asked another question and there was the angry screaming again. Then an EVP said, "Get off." And then there was screaming again. So in that one quick session there were three of these non-human sounding screams. They decided to stop asking the Chief for his name because they were so unsettled by the screams. We would've been too. They did apologize for irritating him with constantly asking for a name. The Ovilus said dark, haze and Chief. And one of the guys saw a person standing in a doorway across a room from where they were standing. This door lead into the hospital and they had been getting a feeling they were supposed to go into the hospital. When they arrived the Ovilus said, "waiting." Like a spirit had been waiting for them. They got some really interesting evidence.

Kindred Spirits investigated the ship on their "Sea Witch" episode in Season 5 and Don joined them and spoke bluntly to The Chief to see if they could get some interaction, specifically get him to tell them his name. It seems that Don and him don't get along. Don had heard when he first got to the ship that there was an angry sailor spirit there that was abusive towards people. So Don decided to lay down the law and he shouted in the Main Mess Hall, "I hear you're a tough guy. I'm a sailor too and I'm a tougher guy than you ever were dead or alive or someplace in the middle and you should just bring it on." A sensitive with the group told Don, "Oh, he hates you." The spirit felt disrespected and all of a sudden, Don felt as though he were frozen and he was out of sorts because he doesn't remember anything after that until the sensitive shoved him. He saw that blood was running down his palms because he had been making such tight fists that his fingernails had cut into his palms. 

A paranormal investigator named Suzanne Viegas told Adam her group was sitting at a table getting ready to do an EVP session and there was a noise that even made Don turn ghost white. She had never heard anything like this noise before. Then she looked off down the space and saw a black shadow figure. She left right after that happened. Suzanne felt that the ship having a haunted house attraction there might have increased the activity and made it more negative. During the investigation, Adam and Amy asked Don to interact with The Chief and Don said, "You've been screwing around with me for 15 years, but these people are leaving tomorrow and they got no time so just cut it out and give them your damn name" and they caught a clear EVP saying, "F**k you, Don!" So far, no one has had luck in catching his name. Amy felt something grab her ankle while they did a remote viewing exercise with Chip Coffey. Chip heard in his head, "If you like the dead, you'll like it here." He also got the message that someone didn't want to be there and was angry. Amy and Adam brought a Greek translator on with them to talk to the children. The children didn't say that they felt unsafe. 

Ghost Hunters investigated the Salem in 2009 and they captured EVPs featuring banging noises and a female voice saying something indecernible. The guys found that the EMF on the ship was high and that it may be causing  hallucinations and extreme paranoia. Alaina and Ash from the Morbid podcast joined YouTubers Sam and Colby for an investigation of the Salem in November of 2022. Alaina had something blow what felt like cold air in her ear. Alaina and Ash seemed to get the bulk of attention from the spirits rather than Sam and Colby. They got a lot of words on the Ovilus. It seemed pretty active for them. 

The USS Salem was built to help renew the Naval fleet that had been diminished by World War II and she did just that for ten years. She was remarkable and well-suited for battles she would never see, and yet she is tinged with death. Are there spirits still wandering the various areas of the cruiser? Is the USS Salem haunted? That is for you to decide!

At the end of recording we asked Jared about the battles that interested him the most. (Jared End)

HGB Ep. 485 - Cocoanut Grove Fire

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Moment in Oddity - Mummified Squirrel

Many of us have undoubtedly watched one of the six Ice Age movies circa 2002. When our sons were young they loved the character Scrat, a saber toothed squirrel who was always getting himself into precarious predicaments while chasing after his beloved acorns. Although the depiction of this comical character may not be accurate, back in 2018, there was a discovery of a 30,000 year old fluffy furball in Canada that was determined to be an actual ice aged squirrel. It definitely was not as cute and amusing as the movie's Scrat. It was described as a "mangled lump of mummified flesh". However a recent reexamination of the fortuitous fuzzy, albeit it funky find uncovered a far more fascinating story. The poor creature was mummified during mid-hibernation and has been identified as an Arctic ground squirrel. Amazingly, this ancient species still exists today where the 'permafrost' squirrel was discovered. The specimen will soon be on display at the Beringia Centre in Canada. Although an incredible find, a species that existed 30,000 years ago being nearly identical to an existing animal species today, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Birth of Golda Meir

In the month of May, on the 3rd, in 1898, Golda Meir was born in Kyiv within the Russian Empire. Her father emigrated to the United States for work in 1903 and in 1906, Golda and her family followed and settled in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. From a young age Golda was a natural leader, organizing the American Young Sisters Society, a fundraiser to pay for her classmates' textbooks in 1908. She graduated as her class's valedictorian. Golda was a driven woman and found many opportunities to lead in her community. Her marriage, in 1917 had the precondition of settling in Palestine. After the conclusion of World War I, the couple moved to Palestine and were eventually accepted into kibbutz Merhavia in the Jezreel Valley after an initial rejected application. Golda became a politician and served as the fourth Prime Minister of Israel from 1969 to 1974. She was Israel's first and only female head of government in the Middle East. Known by the moniker as "The Iron Lady", she had the reputation for being down-to-earth and a very persuasive orator. Golda Meir also served as labor minister and foreign minister. Due to Israel's initial severe losses during the Yom Kippur War of 1973, Meir resigned following angry outcries by the public. Golda Meir died in 1978 due to lymphoma.

Cocoanut Grove Fire

The year was 1942 and World War II was raging. The Battle of Midway had recently turned the tide of the naval war to the Allies, but there were still a few years left before the War would be over. Americans were looking for ways to distract themselves and nightclubs fit the bill. The Cocoanut Grove in Boston started as a speakeasy and grew to become a very popular club. That year, 1942, the nightclub burned to the ground with hundreds of patrons trapped inside. This would be the second deadliest nightclub fire in US history. And although the area where the club was once located has completely changed, the spirits have refused to leave the site of their tragic ends. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Cocoanut Grove fire.

The Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles opened in January of 1921. This was a lavish resort hotel that attracted a celebrity clientele. A few months after opening the hotel, the main ballroom was converted into a nightclub called The Cocoanut Grove. Before long, The Cocoanut Grove was world famous. This club inspired orchestra bandleaders Mickey Alpert and Jacques Renard to name their new club that they opened in Boston in 1927, The Cocoanut Grove. Prohibition was in full force at the time, so this was a speakeasy that soon became a hangout for Mafia gangs. Much of the financing came from California mobster and swindler Jack Berman. This early rendition of the club was located in a renovated brick and concrete garage and warehouse complex near the Boston Common. Alpert wanted a roaring twenties’-style nightclub. Over the years, rooms would be added so that the nightclub was a cluster of lounges, bars and dining rooms with orchestral entertainment and dancing.

The decor of the nightclub was fashioned on a South Seas theme. The walls were dingy, but patrons would never know because they were lined with imitation leather, rattan and bamboo and satin linen draped down from the ceiling. There were pillars on the sides of the dance floor that resembled palm trees and they had large paper palm fronds that extended out over the floor and the light fixtures looked like coconuts. And yes, we said paper, keep that in mind. Inside the main dining room was an elevated area nicknamed The Terrace that had wrought iron railings around it. This was treated like a VIP area. A narrow stairway led down to the basement where the Melody Lounge was located. This was an intimate area that was a bar with a singer and a piano on a small revolving stage. This was a very dark space with a bit of neon under the bar and one soft light in the center of the room.

Alpert and Renard eventually sold to Boston Charlie who was a Gangland bootlegger and boss named Charles King Solomon in 1931. The New York Times reported on January 25, 1933 that "Cabaret Gunmen Kill King Solomon, Boston Racketeer is shot by four in Roxbury after ignoring a warning." So the mighty King Solomon was gunned down in the bathroom of The Cotton Club and with that his interest and ownership in The Cocoanut Grove passed to his lawyer Barnet Welansky, whom everyone called Barney. Welansky made many changes at the nightclub to keep a better eye on his bottom line. He liked money and he hated losing it. So he hired teenagers to work as busboys so that he could pay them a pittance. Street criminals were brought in to serve as bouncers. And emergency exits were all locked and hidden behind drapes or in the case of one of the doors, it was completely bricked up. Welansky didn't want anyone leaving before they paid their bill. And as we mentioned earlier, this club kept expanding and soon it was a hard maze of rooms to navigate.

Clearly, the listeners are cluing into some troubling issues in this club. Imagine all of these circumstances with a confusing layout, hidden and locked exits and flammable materials. On top of that, the mob had connections in the Building Department and licensing boards, so fire codes were easily ignored. Inspections were merely formalities. By 1942, The Cocoanut Grove had tripled its size and was big enough that it ran along Piedmont Street, Shawmut Street and Broadway Street. A new section of the club called the New Broadway Lounge had just opened earlier in November of 1942 and the club was more popular than ever.

Saturdays were always packed at the Cocoanut Grove and November 28, 1942 was no exception. Over 1,000 people were in the club that had an occupancy limit of 460. Female impersonator Arthur Blake was the headliner for the evening. He liked to impersonate Eleanor Roosevelt and Bette Davis. Things at The Cocoanut Grove started ramping up at 10 o'clock. Everyone was having a great time. Cowboy celebrity Buck Jones was hanging with a group of war bond promoters in the Terrace. The Melody Lounge was filled with the ivory tickling of pianist Goody Goodelle. A young soldier wanted to neck with his girlfriend in a corner, so he unscrewed the lightbulb in the artificial palm tree near them. A busboy was told to go screw the lightbulb back in and unfortunately he had no flashlight so he decided to light a match in order to see what he was doing. This busboy was 16-year-old Stanley Tomaszewski. He extinguished the match once he got the lightbulb screwed in, but he didn't notice that some of the fake palm fronds had been lit with fire. At least this was the claim of some witnesses. Later, Tomaszewski's actions could not be found to be the source of the fire. A couple waiters tried to douse the flames with water, but the fake palm fronds lit up across all the decor and the hanging satin soon caught fire as well. This pulled the fire up the staircase into the main part of the nightclub.

A Marine named Don Lauer jumped up with a knife and tried to cut the fabric free from the ceiling to prevent the spread. Flames dripped from the ceiling down onto patrons and everyone in the basement ran for the stairway. Clothing and hair caught fire. Four hundred people tried to climb the stairs while at the same time the fire climbed the ceiling. The stairs were soon jammed with people. Patrons upstairs got a taste of the fire when a fireball burst through the front entryway and spread through jumble of dining rooms and lounges. Thick smoke filled the club. Only five minutes had passed from the first flames being spotted in the basement to the entire nightclub being engulfed in flames and smoke. There was only one exit. And that one exit unfortunately had a single revolving door. So you can imagine that within seconds that exit was useless as bodies piled up in the door and jammed it. There was enough air coming through the door to pull the fire through the door, so trapped patrons in the doorway were incinerated. Firefighters couldn't even get near the door until they doused it with water. And there also no way for the firefighters to get into the building. All doors were either locked or opened inward, so with the crush of bodies, those doors were not going to open. Hundreds could have been saved had those doors simply opened outward.

People from buildings around the nightclub raced to help. Another issue with the evening was that it was freezing outside. Water froze on the ground and made hoses hard to move. Burn victims with scorched lungs died immediately upon coming outside and breathing the cold air. By 11:02, the fire was a five alarm fire. The fire was out within thirty minutes after it started. Firefighters were left with the horrible task of removing bodies. When firefighters went through the building, they found some victims still sitting at their tables with drinks having been overcome with smoke quickly. The basement was surprisingly not very burned since the flames just traveled across the ceiling. Many bodies in the club were found burned beyond recognition. One woman was found in a phone booth dead, still holding the phone. Hospitals all around Boston were swamped with the dead and living. Doctors triaged as best they could. They were thankfully prepared for this kind of tragedy because they had all been trained for the World War. Boston City Hospital received 300 bodies, with 168 people dead on arrival. Massachusetts General Hospital received 114 bodies with 75 already dead. There were even living people sent to the morgues who were found to be alive and sent to hospitals. The youngest victim of the fire was fifteen-year-old Eleanor Chiampa. In total, 492 died in the fire making this the second deadliest nightclub fire in American history. This was just a horrific event with the worst in people being brought out. Many people had been trampled to death. Bodies that were laid out on the sidewalks were robbed of their valuables.

Actor Buck Jones was severely burned and died a couple days later in the hospital. Even though he didn't own the club anymore, Bandleader Alpert was performing that evening. He managed to escape, but the music director Bernie Fazioli and several members of the band died. Much of the staff survived as they were in more protected areas with access to windows and they knew the layout of the club better. Several kitchen workers closed themselves in the walk-in cooler. Another of the survivors was Ruth Strogoff. She and her husband Hyman were regulars at the Melody Lounge. They had made it to the stairs quickly but were pulled apart from each other and Hyman was pushed down to the floor and trampled to death. Ruth had tried to pull him up, but her hat and jacket caught fire, so she rushed upstairs and rolled on the floor to put the flames out. She ran outside, forced to leave her husband behind. 

Matt Lane got to the stairs and used the railing to pull himself forward up over people. He had to leave behind his friend Don Lauer who had cut the burning fabric from the ceiling. The men had become separated and Don wouldn't make it out alive. The bartender for the Melody Lounge, Daniel Weiss, made it to safety as did pianist Goody Goodelle. The men had soaked napkins in water and held them up to their faces as they laid on the ground. They crawled to the kitchen and escaped through a window. A patron named Don Jeffers managed to get to the kitchen and went into the refrigerator with employees. Charles and Peggy Disbrow got to the kitchen and found a boarded up window that they managed to pull the boards from and even though the outside was blocked by a pipe, they manged to get out. Several other people followed them and they ended up running through the back door of an apartment building which led them through Margaret Foley's apartment. Margaret watched as nearly fifty people made their way through her apartment. A male patron got to two large windows on Broadway Street that had glass block. He tried to break through and managed to make a hole big enough for him to start through, but he became stuck and firefighters had to watch helplessly as he burned to death. Joyce Spector was pulled to safety by somebody who tossed her down on the sidewalk. She was soon joined by several other survivors. Her fiance, Justin Morgan, wasn't one of those people.  Newlyweds John O’Neil and Claudia Nadeau O’Neil died celebrating their union. Their best man and maid of honor died as well.

Something good that came from the tragedy was advancing the care of burn victims for the future. The charts developed from this are still used today. Some victims were the first to be given penicillin. The investigation into the fire would reveal that there was criminal action involved. Boston’s Fire Commissioner, Arthur Reilly, convened a series of public hearings to determine the cause of the fire and more than 100 witnesses were interviewed. The inquest revealed that club owner Barney Welansky was at fault for much of what happened. He had locked doors, skipped safety measures and paid off public officials. An inspector for the fire department, Lieutenant Frank Linney, had gone through the building eight days before the fire and passed pretty much everything and even wrote that there were no flammable decorations and that there were plenty of exits. One person who may have been at fault owned up to what he did and that was 16-year-old Stanley Tomaszewski. He testified that he had lit the match to see what he was doing and that he thought he had stomped out the match properly, but he couldn't be sure that it hadn't started the fire. And this clearly was what started it all. His life was threatened and he had to be put under protective guard.

Ten indictments were handed down and Barney Welansky was found guilty on 19 counts of manslaughter. He was sentenced to 12 to 15 years in prison, but just three years into serving his sentence, he was diagnosed with lung cancer. The mayor of Boston quietly pardoned him and he died nine weeks after his release. Stanley Tomaszewski was scarred by the tragedy, but did manage to go to college, marry, have kids and live to the age of 68. The burned out shell of the Cocoanut Grove was demolished in September of 1945. For years, part of the footprint of the club was just a parking lot. Surrounding streets were reconfigured to allow for the construction of the Boston Radisson Hotel and Theater Complex. Today, the hotel that is here is called the Revere Hotel. In 2015, a condominium building was built at 25 Piedmont Street. The club had been at 17 Piedmont Street, so parts of the condos are in the club's footprint as well. All that is left of the terrible tragedy is a small bronze plaque with the Cocoanut Grove’s floor plan and the following words, "In memory of the more than 490 people who died in the Cocoanut Grove fire on November 28, 1942. As a result of that terrible tragedy, major changes were made in the fire codes, and improvements in the treatment of burn victims, not only in Boston but across the nation. 'Phoenix out of the Ashes.'" This was prepared by the Bay Village Neighborhood Association. The plaque was crafted by Anthony P. Marra, the youngest survivor of the Cocoanut Grove fire. They embedded it in the sidewalk in 1993. It's been moved several times and there are plans to build a bigger and proper memorial. 

Most victims of the fire have moved on in peace, but some spirits have remained. Employees of the Boston Radisson claimed to have had experiences. Some saw what they came to realize were apparitions, but at the time they looked like fully alive people. They seemed out of place as they were disheveled and looked confused. Some of these spirits would appear out of nowhere and then disappear just as quickly. Odd noises have been heard like loud popping sounds, there are weird flashes of light and the scent of smoke. The Stuart Street Playhouse had been the Radisson’s theatre and hosted five ghosts from the fire. The quiet, shadowy figure of a man was seen walking down a hallway or was sometimes seen in a doorway. He would fade away if approached. People hear disembodied voices and sometimes they would hear their names being called. Water was very haunted here. There was the sound when no water was running. Faucets would turn themselves on by themselves. And one of the more bizarre stories claims that employees found a seat completely soaked in the auditorium with no discernible cause. There has been flooding in the building, again without an actual cause for that to happen. 

A woman named Wendy Reardon told Sam Baltrusis in his 2012 "Ghosts of Boston" book that when she visited the location of the former Cocoanut Grove that was at the time a parking lot, "I went into the parking lot and just stood there...and the sadness. It wasn't only the sadness I felt though, it was shock and surprise...like we were just having a great time, now it's an inferno and now it's burning. More surprise than anything."

Jacques' Cabaret is located at 79 Broadway Street. In 1942, this location was a straight bar that had opened in 1938. The night of the fire this location was turned into a temporary morgue and bodies were laid out side by side in rows as they waited for identification and transport. Eventually this location became a gay bar, mainly for lesbians in the 1960s and 1970s and then it became the cabaret bar. A former bartender said, "Spooky stuff happened there all the time." And one of those strange things happened to him. He was closing things up late one night and he left the bar area to collect some supplies and when he returned he found bodies lying in long rows on the floor. The lights were very dim, so he flipped on the brighter overhead lights and the bodies disappeared. An employee at Jacques wrote in 2015, "I work at Jacques and we do shows downstairs. When I'm there alone I swear I hear and see things. It's spooky! When it's dark and I'm at work early or late, I am always saying 'NOT TONIGHT GHOST PEOPLE!!! NOT TONIGHT!' as I run through the dark."

Patrons at the Cocoanut Grove went from celebrating and partying and enjoying themselves in one moment to abject horror in another. Hundreds died, many before they even knew what was happening. It isn't surprising that some of their energies are either stuck or clinging to the location of their deaths. Is the site of the former Cocoanut Grove Haunted? That is for you to decide!