Ep. 392 - Lyceum Hall

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Moment in Oddity - Abandoned Town of Disneyesque Castles (Suggested by: Gail Frederick)

Near the Black Sea, in Turkey, stands a very unusual abandoned village. Turkish real estate developers, the Yerdelen Brothers bought this land and plotted out a sprawling village that any wanna-be monarch would be happy to buy into. They dubbed their development Buri Al Babas and set out to selling and building 732 mini-castles. This was near the town of Mudurnu, full of curative hot springs, which added another selling point. Each castle would have Gothic-style rooftop terraces and under-floor heating and Jacuzzis on every level. And, of course, they looked like mini-castles complete with turrets and pointed roofs. This place looked like a gnome village from afar, but it was meant for wealthy foreigners and it might have been successful if it had not been for the faltering of Turkey's economy due to terrorist attacks, political coup attempts and the Covid Pandemic. Investors and buyers pulled their money out and the brothers had to declare bankruptcy. Now the abandoned village just features half-completed castles, destroyed landscaping and unfinished dirt roads. An abandoned Disneyesque village in the Turkish forest, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - The Niagara Movement Forms

In the month of July, on the 11th, in 1905, members of the Niagara Movement meet for the first time. This meeting took place on the Canadian side of the Niagara Falls. The Niagara Movement was a group of African American men, made up of entrepreneurs, scholars and lawyers with W.E.B. Du Bois being one of those men. The meeting lasted for three days and the men laid out plans to push back against racial segregation and hate crimes. This would be the precursor to the later civil rights movement. Booker T. Washington had pushed more of an appeasement plan, while the Niagara Movement decided to focus more on agitation and forming state level chapters. They fought for fairness in health care, education, voting rights and employment. The Niagara Movement didn't grow as they hoped and disbanded within five years, but the basic principles would be adopted by the NAACP that formed shortly before the Niagara Movement ended.

Lyceum Hall

Lyceums were part of an educational movement in the New England area during the Victorian era. These were places that hosted some of the greatest orators of the time and one in particular was the scene of Alexander Graham Bell making the first successful long distance phone call. This would be the Salem Lyceum Hall. Today it is Turner's Seafood Grill and Market. This sits on land once owned by Bridget Bishop who was the first to die during the Salem Witch Trials. Is this land cursed? Is that why there are ghost stories connected to this property? Join us as we explore the history and haunts of the Lyceum Hall.

Salem, Massachusetts has made it into several of our episodes. We've talked about the Salem Witch Trials, the Witch House, House of Seven Gables and haunted Derby Street. This is considered one of the most haunted cities in America and it seems to live up to that reputation. Salem had originally been known as Naumkeag, which means "peace." That moniker certainly didn't match those early years for the Puritan-controlled town that put a couple of dozen people to death for alleged witchcraft. And curses still seem to haunt the area for those early sins. The Great Fire of 1914 in Salem only added more fuel to the negative vibe with half of the city burning down. But on a second glance, Salem is a beautiful New England town with wonderful architecture and history that embraces the Irish, Italian, Polish and French-Canadian immigrants who helped to build it. All of New England was a diverse area and it would be here that lyceums would originate.

Lyceums were a completely American movement and they launched in 1828 when Josiah Holbrook started the first lyceum in Milbury, Massachusetts, Milbury Lyceum No 1 branch of the American Lyceum. The Holbrook family emigrated to America from Derby, England in the late 1600s to New York and eventually spread down to Connecticut to a town they named for their original town in England, Derby. It would be here on the family farm that Josiah would be born in 1788. Holbrook eventually went to Yale College where he studied chemistry and geology. On the family farm he would set up the first industrial school in the United States. This first school of industrial training for men would inspire the first national education association and would lead to an upgrade in school books and materials, more government support for public schools, better skills taught to teachers, natural sciences would become part of the regular curriculum and start women getting early education for careers. This first industrial school eventually became that first lyceum that Holbrook started. Holbrook defined lyceums as places where groups of people interested in obtaining self culture and knowledge could go to study agriculture, geology and mechanics and later the study of languages was added. After that all levels of math were introduced along with history and geography. Holbrook devised teaching aids as well.

Other towns latched onto this lyceum idea and before long there were 100 similar societies throughout New England. Lyceums also eventually opened in the mid-Atlantic states and the Midwest. By 1834, the number of lyceums in America had grown to 3,000. Salem would open its lyceum in January of 1830 and it was named the Salem Lyceum Society. It's goal was to provide "mutual education and rational entertainment" for the townspeople. Not only would there be educational courses, but there were dramatic readings, debates and lectures. Many famous orators would pass through the doors like Ralph Emerson and Henry David Thoreau. Lectures covered things like anatomy, literature, politics, science and phrenology. These first lectures were hosted at the former Methodist Church on Sewall Street or the Universalist Church on Rust Street because the lyceum had no official building. That changed in 1831 when the Salem Lyceum Society bought land on Church Street and built a building there for $4,000. This wasn't just any land. This land had belonged to Bridget Bishop and this was where her apple orchard had been.

Bridget Bishop's orchard was on land she had inherited from her second husband, Thomas Oliver. Several girls, Ann Putnam Jr., Mercy Lewis, Mary Walcott, and Elizabeth Hubbard, claimed to be afflicted by witchcraft and Bishop was one of those they accused. She was taken to Ingersoll’s Ordinary in Salem Village to be examined. Her accusers were also there and they writhed on the floor declaring that Bishop was afflicting them. Bishop responded, “I never saw these persons before, nor I never was in this place before. I am as innocent as the child unborn. I am innocent of a witch.” Judge Hathorne accused her and sent her to the Salem jail to be put on trial. She of course was sentenced to die and she would be the first of those accused of witchcraft in Salem to be put to death. So keep in mind that the Salem Lyceum Hall was built on Bishop's land. 

The amphitheater-style seating could accommodate 700 people and had images of great orators like Demosthenes and Cicero on the walls. Lectures were hosted every Tuesday night with men paying an admission of $1 and women paid 75 cents. There was a catch for the women however. They needed to be introduced by a male in order to enter. So as you can imagine, women weren't invited to speak very often. Only a half-dozen women ever appeared on the Church Street stage. The most notable performance was by British actress Fanny Kemble and she did a dramatic reading of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" during the 1849-50 season. Clara Barton, founder of the American Red Cross, and suffragist Mary A. Livermore also spoke here and despite the resistance to women, Salem’s Lyceum hosted the Woman Suffrage Club of Salem. In 1848, author Nathaniel Hawthorne was appointed the corresponding secretary of the Salem Lyceum. And although he held this important position, he himself never gave any lectures. Apparently, he had horrible stage fright. But he did bring in his friends Horace Mann, Ralph Waldo Emerson - who appeared here 30 times, Henry David Thoreau and Daniel Webster who spoke on "The History of the Constitution of the United States."

Early speakers were members of the Salem Lyceum and most did so for free so that the mortgage on the building could be paid more quickly. These men included Charles Upham, John Pickering and Henry K. Oliver. Other later lecturers would be Oliver Wendall Holmes speaking on "Lyceums and Lyceum Lectures;" former United States President John Quincy Adams spoke on "Faith and Government;" James Russell Lowell spoke on "Dante;" Richard Henry Dana Jr. spoke on "The Reality of the Sea" and "The Importance of Cultivating the Affections" and abolitionist Frederic Douglas did a timely speech on "Assassination and its Lessons" right after President Lincoln was assassinated. But the most amazing event to take place here happened on February 12, 1877. Alexander Graham Bell hosted the first public demonstration of a long distance telephone conversation. Bell made the call to his assistant Watson who was in Boston. This was so popular, they did it again a few weeks later.

Eventually, the lyceums fell out of favor. And the history here gets a bit murky. The original lyceum burned down in the Great Salem Fire of 1914 and was replaced by the two-story brick building there today. A number of restaurants have called this spot home. The Colonial Cafe opened in 1935 and then there was Lyceum Bar & Grill and 43 Church Street. Turner's Seafood opened here in November of 2013. Turner Fisheries was started by James F. Turner in 1954. He had emigrated from St. John's Newfoundland to the Boston Fishing Pier in 1920. Turner became very successful as flying fresh seafood around the country became possible and many restaurants would advertise, "Today’s fish flown in fresh from Boston’s Turner Fisheries." Turner Fisheries became the nation's leading quality seafood house. In 1989, Jim's only son John started a new wholesale company, J. Turner Seafoods, in Gloucester, Massachusetts. J. Turner Seafoods Inc. continues today and now things have branched into the restaurant industry under John's four sons. In 1994, they opened Turner’s Seafood Grill & Market in their hometown of Melrose, Massachusetts. They opened another location in Gloucester. And then they opened this restaurant in the Lyceum Hall in 2013. And they not only embrace fine seafood, they embrace their ghost stories.

Lights here turn on and off by themselves and doors open and close on their own. Utensils get stolen with employees claiming that they sometimes have to bring patrons up to five spoons because they keep disappearing. Since this land once was an apple orchard, people claim to smell the scent of apples. Bridget Bishop's spirit is the one experienced here most often. Some employees and patrons claim to have seen her at the top of the staircase on the second floor. There are also several mirrors in the restaurant and people claim to have caught her reflection in them. Terri Colbert was a former employee and she claimed to have seen Bridget Bishop, “It was a busy night. When I came up the stairs and looked up, I saw another woman standing on the other staircase leading up to the loft. I was petrified. My initial thought was that it was a person breaking into the restaurant. When I realized she wasn’t a regular person, I ran back downstairs and almost fainted.” Colbert described the woman as wearing a seventeenth-century white dress. And that is how most people describe this woman, in a long flowing white dress. Colbert also saw chairs move on their own in the restaurant.

Tim Maguire ran the Salem Night Tour and he said, "It's very common to hear things like voices or footsteps when nobody is around. Many people watch a woman walk by who suddenly disappears. We've had dozens of photos of faces in the window looking out and hands up against the glass. People feel sadness. Bishop, when she was brought to trial wasn't treated very well. Spirits left behind would hang around and convey sadness if they were wrongly accused." There was also a Wiccan group that conducted a ritual on the second floor and they claimed to come into contact with a female ghost identifying herself as Annabelle. This spirit apparently hangs out in several buildings here and resembles the girl from "The Ring" movie.

When Ghost Hunters was there doing an investigation, they had something weird happen with an antique cash register. While they were investigating, the cash register all of a sudden printed a receipt and it was timestamped “Good Morning.” The register had not been programmed to print such a thing. There have been problems with other electrical equipment in the restaurant.

Ghost Adventures visited the Lyceum Hall in 2011. George Harrison was the owner at the time and he told Zak that they definitely have a presence in the restaurant and that they believe that it was Bridget Bishop. They hosted weddings on the second floor and several times, a female entity has showed up in pictures, which Diane took off the TV and will put up on Instagram. Zak also talked to contractors who had been putting in a sprinkler system at night. They joked about there being a ghost on the stairs cause they had heard the stories, but they stopped laughing when three boxes came flying down the stairs. They had a young man, Max, who had his own paranormal group, join them for their investigation. They sent him up those stairs by himself with an audio recorder and he captured a couple of EVP. The first came after he asked who hanged Bishop. The name Mary came through and Mary Walcott was one of her accusers. Then Max asked what kind of apples she grew and Zak said that it was weird he would ask that right then because he smelled apples. Max said he asked because he smelled apples too. They definitely captured a female voice later in an EVP and she seems to be saying, "You come back."

There is a courtyard behind the building and this often features unexplained activity. High levels of electromagnetic activity have been picked up in the courtyard. And, of course, apples are smelled here as well. Does the spirit of Bridget Bishop still hang around this location trying to prove her innocence? Is the Lyceum Hall haunted? That is for you to decide!

Ep. 287 - The House of the Seven Gables

Moment in Oddity - Three Cages on St. Lamberti Church Spire
Suggested by: Kim Gasiorowski

For almost 500 years, St. Lamberti Church has had some rather odd objects hanging from its spire. They are a reminder of a terrible time when an Anabaptist Rebellion rocked the German city of Münster. The Anabaptists were a Christian sect that held the belief that only willing baptism as an adult could get a person into Heaven. Because of this belief, they were not only considered to be heretics, but their children were said to be unsaved. They also believed in a communal form of government where wealth should be shared equally. Even though Catholics and Lutherans were at odds during this time in the 16th century, they both were against the Anabaptists. A preacher in the city named Bernhard Rothman didn't like the Catholic control of the city of Munster and he joined the Anabaptists and preached their ideals from his pulpit at St. Lamberti Church. The angry citizens supported the Anabaptists and many Catholics and Lutherans fled, fearing for their lives. Rule under the Anabaptists led to polygamy, the burning of all books except the Bible and Corporal punishment was meted out for trivial offenses against the new hierarchy. In June of 1535, Catholic Bishop von Waldeck gathered a mercenary army and laid siege to the city. They succeeded and arrested three rebel leaders: Jan Matthijs, an Anabaptist preacher from Leiden in the Netherlands and his two closest followers, Bernd Knipperdollink and Bernd Knechting. The three men were tortured and mutilated before being killed. Three iron cages were fashioned, big enough for the men's bodies and these cages were hung from the spire of the St. Lamberti Church as a warning to any other would-be rebels. The remains were left in the cages for 50 years. In 1800, the original tower was demolished and rebuilt and the cages were put back in place where they remain today and that, certainly is odd!.

This Month in History - Unabomber Kills First Victim

In the month of December, on the 10th, in 1985, the Unabomber killed his first victim. Bombings by the Unabomber began in 1978, but he wouldn't kill anybody until 1985. Computer store owner Hugh Scrutton would be that first death. Scrutton found a package in the parking lot of his store. He was killed when he opened it. The bomb was sophisticated and meant to do great harm as it was filled with nails and splinters. The FBI had already been looking for the domestic terrorist for several years as he had already sent or planted several bombs at this point. This search would be the longest and most expensive in FBI history. The Unabomber was finally identified and captured in 1996. He was Ted Kaczynski and it would be his brother David who would tip off the government after recognizing his brothers writing style and opinions in the Unabomber Manifesto after it was published in newspapers. Kaczynski was sentenced to life without parole. In total, he injured 23 people and killed three. The name Unabomber was created by the FBI and was an acronym created from University and Airline Bomber.

The House of the Seven Gables (Suggested by: Nicole Cardarelli)

Most of my adult listeners have probably read something written by classic author Nathaniel Hawthorne. Nearly all schools require a reading of "The Scarlet Letter." Hawthorne also wrote other classic stories and one of those books is "The House of the Seven Gables." Within the pages of this volume is a ghost story. Hawthorne himself claimed to be a skeptic, but even he had some experiences. And the house he wrote about was not a fiction. It is a real home that can be found in Salem, Massachuesetts. Apparently, it's not just the novel that claims that the location is haunted. Visitors and staff to the now museum, claim to have had experiences they cannot explain. Join me as we explore the beliefs of Nathaniel Hawthorne and the history and hauntings of The House of the
Seven Gables!

In July of 2017, I did a bonus episode for the Executive Producers of this podcast that featured the Boston Athenaeum. This was an exclusive membership-only library and many classical authors were members. These were writers like Henry David Thoreau, Henry Wordsworth Longfellow and Nathaniel Hawthorne. In the BonusCast, I detail a supernatural experience that Hawthorne claimed to have one day while in the nation's oldest library. He published this account as "The Ghost of Doctor Harris." What made this experience compelling to me is that like myself, Hawthorne claimed to be mostly a skeptic when it came to ghosts.

Salem, Massachusetts was home for Nathaniel Hawthorne. He was born here on July 4, 1804 and his family had a long history here dating all the way back to the Salem Witch Trials. In fact, one of his ancestors, John Hathorne, was an unrepentant judge during the trials. Hawthorne went to college and published his first work in 1928, but he needed to find a real job to pay the bills and he ended up at the Salem Custom House. There he met a man named William Baker Pike who was a Swedenborgian Spiritualist and he would discuss with Hawthorne his experiences of communicating with the dead. The author once wrote to Pike that "I should be very glad that these rappers are, in any one instance, the spirits of the persons whom they profess themselves to be; but though I have talked with those who have had the freest communication, there has always been something that makes me doubt." So Hawthorne was basically like most of us: an open-minded skeptic. Although he took this stance with his belief about ghosts, it did not prevent him from exploring these themes in his writing and this brings us to his novel "The House of the Seven Gables."

"The House of the Seven Gables" is a Gothic novel that strongly influenced H.P. Lovecraft. Lovecraft said of the work, "It is one of New England's greatest contributions to weird literature." The work was published in April 1851 by Ticknor and Fields of Boston and features a story that follows the lives of the Pyncheon Family of New England. The House of the Seven Gables is their ancestral home that was built on land seized from the original owner, Matthew Maule, by the patriarch of the Pyncheon Family. Maule was accused of witchcraft and hanged, but he called down a curse on the Pyncheon Family before he died. The tale explores themes dealing with guilt, witchcraft and the supernatural. Alice Pyncheon is driven mad by a spell and dies from shame. She comes back to haunt the ancestral home. The spirit of the land owner, Matthew Maule, also haunts the house in the story. This home exists in real life and actually was a place Hawthorne knew well because it belonged to his cousin Susanna Ingersoll. The home is also known as the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion and perhaps Hawthorne got his inspiration for writing about the house in his novel being haunted because the actual house reputedly was said to be haunted.

The House of the Seven Gables is one of the largest timber-framed mansions in North America still on its original foundation and its building dates all the way back to 1668 when it was built for Captain John Turner I. He had purchased the lot from Widow Ann Moore. The Turner family was one of the most successful maritime families in New England. They would influence the future maritime traditions in the colonies and this would spread into several areas including trading, fishing and mercantilism.  What one sees today is not this original house. The original part of the house was small, built around a central chimney. There were two rooms over two rooms. Around 1680, Turner was able to expand the house with two additions. One of these additions was the Great Chamber that had high ceilings and large windows. The other added a gable to the house and a kitchen lean-to.

His son, John Turner II, would inherit the house when he was only nine-years-old as his father died young. He added Georgian style to the house that included wood paneling to the walls of the dining room, parlor and Great Chamber. The wood work was then painted in the modern palettes of the time. John Turner III would be the final Turner to own the home. After the Revolutionary War, he suffered great business losses and came to a point where he could no longer maintain the home and needed the money from its sale to pay off his debts.

Captain Samuel Ingersoll was a wealthy ship captain and he purchased the Turner House in 1782. Ingersoll liked the boxy Federal home style, so he had four of the gables removed as well as the kitchen lean-to. His daughter was Hawthorne's second cousin, Susanna, and she inherited the house when the Captain died in 1804. The cousins had a twenty year age difference, but that didn't keep them from becoming close friends. Hawthorne dined at the house on a regular basis and loved the stories that Susanna would tell him about the house. He loved the unique look of the house because it had seven gables. Susanna died in 1858 and the house passed to her adopted son Horace Connolly. He stunk at business and ended up losing the house to creditors in 1879. The house would fall into disrepair for awhile and nearly became a tenement. In 1883, the Upton Family purchased the home and used it as both a residence and business. This family would be the ones to come up with the idea of offering tours of the house. They were already a family of entertainers with Henry O. Upton being a well-known musician who taught dance lessons around Salem and his wife, Ida, was a well-known artist. His children taught music and oratory. His wife created a souvenir for people to purchase after tours that she called a “Witch Cup.”

The Uptons moved to the Salem Willows neighborhood and decided to sell the house. Caroline Emmerton was a philanthropist and preservationist and she bought the house in 1908. She founded The House of the Seven Gables Settlement Association, which assisted immigrant families settling in Salem. Emmerton hired architect Joseph Everett Chandler to restore the house. Chandler was a major proponent of the Colonial Revival architecture and he specialized in historic preservation. Emmerton hoped that by using the house for tours and as a museum, she could raise funds for her settlement programs. Emmerton modeled the house after the novel as well. The Secret Stairway was added at this time. She purchased the Hooper-Hathaway House and Retire Beckett House and moved them to the property. Eventually, Hawthorne's birthplace was moved here too. Tours are run on a daily basis.

When the staff is asked if the House of the Seven Gables is haunted, most say they have never experienced anything strange. But I personally believe that a skeptic like Hawthorne would not have included ghosts in his story about the house had he not been inspired by stories shared by his cousin. It seems like common sense to me that she had experiences or heard stories of experiences and Hawthorne was in the house enough to have his own as well. Plenty of visitors claim to have seen apparitions or felt something unexplained. There are stories of at least five ghosts here.

Susanna Ingersoll loved this house and her spirit still seems to be attached to it. Her full-bodied apparition has been seen in the house. Visitors claim to see her looking at them out of windows when they are touring the gardens. Another ghost is said to be the spirit of a young boy. He resides in the attic and is heard playing up there. There are the sounds of disembodied footsteps and laughter. It was thought that the Turner's servants lived in the attic and it is set-up today with a child's rocking chair and sleeping mat. Did one of the servant's children die up there?

There is another personal account that claims that Hawthorne's son's spirit has been seen. Lisa from Long Island wrote, "I decided to take a tour of the House of the Seven Gables property, also known as the Turner - Ingersoll Mansion located at 54 Turner Street. On that property now sits the birth home of American author Nathaniel Hawthorne, which was actually moved from Union Street onto Turner Street." While on the tour, she snapped a photo outside and in this picture, you can make out the picture of a young boy in the shrubbery. Another spirit said to be haunting this house is a woman who is doing the work of a seamstress. She is seen sewing and walking in the house.

Some claim that there is a residual haunting on the secret staircase. The apparition of a black man has been seen going up and down on the stairs. The only issue with this is that the stairs are fairly newer having been built in 1908. People claim that they feel they are being watched. Could it just be the eyes of the portraits throughout the house that seem to follow people?

Are the tour guides pretending that there is no ghostly activity because they don't want that reputation for the house? With so many different spirits being identified, it would seem that there must be some kind of activity going on. Or is it just that Hawthorne wrote about ghosts and people have projected this onto the house? Is the House of the Seven Gables haunted? That is for you to decide!