13
Most Haunted in Massachusetts
Most
Haunted Series
Sam
Baltrusis
Genre:
Paranormal/Historical
Date
of Publication: Oct. 13, 2015
ISBN:
ISBN-13: 978-1516968350
ASIN:
ISBN-10: 1516968352
Number
of pages: 130
Word
Count: 30,000
Cover
Artist: Frank C. Grace
Book
Description:
Paranormal
journalist and "Ghosts of Boston" author Sam Baltrusis has
traveled all over Massachusetts in search of New England's 13 most
haunted. From the oldest continuously operating hotel the Omni Parker
House in Boston to the beautiful but extremely active Haunted
Victorian in Gardner, Baltrusis breathes new life into the long
departed.
Book
Trailer: https://youtu.be/KHJU1ggXWfw
Available
at Amazon
The
13 Most Haunted in Massachusetts
1.
S.K. Pierce Mansion, Gardner
2.
Freetown State Forest, Bridgewater Triangle
3.
Hammond Castle, Gloucester
4.
Lizzie Borden's House, Fall River
5.
Houghton Mansion, North Adams
6.
Joshua Ward House, Salem
7.
Longfellow's Wayside Inn, Sudbury
8.
USS Salem, Quincy
9.
Spider Gates Cemetery, Leicester
10.
Boston Light, Little Brewster Island
11.
Witch House, Salem
12.
Victoria House, Provincetown
13.
Boston Common, Downtown Boston
Excerpt:
Chapter
1
S.K.
PIERCE MANSION
Gardner
Most
Haunted: #1
“I
was told by intuitives that the spirits in the house have something
very important to tell me. Does that sound crazy?”
—Rob
Conti, S.K. Pierce Victorian Mansion’s new owner
A
woman named Mattie Cornwell summoned me to this house. She’s been
dead for more than a century.
In
the recurring dream, I see her silhouette from a gold-colored
Victorian’s second floor. She’s upset. I can see an outline of
what looks like a tightly wound bun in her hair. Her clothing is late
1800s school marm and she looks much older than her actual age. I
would guess she’s in her 20s. The woman is a caretaker of sorts and
is protecting the home from forces out of her control. She’s losing
the battle and is calling me from the light for help.
Think
Mary Poppins but without the spoonful of sugar. In my dream, she’s
serving up daggers.
Something
horrible happened in that house and she is begging the living to help
her. I could hear her singing a folk song from the window. She was
throwing books and papers at me from the home’s second floor. She’s
saying what I remember as “sefnock” over and over at a shadowy
man who is in the room with her. I’m terrified.
My
dream of Mattie was in 2011. I was writing what would become my first
book, Ghosts of Boston: Haunts of the Hub. I initially thought she
was the “stay behind” spirit, the seamstress I lovingly called
“scissor sister,” who haunted my home in Somerville’s Davis
Square.
I
was wrong.
The
dream was prophetic in a way. I didn’t make a connection to the
haunted S.K. Pierce Victorian Mansion in Gardner until I saw a photo
of the structure posted online in late 2014. My friends Rachel
Hoffman and Tina Storer from Paranormal Xpeditions were investigating
the location and I had a severe reaction when I saw a post from the
Victorian structure because I’d seen it repeatedly in my dreams.
I
swore I would never go there. But here I am—going to the very spot
where Mattie Cornwell once lived. What was I thinking?
A
friend who has intuitive abilities warned me about the shadow figure
in my dreams. "That woman will suck the air out of you,” she
said during an online chat. “No. I mean it. Like sitting on your
chest. You won’t be able to inhale." She said the spirit's
name is Maddie or Matilda.
I
found out recently from fellow author Joni Mayhan that the former
nanny at the haunted S.K. Pierce Victorian was named Mattie Cornwell.
Her spirit has been in the house since the late 1800s. “Petite,
with long dark hair that she wore in a bun, she once cared for the
Pierce children,” wrote Mayhan in Bones In The Basement. “Chores
were scheduled at specific times, and the children were taught to
behave. Even though she was long dead, she remained the protector of
the house, keeping it safe from trespassers and ensuring the other
resident ghosts behaved themselves.”
Mayhan
said Cornwell had crossed over and is no longer bound to the haunted
Victorian. “She was the Pierce family's nanny. Mattie wasn't
negative though. She was the gatekeeper and peacekeeper there, but
she was inadvertently crossed over during a house cleansing in 2011,”
Mayhan told me. “After she left, the really nasty ones came in.
There are a few nasty female entities there, but Mattie isn't one of
them.”
According
to Mayhan’s Bones In The Basement, Cornwell died young. “She was
born in 1859 in Nova Scotia, Canada. She was 21 when she came to work
for the Pierce family as a servant in the house. Her primary focus
was caring for the Pierce children. She was firm but loving with the
children, keeping them mindful of their manners and helping them grow
into the influential men they would one day become,” wrote Mayhan.
“Later research would show that Mattie died at the young age of
twenty-five from an acute inflammation of the hip just two years
after getting married. Her tragedy would be just one among many at
the Victorian mansion. It was as if the house collected them, like
some people collected old coins.”
Rachel
Hoffman, my friend from the all-female investigation team Paranormal
Xpeditions, said I should be wary about the haunted house in Gardner.
“You might not be able to walk in,” explained Hoffman. “I swear
it's a pressure cooker. You will feel it as soon as you see it. Look
into the top window and tell me what you see. Then I'll tell you.”
Hoffman,
who was featured in a taped investigation at the mansion with Tina
Storer and her sister, Danielle Medina, said the experience still
haunts her. She believes the location is a portal, a vortex of sorts
to the spirit world that allows both good and bad spirits to cross
over. “There’s more than one story there,” she said. “There’s
a story for every step you take.”
When
PXP was investigating the mansion in late 2014, I had a strong
psychic feeling that one of the investigators, Tina Storer, wasn’t
safe. I sent a message to the PXP team warning them. Hoffman told me
later that Storer had to be escorted out of the building because she
couldn’t breath. It was like the spirits were taking the air out of
her lungs.
“Tina
had issues where the man was burned,” Hoffman told me. “At one
point, she did feel protected. But it was so intense. Our temp gage
was 66.6.”
Medina,
Hoffman’s sister, was pregnant during the investigation and the
group uncovered an electromagnetic voice phenomenon, or EVP, in the
nursery. “We got my pregnant sister bending over to pick up a baby
in the nursery and the ovilus said ‘mama,’” explained Hoffman.
“My sister is a skeptic so this was profound.”
Hoffman
and the PXP team smudged the location with a cleansing ritual
involving coffin nails and sweet grass. The usual ceremony with the
old standby sage simply didn’t work. “When closing out a
paranormal investigation, we sometimes use coffin nails,” Hoffman
explained. “I found our container used in the haunted Victorian
Mansion with the bottom half of the glass jar totally gone. I
wouldn't be surprised to find the nails we pounded in the ground
embedded in a tree. Renovations and hands switching is stirring up
the activity majorly.”
Yes,
construction notoriously conjures up the long departed. Apparently,
spirits don’t like change.
Rob
Conti, the ringleader behind the New Jersey-based Dark Carnival and a
dentist during the day, said he always wanted to own a standalone
haunted attraction. The S.K. Pierce mansion was literally ripped from
his childhood fantasies. He says the fact that the 7,000-square-foot
mansion located at 4 Broadway in Gardner is “certified haunted”
is an added bonus.
“Since
I was 15, I always wanted a single-family haunted house,” he said.
“I always had a picture in my mind of what that attraction would
look like. As I got older, I tried to make this vision a reality but
there were regulations in New Jersey that prohibited it.”
Conti,
who actually didn’t visit the Victorian until the day he closed the
sale on the building, said a friend posted the real estate listing
for the mansion on his Facebook page. “As soon as I saw it, I knew
the image of the house was the image I had in my head for the past 25
years.”
The
new owner said he will hash out the details after the year-long
renovations, but he plans to rent out the unit for 11 months of the
year and will turn the space into a haunted attraction every October.
Since purchasing what paranormal experts believe is the most haunted
house in Massachusetts, Conti said he has been contacted by all sorts
of people.
“I’ve
been told that the spirits in the house knew who I was before I even
called,” he said, sort of creeped out by the idea. “Apparently,
I’m liked by the spirits in the house, which is a good thing, I
hope.”
Conti
also had a paranormal experience after walking into the structure’s
dining room, the same spot investigators believe is a portal. “I
started feeling dizzy and had to be escorted out of the building,”
he explained. Also, the Dark Carnival owner said a contractor, who
didn’t know the building’s haunted history, told him that
somebody else was on the second floor when there was no one else in
the house.
“I
was also told by intuitives that the spirits in the house have
something very important to tell me,” Conti continued. “Does that
sound crazy?”
Actually,
no.
As
I stand gazing at the house that haunted my dreams for years, I
replay the dream of the woman I believe to be Mattie Cornwell looking
out of the second-floor window. As I walk closer to my nightmare, I’m
shivering in the beauty and the madness of the moment. I think about
the word “sefnock” that she chanted over and over. I hit my head
as I quickly jump into the car near the S.K. Pierce mansion’s
driveway searching for a notepad. I write the mystery word out
phonetically.
Then
I had an epiphany. I gasped for air. The woman’s cryptic,
post-mortem plea is backwards. She’s demanding that the shadow
figure … confess.
Cars
are driving by and passengers are yelling things at me like “there’s
someone behind you” and “this place is really, really haunted.”
My cellphone starts to flip out and, mysteriously, seems to have a
mind of its own, calling random people from my contact list. I hear
what sounds like a disembodied male voice whispering in my ear: “Get
out of here.”
I
look again at the second-floor window, expecting to see Mattie
Cornwell, the spirit who mistakenly crossed to the light years ago.
Instead, I see a black bird, possibly a crow or a dark-colored
pigeon, perched on the ledge. The white-lace curtains move as if
someone is peering out of the window.
I
can’t breathe.
About
the Author:
Sam
Baltrusis, author of Ghosts of Boston: Haunts of the Hub and Ghosts
of Salem: Haunts of the Witch City, is the former editor-in-chief of
Spare Change News and teaches journalism classes at Malden Access TV
(MATV). He has been featured as Boston's paranormal expert on the
Biography Channel's Haunted Encounters and Paranormal State's Ryan
Buell's Paranormal Insider Radio. As a side gig, Baltrusis moonlights
as a guide and launched the successful ghost tours, Boston Haunts and
Cambridge Haunts. In October 2014, he spearheaded a boat tour called
Haunted Boston Harbor. Baltrusis is also a sought-after lecturer who
speaks at dozens of paranormal-related events scattered throughout
New England. In the past, he's worked for VH1, MTV.com, Newsweek, ABC
Radio and as a regional stringer for The New York Times.
Interview --Sam Baltrusis
I'm originally from Pensacola, Florida but moved to Boston in
1990 for college. I fell in love with the history of the city immediately. It
was as if the ghosts of Boston's past were calling me.
Tell us
your latest news?
In addition to writing historical-based ghost books, I teach
journalism. I'm currently the coordinator of a citizen journalism program
called Neighborhood View at Malden Access TV. Our team produced a 30-minute
countdown TV show that will air on multiple public access stations throughout the
state. I'm thrilled with the finished project and would love to do more
"haunted history" TV programs in the future. I have been asked to
speak at the Massachusetts State House on Wednesday, Oct. 28 and I'm genuinely
honored that the state's librarian has embraced my work. In fact, they featured
stories from my first three books in their "Myths and Legends"
exhibit.
When and
why did you begin writing?
My high school journalism teacher, Beverly Reinschmidt, was my
mentor and inspired me to write at a young age. She recognized my potential and
I don't think I would have been motivated to write books if it wasn't for her
support.
When did
you first consider yourself a writer?
I have been a journalist for more than 20 years. I read the
articles I wrote in my early 20s and I'm impressed that I with some of pieces I
was able to craft at a young age. I have books of poetic lines I crafted back
in the 1990s and I sometimes manage to weave them into my books.
What
inspired you to write your first book?
It came in dream. I wrote a piece for STUFF magazine called
"Haunted Hot Spots in Boston" and the response was strong. People
loved it. At the time, I was at a crossroads in my career. After years of doing
celebrity profiles and investigative features, I needed to find a new passion.
I have always been sensitive to the spirit realm, but only wrote ghost stories
for newspapers and magazines in October. One night I had a dream of woman
wearing a church choir outfit and she told me: "You must write about
us." There were several people from different eras behind her and I
intuitively knew what I was supposed to do. I crafted a book proposal for
"Ghosts of Boston: Haunts of the Hub" and received a greenlight from
my publisher in a few days after the dream.
Do you
have a specific writing style?
My latest, "13 Most Haunted in Massachusetts,"
deviates a bit from my first three books. I'm a journalist so my style is
journalistically sound. My copy editor and best friend, Andrew Warburton,
talked about how he liked the introductions of my last three books because they
are written in a first-person style. So, I decided to write an entire book
based on my personal experiences with the paranormal and I'm so glad I did. I
love the way "13 Most Haunted in Massachusetts" turned out. It's
genuinely scary. I had to sleep with the light on because I was terrified
revisiting some of these haunts from my past.
How did
you come up with the title?
I'm superstitious by nature and have always been kind of
freaked out about the number "13." The book is about challenging
those weird superstitions and, in a way, facing my fears.
Is there a
message in your novel that you want readers to grasp?
Truth is stranger than fiction.
How much
of the book is realistic?
It's strong journalism so it's based on actual first-hand
accounts and historical research. A lot of my readers are skeptics and I'm
perfectly OK with it. The books are historical with ghost stories. So, it's a
great way to learn about the state's darker history.
Are
experiences based on someone you know, or events in your own life?
The book is based on my personal experiences coupled with
first-hand interviews with paranormal experts, historians and authors.
What books
have most influenced your life most?
Stephen King's "The Shining" and anything by H.P.
Lovecraft.
If you had
to choose, which writer would you consider a mentor?
My high school journalism teacher, Beverly Reinschmidt. I
thanked her again in the acknowledgements section of my book.
What book
are you reading now?
I picked up a new book at my "Ghosts of Salem: Haunts of
the Witch City" signing at Costco in Danvers. The book is called
"Murder & Mayhem in Boston: Historic Crimes in the Hub" and so
far it's interesting.
Are there
any new authors that have grasped your interest?
While writing "13 Most Haunted in Massachusetts," I
met and interviewed my favorite new writer. Her name is Joni Mayhan and I am
smitten with her book, "Bones in the Basement," about the S.K. Pierce
Victorian Mansion in Gardner. It's a page turner. She agreed to write the
introduction to "13 Most Haunted in Massachusetts" and I'm so glad
she did. It sets the tone for the rest of the book and I genuinely enjoy
reading her books.
What are
your current projects?
My next book, "Haunted Provincetown," is coming in
2016. I'm currently working on my fourth book for the History Press called
"Haunted Boston Harbor" which also comes out in 2016.
What would
you like my readers to know?
For someone who
writes about ghosts, I'm terrified of fake haunted houses that pop up in Salem
and other places in the state. Clowns completely creep me ou
Twitter:
@LoadedGun
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