Danvers State Asylum: Mental Institution Turned Apartment Building

An illustration of the sprawling
hospital from "King's Hand-book
of the United States."

The winner for most breathtaking haunted location in New England, for me, goes to Danvers State Asylum. Granted, there isn't much left of the once castle-like asylum on a hill. However, what remains still evokes some of the same grandeur that the lauded hospital captured. For such a grand old place, there aren't a lot of ghost stories associated with Danvers State Asylum, but that might just be because it was hard for hunters to get in, not that there was nothing to see.

In the second half of the 19th century, eastern Massachusetts needed a solution for overcrowded mental hospitals. One had closed in Boston, and it was time to pick up the slack. At the time, residential treatment was the go-to for mental ailments, so beds filled up fast. A new asylum was proposed and architect Nathaniel Jeremiah Bradlee was put to the task. He designed the building in his Domestic Gothic style out of brick, stone and granite. It had imposing towers, several wings. It opened its doors with enough space for more than 1,000 patients in 1878. Later, additional buildings were added and the max capacity rose to 2,600 patients.

It is likely that some treatments occurred in Danvers State Asylum that would shock us today. However, by the standards of the time and even by some of today's standards, this hospital was quite humane. It was one of the Kirkbride Hospitals, which believed the tenets of the Kirkbride Plan, a view that patients were curable and that compassionate treatment and picturesque surroundings were critical to their recovery. Danvers State Hospital prided itself on the hygiene of its facilities and the advanced, gentle treatments of the time, which included hydrotherapy and good old fresh air.

Mental health care reform changed everything for Danvers State Asylum, which closed in the 70s. The focus leaned away from institutionalizing patients and toward outpatient care. It rendered establishments like the one in Danvers obsolete. Sadly, the absolutely conservable site was sold off to a real estate developer and turned into an apartment complex called Halstead Danvers. Some of the original building remains on the once nearly 200-acre property, so it is recognizable. It's just impossible to see it in its original state now or ghost hunt, though the latter was nearly impossible anyway. Today, if you want to see what spooks roamed the halls of this impressive building, you'll have to rent a sterile modern apartment.

I've only found two instances of a reported haunting at Danvers State Asylum. The first I came across was a ghost that haunted the attic and steeple. Another interesting legend about the steeple is that of a German spy who worked at the hospital using the steeple to signal enemy submarines. The only other story I came across was of an old lady ghost pulling the blankets off a young girl who lived in the hospital. If you have any ghost stories from Danvers State Asylum, please share them in the comments section below.

Here is a fabulous source for photos of the structures.

The Lizzie Borden B&B in Fall River, MA

It could be hindsight, but
she does look a bit mad

Lizzie Borden–you may have heard of her. Near the end of the 19th century, she was accused of killing her stepmother and father with a hatchet. Whether Lizzie is guilty or not (she was acquitted), the murders gave the Fall River, MA home in which they took place an evil reputation. Today, the home is a bed and breakfast with nine rooms, carefully decorated to make them look and feel as they would have when the Borden family lived there.

On August 4, 1892, 32-year-old Lizzie said she discovered her father Andrew dead on the sofa in the sitting room. He was struck with a hatchet about 10 or 11 times, leaving his face pulverized. Further investigation turned up the body of Abby Borden, Lizzie's stepmother, in an upstairs bedroom. She was struck once in the face with a hatchet. When she fell face down on the floor, her killer climbed atop her body and hit her another 19 times in the back of the head. These discoveries and the subsequent trial of a prominent Fall River woman made international news. They've since entered into legend.

The Lizzie Borden Bed and Breakfast gets a lot of visitors who want to see where these infamous murders took place. If you visit the house, remember that the door will read 92, even though the address is 230 Second St. The old number is there to preserve history, but the new number has been in use since four years after the murder. At $200+ per room, per night, you don't want to waste time looking around for the right building.

The bed and breakfast has 9 rooms, all of which are named after people who lived or stayed there. Guests can stay in any of these rooms, with the Lizzie Borden room and the John V. Morse room being among the more popular. You can sleep between the sheets of an antique Victorian bed directly next to where Abby Borden landed face first on the floor in the Morse room. People even take photographs of themselves prone in the place where she died.

Visitors are typically impressed by the care taken to make the place look authentic. It's hard not to be creeped out when you know you're standing where an axe caved in someone's face, but it's even creepier when it actually looks like it did in crime scene photos taken soon after. There's even an eerily identical sofa to the one Mr. Borden died on that guests can sit on. Unfortunately, the original was likely lost in a hurricane while in storage.

Let's get down to whether this place is haunted or not. I've got pretty much the same verdict I always have, which is a shrug and an "eh, maybe?" Listen, of course there isn't evidence. Of course the stories of hauntings come from the owner and ghost hunters who live for this shit. However, even one atheist writer has been given the proper willies while spending a night in the only room in the house not claimed to be haunted. Yeah, if you want to get spooked, it's a fun place to give yourself chills.

As for the ghosts, some say they see Lizzie–unlikely given that she didn't die there. Others see the Gusher-head ghosts of her parents. Well, if the place is going to be haunted, it would be by these two, who it is interesting to note weren't well-loved in the community, particularly Andrew. Some even say they spot the child ghosts of Lizzie's cousins, who were drowned by their mother in a nearby home. Again, they didn't die there. Assuming that's how ghosts work, it doesn't make sense. Make of it what you will, but I do hope you get a fright if you visit.

Haunted Hotels Near Boston

Boston is one of the oldest cities in the United States of America. It is also one of the most historically significant. Boston and the surrounding area were home to such bloody events as the first battles of the American Revolution and the Salem Witch Trials. Therefore, it stands to reason that there will be haunted places in and around the city. Among these haunted places are some hotels that people believe have a few unregistered guests from time to time.

Hawthorne Hotel
18 Washington Square
Salem, MA 01970

Hawthorn Hotel
by Fletcher6

Hawthorne Hotel is arguably the most famous hotel in Salem. It is a roughly fifteen-minute drive to the Hawthorne Hotel from Boston. It opened on July 23, 1925 and has since received such guests as the cast of the Bewitched television show, U.S. President George Bush and Bette Davis. The hotel is, of course, named after the town's famous author, Nathaniel Hawthorne.

Legend has it that the Hawthorne Hotel was built on an apple orchard that was once owned by accused witch, Bridget Bishop. Bridget was one of the individuals who were wrongfully executed during the Salem Witch Trials. There have been reports that the sweet smell of apples sometimes lingers in the hotel, despite the fact that no apple trees remain on the property. Other paranormal activities such as eerie sounds have also been reported at the Hawthorne Hotel.


Omni Parker House Hotel
60 School St.
Boston, MA 02108
                                                                                   

Omni Parker House Hotel
by Kimberly Vardeman

The Omni Parker House Hotel in Boston opened in 1855. It is located just outside of Boston Common less than two blocks from the Massachusetts State House. The hotel's restaurant is almost as famous as the hotel itself. It is the home of the world's first Boston Cream Pie and it is also the place where then future U.S. President John F. Kennedy proposed to the future First Lady of the United States, Jacqueline Bouvier. This hotel is great for people who want to step out of their hotels into the historic streets of Boston during the day, eat the delicious food of the hotel's historic restaurant in the evening and be spooked by the hotel's ghost at night.

Harvey Parker, the original owner of the hotel and restaurant is said to live there still, in ghostly form. Sightings of this long-dead man have dwindled in the past 20 years. However, there have reportedly been several sightings of him on the tenth floor of the hotel. Parker's ghost is supposedly polite and unobtrusive, aside from his habit of making unannounced appearances in guest's rooms on the tenth floor.

Colonial Inn
48 Monument Square
Concord, MA 01742
                                                               

Colonial Inn sign
by -jkb-

The original building of the Colonial Inn was a home built in 1716. In 1775, part of it was used as a munitions storehouse by the Massachusetts Militia. In fact, those munitions were in the house when the British came looking for the militia's supplies on April 19, 1775. The building was turned into an inn in 1889. It took on its present name at the turn of the 20th century. Since that time, it has received such guests as U.S. President Franklin Roosevelt, Shirley Temple and Faye Dunaway.

One of the rooms of the original house on the site is now Room 24 of the Colonial Inn. There have reportedly been sightings of a ghost in that room. Paranormal investigators have hinted that other rooms in the inn may be haunted, but there have been no sightings in other rooms, according to the inn's website.

If you are looking for a trip back in time that might give you a chance to meet a ghost from a time long past, these are the hotels to visit in the Boston area. Even if you do not get to see a ghost, you will most certainly see shadows of the past lurking in the corners of these historical buildings. There is no shortage of history in the direct vicinity of these hotels either. In Salem, you can tour the town that was home to the most vicious witch-hunt in U.S. history. In Concord, you can see the battlefields where the first shots of the American Revolution rang out and in Boston, the Freedom Trail runs right past the Omni Parker House Hotel.

Sources

The Haunted History of Salem, Massachusetts, retrieved 7/27/10

About Concord's Colonial Inn, retrieved 7/27/10

Best Halloween Attractions in New England

New England loves all things fall–especially football and Halloween. While I can suggest nothing but your local schools and a Pats game for the former, you get lots of options when it comes to the latter. Since this blog isn't about friendly farmers, I'm going to skip the pumpkin picking and go straight for the scary attractions. The following are my favorite picks for Halloween in New England.

Spooky World

454 Charles Bancroft Hwy

Litchfield, New Hampshire

Admission: Between $35 for general admission and $80 for "Super VIP"

Spooky World is an 80-acre Halloween theme park with a range of attractions. It has all of your Halloween thrills in one place. Visitors also get a carnival experience with a spooky twist, so be ready to play games, have your fortune told and eat fair food.

The Haunted Hayride is one of five major parts of Spooky World. It's a one-mile journey through woods filled with spiders, experiments gone wrong and plenty else to send chills up your spine. It's the newest addition to the park. Brigham Manor is a haunted house with a backstory of murder and evil. The 3D Festival of Fear is a menagerie of misfit carnies. Carnage is a junkyard from hell. Finally, The Colony is a maze filled with the devil's minions.

Salem, Massachusetts

The rest of the year, Salem is a quaint North Shore village in Massachusetts. When Halloween rolls around, Salem's witch-hunt roots attract visitors from all over. While a visit to the town itself is not very scary, there are plenty of ghost tours, shops and haunted houses. Here, you can find horror and history.

Fright at the Fort

Fort Knox

740 Ft Knox Rd.

Prospect, Maine

Admission: Between $5 for kids-$13 for adults

Fright at the Fort lets you walk around historic Fort Knox and get spooked by monsters and ghouls. The atmosphere is the big draw at this attraction. Historic forts aren't exactly known for being bright and cheery.

Nightmare Vermont

105 Pearl St.

Essex Junction, Vermont

Admission: $12 online and $15 at the door

Nightmare Vermont has some pretty cool tricks up its sleeve for a haunted attraction. It's a sort of theatrical experience with stage shows and a theme. For example, 2016 will be a haunted carnival. What's interesting is that guests can purchase a "Monster Ward" at the door for $1. This helps the actors know who doesn't like to be bothered. On the other hand, every group gets to bid on who gets to be the "Monster Teaser." This person will be bothered much more than the average guest. In fact, the actors may even tie them up!

Amusement Parks Open For Halloween:

Fright Fest at Six Flags New England

Screemfest at Canobie Lake Park

Haunted Graveyard at Lake Compounce

Camp Ousamequin: Creepy Building in the Woods

The only structure I could find so far.

A few years back, my sister, brother-in-law, two nephews and I decided to make a pre-Halloween adventure out of visiting all of the local haunted spots. I made a hauntings map on a piece of poster board with the boys and we headed out. On that map was a place their dad mentioned­–a boy's camp. Locals would have you think it was some kind of bad kids camp, but as far as I can tell, Camp Ousamequin was a Y.M.C.A summer camp dating back to at least the 20s. In other words, a place where any boy could go to find "many ways to have a good time." Check out this article on it dated April, 1925.

You see the blue dot in the middle of the woods?
That's us. Keep going.

Way back at the end of Lingan St. in Halifax, there is a ball field. Behind that field is a concrete structure that was part of the camp to the best of my knowledge. It's a creepy place with lots of graffiti. When we visited, the doors were open and there had been a fire, as evidenced by a huge pile of burnt debris in front of the place. We went inside (it was wide open with no signs barring entry) and found several small rooms and one big room–all concrete. This is definitely suggestive of a camp, but I could easily see why someone would think it was a small detention center. Interestingly, though, I can't find any historical photos of concrete buildings. I see a lot of this.

The woods are starting to take it back.

A few days ago, my husband and I went back with the same two nephews to kill some time. This visit wasn't as successful. While there are still no signs, the doors were locked up tight. I managed to get the few pictures you see here, but the light was terrible for getting photos through the windows. If I ever manage to get in lawfully again, I will certainly update this post.

Zombie movie, anyone?

I'm skeptical of any kind of haunting, and I don't know any stories about this place beyond some local kids saying it's haunted in general. However, I will say it's an eerie place. The rundown building in the middle of a forest backed by a huge lake right next to a ball field kind of gives it a scary movie feel, which I can appreciate. This handout is definitely suggestive of some old-school Friday the 13th-style wholesomeness.

I suggest a stroll in the woods at Camp Ousamequin, but remember a locked door is as good as a No Trespassing sign. Respect the town and check the place out from the outside. If you are sure of the origin of this building, please let us know in the comments section. We're also happy to hear your ghost stories if you've got them.

Rutland Prison Camp: Ruins in a State Park

Historic photo of Rutland Prison
Camp Cemetery, courtesy of
The Rutland Land Conservancy

Few reportedly haunted locations are as open to the public and readily accessible as Rutland Prison Camp. You can drive right up to most of the sites of interest, and do so legally, assuming it's daytime. The site has long since been abandoned, so visitors must use caution and explore at their own risk, but responsible ghost hunters should have no problem checking everything out without incident. This is on the short list of places I would recommend visiting if you're looking for ghosts, not because I think they're there, but because you won't be bothering anyone.

The ruins of Rutland Prison Camp are located in what is now the Rutland State Park. The park is 300 acres and has lots to do. You can go swimming, have a picnic or even take your boat out when you come to scope out the camp.

Rutland Prison Camp opened in 1903. It had a big country house for the superintendent, prison dorms, solitary confinement cells, a farm for the prisoners to work and a root cellar for storing vegetables. Four years after it opened, a tuberculosis hospital was built to treat prisoners with consumption. The prison was not open for long. It was abandoned in 1934. Not all of it was left to rot, though. Most of it was destroyed, but a few structures remain.

The root cellar is still largely standing. It's in an overgrown hill and barely recognizable, but you can still walk in and check out all the vulgar graffiti covering its walls. Solitary confinement still stands, though it is open to the elements. The small cells give visitors an idea of how claustrophobic confinement would have been. There is also a drainage tunnel, as well as some other crumbling walls and foundations. The tunnel is full of debris and runoff. As far as I can tell, people don't actually go in anymore.

My personal favorite bit of the Rutland Prison Camp grounds is down Charnock Hill Rd. Go to Goose Hill Cemetery and follow the trail beyond it. There, you will find a marker where crosses once marked the graves of 59 inmates buried there. Sadly, there is no Pet Sematary.

There isn't much in the way of spooky ghost stories related to Rutland Prison Camp. The place housed low-level criminals, or at least those who had been convicted of low-level crimes, so there aren't even stories of murderers or executions to give the place a creepy vibe. All I could find was one story about the ex-warden's wife haunting the location where her house used to be. Of course, any records of an ex-warden's wife dying there are elusive.

Check out some photos of when the prison was still standing. Feel free to post your photos and experiences in the comments section.

Plymouth County Hospital: Abandoned Facility for the Terminally Ill

The hospital before it became a ruin
Courtesy of Hanson Historical Society

I grew up in a small town on the South Shore in Massachusetts. Hanson didn't have much going on, but I lived right across the street from the entrance to one of the coolest sites in town–the abandoned Plymouth County Hospital. I learned to roller blade on the cracked pavement behind the abandoned hospital, hiked the bogs that stretched for miles in the woods around it, and even once snuck in through the kitchen door.

As kids, myself, my four siblings, aunts, uncles and cousins (yeah, we were all around the same age) would pedal our bikes up the long drive from the ornate stone wall that marked the entrance all the way up to the parking lot of the hospital. I imagine we made that journey sometimes when the hospital was still open, circumventing the building and heading straight for the trails out back. We must have. I remember walking there with my grandmother who died when I was eight. I was 10 when the hospital closed for good.

Plymouth County Hospital was already in disrepair when it closed. I can't remember a time when it didn't look a bit decrepit with black stains dripping down the concrete from the bottoms of the windows. The pavement is never smooth in my memories, the windows never fully intact. Still, it was gorgeous and ample fodder for my overactive imagination. In fact, were it not for that hospital, I doubt I would have half an interest in ghost stories and horror novels. When you spend your youth looking into the slowly crumbling eyes of an out-of-place building, you start to wish it were haunted, if only so you can scare the neighbor's kids and then brag to your siblings about it.

My own picture taken in 2014
The tile roofs hint at its former self

The taller I got, the sicker County Hospital, as we called it for short, got. By the time I got to high school and was only walking down there to sneak a cigarette, there wasn't a single unblemished windowpane in the place. The doors were rotting. The once beautiful, sunny verandas were falling apart at the frames. I managed to sneak in before it all went to hell, and long before vandals would nearly destroy the structure. Inside, I found that the hospital was well and truly abandoned. When the staff left, they left a lot of stuff behind, which made it all the more interesting to me.

One day toward the end of my time in middle school, I noticed that one of the back doors was partly open. I obeyed my parents, and local laws, until then, but something inside me always wanted to go into the place. I convinced my sister and I believe the neighbor kid (I'll have to ask them) to shimmy through the gap in the door. On the other side, we found an open walk-in cooler. It'd been abandoned too long for it to smell as rancid as it looked. We moved on and found patient beds, kitchen knives, projectors, a chalkboard, papers strewn everywhere, an elevator shaft and scary story fodder to last a lifetime.

What the inside looked like.
I believe this room was destroyed in the fire.

Years later, knowing the place is as close to utter ruin as it can be, I realize Plymouth County Hospital was a wonderfully unusual place. Sure, terrible things happened there. How could they not have? Still, it was so out of place in those woods with its Spanish look and the way it was built to stagger down Bonney Hill. It's a tragedy that it was not saved.

Opening and Purpose

Plymouth County Hospital, which some also refer to as Cranberry Specialty Hospital, a name I personally cannot find evidence of in historic literature, was opened in 1919. Construction began two years earlier, but WWI delayed its progress. According to a contemporary pamphlet, clearing of the land and construction of the basement was completed by "inmates of the County Farm."

The structure is built in Mediterranean Renaissance style with a clear emphasis on Spanish details. Red tiles and smooth concrete with verandas, a columned entryway and a curving corridor visible from the back all came together for a look utterly unusual to the area.

It would have been freezing.
Notice the curved corridor in the background?

The original purpose of the hospital was to provide long-term care for individuals with tuberculosis–a lot of whom were children. It was not a scary asylum, but rather a place where people tried the therapies they thought would work. However, that did sometimes mean bizarre light therapy and small children with tuberculosis outside in the snow wearing nothing but small rompers.

The building was made with plenty of light and ventilation specifically so the patients could get sun and dust would be less of a problem. Still, many would die within the walls of Plymouth County Hospital before a viable treatment for TB became available.

The Beginning of the End

Antibiotics used to treat tuberculosis contributed to a huge decline in cases requiring long-term care. People were getting better and doing it much faster. Entire facilities dedicated to the disease were no longer necessary. Therefore, in the 60s, Plymouth County Hospital began taking on a range of chronically ill and terminal patients. As such, it was still a pretty grim place in terms of patient outcomes.

Closing

By 1992, there was not enough funding to repair Plymouth County Hospital. Another hospital was built in the county to replace it, but that closed too before long. The hospital and the property would belong to the town of Hanson and political issues, bankruptcy and public outcry would fill its history in the decades after it closed.

Sadly, multiple arson fires nearly destroyed Plymouth County Hospital in the early 2000s. Any hope that the old hospital would be restored and used for some public good were destroyed with it. Today, it is fenced off. Trespassing is forbidden. Lead and asbestos pose a significant risk on the property. Still, there are no plans to finish the job and take the husk of Plymouth County Hospital down.

If I had a few million bucks . . .

Haunting

Given that the hospital was the site of so many deaths, it's natural that ghost stories have popped up. To be honest, I don't know any off the top of my head apart from those my family and I made up to scare each other. However, I do know that it is one of the most popular ghost hunter locations on the South Shore, so we're not the only ones to whisper about hospital patients staring out from behind dingy windows. If you have a story about Plymouth County Hospital, please share it below.