[I received this report from a reliable Pittsfield resident a couple of days. While not reported to me until a week or so after it occured, this incident took place in the wake of several noted unexplained aerial sightings over Berkshire County in early August, which were reported on WAMC on 8/10/11: http://bit.ly/ngcWR1 ]
"I've been kind of embarrassed to admit this. VERY late at night on August 10 / early AM of August 11, I went out to have a cigarette. In the sky above my neighbor's house across the street, I saw what looked like a very big and bright star. I wondered about it being a planet or something and watched it for a while. I became aware that it moved in a peculiar pattern - if you put your index finger in the air and draw a U and then have your finger revers direction and do this several times, then that's something like how it moved.
I got my camera and opted to forgo the tripod because it's in the bottom of my closet (buried!) and didn't want to miss it altogether.
The attached picture isn't a great representation of it - it really looked kind of circular like a star but bigger and brighter. To get a picture, I had to use a slow shutter speed and I think the m otion of the object and perhaps my makeshift "tripod" (the wooden handrails of my front steps) might have conspired to make it blurry.
Do you have any software of means of getting a better look at what this really is? I wondered about a helicopter, but really think it's a stretch.
I took a puff of my cigarette, looked up and it was gone altogether so I have no idea where it went or how it went or anything.
Again, I am really embarrassed about this but I think curiosity is trumping the embarrassment."
There has always been a sort of unique duality in the theory and practice of vice in so-called Puritan Massachusetts.
Let’s have that suffice as the opinion based portion of this report; however tempting it might be, this is not to become a sardonic editorial on public policy. This is simply a charming story about how a nefarious evangelist brought the Berkshires the most opulent Opium den it ever had.
The year is 1889, the place, downtown Pittsfield. In a private house “not a thousand feet from North Street,” and “right under the shadow of one of our great churches,” men would gather to while away the hours with the “dream stick,” taking in their “hop,” or “Chinese tobacco.” This was not a place to purchase opium, its genteel proprietor was quick to warn the curious, but a place for its consumers to come and relax in a plush environment of the most lavish furnishings and refreshment; a place to pass the time chatting aimlessly with other poppy enthusiasts while enjoying the occasional glass of fine wine or Havanna cigar.
Said proprietor was a man calling himself General William Martin Lutz, who, when interviewed by a reporter from Pittsfield’s Sunday Morning Call, appeared in ornate silk robes, Turkish slippers, and rings set with giant gemstones upon every finger.
A bit of research into the background of this “General Lutz” revealed a very colorful character.
In Philadelphia he was known as “Doc Lutz,” or “Elder Lutz,” where he owned another even more lucrative opium-smoking club, opened in 1884. Farther abroad, in the Midwest, he had operated under the name “Professor Williams,” and was rumored to have another dozen names and aliases under which he had assumed numerous occupations in other parts of the country. By his own admission, he had served several stints in Sing Sing and other prisons, for crimes as a confidence man, abortionist, and trafficker in various kinds of contraband.
During the summers, he would occupy himself as a preacher and evangelist, traveling and ministering in tent revivals around the east coast. When the season ended, he would focus on other business, such as his well-appointed opium parlors.
Perhaps his greatest notoriety came as an influential officer within the early American branches of the Salvation Army. When that rambunctious organization first began proselytizing in the U.S., it began its operations in Philadelphia, which is where Lutz became involved. From participation in this that he gained, or assumed, the title of General. Traveling from town to town with other Salvationists, he would preach sermons based on his past as a hardened criminal, telling impassioned tales of his conversion and redemption. Soon, however, his questionable personal habits became apparent, and the evangelist Army cut their ties to him. For some time after, other SA organizers made a specific point to dissociate themselves from General Lutz, though records suggest Lutz continued for several years to pose with others as Salvation Army organizers in towns from New Hampshire to Texas.
It was during his travels as a Salvationist that Lutz arrived in Pittsfield, where he is said to have met and married a wealthy widow, who is never specifically named.
As for his Pittsfield “opium palace,” its exterior was plain enough, barely betraying its semi-secret whereabouts… but within, every square foot of space had been layered in extravagance. Expensive imported tapestries hung everywhere, surrounded by sprawling furniture covered liberally in velvet, upon which the establishment’s drowsy patrons lounged. This was luxury with an eye toward maximum comfort and sensuality, décor chosen not to please the society pages but the wandering eye of businessmen and day-laborers escaping the harsher realities in a soft narcotic haze.
As it turned out, the Morning Call’s expose on the General’s operation was the first many had heard of the place, and Chief Nicholson of the Pittsfield Police was having none of it. A warrant was issued and Lutz was arrested in a raid, along with the only customer present at the time, a young dentist named Hammond Mallory.
According to a later item in the New Haven Register, Lutz fled Pittsfield in mid February prior to the date his trial was to begin. After this, I can find no more mention of the colorful General William Marvin Lutz in print, and it may be that he dropped the name permanently following his forced flight from Pittsfield, becoming lost to authorities as well as to history. Though his scandalous involvement with the SA made frequent headlines at the time, all mention of him has been omitted from all the major histories of the organization.
As for the opium parlor itself, its exact location is a bit of a mystery today, though the small hints recorded such as its proximity to North Street and “one of our greater churches” suggests possible locales in the vicinity of Melville and North Pearl Street, or perhaps around Fenn and its nearby side streets. A cursory check of the Registry of Deeds turned up nothing in Lutz’s name, though it may have been rented, or owned under the name of the unknown wealthy widow he took up with. Further research is needed, and suggestions or clues are welcome.
*** If you have any information that might lead to establishing the whereabouts of General Lutz’s opium den, feel free to email mysterioushills@gmail.com
It’s a misconception that all the best ghostly folklore and gory history surrounds famed homesteads and Gilded Age mansions… even in the Berkshires, this is simply not the case.
Take, for example, an unassuming little house on Monterey Road, near the intersection of Routes 23 & 57. Thousands drive by it every week, probably without much notice, as it is not particularly remarkable… save for being the scene of one of the more bizarre murder cases in the history of southern Berkshire County.
In 1915, the house was occupied by an 87 year old Civil War hero named Lafayette Battelle, who lived alone save for his champion race horse, Sheridan II (named for the general) and his 29 prize winning Rhode Island hens. Though in many ways a virtual hermit, Battelle was well regarded in state fair circles, widely recognized by his long mane of silky white hair and large gold horseshoe earrings, usually seen atop his impressive steed.
Battelle’s main friend and visitor seemed to have been a 12 year old boy named Fred Turner Jr., who would visit the hermit veteran almost daily to hear his vivid tales of Civil War.
So it was that when the boy came to visit the colorful hermit one Sunday morning in December, he was surprised to hear an unknown voice coming from within the house as he approached. Out of natural curiosity, the boy came closer until he could see Battelle inside, speaking with another man he didn’t recognize. Seeing that the two men were in conversation, and having been raised not to interrupt adults (this was 1915, remember), Turner turned and left.
The following day saw a blizzard hit the northeast, making the roads there impassable, and so the boy did not return until Wednesday, this time with his younger brother, William. As they came up close on the house, they sensed something amiss immediately. The curtains were drawn and the door was locked. More significantly, they could see no tracks around the house from the past two days. Checking the barn, they found all 29 hens frozen to death, and the horse hungry and without water.
Fearing the worst, the boys managed to find their way in the house, where they were confronted with a grisly scene: Battelle, tied to his bed with rope, sheet white, his head lying in a ring of dried blood. He had been dead for some time.
The boys ran home, where they called Great Barrington police. Chief William Oschman (a character in many interesting local stories) and medical examiner Joseph Beebe hurried to the scene to investigate. Battelle, they surmised, had been struck with a heavy object, then tied to the bed, where he eventually bled to death. The condition of the house indicated that the elderly veteran had struggled ferociously with his attacker in multiple rooms before succumbing.
Only one item appeared to be missing: an old key-winder gold watch, which Battelle had carried throughout the war for good luck. Meanwhile, another item was found that didn’t belong there… a pair of old felt boots with leather straps, which they determined did not belong to the murdered hermit.
In the ensuing investigation, young Fred Turner’s memory proved invaluable. His very detailed description immediately rang a bell with Chief Oschman, who suspected that it might match a farm hand by the name of Mike Ryan, who had used to work in Sandisfield.
Corroboration for this theory came quickly. After circulating the man’s description, Anna Sawtelle of New Marlboro contacted authorities to say that a man fitting it had stopped at her home for a meal a few nights before the murder. Taking pity on him after seeing the condition of his shoes, she gave him an old pair of felt boots with leather straps.
Another tip came in just on the heels of that one: another Sandisfield man told Oschman that “Mike Ryan” was in fact actually named Michael Glasheen, and that he frequently spent his time hanging around the Bank Street of Waterbury, Connecticut. Later, the gold watch turned up at a pawn shop thereabouts.
A warrant was issued and Glasheen was quickly apprehended by Waterbury police. He confessed quickly, claiming self defense. Glasheen alleged that he had struck Battelle only after the older man attacked him.
The jury found him guilty in a few hours, and he was sentenced to life at Charlestown State Prison. There, he made an intriguing further admission to the guards. He had, he now admitted, slain Lafayette Battelle in cold blood. After he struck him and tied him to the bed, Glasheen said, the imposing old man had looked at him, and groaned out a threat that he would “haunt him for the rest of his life.”
Over the following two years, Michael Glasheen became “violently mad,” as accounts have it, raving and howling incessantly. He was transferred to Bridgewater State Prison, where he died a few years later in 1926, still tortured by visions of the man with the long white hair and gold horshoe earrings.
One is left to wonder whether the ghost of Lafayette Battelle is literal phantasm, or Gestalt effect? The intricacies of the psychological consequences of committing murder are still murky and under-examined. In many ways, the shadows and spectral apparitions of a wounded mind turned upon itself seem more frightening than any visitation from the spirit of the departed.
Either way, one can hardly say the slaying of Lafayette Battelle went unavenged.
In a previous column installment, I discussed the curious Hebrew phylactery found in Pittsfield in 1815, and its role as a possible influence on Joseph Smith and the origins of the Book of Mormon. It is perhaps doubly curious then, that Pittsfield also has a major tie to the murky origins of the other major homegrown American religious movement of the 19th Century: Adventism
It used to be remarked that one couldn’t walk far in Pittsfield without seeing a Revolutionary War vet or a clergyman’s daughter (dead cat swinging was not yet a common practice, so there’s no real way of gauging the proportion). Suitably, William Miller was born in Pittsfield, in 1782, to a retired Continental Army captain of the same name and the former Paulina Phelps (daughter of Elnathan Smith, who was instrumental in forming the First Congregational and First Baptist church of Pittsfield, along with a number of other churches in Massachusetts, Vermont, and New York).
His mother’s upbringing was a major influence on William, and his childhood diaries are full of references to Biblical passages and theological writings. While serving as an officer in the War of 1812, William became even more devout in his study of the Bible, becoming particularly absorbed with the Old Testament prophets, especially Daniel, and the book of Revelation. Over the following years, Miller came to the conclusion that coded references in the Bible foretold the timing of Christ’s Second Coming. Using his own interpretive system, he believed he could even narrow it down to an exact year: 1843.
Millers logic rested on the assumption that the 2300 days before the cleansing of the sanctuary, referred to in Daniel 8:14, could be taken to mean the world would end in 2300 years. A vague passage in Ezekiel [Chapter 4, verse 6] shored up his belief that in prophecy, one day was equal to one year. Of course, there’s also the equation of a day to a thousand years in Gods time [2 Peter 3:8], but I suppose the Seeker finds what the Seeker is aiming to find. In any case, if one begins counting, as Miller did, from 457 B.C., the ostensible date of Artaxerxes’ decree to rebuild Jerusalem, one gets 1843.
Beginning in 1831, Miller took to the road, traveling from pulpit to pulpit and tent to tent to spread the word of Jesus impending Advent, gaining large numbers of converts throughout the country, primarily in highly rural areas. Every storm, mishap and tragedy was said to be a sign of the impending end of the world. Millerites, as they became called, began going up on hilltops and buildings in white ascension robes to look for signs in the sky. One large faction of Millerites caused a stir when they were believed lost on West Stockbridge Mountain during a bad storm.
With their heretical beliefs and peculiar white robes, Millerites quickly became not only objects of derision, but also suspicion. Rumors of sex orgies, insanity, murder and suicide among the white-robed Millerites became prevalent. On top of this hysteria, there existed the very real problems arising from many followers quitting their jobs, removing their children from school, and generally removing themselves from worldly functioning, in preparation for the imminent apocalypse. In Shaftsbury, a Millerite meeting was raided on suspicion that the group was subsisting on vegetables stolen from nearby farms.
As 1843 neared a close, with no sign of the predicted parousia, Miller announced that he had made a small error in his calculations, and set the new date for October 22, 1844.
When this new anticipated day arrived, Millerites everywhere donned their white robes, clustering in homes and churches to pray and wait. Many climbed hilltops or trees to be closer to Heaven when it opened to them. In Rutland, one man constructed wings and attempted to fly up it from the top of his barn, and in another Vermont town the smiling corpse of Mrs. Young, a devout Millerite who had died on the 15th, was left in her bed assuming she would be raised from death.
When night fell on October 22, 1844, and the dawn followed, thousands of lives were destroyed.
A large number of followers -how many is unclear- committed suicide. Miller retired to Low Hampton, NY, where he went blind, senile, and died five years later, still genuinely believing that there was merely some small error in the historical dating and the End was still near. The remaining Millerites went on to form various other Adventist sects, of which the Seventh Day Adventist Church, formed in 1863, is the largest today,with more than 15 million members in 203 countries.
Most modern Adventist movements decline to set any specific dates for the end of the world.
------- Joe Durwin is a Pittsfield native who sometimes suspects the world did end already, and the apparently real world is just syndicated television. Send strange stories and eschatological forecasts to mysterioushills@gmail.com, or write to him care of the Advocate.
This is a story about a prophet; a Mohammed who went to the Mountain, and delivered down a dire warning about the future. It’s also a story about the calamity that followed, for you cannot have a prophet without some calamity.
The mountain happens to be Beartown Mountain, in Lee, and the prophet’s name was Levi Beebe. Some say his ghost still haunts the mountain, but that’s just the side note that brought the story to my attention.
Beebe was born in Richmond, in 1817. In his youth, he studied the paper business at the Platner & Smith mill in Lee. Due to poor health, he had to give up that vocation, and subsequently bought 2000 acres on Beartown (so named for a bear shot on his property). There he ran a small sawmill, and in his spare time studied the weather.
Over many years, he went from being something of an eccentric mountain hobbyist to a legendary figure, locally referred to as the “Weather Prophet” or “Prophet of Beartown Mountain.” Locals eagerly awaited his pronouncements, and farmers throughout the region came to plan their planting around them.
Eschewing “fancy” equipment, Beebe used only rigorous observation and note-taking. “Greylock is my barometer!” he wrote, and from observing it, 38 miles to the north, he would gauge the content of gases in the atmosphere according to his own theories. Most unique was his assertion that the overall weather for a season could be measured by observing that of the last twenty days of the previous season. For instance, if in the last twenty days of December, snow accumulated and cold hardened it, he predicted a cold winter. If it came and went during those days, he predicted a broken winter.
His most famous success was in accurately predicting the Great Blizzard of 1888, one of the most severe storms in U.S. History. The previous fall, Beebe forecast that a terrible storm would strike on March 12 of the coming year.
By early March, the weather was unseasonably warm, and many had forgotten or shrugged off the Beartown hermit’s prediction. A decent number of locals who had come to swear by Beebe’s proclamations, however, had stocked up considerable fuel and food.
It came to pass that Sunday, March 11, began with a cold rain, gradually becoming a steady downpour. Temperatures dropped throughout the day, and rain mixed with sleet, then steady snow beginning in earnest just after midnight March 12.
It came to be called the Great White Hurricane, two days of freezing winds and heavy snowfall that paralyzed much of the Northeast. Upward of 50 inches fell in Massachusetts and Connecticut, with only slightly less in New York. Sustained winds buried everything in towering snowdrifts, making train and even road travel virtually impossible. Telegraph infrastructure was knocked out, cutting off major cities from Montreal to Washington, D.C. for days. More than 400 died in total, 200 in New York City alone.
In Pittsfield, the thermometer was at two below by Monday morning, with heavy drifts already impeding even sleigh traffic. Nonetheless, businesses opened, and most actually stayed open until the customary 6pm. The gas lamps were lit along North Street in the late afternoon, but all except two blew out immediately. By evening, the streets were completely deserted.
On Tuesday, almost no travel was possible. Average snowdrifts ranged from waist to shoulder deep; in places snow went higher than a person’s head, eclipsing the first floor level of some buildings. Nothing opened. The few mill employees who attempted to go on working became trapped inside their factories.
An even grimmer situation was developing on Washington Mountain, where Monday a passenger train had become stuck on the tracks and gradually became buried in the drifts. A short-range train, it had no dining car and the only food aboard consisted of a crate of 300 eggs. Four intrepid passengers managed to climb out of the car, then trek through blinding and sub-zero temperatures to get some bread from a nearby house. The seventy two passengers aboard got by on that and raw eggs, until Tuesday night, when the fuel ran out.
Finally, three Boston & Albany engines coupled together pushed through late that night, in time to rescue them from certain death by exposure.
When the snow stopped on Wednesday, drifts in Pittsfield ranged from 10 to 30 feet high. Overall, though, Berkshirites had stood up well. Some of that should no doubt be credited to the Prophet of Beartown Mountain.
Accordingly, his fame grew, and later predictions were published in papers throughout the country as he made them. In 1892, he published a booklet summarizing his contributions, the boldly titled Meteorology: How to Foretell the Weather for All Time in All Parts of the World. He also wrote weather reports for National Geographic and various New York papers.
As for his ghost haunting the mountain where his house once stood, I’ve never really heard anything but the vaguest mentions of it. I’m not sure anyone’s actually ever claimed to have personally seen anything odd there. More likely, this is a vague remembrance of a 1946 story by the Eagle’s Richard Happel, in which he uses the character of a ghost of Beebe to write a cute, educational piece about the changes in weather science since his day.
Even without haunting anything, his influence continues to this day. For though his name has largely been forgotten, there are still some farmers all over the country who continue to use his 20-day seasonal prediction method, never realizing that it originated with the Berkshires’ own Weather Prophet.
Joe Durwin is a Pittsfield native who is much more afraid of snow than of ghosts. Please feel free to send stories of extraordinary local individuals and your own weather predictions (positive only please) to mysterioushills@gmail.com
Right on the side of Route 116 as it winds through the town of Savoy, there is a tiny cemetery rising up around a tomb built into the hillside. The plot itself is actually called TombCemetery, and it holds a couple of dozen stones marking burials from the mid 1800s into the early 20th century.
The tomb itself is empty. It was built by a prominent early settler of the town, but he is not interred there. Unbeknownst even to many Savoy residents, the mystery surrounding this empty tomb is closely tied to the town's favorite legend.
It's a story that's been around since the 19th century, in print since at least the 1930s and still very much in circulation. In fact, I heard a version of it within a couple of minutes of asking about town history on a recent visit to the general store.
Recorded many times, the basic legend goes as follows: One dark and stormy night, a wealthy traveler arrived on horseback to put up at the old tavern. When morning came, he was nowhere to be seen, and his bed had not been slept in. His horse was found the next day in a nearby field with a terrible gash in its neck.
Townspeople suspected the innkeeper of foul play. Without a
body or any other proof, though, no charges were brought. Soon after, bloodstains began to appear on the stairs leading to the second floor, and they could not be removed. Strange lights were seen in the window of the room the stranger was said to be slain in, and sometimes even a gory apparition with hollow eyes was spotted.
The tale is most often attributed to the 1830s and set in the original Bowker Tavern, also known as the Bowker Hotel. Liberty Bowker began leasing a tavern along what is now Main Street in 1823, and it grew increasingly prosperous until he sold it to his son Calvin in 1841. The original structure burned down sometime after that, and it was rebuilt bigger and grander, with many rooms and famous trout dinners drawing crowds from North
Adams and Williamstown nightly. This second Bowker Hotel burned down in 1894. Savoy's current general store is built over the foundation, and charred stone can still be seen in the cellar, according to Gail Carlow, who runs the store with her husband.
In recent decades, some versions of the tale place it next door to the store, in what was once the MasonHotel. The MasonHotel ran on and off from 1833 until the 1920s; it is now a private residence.
A closer examination of Savoy history is illuminating. The first town history, written by H.E. Miller in 1879, makes a brief reference to the "ruins of the famous haunted house." Neither the Bowker nor Mason buildings would have been in ruins at the time his history was written, but an earlier establishment, called the Williams Tavern, fits the legend perfectly. In fact, the history surrounding this, Savoy's first inn facility, suggests that the long-running town legend may have a basis in very real events.
The story of the tavern begins with Joseph Williams, who arrived from Taunton with his three sons in 1780. One of those sons, William, built the inn on his father's property and opened for business around 1794. Four years later, he relinquished the business to his father.
Joseph Williams, along with his partner Jacob Blake, was involved in a wide variety of business dealings, including half the real estate sales in town. Not all of these transactions appear to have been legitimate; at least one unhappy associate had to set the authorities on Williams for money owed him.
Around 1815, Jacob Blake died, but Williams remained close with his widow, Olive. Three years later, Joseph inexplicably began selling off his many land holdings, all except the lot where he had built the tomb in question. This he reserved for himself and the widow Blake, according to a notation in the deed. Virtually everything else he sold, sometimes at an apparent loss, up until 1823, after which there is no more mention of him in records.
Olive Blake, meanwhile, was swept up in the Shaker missionary zeal that gripped the town during those years. She eventually relocated, along with her daughter Rhoda, to the Shaker community in Mount Lebanon, along with dozens of other Savoy residents. Her daughter Rhoda became a prominent Shaker sister, holding many important offices in the community and eventually penning an autobiography profiling her life and experiences. It is in this document that we find an account of Joseph Williams that may shed a great deal of light on the oft-told haunted tavern tale.
Rhoda refers to a man arriving on horseback to the tavern one evening. He checked in, but before going to his room demanded to see Williams and was taken to his nearby home. Soon, angry voices could be heard coming from the house. Then there was silence. In the morning, Rhoda says, it was found that the man's room had not been slept in, and no sign of him could be found save his horse, which remained in the stable for days unclaimed.
After this, many people noticed a decline in Williams' health, and he seemed always distracted, even depressed. It was during this period that he sold off nearly all of his land. Finally, according to Blake's account, he was standing by his fire one night, when he fell and was "consumed by the flames." He ran from his house to the nearby river, extinguishing himself, but died shortly after.
Curiously, no one seems to know where his body is buried. The tomb, if it was ever used, is currently empty, and inscriptions from Savoy's 21 small cemeteries show no sign of Joseph Williams. Olive Blake moved to Mount Lebanon and is no doubt interred in the Shaker burial ground there.
What really happened to the unnamed traveler that came to Savoy that fateful night? Where is Joseph Williams, and why does his elaborate tomb remain empty to this day? We may never know more about these questions than we do now. As for Williams Tavern, the property was bought in 1824 by Liberty Bowker, whose grave can be found there in TombCemetery. Today, Route 116 passes right through where the building stood. Only the empty tomb remains to tantalize us with its enigmas.
That and the legend of the murdered traveler, which is as alive today as it ever was.
Joe Durwin is a longtime local mystery monger. Send tips on haunted places, unexplained occurrences, rumors and other accounts of the strange to mysterioushills@gmail.com
Related Anecdotes:
-The same sort of “lights” that legend describes being seen in the Williams Tavern after the suspected murder were also reported by Shakers in their documents, in particular at the nearby widow Olive Blake’s house. The tavern incident took place at the peak of Shaker revivalism in Savoy, and the lights were seen by them as a sign of faith and devotion.
-In 1878, TombCemetery was desecrated by a very eloquent vandal.Thirty nine headstones were broken or tipped, and across the ground, a very large sheet of brown paper had been laid.On it was an original nine stanza poem entitled “The Red Dragon,” which predicted a second Civil War, to which the one just passed was “only a sample.”It was signed The Tramp.Text of the poem has not survived, but it was described as being written in excellent penmanship and grammar, written by someone "well educated in history."The mystery was never solved.
Photos by Autumn Doyle Advocate Weekly Thursday, September 24
Arguably the most prominent historic landmark in Stockbridge, the Red Lion Inn has been in existence since 1773 when Silas Pepoon first established a tavern there.
Over the course of more than two centuries, it has gone from being a smoky saloon for fomenting revolution to one of the most famous and well-regarded historic lodgings in the region. It has been through 20 proprietors and three name changes, and it even has burned to the ground and been rebuilt. It has accommodated presidents, dignitaries and many celebrities.
Turns out, it may accommodate even stranger denizens.
I first encountered rumors of a haunting at the inn a couple of years ago, through some reviews on the popular site tripadvisor.com that referred to unusual activity in room 301. The first, in August 2004, was from a man who said he felt something touching his head and tugging the bed sheet. Almost one year to the day later, a second reviewer reported several times waking up to the feeling of having their toes being pulled on, as well as the sound of footsteps and the sensation of an unseen force fluffing up the comforter.
A month later, a third review described the guest being woken all night by cover-pulling from the foot of the bed. When the man turned to look, he saw a man in a top hat and "olden day attire," who then vanished in a white mist.
This, it seems, is not the only part of the inn said to be haunted. Guests have told staff of unusual sightings in other rooms, and one former housekeeper stated there had been rumors among some of the cleaning staff going back at least a decade about the whole fourth floor being haunted. In addition to the man in the top hat, there are vague rumors about a ghostly young girl carrying flowers.
One intriguing story can be found in the current edition of the inn's "Stories," a courtesy booklet of anecdotes penned by former guests recalling their experiences staying there. In it, one Sheryl Ciccarelli recounts an incident taking place in Room 424. One night in April 2003, she awoke quite suddenly to an overwhelming feeling that someone - or something - stood over her bed. Looking at the clock as she woke her husband, she noted the time: 1:35 a.m. In the morning, they discovered that their daughter had left them a message to tell them that a rainstorm had knocked the power lines out to their house, causing a shower of sparks and a great commotion in the neighborhood. The time of her call? 1:35 a.m.
Other miscellaneous incidents have been mentioned in various other parts of the complex. The most significant involves a gentleman who asked to be relocated from his room, he said, because of the sheer number of "spirited" guests he encountered. The gentleman turned out to be celebrity medium James van Praagh.
Last year, Joseph Flammer and Diane Hill, a pair of ghost-hunters from Long Island, spent the night in room 301, bringing with them a variety of sophisticated equipment. In addition to a pervasive cold spot at the foot of the bed, they reported knocks coming from within the armoire adjacent to it. They also claim to have captured video recording an amorphous "something" sweeping across the room to bang into the camera tripod.
Intrigued, I wanted to see for myself what oddities room 301 might hold and made arrangements to rent the room. I arrived on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and quickly checked in. Room 301 is a bright, cozy little room at the southernmost end of the main building, with nothing overtly spooky about its appearance.
I immediately turned on a digital recorder and started snapping photos. I didn't expect anything terribly dramatic. Over the years I've visited more allegedly haunted places than I can count, and only a handful of times have things gotten very weird. It may be ghosts just don't like to deal with the press.
The only particularly curious thing observed during my stay involved certain electrical fluctuations. I'm not a professional "ghost-hunter" by any means, but I did happen to have an EMF detector on loan from a friend. In a nutshell, what this does is measure electromagnetic field fluctuations. Typically, these are emitted by electrical appliances, wiring and other such equipment. However, in one area of the floor between the foot of the bed and armoire, I got persistently high spikes, much higher than those closer to the TV and other electronics.
It would be difficult to completely rule out wiring or other mechanical emissions coming from under that area of the floor as a cause of these readings, but given the fact that most reports of odd phenomenon in 301 seem to involve that part of the room, it seems worth consideration.
So who or what might haunt the inn? My first thought was to look into the fire that leveled the building in 1896, but this is said to have resulted in no loss of lives. In 236 years of history, though, the inn has had many thousands of visitors and staff, and there's no real agreement on what era the alleged ghosts of the inn might hail from.
Could be there's just something in the name. In the process of scouring for data on the Stockbridge haunt, I was intrigued to find a profusion of haunted Red Lions. The 17th century Red Lion Inn of Avebury, Wiltshire, is widely held to be haunted by a former innkeeper, and the Red Lion in Gloucestershire has been said to feature the ghost of Anne Boleyn. Then there's London's Red Lion Square, where the shade of Oliver Cromwell is said to hang about, and the be-spooked Red Lion Hotel of Pontefract, Yorkshire. Back on this side of the pond, Chicago's Red Lion Pub is said to be frequented by half a dozen former patrons from various eras.
Is our Red Lion really haunted? According to Carol Cosco Baumann, director of marketing and communications, "Every now and then, we hear about a guest that has had an experience that they attribute to a ghostly presence. In the past four years, I can count the number of such instances on one hand. That said, we keep our minds open to the possibilities!"
Perhaps the best way to assuage your curiosity is to go see for yourself. I recommend room 301... just keep an eye on that strange spot at the foot of the bed.
Joe Durwin is a longtime local mystery monger. Send tips on haunted places, macabre sightings, curious artifacts, crackpot theories, pernicious rumors and other accounts of the strange to mysterioushills@gmail.com
