The Mad Miner of Austerlitz

When I lived in Arizona, where dozens of little mining ghost towns dot the foothills just off the major highways, I was awash in the lore of the gold strike. The Lost Dutchman mine, in nearby Apache Junction, has become so surrounded in legend that the range of hills surrounding it became known as the Superstition Mountains. Such stories are typically tragic, even grisly, but end on a note of nebulous optimism: the presumed gold left to be found.

New England has its equivalents, of course; every North Shore town has their own pirate treasure tales, and there are troves of Tory gold and other Revolutionary era spoils said to be dotting the landscape of the Northeast. In the Berkshires, gold has been an occasional obsession; in the early 1800s, a North Adams clockmaker prospected in the Hoosac Range for 20 years, finally producing some nuggets at the end of his life. Even earlier, the Mohican chief Konkapot was reputed to have a secret gold mine that only a few had ever seen.

Even classic gold mine scare stories, though less common, exist around here. Take for example the case of Oscar Beckwith, a Berkshire man whose heinous crimes became a national sensation over a century ago. Beckwith was born in North Egremont around 1810, later moving west to seek his fortunes. He reappeared in 1881, and took up residence in a cabin he built at the foot of Harvey Mountain, just a short distance west of the state line in Austerlitz, New York.

Described as a narrow-eyed, wizened man in his 70s, he said little, though he sometimes complained bitterly about his persecution by the “Jack Masons,” who he claimed had pursued him back and forth across the country, for reasons unknown. He had a wife in Egremont, Marietta, who he’d abandoned long ago, and did not visit her upon his return.

Beckwith soon came forth with the claim that he’d struck gold on the mountain, and convinced a man named Simon Vandercook to raise some money to become his partner in a proposed mining venture. Vandercook, at the time, was living and working at the home of Harry Calkins, next door in Alford. Simon was by all accounts a good, reliable man, but when he heard Oscar talk, he got the gold bug. He sent some of Beckwith’s samples to the state assayer, and sure enough, there was some gold contained in them.

On January 10, 1882, we know that Simon Vandercook left the Calkins homestead after dinner to walk to Beckwith’s shack. When he didn’t return that evening, Harry Calkins rode up to the cabin to look for him. As he reached it, he observed a dark smoke pouring from the chimney, and a nauseating smell in the air. He demanded to know what was burning, and Beckwith told him it was just some old ham rinds and bones.

He said that Vandercook had gone off to Green River with another man, and would not be back until March. Feeling a bit like Jody Foster near the end of Silence of the Lambs, one imagines, Calkins asked no more questions. He hurried down the mountain, returning with a hastily gathered posse to find the cabin empty.

Within, they found the mangled remains of a human body pickling in a brine barrel. In the stove, they discovered a charred skull, teeth and the half-burned bones of a foot and a hand. Early press accounts strongly imply evidence of cannibalism.

The posse followed Beckwith’s tracks to the caves around nearby No Bottom Pond, but lost him in an ensuing snowstorm. An inquest was held at a tavern in town, and a warrant issued for Beckwith’s arrest. A drawing that survives depicts two local reporters, W.J. Oatman for the Springfield Republican, and James Harding for the Eagle, discussing the gory murder. Oatman later became editor of the Pittsfield Morning Call, Harding of the Pittsfield Sun.

Beckwith stayed at large for three years. Eventually, the case became a passionate interest for Great Barrington’s Deputy Sheriff Humphrey, who had already collared another notorious murderer of the day, Fred Webster. Humphrey tracked him to Ontario, then, distrusting New York authorities, went to Washington to obtain extradition papers directly from President Arthur.

Beckwith was arrested and brought to Hudson, where he at first denied the charge, ranting constantly about “Jack Masons” and “Free Mason skulls” and their attempt to frame him. He was tried and convicted in November, 1885. He was sentenced six more times as appeals, petitions, and “lunacy commissions” were held. At the end of his life, he spoke at length about a second mine, farther up Harvey Mountain on a ledge only he knew about, much richer in gold than the first.

He was hung in Hudson on March 1, 1888. Only days later, the Great Blizzard of ’88 (See Advocate 12/3/09) finally finished off Beckwith’s abandoned cabin on Harvey Mountain. No trace of it or of any mine, even the one he had worked with Vandercook, have been reported since.

Over the years, occasional gold-seekers and other curious parties have investigated the area a bit. In the 1950s, a couple named the Hancocks prospected an area of stream nearby every weekend. A couple of decades later, Joseph Elliot of Egremont uncovered chopped up bones in a shallow grave near the supposed site of the cabin, and some speculated that Vandercook may not have been the only victim of “the Mad Miner.”

The area of Harvey Mountain forest in Austerlitz, with the appropriately named Fog Hill and the murky, cave dotted woods around No Bottom Pond, always seemed a fairly spooky area to me to begin with. Now even more so, knowing there just might still be an undiscovered mine or two out there somewhere… and perhaps other things, better left buried.

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Joe Durwin is a local mystery monger and folklore fanatic. Send tips on buried treasure, bizarre crimes and other accounts of the strange to mysterioushills@gmail.com

Local Witch Trials Represent Perennial Impulse

Joe Durwin
Advocate Weekly Oct. 20, 2005

By virtue of timing, this area was, for the most part, free of the witchcraft hysteria that once swept New England.

The history of formal court proceedings was already winding down when the notorious affair at Salem took place in 1692. That same year saw the first settlement in what is now Berkshire County by Dutch farmers in Mount Washington, and the settling of neighboring southwest Vermont did not begin until the late 18th century.

Just because all official witch trials ended in the 1690s, though, does not mean that everyone suddenly altogether stopped being afraid of witches. As John Putnam Demos notes in his classic study, Entertaining Satan, “As a matter of individual preoccupation, and even of informal action, witchcraft was part of New England life well into the 19th century.”

It is in this later category that the witch “incidents” of this region fit. My friend Joe Citro, an inveterate digger into New England lore, came across an example of one such incident in the early days of Pownal, Vermont, recorded by lawyer/historian T.E. Brownell.

A Dutch woman identified only as “Mrs Krieger” (records indicate that there were several Kriegers among the town’s early settlers) was accused of certain diabolical acts. What specifically these acts were was not recorded, but they appear to have been taken very seriously- she was subjected to a testing system developed centuries before in Europe, the “water trial.” Stemming from a pre-Christian belief that water was sacred, it involved tying up the accused witch and casting her into water. If she sank, it indicated her innocence. If she floated, it meant that the water had rejected her because she was in league with Evil.



It was decided that the Mrs. Krieger would be pushed through a hole in the ice on the Hoosick River. Not surprisingly, she sank, demonstrating her virtue… and gravity. Luckier than most, Krieger even survived the ordeal. She emerged a bit downstream, was plucked from the icy water and revived.

The conversation that followed must have been extremely awkward.

Another legend dating back to the 18th century depicts an even more extreme confrontation in southern Berkshire County. The story speaks of a dilapidated old house in Guilder Hollow in Egremont, which had come to be thought of as haunted. The house had been the property of a man named Lloyd, who kept company with the Mohican of the Housatonic area and was believed to have been taught “the bloodcurdling magic arts of the Indian medicine man.”

When he was very old, the man disappeared, and was thought to have died. The house fell into disrepair. A few years later a woman known as Maria Lloyd, thought to be his daughter, took up residence there.

Soon after, the usual complaints associated with witchcraft begin: dogs died mysteriously, birds dropped dead in great numbers close to the house, children complained of being pinched by unseen hands. Strange lights were seen in the house by people passing on the road, and the sound of bells from a phantom sleigh were reportedly coming and going from the old house. Rumors began circulating that the Lloyd woman was consorting with spirits there.

These ill occurrences gradually escalated, according to the legend. A man named Job Hollenbeck lost a horse, and his neighbor Seth Porter’s chicken coop burned down for no apparent reason. Finally, it was decided that no further proof of sorcery was needed, and that the mysterious Maria Lloyd must be driven away for the safety of the community.

A large party of villagers, lead by Hollenbeck, set out for the house one night. Many of them armed with muskets, the mob surrounded the Lloyd house and called out to her gather her things and leave the premises. Maria mocked them from an upstairs window, threatening all manner of magical retribution. At this point, the tale continues, the mob was split on how to proceed. The timid were already backing away from the place, while a few of the more intrepid uneasily circled the door.

Suddenly, someone cried out that the house had caught on fire. A great explosion was heard inside, and soon the entire place was ablaze.

“Come and join me in the witches’ fire dance!” Maria Lloyd is supposed to have shouted from the window as the flames rose around her. At the last moment, say some, she seemed to repent, calling out to be saved from Satan’s hand… but by this time, the inferno had conveniently grown too wild for anyone to enter the house.

Later, some would claim that they had seen the form of a woman rise above the burning house and vanish into the night. As the tale has it, no remains were found in the ruins the next day.



Whether or not there is any nucleus of historical truth underlying this story is unclear. There is a record of one “Jan Hollenbeck” Egrement around the 1750s, but whether this is the Hollenbeck from the story is anyone’s guess. I cannot help but wonder if there perhaps was some poor woman living out in a shack in Guilder Hollow, arousing suspicion. Did some hysterical group of individuals set the place on fire, and in a subsequent guilty revision blame it on the devil?

Real or not, the existence of these narratives themselves suggest that while legal witch proceedings had ceased, the fear of witchcraft still thrived. In some ways, such superstitions have never faded. A cursory glance at the “ritual abuse” scares of the 1980s and 90s (from which one Pittsfield man, a victim of this hysteria, languished in jail nearly 20 years) shows that the sort of impulse which drove the atrocities in Salem and throughout New England is never far beneath the surface.
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Send accounts of unexplained occurrences, strange tales, and other weirdness to mysterioushills@gmail.com

Greylock Was His Barometer: Levi Beebe and the Great Blizzard of ‘88

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

Savoy's murdered traveler: Another historical 'X-File'

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 Tomb Cemetery, 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 Mason Hotel. The Mason Hotel 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 Tomb Cemetery. 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, Tomb Cemetery 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.

Hauntings at the Red Lion Inn?

By Joe Durwin

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

Natural History of Anomalies

THESE MYSTERIOUS HILLS
Wonders and Mysteries of the Natural World
By Joe Durwin

This week marks the final installment of These Mysterious Hills as a regular column. While Advocate readers may hear from me again, from time to time, as strange new developments occur, or the occasional obscure case from the past emerges from some dark and dusty hiding place, its time as a regular, reoccurring source of folklore and forteana has run its course.

The simple fact of the matter is that there is not an endless supply of haunted places and unexplained occurrences, at least not in any one locality. People are always telling me they don’t know how I have come up with so many topics to write about, month after month. Usually I just nod and smile- because I don’t either, not really. I have no idea how I’ve managed to keep this going as long as I have.

One thing is certain: these hills have far more than their fair share of mysteries. Few regions can boast such a rich landscape of eerie lore and inherent curiosity. Nonetheless, there is still some limited room to swing a dead cat without hitting a ghost, a UFO, or Sasquatch. Weirdness, though pervasive, is finite, and this column has always had an inevitable end.

What I’ve enjoyed most about revisiting these subjects again and again are the human dimensions involved. For the most part, these accounts of local legends, historical mysteries and haunted places are human stories, stories about people who lived here, what they did and what they saw and what happened to them. In this final chapter, though, I turn the spotlight off humanity and onto the hills themselves, to the beautiful and mysterious landscape of the place itself. This time, I will let nature tell its story.

Despite the picturesque views and romanticism of the changing seasons, bizarre and unpleasant weather has always been a perennial topic in this area. On occasion, the tendency toward severe elements goes right off the grid, and conditions allow for meteorological occurrences of a more inexplicable nature.

On August 23, 1892, a large number of Pittsfield residents witnessed a cloud formation behaving in a most uncanny way in the midst of a hailstorm. The cloud was moving fast, and very low to the ground, when suddenly it tore asunder, with two parts blowing off in different directions. The larger part passed across the tops of some tall poplar trees, cleanly shaving the tops right off, as though an airborne lawnmower had passed by.

Another curious hailstorm struck Bennington on June 17, 1950, pelting the town with metal. Around noon that day, a heavy hail storm swept through town, and as the hail melted local people were perplexed to find that it had left tiny pieces of metal behind everywhere. Word spread quickly, even garnering some national attention from Life magazine. Meteorologists in Boston and Albany for the most part scoffed, calling the phenomenon impossible.

Still, this is not the worst form of precipitation seen hereabouts. On March 27, 1960, Mrs. Larry Roche of Dalton heard what sounded like an explosion in her front yard. Running out to see about the commotion, she found a large hole containing three pieces of what had been a chunk of ice weighing over 30 pounds. There were no airplanes over the area at the time, and the ice bomb appeared to have fallen right out of a cloudless sky.

As if that was not enough, a hurricane of stones and mortar chunks hammered two buildings astride the border with Connecticut at Sage’s Ravine in 1802. For five days, stones struck from no identifiable source, destroying over 50 panes of glass but otherwise leaving the buildings largely unharmed. As similar bombardment occurred at the farm of Thomas Paddock in North Powna.l in 1879, where stones not only fell from the sky, but rolled upwards along the roof against gravity, and when picked up felt hot to the touch.

The local fauna has also been a dependable source of anomalous phenomena and bewildering behavior. Besides sightings of Bigfoot-style “wild men,” supposedly extinct catamounts, wolves, and even “demon dogs,” as described in past editions, there’ve also been a number of more documented oddities amongst known species.

One example is the two-headed calf born to A.J. Somers of Adams in September, 1896. Born alive, the calf also possessed six legs and two tails. The calf died a couple of days later, and it was said at the time that Somers intended to have it stuffed, but I do not know whether this taxidermy ever took place or not. Interestingly, the very same year, a kitten in North Adams was born with eight legs and two tails. All these appendages grew from one body, with only one head. The feline, quite alive, was briefly on display at Reeves’ Pool Room on Commercial Street.

It was also near North Adams, four years before, that a vast number of Hessian flies seem to have rained down from the sky. According to the Fall 1892 edition of the journal Insect Life, specimens of larvae were submitted by Professor S.F. Clark of Williams College, collected from the very surface of the snow immediately following a storm. Untold numbers of these insects were found living across acres of this snow. The scientific advisors of Insect Life presented this along with numerous other cases of flies and worms found on the snow’s surface that winter. Their explanation was that the larvae were tempted to the surface from their hibernation by a sudden warm day, only to be trapped by a sudden freeze or storm.

They admit that this will not suffice for many cases, which they attribute to air currents displacing these insect from more southern regions. This is the old Segregating Whirlwind Theory, trotted out as a last resort to explain (when simply ignoring will no longer suffice) the frequent rains of stones, frogs, fish, snails, snakes, or coins worldwide throughout history. The Segregating Whirlwind is that alleged atmospheric phenomenon in which a storm cloud manages to sweep up a large quantity of an animal or object all of a same type, without picking up any significant traces of any other kinds of fish, dirt, leaves, moss or other similarly light matter in the process. The Whirlwind then deposits these objects squarely –and often entirely unharmed, in the case of fish, frogs, etc— in an entirely different locale. Neat trick, that.

In 1806, a large insect ate its way out from deep within a grand wooden table in the home of Mr. P.S. Putnam of Williamstown. The table was made from an old apple tree cut down in 1786, when it was already 80 years old. In 1812, another ate its way out, and 1814, a third. This last one tunneled out from a spot 45 cortical layers into the table, meaning its egg originally was deposited in the wood more than 73 years before it hatched.

This last specimen measured an inch and a quarter. The owner had heard it chewing its way out for weeks before it emerged.

And there may be stranger creatures still. In April, 1890, a fisherman encountered a water snake said to have measured twenty-five feet long in one of the Twin Lakes. And just a few months ago, I received reports of an enormous unidentified animal in North Adams, a predatory beast able to fly but heavy enough to bend a metal railroad tie just standing on it.

These are just a few varied expressions of the often bizarre natural landscape of These Mysterious Hills. There are still more, here and in the back story of every city and town and county in America... so very many that it makes me wonder whether there is such a thing as ‘straight’ history at all…if that is not itself the mythical phenomenon.

But when you go to sleep tonight, remind yourself that it’s all ok. There’s no such thing as inexplicable forces, or impossible occurrences. Remind yourself that you don’t believe in that sort of thing. There are no ghosts, no ghouls, no monsters and no flying saucers, no matter how totally ubiquitous these things seem to be. No visions or miracles or meaningful coincidences. Everything is under control.

And remember, whatever cannot be properly observed, replicated, or explained or understood: just blame it on the weather.

---

Joe Durwin is a Pittsfield native on an extended sabbatical in the desert, from which he will soon be returning. Always, always, always, send tips on haunted places, unexplained sightings, weird stories, ghost photos, bizarre gossip, odd experiences, cursed artifacts, crackpot theories, pernicious rumors, and accounts of the strange to: joe@durwin.net

As a final note, I’d like to thank the Advocate editors who have all been so marvelous to me: Glenn Drohan, Lani Stack, and Rebecca Dravis. Not every free weekly is willing to devote so much space, year after year, to meandering explorations of a region’s skeleton-filled closets, no matter how vital a part of the local story it may be.

"The Fosburgh Murder Mansion"

Back in 2005, I wrote about Greenwood, known more commonly as “the Old Britton Place,” one of Pittsfield’s most haunted houses of the 19th century. Greenwood burned down in 1890, but floating apparitions have been reported for more than 100 years all around the area of West Housatonic Street where it used to be. The Britton Place is not the only local haunted house to have slipped into the mists of local memory; a number of the old, empty structures that gave many of our forbearers restless chills as they passed by simply do not exist in the present day. Buildings burn, crumble into dereliction, or are demolished to make way for the more desired accommodations of the moment.

A local business stands on the spot where the Fosburgh house, one of Pittsfield’s most illustrious hauntings, once stood. Long before the old frame house on Tyler Street fell into abandonment and disrepair, becoming the subject of the muttered trepidation and the dares of neighborhood children, it was the site of one of the city’s most sensational murders. Indeed, the history of the entire house is wrapped up in one single mysterious night.

It was after two a.m., August 20, 1900, when the fire alarm rang out from the direction box 41 in front of the old Baptist church. The sound could be heard as far away as Dalton and Lenox. From all directions, men came spilling out of nearby houses, some of them still pulling on shoes and shirts.

As veteran Pittsfield journalist Haydn Mason recalled:

“By the time I got organized and on the scene, a strange sight greeted eyes expecting to see the center of the city in flames. Horses hitched to the exercise wagons the Fire department used in those days, were chomping at their bits. Men were excitedly muttering to each other in low voices. Firearms were being hurried over from the Pierson Hardware Store and handed out to men crowding into the wagon. From somebody I heard the word ‘murder’ and I learned that men were going out to guard the roads leading from town.”

Word spread quickly from there: the beautiful young May Fosburgh, 19, had been shot in the heart. As her hysterical family told those who rushed to help, three men with masks over their heads had broken in, firing on May when she blocked their path. Police Chief John Nicholson ordered every man in the department into duty, and a steady stream of volunteers were outfitted with shotguns in front of the hardware store. Nicholson declared the city surrounded, and the following evening was still taking on volunteers for what was called the most sensational manhunt in Pittsfield’s history, which included more than five hundred armed men.

The Fosburghs were a wealthy socialite family from Buffalo, New York, having only arrived a few months previously. R.L. Fosburgh & Son were contractors working on the construction of new buildings for the rapidly expanding General Electric Company. They had taken up residence in the house on the northwest corner of Tyler and Woodlawn Streets in order to be close to their work.

On the night of May’s death, there were several people in the house: her parents, Mr. and Mrs. Robert L. Fosburgh, her brothers Robert S. and James Fosburgh, along with Robert’s wife, Amy, 13- year old Beatrice Fosburgh, and 16-year-old Bertha Sheldon, a house guest. As Robert Sr. later told police, around one o’clock in the morning he was woken by his wife, who asked him to investigate a noise. At this point, he saw two masked burglars, and while he grappled with one, the other knocked him unconscious. When he awoke, he found his wife in the hall bent over May’s body.

Robert Jr. reported being woken by the sound of a struggle and following it to the room shared by Beatrice and May, only to see one of the masked men fire on May in the hallway. After lowering her to the floor, he pursued the man into an unoccupied room where he saw three men in masks, who he failed to stop from escaping down from the second story window.

Chief Nicholson was unhappy with the discrepancy between the number of burglars in the accounts of Robert Sr. and Jr. Then again, this could be written off to the darkness or all three men not being in the room when the father was attacked. But there were other oddities, as well.

Robert Jr. had said that the man had shot May from several feet away, but the gunpowder burns on her nightgown seemed to indicate a discharge closer to one foot away. Also, there were signs of a struggle in Robert Jr.’s room (where they found a nightgown of Amy’s ripped to shreds) of which neither men had said anything. Meanwhile, Beatrice said that she had not seen the burglars, or her brother laying down May, but Bertha Sheldon’s account began with Beatrice exclaiming to her, “Burglars have been here and shot May!”

Finally, James recalled hearing nothing until he’d heard Amy come into his room screaming, “Jim! Jim! Your father’s gone crazy!”

A significant amount of cash and several prominently displayed items of jewelry remained untouched throughout parts of the house where the burglars were said to have been. A .44 revolver was found under Robert Sr.’s bed, but no sign of the murder weapon, a .22, was ever found.

Nonetheless, weeks after May’s death her brother, Robert S. Fosburgh, was indicted for manslaughter. During the trial the following July, the prosecution advanced the theory that he had come home drunk, fought with his father, and ultimately drawn a gun. May, attempting to intervene, was fatally shot.

The trial was widely depicted as a circus. Even before it began, the city received more than 500 letters requesting seating at the proceedings. Local feeling highly favored the possibility that the family had covered up the circumstances of May’s death to avoid scandal. Throughout the rest of the country, however, where the case was a major news story, the trial is depicted as a farce orchestrated against an innocent man by incompetent police unable to find the culprits and prosecutors desperate to close the case. The Daily People, a paper of the Socialist Labor Party, expressed their opinion candidly: “From beginning to end, the testimony was an insult to understanding: it was contradictory, it was flimsy, it was irrelevant.”

After eight days, Judge William B. Stevens ended the proceedings, instructing the jury to acquit Fosburgh. The family finished its work in Pittsfield and departed, never to return.

The house itself seems to have had a strange lingering effect on the minds of some Pittsfielders. No one lived long in the place after that, it would seem. Following the murder and indictment, it was briefly inhabited by owner Mrs. Castle, who put it on the market within months of the end of the trial.

Within its walls, it was rumored, May’s ghost wandered endlessly. Some said they felt a horrid presence just walking past. In its last occupation, it served as apartment housing. When Sun Oil proposed to demolish it in 1950 to put up a gas station, not a single voice objected. Indeed, the memory of the Fosburgh murder was still vivid fifty years after, and there was great enthusiasm for the proposal.

“I certainly am not one to vote in new gasoline stations,” said city councilman Leland C. Talbot, but I’ll certainly go along with this one if it means the city can get rid of that awful place.” The others unanimously echoed this sentiment.

So the run-down house was razed, a filling station put in its place, adjacent to what was then the Church of the Gospel (itself demolished in recent years). Today, the spot belongs to a chain windshield repair company.

As far as I’ve been able to ascertain, there have been no particular incidents of strangeness on the property in a half century or more. Unlike Greenwood, any ghosts that may have inhabited the “Fosburgh Murder Mansion” seem not to have outlived their original dwelling. For all the anxiety that the Fosburgh house may once have engendered, the corner is remarkably mundane today.

Except, of course, for the human mayhem spilling out from the bar across the street. But that’s another story entirely.

----
Joe Durwin is a Pittsfield native currently on sabbatical in the desert. Send unexplained sightings, ghost stories, crackpot theories, bizarre gossip and accounts of the strange to joe@durwin.net

SEARLES CASTLE

This story, originally appearing in 2007 in the Advocate Weekly newspaper, has been updated in places and enhanced with photos by Amanda Rae Busch.  It has also enjoyed some very worthwhile input in the comment sections from many knowledgeable persons, including students who lived there and relatives and descendants of Searles and others involved in its origins which I recommend also reading.  -JD, 10/18/12

THESE MYSTERIOUS HILLS
SCANDAL AND RUMOR SURROUND BARRINGTON'S HAUNTED CASTLE
By Joe Durwin
Photos by Amanda Rae Busch

I have always had a soft spot for the many fine manor houses that dot the Berkshires, those opulent and gargantuan self-memorials that the uber-rich, with surreal modesty, called cottages. Though constructed in a range of different styles and gradients of grandeur, they all somehow bear the very distinct mark of the Gilded Age in which they were midwifed into existence.

Throughout that mythic era of vast fortunes, stretching for all practical purposes from the post-Civil War Reconstruction to the dawn of modern income taxes with the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment, wealthy socialites and industrials descended on the Berkshires in waves. For a variety of factors, ranging from the area's established cultural pedigree and natural beauty, to the large-scale availability of fine marble and other crucial building materials, they raced to snatch up local land for their summer estates.

While the lion's share of these estates went up in Lenox and Stockbridge, it is Great Barrington that can boast possession of what is perhaps the most colorful and interesting of these palatial domains. In fact, it is one of the most frequent questions asked by travelers on their first visit to the town: "What's the deal with that castle?"

Indeed.

Kellogg Terrace, aka Barrington House, aka Searles' Castle, of late the John Dewey Academy campus, has been enshrouded in legend virtually since the time of its construction. Rumors of scandal, infidelity, fraud, and murder, have all at one point weaved their way into the castle's legacy, along with whispers of hidden staircases, secret tunnels and restless ghosts.

The castle's story revolves around Mary Hopkins Searles, born Mary Frances Sherwood in Great Barrington in 1826. As a girl, Mary attended the Kellogg School run by her aunts on the very land where the present mansion now stands. In 1854 she married Mark Hopkins, her first cousin and great grandson of Samuel Hopkins, the first Congregational minister in Great Barrington. Known for his skill at turning a profit, Mark became one of the "Big Four" founding owners of the Central Pacific Railroad.

At the time of his death in 1878, he left Mary with a fortune valued at around forty million dollars, equivalent to over 830 million in today's money. Following his death, Mary kept herself busy overseeing the completion of their mansion atop Nob Hill in San Francisco, begun in 1875 (destroyed in the 1906 earthquake, the Mark Hopkins Intercontinental Hotel is built on the spot it occupied).

In 1881, her last remaining Kellogg aunt died, leaving her the Great Barrington property. The widow Hopkins quickly set about preparations for the palatial chateau seen today, engaging the help of decorator Edward F. Searles, who had worked for her on the Nob Hill home. In the course of the four year, multi-million dollar construction of Kellogg Terrace, Mrs. Hopkins and Searles found themselves more and more in each other's company, and in 1887 they married.

He was 46, a comparatively modest decorator with a known taste for massive estate houses. She was 68, and the wealthiest woman in America at the time.

Naturally, people talked.

One of the most amusing stories that circulated was that Searles had in fact been pursuing the marital mother lode for some time, but continued to be gently rebuffed by the Mrs. Hopkins (it was even rumored that the widow favored a different suitor entirely). Finally, while seeing her off for the train to New York, he slung an arm around her waist and kissed her full on the mouth. The widow found herself faced with scandal, with half of Stockbridge society looking on. Without missing a beat, so the story goes, she loudly introduced her nearest companions to her fiancé, Edward Searles.

Such stories earned Searles the nickname "the Napoleon of love."

As for the house itself, it has been called the finest example of the French chateau period in America. The exterior was designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White, and built from blue dolomite quarried on the property. The final structure measured 180 feet across and 100 deep, varying from four to six stories in height, with a total of 68,000 square feet.

The interior, with its many rooms and halls, was overseen by Searles, and outfitted lavishly in a dizzying variety of styles. Coming through the huge, German-made bronze doors that used to adorn the front entry, the early visitor came through the vestibule and into the great hall, paneled in English oak. This opens into the atrium, a vivid example of Greek Ionic architecture recreating the Erechtheum in Athens. The atrium is surrounded by 16 matched marble columns, with walls of rose ivory marble quarried in the Atlas Mountains of Africa.

According to legend, the eccentric Searles also oversaw the construction of a network of secret passageways and staircases throughout the mansion. In one version of the legend which appeared in a recent collection of folklore, Searles used one of these staircases to carry on an affair with one of the servants while Mrs. Searles, then sickly, remained bed-ridden in the master bedroom. In this version, Edward eventually poisoned the ailing Mrs. Hopkins Searles, but within weeks of her death both the maid and Searles died of accidents in the house.

It almost goes without saying that "all three are said to haunt the manor to this day."

In fact, rumors of foul play surrounded the death of Mrs. Searles almost from the moment it occurred. The newlyweds took up residence at the castle (which Searles had renamed Barrington House) in 1887, and from the beginning their life together was shrouded in mystery. Only a very limited number of guests were invited to the few parties which took place there, a strange thing for such a significant estate. On the streets, Mrs. Hopkins Searles was always seen with a black parasol, and holding a black fan which obscured her face. And years later, former servants told of Edward's habit of constantly moving furniture and making loud noises throughout the house at night, something they believed he'd done to scare her.

According to her obituary, Mary Frances died on July 26, 1891 of complications with "dropsy" (edema) following a long bout with "the grip" (influenza), at Edward's Pine Lodge estate in Methuen Massachusetts. Her funeral was a small invitation-only affair held in the Methuen house, with no one admitted to the burial at a mausoleum constructed elsewhere on the grounds. In Great Barrington, rumors abounded that she'd actually been buried at night, on the grounds of the castle, with no one but servants present.

Whatever the circumstances of her death, the reading of her will was a very real bombshell. It awarded virtually everything, amounting to more than 50 million dollars and including a substantial part of Central Pacific Railroad, to Searles, specifically disinheriting her adopted son Timothy Hopkins. This lead to a lengthy and heavily publicized legal battle, as Timothy and a variety of other vague relations challenged the nature of her marriage to Searles.
Searles spent three full days testifying on the stand. With a candid eloquence that would have made Anna Nicole blush, he declared that he had married for love and for money, but love was the stronger motive. Later, he quietly settled with Timothy for a few million.

Searles spent less and less time in Great Barrington following Mary's death. In Windham, New Hampshire, he built a medieval castle based on Stanton Harcourt in Oxfordshire. The majority of the best furniture and treasures from the Barrington House were spirited away to his Methuen estate, or to their Fifth Avenue home in New York. Searles died in Methuen in 1920, sparking off another wave of legal claims from potential Hopkins heirs as the fortune changed hands again, the Great Barrington castle going to a business associate of Edward's named Arthur T. Walker.

In modern times, the existence of such truly excessive monument estates as single family homes –and seasonal ones at that- has become untenable, to some even unthinkable. One by one throughout the 20th century, the vast cottages of the Berkshires became resorts, schools, yoga centers. Barrington House was no exception. In the 1920s it was sold to Barrington School, and once again the Kellogg grounds became host to a girls' school. Through the fifties, the castle was owned by the Home Insurance Company and became a storage place for records they didn't want to lose in the event of a nuclear holocaust in New York.

One modern legend has it that in the late 1970s, a boy snuck into yet another secret tunnel, this one running from the basement out beneath the pond behind the castle. The tunnel caved in, killing him and flooding the basement. The tunnel was cemented shut, and the boy became yet another resident ghost.

Since 1984, the estate has been home to the John Dewey Academy, a preparatory school for troubled teens. After more than two decades there, the school has faced some struggles with operating out of castle, and the possibility of relocation has hovered for some years.  In recent years, the academy has sought to find a buyer for the property, valued in 2006 at 4.5 million dollars (about 2% of its cost to construct, in adjusted dollars). That's a whole other story, one which, as Thomas Bratter, founder and headmaster at the Academy, once told me, in itself "borders on insanity."

John Dewey Academy from Keith Forman on Vimeo.

With the future of the castle uncertain, what are we to make of the past? Did Edward Searles marry his wife for her money, and then kill her for it? Perhaps.

Then again, perhaps us common folk just can't help but be suspicious of what goes on with the people who live up in the castle.

---
ADDENDUM: I again toured the castle in 2009 with Amanda Rae Busch, a former editor of Berkshire Living magazine, and one of the truly great travel journalists of my generation.  Her report on this adventure can be found here.


SELECTED SOURCES:

A History of Searles Castle in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, by Lila Parrish (1985)
Homes of the Berkshires 1870-1930, by Richard Jackson (2006)

Weird New England, by Joseph A. Citro (2005)

Berkshire Cottages: A Vanishing Era, by Carole Owens. (1984)

New York Times July 26, 1891

The Berkshire Eagle: July 7, 1962; November 21- 22, 1977

Mystery, Murder, and Mayhem Surround Area's Oldest Inn

http://advocateweekly.com/thesemysterioushills
By Joe Durwin

New Boston Inn, at the junction of routes 8 and 57 West in Sandisfield, is the oldest and longest-running Inn in the Berkshires. The Inn’s history begins about 270 years ago, when Daniel Brown, one of Sandisfield’s first settlers, built his home there in 1737. In 1760 it became a functioning tavern and respite for travelers passing through western Massachusetts. A few years later, it served as a meeting place and hospice for soldiers during the Revolution.

In the twentieth century, it played host to a number of notables: Ann Lindbergh stayed there while writing her memoirs, Liz Taylor and Richard Burton were frequently spotted in the tavern, and Bing Crosby is known to have popped his head in on occasion. During the tenure of Russell and Rosalind Chapin, who owned the place from the mid 1940s to the late ‘50’s, New Boston gained a reputation for exquisite food. Rosalind’s recipes were frequently raved about in the nationally syndicated column by culinary writer Gaynor Maddox.

Several interesting architectural features were built into the inn. Walls within were built at such an angle that doors would close on their own, and a slanted wall leaning out from the floor of the dining room helped ensure that snow would not build up at the windows. The tavern is walled with twenty-two inch planks of Kings Wood, so named because the oak they were cut from was illegally retained by colonists after being marked by royal deputies for export to England. The upstairs ballroom, with its barrel-vaulted ceiling, was originally suspended from chains, so the floor would give when filled with dancers.

Perhaps the most frequently discussed bit of historical background, and certainly the most relevant for the purpose of this column, is an obscure but sensational event said to have taken place in the summer of 1805. A young woman named Harriet, so the story goes, was preparing for her wedding at the Inn when a jealous suitor burst in with a gun, fatally wounding her. Ever since, some believe, the inn has been haunted by the memory of that tragic event. It is said that the shade of young Harriet, dressed in the bridal black typical of the day, wanders the halls and rooms, and that it is she who is responsible for the many strange occurrences reported there.

Strange voices and the sounds of footsteps are frequently reported, along with doors that refuse to open and music boxes that begin playing on their own are among the many disturbances cited. An even stranger account was given to me by current owner Barbara Colorio. During the summer of 2005, two hundred years after Harriet’s dreadful demise, another wedding was being held at New Boston Inn. Suddenly, all the fire alarms began going off, and could not be stopped. Even after disconnecting the system from the power and back up batteries, the blaring continued.

Considering how well known the story of Harriet’s murder has become, it is curious that so little in the way of specific information about the incident can be found. Though mentioned in various local histories, no further details are offered than those given here; Harriet’s last name, the name of her killer, and the exact date of the slaying are all among the facts shrouded in the fog of historical obscurity. The inn even offers a free night in the haunted ballroom for anyone who can supply these particulars; according to Local History librarian Ann-Marie Harris, the Berkshire Athenaeum fields several inquiries a year about this tantalizing mystery.

As if to make up for the lack of historical data surrounding Harriet’s death, New Boston Inn is one of the most heavily investigated of any haunted place in the county. A plethora of prominent ghost-hunting groups and paranormal researchers have visited this Sandisfield landmark, hoping to shed light on its spooky enigmas.

In 2004, the Inn was investigated by the O.R.I.O.N. Paranormal group, headed by Michael Sinclair. The O.R.I.O.N. group’s website features photos they believe indicate paranormal phenomena in the Inn, and Sinclair was so intrigued by the amount of activity there that he organized a second investigation, this time with the help of the team from The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), stars of the popular television show Ghost-Hunters.

This subsequent exploration appeared on an episode of the show which aired on the Sci-Fi channel in December 2004. In it, the investigation by the TAPS team comes up with mixed results. They conclude that most of the photos of “orbs” or “ectoplasm” taken by the O.R.I.O.N. group could be attributed to bits of particulate matter from insulation blowing out from the ceiling, but are unable to posit viable explanations for other occurrences reported by witnesses. As a test, they place a pen in a certain location in a room which is then shut and locked, only to find that it has moved slightly when they return to that room.
Paranormal investigator and author Jeff Messenger also shared with me his experiences doing research on the inn. Last January he explored the place with Phantasm Psychic Research group, headed by David Considine. They monitored the interior for several hours with high tech equipment, but captured only one brief anomaly on film, “a twisting line of light that floated to the back of the room and faded away.”

Trying a more low-key approach for a second investigation, Messenger returned to the Inn in May without the rest of the team. Keeping an all-night vigil from room 7, he found the building much more active this second time. Though it was not windy that night, he heard repeated knocking sounds on the walls and ceiling. He even tried a “white noise” experiment in an attempt to snare some samples of Electronic Voice Phenomena (EVP). This is a method by which paranormal investigators attempt to make recordings of spectral voices not ordinarily audible by capturing them against a background of white noise, such as from a detuned radio receiver. At one point in the night, he got a recording of a very faint female voice coming through the static, whispering “…I’m here.”

“None of this was proof positive of a haunting,” Messenger remarks, “but it certainly piqued my interest even more in the New Boston Inn.”

With a murky past, any number of reports of strange activity, and an owner who is very approachable on the subject New Boston Inn is a fertile ground for research, both scientific and historical. It remains a cornucopia of tantalizing secrets, just waiting for the right combination of luck and persistence to uncover them. On top of the thrill of discovering those secrets, there’s still the standing offer of a free night in the haunted ballroom, for anyone who can supply any more information about the ill-fated Harriet, or her jealous suitor…

Pittsfield Ghost Train

[late posting this here...]

http://www.advocateweekly.com/thesemysterioushills/ci_4705378

By JOE DURWIN
Thursday, November 23
My interest was aroused last week by debate over the cause of a mysterious noise heard by a number of Berkshire county residents.

The Berkshire Eagle reported that numerous locals had complained of a horrible sound emanating from the vicinity of the railroad tracks running through area. The noise was first reported by Christine McAllister of Pittsfield, who lives about a mile from the nearest tracks.

"It sounds like a UFO landing," McAllister said.

How could that not pique my interest?

Following the first complaint, other reports came in from every town in the central part of the county. Theories included a jet engine, construction equipment and a malfunctioning siren. From my secret bunker far away in Arizona, I, of course, pondered more esoteric possibilities.

In the end, the awful racket was found to be the result of a broken bearing on an engine belonging to the CSX Railroad. The engine was pulled and the necessary repairs made. So came to an end the mystery of the pernicious cacophony that had plagued the senses of citizens in almost half the county.

Meanwhile, the drama surrounding these complaints reminded me of an older, more curious phenomenon which has plagued local rail lines in the past - that of the Pittsfield Ghost Train. The story of the Ghost Train and its brief, but vivid, appearances has made its way into several magazine articles and a number of books on ghosts and hauntings, but for all the repetition and discussion in such circles, very little is known about it.

The story begins, as nearly as I can tell, in February 1958, at the Bridge Lunch, the diner which formerly occupied the corner of North Street and Eagle. John Quirk, then proprietor of the diner, along with his lunch customers, watched a steam locomotive come barreling down the tracks at a shocking speed, headed east. From his vantage point, Quirk could see the train in vivid detail, despite its extreme speed. He said the engine was pulling a baggage car and five or six coaches, and he could even see the coal in the tender.

When the strange train was reported to railroad officials, however, the residents were informed curtly that no train had passed by at that time. Furthermore, officials pointed out, no steam engine had operated on that line in many years.

About a month later, in early March, the mystery locomotive came rocketing under the North Street Bridge again, this time around 6:30 in the morning. It was witnessed this time by diner employees Steve Strauss and Timothy Koutsonecolis, along with a smattering of early-morning customers. The description matched the first sighting precisely: a steam locomotive hauling east at high speed, with a baggage car and half a dozen coaches trailing.

That was the last time anyone has formally come forward to report the mysterious train, as far as I've ever been able to ascertain. I've heard vague rumors of other sightings of a phantom steam engine along that line over the last few years, hazy allegations by friends of friends of friends, nothing worthy of investigation. I've also walked alongside that very same stretch of train track probably more than a thousand times in my youth, and I've yet to see anything that resembled the description given by the folks at the Bridge Lunch in '58, although I and others have observed that there often tends to be a far higher proportion of dead animals under the North Street bridge than under any of the parallel bridges in town.

Stories of phantom trains in general have been relatively common since the 19th century. As a class, they are sandwiched into an awkward and difficult to comprehend category of paranormal conveyances, including phantom ships (several of which have been alleged to roam the Bermuda Triangle), phantom planes, cars and even phantom covered wagons in the Old West. Some toss into this mixed bag the black Cadillacs driven by the Men in Black who plague UFO witnesses, and the mysterious vanishing vans mentioned in connection with worldwide sightings of "phantom clowns" as well as many cattle mutilations.

The phantom train phenomenon has often been said to be confined to the United States and Britain, suggesting it may have some specific cultural significance as folklore. However, international cases, though rarer, do exist. In the same year that the Pittsfield ghost train was reported, stories of a phantom locomotive over the fallen bridge on the River Kwai circulated in the international press. Another spectral engine is said to run in St. Louis, Saskatchewan, and in recent years the Stockholm metro system has been plagued with reports of the Silverpilen ghost car. In Eurasia, researcher Paul Stonehill has documented a number of phantom train legends throughout Russia and other eastern European countries.

Still, America retains the lion's share of these legendary paraphysical vehicles - perhaps appropriate, considering no other country ever so effectively built an empire on the backs of railroad travel. Of the phantom train accounts in my files, nearly 40 come from the United States alone, and from every region of the country.

The most famous such railroad haunting is "Lincoln's Death Train," the astral recollection of the train which carried the body of America's assassinated president. Stories of this train have circulated since just after Abe's death. It is said to be sighted at various times throughout the month of April rolling along the New York Central Railroad, with a particular affinity for April 27. On that day, so the stories go, clocks and watches all along the route are found inexplicably behind several minutes, evidence of the mysterious passage of Lincoln's Death Train. Curiously, this is also the date that a phantom train wreck is said to appear each year on the tracks near Ashville, N.C., reenacting the worst railroad disaster in the history of the state.

As for Pittsfield's ghost train, it could be a spectral reincarnation of the Boston & Albany passenger train that met with disaster in Chester in 1893, killing 14 people. That's the worst nearby train disaster I'm aware of, but if that's the case, why has it only been seen in Pittsfield, heading toward its inevitable sudden stopping point? Are people in Dalton, Hinsdale, Washington, and especially Chester, simply not paying close enough attention?

Perhaps, as I had briefly hoped last week, it will one day make another glaringly public trip through Pittsfield or the surrounding area, so someone can get a better look at it.

Ghost-Hunters of the Berkshires, Past and Present

http://advocateweekly.com/thesemysterioushills
By JOE DURWIN

After writing on the subject for The Advocate for just about two years now, it occurs to me that there are a lot of ghosts in the Berkshires. At least, there are a lot of stories about ghosts. I can't actually confirm the precise number of actual ghosts in the area, even if I could give you an exact definition of a ghost, or say honestly that I even have any kind of integrated belief system on the whole matter.

But there are all those stories - a long tradition of them, reaching back to the earliest years of local history. Accordingly, there is also a long tradition of investigation and research into this rich lore by interested local residents. This seemed like a good time to take a look at some of the individuals, past and present, who have made it their business to chronicle the area's haunted atmosphere.

The first really notable attempt to record information about the mysteries in these hills was undertaken by Willard Douglas Coxey, a circus man turned writer, who penned two tomes on the history and folklore of the area. His 1931 "Ghosts of Old Berkshire" is a classic collection of some of the most early and pervasive stories, mostly limited to tales from the colonial era and "Indian legends" - ostensibly stories of the Mahican people who once inhabited the southern and central parts of Berkshire County, filtered through generations of retelling and restructuring by early white Americans. He was working on another book on early Dutch settlers when he died in 1943.

Perhaps the most nationally famous local ghost-purveyor, Arthur Myers, passed away just this past April at the age of 88. Born in Buffalo, Myers was the author of 21 published books; he also wrote for dozens of newspapers and magazines, winning three Associated Press awards for investigative reporting. Myers worked as a reporter and feature writer for the Berkshire Eagle from 1957 to 1964 and as editor of the Berkshire Sampler from '71-77.

Myers wrote five books on ghosts and the occult, including "The Ghostly Register" (1986), "Ghostly American Places" (1990) and "A Ghost-Hunter's Guide" (1993), all of which are still in print and popular sellers. He conducted detailed investigations of The Mount in Lenox, the Ashley House in West Springfield, the cursed ghost town of Dudleytown, Conn., and dozens of other sites throughout New England and the rest of the country.

In some of his final interviews and conversations, Myers expressed a sense of optimism and curiosity about death. "I'm just anxious to see what the next dimension will be," he told one family member.

While Myers was writing about local hauntings, in North Adams Ali Allmaker was studying the problem from an academic vantage point. Born in Germany in 1921, Allmaker had a background in electrical engineering and worked at Sprague Electric Company before joining the faculty of North Adams State College in 1961. He worked in the physics department until 1968, when he transferred to the philosophy department. While there, he taught courses and workshops covering ESP, hauntings and other "supra-normal" topics, and was invited to give frequent talks on the subject throughout the region.

He also did some fairly extensive ghost-hunting of his own. Thirty years before there were TV shows about it on every network, this mild-mannered philosophy professor was investigating reports of hauntings throughout the area, and with methods more advanced than those use in many cases today.

He investigated places like the Park McCullough mansion in Bennington, Vt., and the famous Porter-Phelps house in Hadley, as well as more obscure locations in Savoy, Hancock and elsewhere. His research at different sites included a broad range of tools, such as thermometers, compasses, Geiger counters and devices to measure fluctuations in electromagnetic fields. At times, even more unorthodox equipment like security alarms, Ouija boards and joy buzzers, came into play. In one house, something appeared to communicate with him through a series of knocks, and in another, he thought he once may have seen the apparition of a woman, but admitted that it might have been his sense of heightened expectation.

"I take a very dim view of people who just go out and see ghosts time after time," Allmaker once cautioned in an interview, but concluded that ultimately too many cases he had examined could not simply be explained away: "There's just no satisfying hypothesis or theory about what these things are."

This tradition of high-tech local ghost-hunting is being carried on into the 21st century by the Berkshire Paranormal Group. Based out of the North Adams Masonic Temple, the BPG has conducted investigations throughout the area using state of the art technology: infrared thermometers, EMF detectors, wireless motion detectors, digital voice recorders and extensive video and photographic equipment. Attempting to cover all the bases, the group also approaches their research with more esoteric methods like seances and psychic communication.

The group was started by three members of the Lafayette Graylock Masonic lodge, Josh Mantello and his father Nick Mantello, along with Greg Onorato, when they became intrigued by the history of the building they were currently occupying. The former Houghton Mansion has long been believed to be haunted by several ghosts, including that of North Adams' first mayor, Albert C. Houghton. After observing an investigation of the mansion by the New England Ghost Project, based out of Dracut, Mass., they became actively interested in the subject. There are now eight members affiliated with the group.

In addition to doing investigations, the group conducts tours and sleepovers in the mansion, and an annual "Contact" convention, bringing together speakers from around the country for three days of haunted happenings. As Josh Mantello told me, "This helps educate the public about the paranormal and help them maybe understand what has puzzled them from their past or the house they live in. It also helps educate future investigators because the more people that investigate, the more chances there will be to find proof."