Spooky

Newtown

Tales

 

Believe It Or Not

By Nancy K. Crevier

There is nothing like reading a spine-tingling horror story crafted by one of the top authors in that genre. But when unexplained creaking and squeaking and vanishing visions takes place in the home and not the pages a book, it can cause the hairs on the back of the neck to bristle.

Town historian Dan Cruson has heard many tales of terror from local residents who have found themselves in the presence of apparitions or been kept on edge by sounds that cannot be readily explained. Mr Cruson recalled a tale told to him by the late Larry Miller, who lived in an antique home on Palestine Road.

“He would hear distinct footsteps coming down the stairs, and feel a presence, he told me. He could never see anyone, but he was definitely spooked by the footsteps.”

One of his favorite bits of ghostly lore involves The Newtown Bee, said Mr Cruson, and is a story he included in his book, A Mosaic of Newtown History. “Where the parking lot of The Bee building now stands, there was a cobbler’s shop around the turn of the century. One morning, a customer stopped in, found the shop in disarray and looked behind the counter to find the cobbler brutally murdered. It was known as the ‘hatchet murder’ and was never solved. The town simpleton was found covered in blood, but he was let go. Around 1914, a new cobbler took over the shop. One night, he runs into The Bee where Allison Smith was working late, and claims he heard the pan downstairs rustling on the stove and footsteps coming upstairs. It happened three times, at exactly 9 pm. The third time, the cobbler came to The Bee with his arms full of his cobbling tools, left them with Allison, then got on a train and never came back,” Mr Cruson recalled the story. 

The front of the building that housed the cobbler shop was moved to private property to make room for The Bee parking lot, said Mr Cruson, but the basement was simply paved over. Late night workers at The Bee might want to keep an ear cocked toward the parking lot, he suggested.

One would think that the Matthew Curtiss House on Main Street would be a good place for a spirit to take up residence, but Mr Cruson said that the only encounter he had there was one in which his imagination played a part. “I was in the kitchen of the Matthew Curtiss House, where the big hearth is, and out the corner of my eye I thought I saw a figure in the downstairs bedroom off of the kitchen. My heart was in my mouth and then I realized someone had moved the dress dummy downstairs from the attic since the last time I had been in there, and dressed it up in period costume,” he said. “But for a second, I was sure I was seeing some sort of apparition.”

But there are plenty of other houses on Main Street that lend themselves to stories. Former resident and Newtown High School Class of 1992 member Jeff Belanger is a leading lecturer on paranormal activities and the author of several books about the supernatural. He is also the founder of ghostvillage.com, a worldwide community of people interested in supernatural and paranormal activities. His most recent book, made available the end of September, is The Ghost Files:  Paranormal Encounters, Discussion, and Research From the Vaults of Ghostvillage.com.

Mr Belanger, who now lives in Massachusetts, said that he first became interested in ghosts when visiting a friend who lived on Main Street in Newtown. “His house was supposed to be haunted. It was a few houses down from the Inn, and I used to bring a Ouija board and try to make contact with the spirits.”

He was never successful there, but that experience and other stories about ghostly activity in Newtown sparked a lifelong interest for him. “I have never seen a ghost myself, but I definitely believe they exist. I have interviewed thousands of people who have experienced a ghost, and it is life-changing, very profound for them,” said Mr Belanger.

Funeral director Dan Honan and Bee publisher Scudder Smith both recalled rumors of another home on Main Street in which items would fly off of the fireplace mantel across the room. “About 20 years ago the family living at that house claimed strange things happened there,” said Mr Honan. “They called the Warrens, the ‘ghost hunters’ and there was media coverage.  I have not heard of anything happening there since from the different families that lived there, though.”

Was it a push or a pull from beyond the grave? One local realtor with many years of experience, who prefers to remain anonymous, is certain that the bloody rope burn that seared her palm as she tried to close up an attic hatchway was the result of something more than a powerful spring-loaded action device on the trap door of a Newtown home.

The house in question has been on the market frequently, she said, and prior to her own experience she had heard rumors that it was haunted. She had taken the rumors with a grain of salt until one day about six years ago when she was showing the home and had an unusual incident.

“I had toured the home with other realtors and never had a problem. This customer was very seriously interested and liked the house a lot,” she recalled. “Then we opened up the pull down door to check out the attic; now that kind of an entrance to an attic would be common for an unfinished room, but this attic was completely finished: wallpaper, baseboard, trim. So that was a little odd to begin with. The customer went up first and I heard her gasp. She said, ‘Oh, I have to get out of here,’ and she backed quickly down the steps. She said she had had the feeling she was going to be pushed backward, a real unsteadiness. She said she felt unwelcome. I wondered if I should go up, but my client just wanted to get out. So I folded up the stairs and had to kind of reach because of the high ceiling. The door started to catch and suddenly the pull rope around my hand was pulled so hard and fast I got a terrible rope burn. I understand how a spring loaded action works, but this was so powerful,” said the realtor.

The house has transferred ownership several times, she said, and she has never since felt comfortable showing it. “People feel uncomfortable there a lot of the time,” she said.

A former Newtown resident now transplanted to the Midwest lived in a Main Street home for several years, and from the moment she first stood in the entrance hall, she felt it to have a “grandmotherly warmth and serenity.” She and her family had no knowledge of any paranormal activity being documented at the home, but members of the family experienced a number of odd occurrences while they lived there.

“One night I thought I saw my husband’s dark blue velour hooded bathrobe, hood up, walk from the doorway toward me,” the homeowner recalled. “When I tried to call out, my throat filled with a burning, fuzzy sensation,” she said. She likened it to the feeling of having swallowed a dose of strong mustard.

Her daughter developed a habit of sleeping under her covers, saying that she always felt “watched.” But the experiences, while strange, were not threatening at this Main Street home.

The house sold to a couple who, coincidentally, were from the Midwest town that they were moving to, and that family, she said, had more profound paranormal experiences. The new owners told them that in the short time that they lived in the home, both the husband, wife, and nanny, at separate times, smelled smoke in the dining room and the upstairs hall. Following dinner parties, they would clear the table and push in the chairs, only to later find the chairs pulled out and again, a smell of smoke in the air. At one point, the new owner requested the presence to not smoke in the baby’s room. Incidents in which doors slammed shut for no logical reason occurred, as well.

It was a job transfer, not the unexplainable activities that led the family to sell, and further paranormal incidents have not been relayed to the previous homeowners.

A little bit south of the center of town, the homeowner of a house built in 1790 shared his brief but vivid encounter with a ghostly presence. He had lived in the house for several years when one day he glanced up from the back room where he sat and noticed a movement in the kitchen at the other end of the house. “I saw a misty white figure, it seemed female, move across the kitchen from one side to the other,” he said. It was a distance of about six feet altogether, he estimated, and while the spirit moved steadily, it was distinct enough for him to believe that he was not imaging the figure.

No one was in the kitchen, no one was baking, nor was there any smoke from fireplaces or outdoor burnings going on at the time. “I only saw her that one time, but one of my daughter’s dogs would never go in the dining room of our house. He didn’t like it there. We had a grandson, too, who hated that room.”

The homeowner’s bedroom happens to be situated above the dining room on the next level, and it is in that room that he has more than once experienced a situation that “unhinges” him somewhat more than the sight of the feminine apparition. “It’s an old house, so we have latches, not doorknobs. Several times I’ve been lying in bed when I hear a ‘click’ and the latch to the front bedroom door lifts, the door swings open, and a cool air comes in,” he said. Could it be the house settling? It is a thought he has entertained, he said, but it happens periodically and the latches are down tight on a door rarely used when the incidents  have occurred.

His cleaning person was really unnerved one day, though, he said. “He was upstairs cleaning something when he felt a hard tug on his shirttail. He turned around, expecting to see his partner, and there was no one there. He really came flying down the stairs.”

There is no sense of a foreboding presence, though, said the homeowner. “We had a young girl visit once, who is sensitive to spirits, and she said that the house had a peaceful feeling. And we have lived there for over 40 years, since 1965, and I’ve only seen the figure that one time.”

It is not just the center of town that harbors hauntings, though, said Dan Cruson. He has been told of an antique home in Sandy Hook in which the young children suddenly had “invisible friends” after the family moved in. On one occasion, the mother, according to Mr Cruson, heard one of her children through the bedroom door apparently conversing with another child. When questioned, the child referred to the “invisible friend” who had wanted him to go outside and play at bedtime. While neither of the parents ever saw the “friends,” the children continued to talk about playing with and seeing them for quite some time, said Mr Cruson, always referring to the same two children with old-fashioned names. Although the mother confirmed Mr Cruson’s story, she declined to speak to The Bee about the incidents.

Another former resident admitted that her 300-plus-year-old house in Sandy Hook housed an entity during the time that her family lived there. “We did indeed have a ‘presence’ at our house,” she wrote from her Virginia home. “[It was a] benign, mischievous, move-things-around prankster.” Sadly, the  invisible imp opted to remain in Connecticut when the family moved, as things in their circa 1820 Virginia house have remained calm as can be.

Some ghost stories are just that, though. One tale of Newtown ghosts spread via the Internet is the haunting of the library by Mary Hawley. Not only was the library site never the home of the town benefactress, as put forth in the website, but the only traces of the lonely woman are to be found in the very solid attic bedroom recreated from some of Ms Hawley’s furnishings located on the top floor of the library, and open to tours.

It is easy to see how ghost stories start, said Mr Cruson, and confessed that he is the source of one local tale involving the late town benefactress Mary Hawley. “When my son was in the second grade, I spoke to his class about Mary Hawley. In the course of my talk, I said something to the effect that ‘The only building she ever saw completed was Hawley School, and if she was going to haunt any building, it would be here.’ Well, ever since then, I’ve heard lots of different versions of Mary Hawley haunting the school. It’s interesting to see the growth of folklore.”

Newtown may not be as spooky as Salem, Mass., with its witch lore, or Amityville, N.Y., famous for its house of horror, but as an old New England town, it lays claim to its own restless spirits. Fact or folklore, told in the light of day or by the flicker of the fire, ghost stories will always have a life of their own.