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Ghostly guests never check out of some inns
By VICTORIA SHEARER © St. Petersburg Times, published October 29, 2000
I lie there, still as death, blinking my eyes and watching the dabs of flickering energy circle the lace canopy of my bed. I am in Room 4 at Longfellow's Wayside Inn, an 18th century site in Sudbury, on the outskirts of Boston. The flashes are uneven -- sometimes a rat-a-tat-tat of movement, then a languid "got your attention, didn't I?" slow dance around my head. Ever the skeptic, I turn on the light and examine the room for a logical, rational explanation of the light show. I find nothing. I climb back into my miles-high four-poster, turn off the light and plunge into the charged darkness once again. Until this moment, I did not believe in ghosts. But the wary spirit haunting my room remains. The light bursts are somewhat dimmer now and slowly move to a corner of the room, as if to rebuke my initial disbelief. The apparition moves toward the desk, and suddenly I know: These are the spirits of SDS -- the Secret Drawer Society. Earlier, sated with a hearty dinner of roast duckling and entranced by the lively music of the Sudbury Ancient Fife and Drum Corps, which plays on the inn's front lawn in full colonial regalia every summer Wednesday from 8 to 9 p.m., I had retired to my room. Something of a snoop, I poked around it. The antique desk beckoned, for a tiny slip of paper peeked impossibly from the base of a carved decorative panel. With the touch of a finger, the panel opened, uncovering a concealed drawer chock-a-block with notes. Reading them revealed reflections of spirit and soul left by generations of visitors who also had spent the night in this room. Referring to the cache of notes as the Secret Drawer Society, or SDS, the scribes penned poems and memoirs, confessions of remorse and professions of undying devotion. Honeymooners left messages, then returned on subsequent wedding anniversaries and added postscripts to their legacies. Carol and Dan Krapf wrote in 1995: "There is mystery and there is truth in the old desk in #4. The secret of the drawer is peace and fellowship." Holly, Cary and Amy Teich left this in 1997: "Reflect on the history of Room #4 and something is bound to reveal itself." Captivated by the messages, I followed this last clue and examined the mirror. Another note-filled panel was secreted behind. Basil Akers of Salem, Va., had left a dollar with his 1975 poem Ode to the Secret Society of Room Four. The last stanza reads: So leave this gift and to it add; But if you need it really bad; Then use it for a cause worthwhile; For otherwise we've all been had.
* * * Thus primed, I was not too surprised to experience a spectral encounter this warm July night, for the 10-room Longfellow's Wayside Inn -- said to be America's oldest operating inn -- harbors a remarkable, pedigreed past. Built as a two-room dwelling in 1702 by David How and expanded into How's Tavern in 1716, the inn has provided overnight lodging and "strong waters" to travelers for 284 years. In the years leading to the American Revolution, How's Tavern hosted quiet strategy sessions in the confines of its cozy taproom. Here our forefathers enjoyed "flip" -- hard cider, brown or maple sugar, cinnamon stick and a generous portion of dark rum -- and a hot dinner for a mere 20 pence. The ever-growing inn was run by the How family for generations. It is thought that Ezekial How added a red horse to the inn's sign in 1746; eventually How's Tavern became known as the Red Horse Tavern. A year after the last of the Hows died in 1882, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow briefly visited the Red Horse Tavern at the insistence of his publisher. Longfellow's wife had died the previous spring, and he was deep in mourning and unable to write. This visit proved the creative kick-start the poet needed, for in 1883 he published Tales of a Wayside Inn. The inn changed hands regularly until 1897, when Edward R. Lemon purchased the estate, restoring and preserving its colonial roots. Calling it Longfellow's Wayside Inn, Lemon envisioned it as a "mecca for literary pilgrims." Lemon and his wife created the Longfellow Garden (which looks today the way it did in Lemon's time) and commissioned a bust of Longfellow that is a copy of the one gracing Poet's Corner at Westminster Abbey in London. The Lemons sank their fortune into restoring Longfellow's Wayside Inn, but after Edward's death, ongoing money troubles forced his widow to sell the estate in 1923, to Henry Ford.
Ford opened a one-room schoolhouse on the knoll across the brook from the inn for grades one through four (last class was June 1951). According to As Ancient Is This Hostelry -- The Story of the Wayside Inn, by Curtis F. Garfield and Alison R. Ridley, one Mary Elizabeth Sawyer had nursed a lamb back to health after it had been abandoned by its mother. The lamb followed her to this Redstone School. The teacher, Polly Kimball, would not allow the lamb to stay. John Raulstone, a young divinity student, witnessed the encounter and wrote a three-verse poem, which he gave to Mary. Sarah Josepha Hale completed the well-known poem about Mary's little lamb years later. (The schoolhouse now is complete with the original teacher's chair, old school desks, outhouse and well.) Ford rebuilt the original gristmill to Revolutionary War specifications -- complete with four one-ton millstones and an overshot wheel -- so that it would grind wheat, rye and corn. He kept acquiring property and added sawmills, a blacksmith shop, a dairy, poultry pens, outbuildings, orchards and vegetable gardens. A self-guided walking tour winds through the extensive property and explores the museum chambers of the inn. The working gristmill can be toured, and the fields at the rear of the inn are still planted in veggies for use in the hostelry's kitchens. Ford died in 1947, but his instincts for preservation, together with Longfellow's literary inspiration, safeguard the fascinating history and legacy of the Wayside Inn. After a devastating fire in 1955, the Ford Foundation restored the inn to its former colonial grandeur. The National Trust for Historic Preservation took over management of Longfellow's Wayside Inn in 1957. Restless spirits fill the hallowed halls of Longfellow's Wayside Inn. Curtis and Ridly note in their historical documentation that on blustery winter nights, when there are few guests in the inn, one can hear an old piano playing Copenhagen Waltz. Guests staying in the big bedroom over the old kitchen claim to have sensed "a haunting, faintly perfumed presence and a light, swift step on the narrow, twisting stairway." The spirit is said to be that of Jerusha How, a spinster who spent 44 years in the house, most often in the three small rooms (now combined into the Jerusha Room) over the old kitchen. Upon checkout, I share my spiritual encounter with the inn's staff. Dumbfounded, one of them says, "Other guests have reported ghostly apparitions in Room No. 9, but never in Room No. 4." Evidently this is a first -- for me and for the phantoms of Longfellow's Wayside Inn. Victoria Shearer is a freelance artist unaware of any ghosts in her Boston home. If you goLongfellow's Wayside Inn Wayside Inn Road, Sudbury, MA 01776 (800) 339-1776; http://www.wayside.org Room rates from $95. Other hauntings in historic New England hotelsEmboldened by my encounter at Longfellow's Wayside Inn, I combed New England in search of other ghostly sightings. Here are two of them: Randall's Ordinary, North Stonington, Conn. Guests reportedly have seen the specter of John Randall II, founder of the inn (in olden days also called an ordinary) in this 1685 building. Witnesses claim the ghost has long hair and a sad face, wears a uniform and carries a blunderbuss (a firearm with a short barrel and a flared muzzle). Today's inn and restaurant are preserved with 17th-century authenticity. The antique-laden rooms have wide-planked yellow pine floors and exposed pegged-beam construction. Colonial cuisine is prepared from period recipes over an open-hearth fireplace. Route 2, North Stonington, CT 06359; call (860) 599-4540; the Web site is http://www.randallsordinary.com. Room rates from $165 (subject to change without notice). Deerfield Inn, Deerfield, Mass. Perhaps the most-publicized New England lodging haunt is the Deerfield Inn, a gracious, 19th-century hostelry and bustling restaurant. It is located on the Street, the main thoroughfare of Historic Deerfield Village, lined with meticulously preserved, centuries-old museum houses. A pair of resident apparitions, Cora and Herschel, have been sighted in two non-adjoining rooms now bearing their names. The ghost of Cora Carlisle, who owned the inn in the 1930s, is described as roaming the hallways in her nightclothes, tapping her chamber door and calling in a bossy voice, "Let me in." Herschel, on the other hand, slips under the door of room 148, appearing like a blue box of light. Then, witnesses say, blue rays dance around the room, mischievously tugging at the sheets, tossing magazines and moving glasses about. 81 Old Main St., Deerfield, MA 01342; call (800) 926-3865; http://www.deerfieldinn.com. Room rates start at $200.
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