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Showing posts with the label haunted

The Smuttynose Murders and The Isles of Shoals - Patreon Preivew

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  Have you ever have one of those nights where everything seems fine, and then, boom! Your best friend betrays you, people get murdered, and now you’re a ghost forever wandering the rocky shores of a forgotten island? No? Well, welcome to Smuttynose Island, where the vibes are bad, the history is worse, and everything feels like the plot of an experimental indie horror film your pretentious cousin swears is life-changing. Let’s set the stage: it’s 1873. You’re a Norwegian immigrant trying to carve out a peaceful life on a chunk of granite in the middle of the Atlantic. Smuttynose, they call it. A name that sounds suspiciously like a bad insult from a Victorian middle schooler. But hey, it’s home. And if you squint hard enough, the rocky coastlines, endless sea, and isolation are kind of charming. It’s like Little House on the Prairie, except the prairie is made of sharp rocks, and you’re way more likely to die from exposure.   The Smuttynose Murders — A Real-Life Gothic Horro...

Fitch Bits: Ghosts of the USS Salem

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This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW the USS Salem is hella haunted? Commissioned in 1949 as a heavy cruiser for the U.S. Navy, the USS Salem wasn’t just any ship. It was the flagship of the Sixth Fleet which is, you know, fancy. This 717-foot-long hunk of ship patrolled the Mediterranean during the Cold War. Although the Salem never saw combat, it had its fair share of dark moments. It served as a floating hospital for victims of a devastating 1953 earthquake in Greece. Hundreds of wounded and deceased were brought aboard, beginning a spectral legacy that ghost hunters just can’t ignore. The ship was decommissioned in 1959, but its story was far from over. In 1994, it became a museum, and that’s when the weirdness began. Visi...

Fitch Bits: Fort Warren's Woman in Black

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This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW that Georges Island has a Civil War ghost? Yeah, so on a cold December night during the Civil War (the one where the blues fought the greys), Fort Warren on Georges Island became the setting for a tragic ghost story with some light crossdressing thrown in. The tale goes that Melanie Lanier, the wife of a Confederate soldier imprisoned there, disguised herself as a man and snuck onto the island to free her husband. Unfortunately, her plan was foiled, and she was captured. She probably stuck out as the only man who didn't smell like rat urine and sepsis.  Anyway, the legend says Melanie was sentenced to death by hanging, still wearing the black mourning dress she was forced to change int...

Fitch Bits: The Sad Story of Ruth Blay

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This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the sad story! DID YOU KNOW that Ruth Blay was the last woman hanged in New Hampshire?   Say hello to Ruth Blay. She was the last woman to be hanged in New Hampshire and all she did was give birth to a stillborn child out of wedlock. There’s a lot going on here, so I’d like to talk in more detail later, but here’s a quick rundown:   Ruth Blay was a teacher and seamstress in 18th-century New Hampshire. She was born on June 10, 1737, and remained unmarried into her 30s. That would turn out to be a very bad thing for her.   She came down with a severe case of being pregnant in late 1767, which was a taboo thing for an unwed woman to do back in olde timey days. She continued to teach and carry on with her life u...

Portsmouth, New Hampshire’s Haunted Red-Light District - Patreon Preview

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Welcome to this month’s patron exclusive post ! If you’re anything like me, you’ve already learned something new in the title, and there’s plenty more! Portsmouth, New Hampshire History Portsmouth, New Hampshire was first explored in 1603 and found to be home to a natural harbor that would allow big ships to use as well, a port. It was incorporated as a town in 1653 and given the name “Portsmouth”, but not for the reason you think. You see, it wasn’t given that name because it was a port, oh no. It was given that name in honor of the colony’s founder, John Mason. You know, John Mason, Portsmouth, makes sense, right? No? Oh yeah, that doesn’t make any sense. Wait, hold on, here it is! You see, John Mason used to be the captain of the English port of Portsmouth, Hampshire, England! Now it’s all coming together. They named the new town after his old workplace! It also turns out that ports have captains! You really do learn something new every day. Like, just yesterday, I learned that...

Fitch Bits: The Worcester Palladium

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This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! Fitch Bits: The Worcester Palladium DID YOU KNOW that the Worcester Palladium is haunted AF? Yeah, it's super haunted! It was built in 1928 and was the subject of a Ghost Hunters episode. It's said that you can hear disembodied voices in certain areas of the venue. There are also reports of a glowing orb floating around. It's about the size of a soccer ball and multiple people have seen it! It's very common for a theater space to be haunted but few of them have any actual reasons to be. Not the Palladium, though! It's rumored that several dead bodies were once found in a dressing room and that pretty much guarantees some angry ghosts! Anyway, this DYK is going to be a little light on ...

The Redheaded Hitchhiker and other Route 44 Attractions

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Watch the video above or read it in article form, below! Okay, so this post has been a long time coming. I was originally supposed to post it back in October as part of the Atlas of the Odd series. The whole concept was to give you haunted places that you could actually visit during the Halloween season, but, needless to say, that didn’t happen. I ended up coming down with COVID and that knocked me out for a month and a half. Then I came out on the other side of that just in time for the holiday season. Then I was just lazy. Anyway, here we are again in a new year and it’s finally time to visit Route 44 in Rehoboth! This is a story that you legally have to talk about if you write about ghosts and stuff. It’s pretty much been done to death, but hopefully I can give you some new information about it, or at least make it entertaining. Let’s just say that I want this post to get a big thumb up, and not just from a hitchhiking ghost! Get it? Wow, we’re off to a terrible start. Okay, let’...

Fitch Bits: The Angry Old Ghost of The Old Powder House

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This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! Fitch Bits: The Angry Old Ghost of The Old Powder House DID YOU KNOW that The Old Powder House in Somerville, MA. is haunted by a very angry ghost? The building was constructed as a windmill around 1703 for the Mallet family farm. It was subsequently sold to Massachusetts Bay Colony, in 1747, and turned into a powder magazine. That's where it got its name and it actually featured somewhat heavily in the Revolution. It was seized by the British because it held gunpowder and munitions for the colonies. One thing led to another and there was a battle fought over it. That's later than our story, though. Back when it was still a windmill, it was the scene of a grisly murder! At least that's the fo...

Fitch Bits: The Many Apparitions of Boylston Station

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This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following us at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the odd story! Well, the weather is certainly changing and it makes me miss walking around Boston Common and being assaulted by entitled squirrels looking for a handout. As such: DID YOU KNOW that Boylston Station is haunted? Yeah, so not only is it the very first subway station in the United States, it's also the location of a mass burial site! Workers uncovered between 900 and 1,100 bodies when they dug out the tunnel, and they were all British soldiers! Most people don't realize the entire Common was a British encampment during the war. The only good Redcoat is a dead Redcoat and they all had to get buried somewhere! Early trolley drivers used to report seeing apparitions of men in red coats in the tunnels around...

Fitch Bits: The Hartford, Vermont Railroad Disaster

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This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. We share them weekly and you can get in on the fun by liking us at Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg and following us at Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the sad story! The Hartford, Vermont Railroad Disaster DID YOU KNOW that Hartford, Vermont is home to one of the country's worst railroad disasters in history? It happened in the winter of 1887 and claimed the lives of 37 passengers. A further 50 people were injured in the accident. Just like a few days ago, Vermont was in the middle of an arctic blast that froze the White River solid,  below the Woodstock bridge in -18 degree cold. The Montreal Express, out of Boston, was over an hour behind schedule. Ordered to make up for lost time, the engineer hit the bridge at a higher than usual speed. The rear passenger car hit a break in the track and that was all it took. It went over the bridge and took two additional cars wit...