Abandoned places often have a strange allure. Locations once filled with activity, now slowly and silently decaying. Of course, the nature of what the place once was often adds to the atmosphere. With that in mind, let’s turn to the town of Medfield, MA. Nestled among trees and fields, you’ll find a large, abandoned campus populated by redbrick buildings. Although it may be reminiscent of a college, it is actually a former insane asylum. The public is permitted to walk the grounds, and I found the site to be both fascinating and somber. Continue reading →
Hammond Castle
On the Massachusetts coast, in the town of Gloucester, sits a building that appears to be, quite simply, on the wrong continent. It’s as if a medieval castle were plucked out of the Old World and dropped in the New World. The creation of a wealthy and eccentric inventor, Hammond Castle Museum is filled with antiques, ancient artifacts, and (as far as some are concerned) ghosts. Continue reading →
The Vampire Case of Sarah Tillinghast
An old and easily overlooked cemetery lies tucked away in a neighborhood in Exeter, Rhode Island. It’s small, measuring 50 square feet, and contains just 25 burials. Beneath one of the unmarked stones lies the body of Sarah Tillinghast – a young woman who, in death, was believed to be a vampire. Continue reading →
Yantic Cemetery and the Blue Lady
Situated by the Yantic River in Norwich, Connecticut lies a necropolis filled with elaborate tombstones, towering monuments, and a mysterious woman shrouded in blue. She forever keeps watch over a single grave, though this lady is not a ghost. Rather, this eternal mourner is a striking and enigmatic sculpture made of bronze. Continue reading →
The Vampire Case of Mercy Brown
In a quiet cemetery adjacent to a church in rural Rhode Island, you can find the grave of New England’s last suspected vampire, Mercy Lena Brown. The events surrounding this vampiric suspicion shocked many at the time, and may still surprise people today. The incident is an example of true folkloric beliefs surrounding the threat that the dead (or undead) could pose to the living. Continue reading →