Writing in an introduction from a reprinting of the story in 1996, Henry Steiner, Village Historian of Sleepy Hollow states that “At the close of his narrative, Irving anticipates a time when change will have so completely altered Sleepy Hollow that cramped historians will doubt that it once existed at all.” Irving need not have […]
Tales of Old Stony Brook II: Of William Sidney Mount, spirits and Spiritualism
The Hawkins Mount House. In Richard Matheson’s classic novel from the 1970s, Hell House, a team of investigators are sent to spend a week in a haunted house to provide definitive proof of life after death. Almost immediately, a conflict breaks out between the scientist, who while not doubting the existence of the supernatural, or […]
Tales From Head of the Harbor & St. James Part IV: A True Ghost Story from Head of the Harbor
Top: The Carman-White House. Samuel Carman was a wealthy landowner in Head of the Harbor, New York in the 19th century. Following the death of his wife in 1888, his unmarried daughters built on Moriches road, a two story house in the Victorian style, in the same neighborhood as the other Carmans of the area. […]
The Tractate Middoth
The Salem Athenaeum in Salem Massachusetts has a ghost story of it’s own. The tales of M.R. James (1 August 1862 -12 June 1936) are rightfully considered classics of the genre. In the Tractate Middoth, we have a mysterious visitor in the library, setting off a chain of events which turns a curious librarian into […]
Poe in Charleston and the Legend of Annabel Lee
Sullivan’s Island, Charleston, South Carolina. “I asked myself- “Of all melancholy topics what, according to the universal understanding of mankind, is the most melancholy?” Death, was the obvious reply. “And when,” I said, “is this most melancholy of topics most poetical?” From what I have already explained at some length the answer here also is […]
The Ragged Cot Inn: Where spirits go bump in the dark of an English country night
In December 1760, the landlord of the Ragged Cot, Bill Clavers, decided to rob the midnight stagecoach travelling to London. Before setting out, he gave himself Dutch courage and resistance to the cold with liberal helpings of rum. As he staggered from his bedroom with loaded pistols, his wife, with their young child in her […]
The Ghosts of Old Bethpage Village Restoration
Top: In The Attic of the Kirby House. Any town or village has its haunted house. Old Bethpage Village Restoration has its share, and like most villages, most are urban legends which sprang up over the years. Nearly all the buildings in the village were once located elsewhere, and some, like the Noon Inn, brought their […]
The Memorial Cemetery of St. John’s Church, Cold Spring Harbor, New York: Another Kind of Planting Fields
“You can spare me the gory details,” Miss Bronwen said, pulling her hat down over her ears as the wind blew a particularly vicious howl our direction, showering us with snow from the branches of the overhanging trees. “It’s not like we were out there copulating on fresh graves or anything like that,” I said, […]
