To be honest we would have eaten at Alice’s restaurant if it was open that day (because I’m that big of a nerd) but just down the street there was a brooding inn with gift shop and food and it was just about to open to hungry diners. We were told we could wander the lobby for half an hour while we waited.
This place was… something else. We were immediately greeted by the newest staff – one of two hotel cats, who seemed bewildered at the amount of attention it was getting. It’ll settle in, I am sure. Beyond that there was this crazy metal cage elevator that I couldn’t help but think was haunted. The “lobby” was a set of rooms in a Byzantine maze set up with a series of quirky antique chairs. Beyond that there was a gift shop that was small but entertained us for way too long. It had 1950’s styled colored small appliances, expensive candles, some soft plushies, a nice selection of cookbooks, and apparently the rape whistle to end all rape whistles which came in a moderately decorated box saying, “Your mama will want you to have it!” Apparently, it was less of a whistle and more of a pocket-sized flashing siren. Weird choice of a gift shop item… everything else seemed normal!
Just outside the gift shop there was a chessboard set up next to the most anguished looking rocking horse (unicorn?) I have ever seen in my life. Though I took several photos during this visit it was only the rocking horse who came out. Haunted? Maybe. A patron asked if I was allowed to take photos of the rocking horse, staff assured him I could. Not like anyone was on it??
Anyway, when the clock finally timed out and they started letting dinner patrons in we meandered to the dining rooms. One was a proper dinner restaurant with duck on the menu. The other was a little mini pub with bar food. None of us had planned for this so we went with the cheaper option. I had the fish and chips which was… odd! I expected it to be beer battered like fish and chips normally are but no, it came out in breadcrumbs like a piece of chicken?? It wasn’t bad, it was just different. And I was unable to peel the batter off as I would have been able to do with a beer battered fish (because I’m weird and don’t really like the batter, just the fish.) The chips were also good. My companions were also happy with their options, a smash burger, some “spicy” carrot soup, and something I can’t remember. The only complaint we really had was the fact we were some of the first patrons of the day in a not-very busy setting and it still took us almost an hour to get served. But you know… the ambiance was worth it in this preposterously old building with original wood floors (square nails still visible keeping them down!) Decorations were odd and there was even a stain glass window. Again, all my pix came out blurred to the point of not being able to recognize anything in them despite having worked the rest of the day. Maybe the ghosts like their privacy.
Anyway… I do think this place was well worth a good poke. I do wonder what the rooms in the inn look like!
St Auburn Cemetery is where it all began – garden cemeteries, that is. It’s the first in the US and with over 170 acres and with 93,000 people buried here there’s A LOT to check out!
Garden cemeteries came into existence before the country had any official parks and they were used as green spaces for living people to enjoy during the day. And St Auburn is gorgeous. It’s immaculately landscaped with all sorts of exotic trees and shrubbery, a few little ponds, and many hills and crevices. It makes for a unique and serene experience especially if you go at the right time of the year like we did when all the trees were in full Autumn colors.
Funny enough, I’d never actually heard about St Auburns. It was suggested by my traveling companion who also had no idea what it was. As such I didn’t expect much but WOW. This place sure is something! We were barely out of the car when we stumbled upon a huge sphinx, like the one in Egypt! Just sitting there with its big lion paws and judgmental face staring down at us. What the…? Now that’s a strange sight in New England! Around it were other Egyptian inspired monuments and that… was just the beginning of our discoveries.
Near the sphinx was a big church looking building… Bigalow Chapel and a number of the stones surrounding it seemed to mimic its ornate style. But then directly across from that family plot there was a stack of granite boulders making another weird memorial. And sitting nearby was a full bronze statue of… someone. Someone who I am sure felt he was important enough for a bronze statue although none of the crew today recognized his name or possible accomplishments… but nice statue!
I was hopeful on this day to find the oldest part of the cemetery where all the old slate was… but we only found modern slate, some which were clearly recently placed and had yet to have anyone buried under them. Is slate coming back into fashion?? You have no idea how close I am to buying a slab of slate directly off a local quarry and having fun carving my own. It’d be… something. That’s for sure.
ANYWAY – aside from such morbid thoughts we continued to be surprised by the weird elements of this cemetery including a series of crypt-like mausoleums buried directly into the hills. And some more traditional mausoleums. One which was chained from the outside, a second which had a broken door that looked like it broke from the inside, and a third that apparently gave a good knock. And I mean if I were buried above ground in a tiny marble house, I’d be desperate for escape too. Or maybe they were just offended by comments like, “Watch out! Unnecessarily hot Jesus to your left!” But I mean you can’t beat doing a cemetery tour with people willing to make gentle fun of hot Jesus. This one had missing fingers which made him weirdly even hotter. I said what I said.
We did find other notable people buried here… There was a memorial to Robert Gould Shaw the first colonel to lead the 54th Massachusetts Infantry – otherwise known as the North’s first black regiment during the Civil War. Shaw was white and when he died during the second battle at Fort Wagner the Southerners threw him into a mass burial with all the men that he led. He’d eventually be dug up and reburied in Beaufort National Cemetery in South Carolina which begs the question why is his memorial here in Cambridge MA? Maybe because he’s buried under an “unknown” marker in SC or maybe because the locals here felt he needed something proper. Funny enough I find memorials without bodies fairly frequently on my travels and one of the biggest reasons is there is no body or it’s a famous person whose hometown also wants to show some respect even if they’re buried elsewhere. And then we come across stones that have whole stories on them… like this one:
“Charles Turner Torrey was arrested for aiding slaves to regain their Liberty.
For this humane act he was indicted as a criminal convicted by the Baltimore City Court and sentenced to the penitentiary for six years.
While on his death bed he was refused a pardon by the Govenor of Maryland and died of consumption after two years confinement a victim of his sufferings.”
And there’s a story I didn’t know that sort of gives me a little hope in humanity so that’s good…. it’s funny how life affirming a trip to a cemetery can be. Especially when there’s so many stones in the shape of beloved dogs for some reason.
We spent an entire afternoon sorting through the stones and enjoying the pretty trees. We even stumbled into several sections with stones that were engraved in foreign languages – some even Asian. 11,000 steps later we went back to the car completely exhausted and not having seen the whole place! How much did we miss? I don’t know but I have a feeling we will be back.
I have been spending time in Newport for a few years now and although it’s known for its mansions, I had never been to any of them. So I pitched the idea that maybe we should at least look into that… and as luck would have it this happened to be just the right time of year to make a boring old mansion exciting. Why? Because it’s spooky season! And some of these mansions are supposed to be haunted. Why not go on a nighttime tour?? To one of them that the locals seemed to think was actually haunted.
That’s how we ended up at Belcourt taking a tour hosted by a documentarian who lives there on the weekend. We did learn a little bit about its history but if I am to be very frank my eyes were pretty glassed over. I just… can’t seem to muster any interest whatsoever in the dramatic lives of the long dead super wealthy. SORRY. All I got out of this is it was built at the end of the 1800’s, used to have an attached stable, and was basically used as a building for extravagant parties after a woman won it in her divorce.
And it was indeed… lavishly decorated which is what gave me the first heeby jeeby of the evening as we drove through the big iron gates and were surrounded on both sides by two huge iron horses. Being nighttime this creeped me the hell out. Small confession: I find the uber wealthy terrifying. Coming from poverty I know all too well that if you cross a super wealthy person the wrong way you can easily be disappeared. A lesson I learned while accidentally wandering into some swank rich person’s event at the Grand Canyon once. The look one of those rich assholes gave me was reminiscent of the look a wolf gives a limping lamb. Had I not been escorted by another man at the time I am not so sure I would have not been disappeared myself. Think about it – these people have so much money they can pay off anyone – witnesses, body collectors, whatever they need. This is why we’ve never had a billionaire serial killer arrested in the US. Don’t think it’s because they don’t exist. And iron gates? Holy crap does that bring this whole idea home – that no one really knows what goes on beyond them.
Luckily there were no murderous rich bastards around on this particular evening. In fact the crowd here seemed a nice mix of locals and tourists of various classes. I was excited to see what was here, although I didn’t’ really expect it to be mostly in the dark! Only the bare minimum of lights were on – but this was often because there just wasn’t any – having relied mostly on sunshine to light it up during the day. We were some of the first to show up – me without my camera, again. I don’t know where my brain has been this week, on vacation I suppose. Luckily, I still had my cellphone.
I noticed a copper chopper (say that five times fast!) sitting astutely under a chandelier in the darkened ball room. What… is that? I had to look it up later. It’s The Liberty Bike, built by the American Chopper guys with pieces from the Statue of Liberty taken during restoration. It must have been visiting? No one said anything about it but it did have its own trailer outside.
As we waited we noticed the receiving room was filled with giant mirrors. Confession number two: I don’t feel any warmer or fuzzier about mirrors than I do about rich people. AND WHY ARE THEY SO BIG?! Of course we were told one of them was haunted with orbs so we all lined up to take selfies in it as one does with a giant haunted mirror…
After this the actual tour started. Our host was energetic and clearly passionate about this place. He led us into a library that was supposed to have a poltergeist or an imp of some sort as books from it would randomly walk off and be found in other strange parts of the property – like the front lawn. Or perhaps if you were really unlucky something would occasionally pitch books at guests’ heads. I decided that if I should die and get stuck as a ghost it would be an amusing job to haunt a library and do much the same.
From here we were taken out to meet the strange throne-like chair that was supposed to be some sort of conduit to the spiritual world. We each sat in it to see if we could feel anything. I felt something – but it wasn’t ghosts – it was just a feeling of “I COULD BE KING!” You know, being as it looked like a throne… Another woman claimed it was colder in the chair and she could feel a breeze, but I was standing next to the chair and felt the same chilly draft sooo…. I’m not really convinced. This may have also been the same woman claiming to smell ghostly cigarette smoke which turned out to be my companion… who smokes.
Obviously, we all had to go through that door to go to the next room which was absolutely empty as far as people were concerned. This room didn’t need a ghost to be creepy because the walls and ceiling were adorned with faces. Whhhhhhhhy, just whhhhhy.
We’d eventually find our way to a bedroom with a big old ornately carved wooden bed that screamed “fuck off and get out of my room” in grumpy old white man. I was slightly confused no one else seemed to feel this but then again – that is my life, isn’t it? Just stumbling into random things and noticing things others don’t.
The bedroom was attached to a bathroom which we all had to wander through because it had a primitive shower that looked like a torture cage lit up by red lights to make a bathtub of doom. Very catchy.
After this we entered what I can only describe as a misplaced medieval European Cathedral complete with sweeping arches and stained glass from the 15th century. And a church organ. And some suits of armor… annnnd a weapon’s case which held an ax that would “sometimes dance around the room on its own.” It must have been filled with stage fright on this particular night.
Then we got to go upstairs and look down into this weird cathedral room from the big openings in the wall which…. did not have anything preventing people from just falling right out of them into the room below. No guards, no glass, just a big gaping tilted foot-level hole big enough for a body to trip through. But perhaps that’s what the little squatting monk statues were doing – making sure no one did. One of them looked like Bill Murray. I pondered about that for a moment. Comedy gargoyle? You never know.
And that was the tour. Filled with reportedly 14 or so ghosts with intensely vague backstories annnnnd some magic rocks on the outside of the building. Mmmmkay. It was a really fun little night adventure and I would recommend it to most people who love spooky season as much as me but be forewarned THERE ARE MIRRORS AND CHERUB FACES EVERYWHERE. EVERYWHERE.
Before I start this I want to warn my readers it is a VERY information and photo heavy entry so if you’re here for the pretty gravestone photos feel free to scroll down to the gallery at the bottom of the text and if you’re here for a good chunk of New England history just read on as I take you down this deep deep rabbit hole with me!
It’s funny, I have been loitering around the Newport area for a few years now and although I had always wanted to check out the local cemetery it took me this long to actually get there. But let me tell you it was WELL WORTH the wait! This was one of the most interesting cemeteries I have ever had the joy of wandering through and part of that is because it’s actually seven separate cemeteries that have bled into each other to make one massive burial ground that dates back to our earliest settlements. The oldest parts of the cemetery were founded in 1640 and the newest are from the present day. All together there are thousands of memorials here.
During the colonial era Newport RI was also our largest port, even bigger than Boston at the time, and as such it was always a thriving multicultural area. The cemetery very much reflects this with various sections dedicated to different cultures, religions, and ethnicities. Here you’ll find the country’s oldest Jewish cemetery which dates back to the colonial era and contains mostly a thriving multi-nationl seafaring community as well as God’s Little Acre which is the the largest (and possibly only) cemetery dedicated to both enslaved and free blacks, also of the colonial era. It was these 250 or so slate stones I had especially wanted to see because they are soooo rare, and such a precious historical archive of an otherwise silenced community whose contributions have been largely looked over.
And it’s not only me who recognizes the need to preserve this historic landmark. Intense efforts to restore and preserve what is left here have been underway since the early 1990’s and continue to this day. There were even three stones which were returned to the cemetery after being found in various residences around RI and Pennsylvania. What they were doing in Pennsylvania is a bit of a mystery but one of these stones belonged to a famous woman at the time – Duchess Quamino. Duchess was a woman of remarkable standing. She came to Newport aboard a slave ship as a child, having been born somewhere in Africa. She was then bought by the Channing family who utilized her as a maid and cook. While enslaved she somehow managed to get in the good grace’s of the white church the Channings attended and was able to start her own bakery and catering business becoming the US’s first successful female black business owner.
During this time she married a slave from a different household and eventually had at least four children. Her husband was able to win a lottery and obtain his own freedom but it seems Duchess may have already been a free woman by then. No records exist to show how this happened – if she bought her freedom with the money she made baking or if she was simply granted her freedom. Either way she continued her business and eventually became so famous she earned the moniker “Pastry Queen of Rhode Island” and her delicious baked goods were served to a visiting George Washington at least twice.
Also worth noting was possibly the country’s first professional black artist – Pompe Stevens – who was a stone carver and possibly the one responsible for the distinct black features on the cherub’s heads carved into the stones in God’s Little Acre. He was enslaved by the biggest stone carving family in town and we probably wouldn’t even have known he existed except he carved a beautiful stone for his brother, which he identified as such before signing. He signed two stones in all but likely did a lot more – especially considering how intricate and well-practiced his carvings on those two stones seem to be.
It was a deeply humbling experience to wander God’s Little Acre and come face to face with the bleak reality of slavery in the colonies. The stones were hard to read – “Beloved and trusted by his master” was probably the most cringe worthy phrase I found. And the stories were heartbreaking – stories of black children whose parents were tricked into sending them to America “for and education” and “a better life” but instead ended up here. Buried in a slave cemetery. It’s an ugly mark on our history but we do each of these people a grave injustice by looking away and forgetting their great contributions.
We moved on from here and just wandered about until we found ourselves at a different entrance. And it was there we realized there was a sign up offering a free cell phone guided tour if you could scan the code on the sign. We went for it. But I was getting low on battery and it took a ridiculous amount of steps to set up. The next part of our day was spent fast walking through the stones trying to identify which ones were important according to the tour map which was…. grossly inaccurate. It started off being a few stones away from what they were talking about but by the end it was A LONG WAY AWAY. But we’ll get to that.
There are a lot of notable people buried out here. Among them are a ton of congressmen, mayors, and governors, over 70 Revolutionary war soldiers, a whole section dedicated to Civil War casualties, veterans from every US war, at least 4 famous architects, Charles Bird King (a portrait artist known for painting Native Americans) William Ellery who signed the Declaration of Independence, August Belmont Jr who developed the IRT subway in NYC and the Cape Cod Canal, most of the stone carvers who were responsible for the slate stones, and Ida Lewis “the bravest woman in America” who manned the Lime Rock Light Station for 46 years after the official lighthouse keeper (her father and then mother) died. During this time she rescued at least 36 people from drowning with her first rescue at the age of 12 and her last at 63! Keep in mind lighthouse keepers were NOT obligated to save drowning shipwreck victims for one very good reason – generally shipwrecks were caused by bad weather, bad weather that could easily capsize a tiny rowboat. It was better to guard the light than risk death. But Ida did not feel this way and was known to “row better than any man.” She lived on her own in this badass life until her death of a stroke. Really a remarkable heroine.
And it was Ida Lewis’ stone we couldn’t find at the end of the tour so I will give you some hints. It’s in the same row of stones that face the road near one of the exits. You cannot miss it as it has a HUGE anchor on it.
And I must say that also geeked out hardcore knowing that a number of the stone carvers were buried here as well and a lot of the stones could be attributed to either various members of the Stevens family (which were the first gravestone carvers in Newport and maintained the business for six generations) one of their slaves Pompe Stevens, or John Bull who married a Stevens daughter and then led this INSANE drama filled life that started when his brother pissed away the family inheritance and he had to sell himself into indentured servitude. It gets worse. He was sold to his brother-in-law William Stevens. The two HATED each other because William did not buy his brother-in-law as an act of charity – he expected work from him! And for a while Bull did in fact work as an indentured servant at the stone carving business but this didn’t last terribly long before he got fed up with the situation and basically ran away taking a job at sea where he stayed on ship for years. When he returned William sued him saying he was in breach of contract and still was obligated to work for free for a few years. The courts favored with Bull and in retribution he started his own gravestone carving business right across the street in what seems to be a purely spite based decision. Bull was the most artistic and rebellious of the city’s stone carvers and his work seems glaringly obvious with their side facing facial portraits and he is responsible for a famous stone – that of Charles Bardin – which is known for its intensely blasphemous imagery – that of Moses (or God?) parting the Red Sea. VERY UNUSUAL FOR THE PERIOD. It’s one of a kind and why it was made is still very unclear.
Meanwhile the Stevens family (who began as masons) didn’t escape the colonial era unphased as one of the original brothers, Philip, was noted cryptically in one of the legers as being murdered. Nothing further is stated. A second brother James died at sea.
By this point I was super sunburnt, overheating pretty bad, and tired from the jog so I regret to admit I did not cross the street to check out the colonial Jewish cemetery but I will likely return at some point. Until then I hope this has been an enjoyable read! Happy travels all!
I admit that conventions are not part of my world. And a horror convention seems even more out there but I like being a wild card and having someone share their special interests with me which is how I ended up here. And as an added bonus I LOVE weird people and this seemed like it might have a whole den of them.
Really my usual companion wanted to see the live radio show. He’s super into them. So on Saturday after he got off work we drove directly the convention. It would leave us plenty of time to catch the radio show. I was excited to see it too but I had to take a few days to prepare for it as I am not one for crowds. Or city life. Or people really. Got off to a bit of a bad start when we spent a TON of time in traffic which was acting insane. Usually, I can deal with this just fine but on that particular evening it put me on edge.
We parked at the mall as it was cheaper but that did mean we’d have to walk through the mall on a weekend evening and holy crap was it swarmed. I’d have trouble with this even before Covid. I carried on and did the best I could but then I had to ride an elevator, walk through one of those weird human hamster tunnels over the street, and ride several escalators – the last of which was ungodly narrow, steep, and claustrophobic. Escalators had been my nemesis since childhood and everything was setting off my sensory overload tonight.
Eventually we found a big room full of vendors with a $5 per person admittance fee. We forked it over and looked around. There was all kinds of weird betenticled art everywhere. Paintings, prints, giant plushies. It was an odd rabbit hole to fall down but a fun one. Still, this was not what we were looking for. We asked where the general admittance was and was told we’d have to walk over the Biltmore down the street which we did.
The Biltmore itself is supposed to be haunted. In fact it has such a reputation it was on my list of places to poke at even before this convention but tonight wasn’t the best night to be doing so. I walked in and there’s all sorts of absolutely garish 1920’s art nouveau architecture and design which when done well can be stunning but this place? I dunno, it just seemed so tacky to me. And disorienting. I can’t even describe how I was feeling at that point but it was almost like I was wearing those shitty drunk goggles they give children to make them not want to drink. Just everything seemed somehow off. It was a weird energy for sure – whether I can blame this on the place being haunted or just my own sensory overload I don’t know but that’s where I was at that moment.
We found the people at the take in register for the convention but they said they’d already packed up hours earlier and were no longer selling tickets or making allowances to see the radio theater. My companion was deflated. I was too. I had struggled mightily for this one and now it was a no-go. I asked if the radio theater would be there tomorrow and yes, it was a different show, but they would be there performing something. We decided to come back the next day. Let me tell you I was happy to be home after that.
Sunday came around and we headed out fairly early so we could see at least some of the short film festival at the library before the radio show. We got out on time and were able to buy tickets and even better I was feeling much less over stimulated!
We walked to the library but we were a bit early. There was a sign on the door saying it was closed on Sundays except for the convention and then in small letters that it’d be open at 12:05. it wasn’t 12:05 yet so we stood politely at the door with another man who claimed to have “just rolled down the hill” to get there. A librarian popped out and happily burbled, “Thank you for reading the sign! Everyone else has just tried to come right in!” She then highlighted the part about opening up at 12:05 before replacing it on the door. By now several more people had gathered and were now chatting about how far they travelled and then all about cats. This would be an ongoing theme on just about everyone I eavesdropped on. Who attends horror conventions you might wonder… Cat people. That’s who. I mean yeah there are those decked to the hilt in Goth gear, the heavily tattooed, those who look like they’re suffering existential dread, the odd rat enthusiast, some queer rebels, a large swath of neurodivergent peoples annnnnd amateur mycologists otherwise known as mushroom lovers. That last one caught me a bit off guard.
Finally we were allowed in and made our way to the theater – an actual tiny theater, in a library. This was new for me. And it was cute! And cozy! And Old Timey looking. And to their credit the first film they showed was suitably distressing. It was about keeping a living consciousness in a computer which is always a little unnerving but they seemed to make it over the top uncomfortable. Maybe that’s a good thing, I don’t know.
From there the films ranged from familiar old tropes, to psychological horror, to comedy horror. I was having a good time with it. And it was interesting to see just what people were doing to make these little films which had to be a shoe string budget but most you couldn’t tell. Afterwards one of the film’s creators came up to do a Q & A and my companion got into it by asking a question. I was happy to see him involved even if I myself would rather die than ask a question in a public forum. That’s just me and that’s OK.
We stuck around for block two which started with a claymation short which obviously tickled my own special interests. And there was one some time afterwards that was really low budget – just one dude sitting in front of a green screen playing with a plush bat, that actually was still amazing somehow?? And hilarious! I don’t know, I was impressed. Actually most, if not all, of the shorts kept my interest for the most part. There was a couple I was hazy on but I guess that’s just part of the experience. It was hard picking a favorite.
We decided to skip the last block of short films and instead go to grab a bite to eat before listening to a dramatic story reading before attending the radio show. So off we went. I’d read over the program schedule for fun and I was amused with a lot of the offerings. Cthulhu prayer breakfast, a lecture on missing persons, and weirdly enough a group therapy session. I guess in acknowledgment of the fact if you were here you might be the sort to benefit from a little group therapy sesh. Actually, a lot of the lectures looked super intriguing, but they were from the previous few days. They were the sort of things I could plunk myself on a seat and just spend a day listening to random lectures. Yeah, OK, maybe the crazy ticket price was worth it. There was a lot going on.
Making our way out of there I met a woman on the street who had the same cutesy baby Cthulhu T-shirt and we laughed. She asked if I’d seen the Craft-thulu T-shirt and I said I had it. It was just a weird, sweet moment – two oddballs recognizing each other’s oddness.
We ate at the mall and I picked up one of my books from the car which I’d leave on a bench in the park to be found. Part of my book bombing/book crossing campaign. The dramatic story telling was actually The Willows by Algernon Blackwood read by Robert Lloyd Perry and let me tell you – it was indeed dramatic! I was expecting a nice little relaxing story time, just sit in quiet and listen to someone read to me like I’m a child. No, not quite. It did start off nice and soft but the deeper into the story we got the more impassioned and loud our narrator and the music behind him became. This in combination with the fact they dimmed the lights set my brain off. I basically forgot where I was, immersed completely in the story, seeing it in vivid detail in place of the very real surroundings around me. I started to fidget and scratch at my skin just to keep myself grounded in reality. My companion too really enjoyed this piece. Curiously so too did a young woman wearing noise reducing headphones. She hadn’t been the only one wearing some sort of deadening device. Even I was tempted to put in ear plugs as a lot of these events were getting a bit loud for me. I wondered if these people were also somewhere on the spectrum enjoying a day out the best they could. So far the diversity of each crowd was keeping me quite happy.
And when it was all over we were in the right place to just stay for what we came for – a performance of Curse of the Yig performed by the Dark Adventure Radio Theater. I should probably note that going into this I have not been a huge fan of any kind of radio. Yes, I listened to War of the Worlds and got a good giggle in my youth but that is where my interest in this activity ended until I met my companion who has on numerous occasions shared his love of these performances by playing them in the car on our many trips. And it’s been pleasant but I still didn’t fully comprehend why seeing it live would be any better. It’s radio after all.
It started with a lot of fussing over the projector and an apology to the audience that the cast they had painfully ensured was diverse for this adaption of an H P Lovecraft story was down to a skeleton crew and just looked like a buncha white people again. It might seem like a strange thing to say but H P Lovecraft unfortunately was even a hardcore racist for his day and although there are lots of people who love his wild and whimsical style of writing there’s a lot less of us who agree with his politics. But white supremacists being who they are probably would find a good ‘hero’ in Lovecraft which is why the rest of us decent folk have to try so very hard to take the good and leave all the bad. It’s a noble effort.
Anyway, the radio drama started with just four people voicing all the parts (including the dog who barked intermittently at various scenes.) Every once in a while the projector would show something to the audience asking them to make a noise for the background. Oh, so it’s audience participation that’s different, I see. Granted all the noises were the same…. wind, the rattle of a rattlesnake, hissing… these are all the same noise. None the matter I found it adorable and quite fun. By the end I got it. It was worth coming to see live. Even better they gave the hardcore fans a ‘clue’ with which to decipher a code. My companion of course got up and asked for a code card at the end and brought it home to happily solve it. Again, it was nice to see this sort of involvement.
It was getting late when we left and my companion was concerned I’d had enough activity for one day but he did mention there was one last film showing 4 miles away at a theater. I said it’s OK, we can go check it out, and so we did. And the parking gods must have been smiling on me because there was a parking spot right near the theater that was next to an intersecting street meaning all I had to do was drive into it without properly parallel parking which I STILL have not learned how to do. No matter!
That’s how we ended up at the Dunwich Horror Picture Show. We knew this was a screening of the 1970 movie The Dunwich Horror, which is a terrible movie, but we didn’t really understand the Picture Show part of that. Rocky Horror mashup? Hard to say.
I did what I always do… looked around the audience. And that’s where I found them – a group that had been remarkably absent most of the day despite my theories they should have been everywhere – the gay men. Oh sure, I’d seen a couple adorable lesbian couples here and there but this seemed to be the hub where all the men were. Scores of them. Which made little sense to me as the Dunwich Horror is CLEARLY a film about one straight white dude’s rape fantasies (which is very in step with horror from the 70’s.) If you’re wondering why I thought such a large portion of the queer community would be at this convention it’s because I grew up in the 80’s and 90;s when every villain was still queer coded and although that was supposed to be a bad thing I also knew this backfired and many still LOVE queer coded villains. Honestly, how can you not? They’re fucking hilarious. Also so much of the crowd today seemed neurodivergent and again there’s a disproportionally large cross section of people who are both queer and neurodivergent. I was just happy my amateur psychology worked. I was comfortable here now the world made sense again. Also the theater was dark so it was kinda perfect for my nerves.
So, what was it about the Dunwich Horror that was so great? Well, it had a live band playing the soundtrack and an announcement at the beginning saying, “We know this film is terrible. Feel free to heckle it. Just make your comments funny.” And the audience complied! But that wasn’t even the best part. The best part was the wildly gesticulating people in Cthulhu costumes who’d come from the sides of the theater to do a crazed interpretive dance to distract you whenever the dream sequences got too rapey. How cool would that be just to have that on standby whenever something triggering comes up? Like no, you don’t want to look over at something potentially distressing, look over here AT THE DANCING TENTICLE MONSTER! WOOOOO!
It was all a very happy and positive experience. My companion even got to take a break to enjoy remembering some other happy memories at this theater. While doing so he tried to thank me for coming with him today to enjoy the weird things in life and I…. would have replied it was no problem if I wasn’t distracted by the John Waters Christmas poster. Now that’s a whole other brand of weird (and I’m all for it!)
All and all I am super happy we did the Dunwich Horror as it was the perfect way to end the evening and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Maybe a little too much if I’m honest. So, was it worth going into the city, a place I normally avoid? Oh yes, absolutely. And it looks like someone picked up my book that I left sooo… there’s always that.
It’s funny, when you travel around like I do trying to hit different places every time you leave the house it pretty much ensures that someday you’ll forget where you have been and end up there again during one of those hazy deja vu moments I have become so familiar with. That was the case with the Freetown Fall River Forest. It had long been a source of fascination considering it is supposed to be the epicenter of all the weird happenings in the Bridgewater Triangle. I mean there are stories about this forest that include fairy lights, full ghostly apparitions, murders, UFO’s, bigfoot, a liberal dose of satanic panic and even the delightfully strange assortment of pukwugies – which are little anthropomorphic porcupine type creatures that shoot poisoned darts and lure people into the woods never to be seen again. They are from indigenous traditions in the area and as such are unique little cryptids.
I had a feeling I’d been here before but there wasn’t a Catching Marbles entry on it. Weird. Still, I suggested it as a place to go check out with a new travel companion who was here to meet me for a signed copy of my book. Sounded good to me so off I went…
Driving into the parking lot I remembered this place clearly. I had visited the previous autumn. We spent a few hours wandering the woods with a nonsensical trail map that neither one of us could make sense of, got lost, and eventually made our way back to the car. HMMMM. Perhaps this time would go better.
This time the park actually had quite a few other cars in it and I realized the weird parking lot actually went around corners and expanded a lot farther than I had thought. Even more interesting was a splash pad that was running with delighted children zooming through it. Still I parked near the entrance and after meeting with my hiking buddy we set off in the same direction I’d gone once before to what I now know is Bent Rim Trail. Mind you Bent Rim Trail is more of a road than a trail – no cars were allowed but we did see some cyclists.
We walked on Bent Rim Trail for awhile until we hit what looked like an actual non-road trail and we decided to try that one. There was no signs or markers but clearly this was a trail. I’d come hoping to find something weird, my friend had come hoping to find some cool plants to satiate her own special interests in biology. We were up for a brisk hike in the heat but luckily it wasn’t too bad beneath all these trees and the path was flat and easy to navigate. A few parts had rocky bits to scramble around but even that wasn’t bad. Unless you’re on a bike. Sadly, there wasn’t much in the way of plant diversity. It just seemed to be miles and miles of blueberry bushes. Although even that was kind of cool as many had blueberries on them.
Other than that the trail was pretty much a lot of the same. It was however very quiet and despite the parking lot being full of cars we didn’t hear any other people and didn’t see any either on the trip out. We continued down the path crossed the road trail twice before eventually hitting an actual road. The park is on 55,000 acres soooo how we managed to walk out of the park I don’t know. Getting back would be a challenge as we tried to get our phones to give us any clue whatsoever as to which direction we should take back. I was starting to see why this place had such a reputation for being a great hiding spot for bodies and ghost stories. Getting lost here is hideously easy and there is an odd sense you’re the only ones out here even if that’s not really true.
I have seen photos of this park that show water features and cool things. I don’t know where those are, only that we didn’t pass any. All we passed were several people walking dogs and a family taking a bike ride together who I sheepishly asked for directions from. We’d hoofed it at least four miles by that point and it was starting to get a bit dark so it was best to find the car soon. Luckily they told us vaguely where we were and how to get back. There were grid markers here and there reading numbers and letters… which would have been helpful IF THEY WERE ON ANY MAPS. Alas no.
We did end up back in the parking lot, somehow at the far side, where there was a random statue greeting people shirtless and proud. Bit weird choice but OK. Annoyingly we also found the trail maps on a bulletin board nearby which I had missed coming in, although I don’t think they would have helped much. In the meanwhile we both had a great time happily burbling about anything and everything under the sun and getting our exercise in! All and all a lovely time, even if it was super confusing and looked all the same. I can’t say I saw any bigfoot, ghosts, or UFOs but maybe you have to come at night for that?
I hadn’t set out to visit a cemetery on this particular day. Initially I had come to Wilton to check out a trail that was said to have a waterfall and a few pieces of abandoned farm equipment on it. However, when I got there I found “no parking signs” half a mile in either direction. By the time I found the trailhead which had parking for a few vehicles it was covered in warnings that if I were to park there I’d be risking a $100 fine and a trespassing charge. The trail was “closed until further notice.” I know those words, they mean this is a small town and we don’t want to deal with our bored teenagers loitering and littering here so we’re making it a forbidden zone for everyone. But the good news is I found this cemetery really close to it… and it also was COVERED in signs saying that cars “abandoned” here would be towed as well as a number of rules for the cemetery itself including hours and no planting anything directly in the ground.
WOW. In previous excursions to Wilton I had found it a charming place with a delightful little old timey movie theater and a plant nursery you couldn’t beat but this trail and cemetery were making me rethink my fondness for the town and wondering what kind of stick it had up it’s ass out here in the woodsy parts of it.
I don’t know. But I was going to enjoy the cemetery whether they wanted me to or not. Finding it all was just too serendipitous to not check it out. And it had so much character! I LOVE old slate stones in the middle of the woods and this place was FULL of them dating back to the 1700’s. But what I realized right away was that there were also slate stones dating all the way up until 2006. This… is unusual. Very unusual. In fact that whole side of the cemetery was all slate regardless of age and most had the same traditional patterns on them with weeping willows being the most common. Was this another cemetery rule? That everyone could only get slate memorials? Finally, I noted one modern stone had a dove and a dog carved on it and this somehow made me happy… that here, in a cemetery that seemed to have rules about all the stones being made in to match, that someone still found a way to be an individual.
Later I’d find there was a corner of the cemetery with marble monuments, but they were again, done in the same style you’d see on a stone from the 1800’s. Nothing highly polished or funny colored. Very plain. And the little poems were also quite steady in their message – enjoy today because you might not have a tomorrow. Seemed a little bleak.
And maybe that is why this place is supposed to be haunted – both with apparitions and fairy lights. I had noted a few random stones that seemed to be getting negative attention from what I can guess were local teens. I was unable to find if there was any local folklore about them but I suspect these were the stones the teens used to tease and scare each other with. Every small town has its bullshit stories conceived around the proverbial campfire. I was also unable find out why one was covered in pennies which normally denotes a historical figure of some importance.
Even with all these mysteries and the generally anal-retentive atmosphere I still really enjoyed this place.
Fort Knox is never disappointing. It’s a HUGE complex with something for everyone. Not to be confused with the other more famous Fort Knox, this one doesn’t have any gold however it is named after the same guy so that’s something. It was built to protect the entrance to the river and was manned for two wars but never saw battle. And so it stands fulfilling a new purpose – scaring the bejesus out of small children generation after generation which is more than I can say for most museums!
And what is it that is so scary about this place? Well… they do say it’s haunted (though I have never seen any evidence of this on my own visits) but more importantly there are huge sections of the fort that are completely dark – no lighting except from slit windows – what feels like miles of corridors in near complete darkness. And there are also rooms and nooks off to the side which don’t see the light from the windows and are like black voids beckoning you in. It’s suggested you take a flashlight but where’s the fun in that?!
I don’t really recall there being that many dark areas on my last visit but I think I might have just missed them thinking there was nothing there. Another fun change was the fact a lot more of it was renovated so now the barracks were fairly well established with wooden floors and sparse furniture. But my favorite bit may have been the cannon kiln at the very beginning which I got right up to and looked directly into. It was basically a kiln to heat up cannon balls so they could be shot at passing ships and start them on fire. Nasty but interesting. I’d seen it before but never really poked at it up close – this would be my companion’s influence as he is far more interested in military history than I typically am and was reading all the plaques.
I had fun taking random snaps in the hopes of maybe catching an odd orb or two. No such luck! It’s still a GREAT place to practice photography if you’re learning about lighting! This is one of those destinations I suggest to everyone is who is going to be in the area. It really is a treasure.
We headed over to the Mayflower Hill Cemetery after reading online that there was a haunted cemetery marker there in the shape of a rocking chair. It was the stone of a young girl who died in the 1800’s and was reported to have come back for a little sit-in every now and then.
When we drove in we found the chair almost immediately with no searching. This once again disappointed my companion who loves the thrill of the chase. Even worse we are both super jaded by going to other amazing cemeteries and this one seemed to lack character.
“No wonder they think this stone is haunted, it’s the only one that looks any different than the others.”
And it was true. This cemetery had a profound lack of creativity. The rocking chair was piled with toys but there wasn’t much else going on. Just a few cast iron stones smattered here and there. We did however find a pretty big monument to fallen veterans which included cannons that were suspiciously pointed directly at local houses and a few mourning women type stones. Curiously Jane Toppan was supposed to be buried somewhere out here. She was an Angel of Death, a female serial killer nurse who admitted to killing 31 of her patients between 1880-1901 with morphine. She died in an insane asylum and doesn’t appear to have much of a marker, just a tiny headstone reading, “981.”
On this particular day we decided to muck about the Bridgewater Triangle which is supposed to be a hot spot for ghosts, UFO’s and even Pukwudgie sightings. Pukwudgies are part of Native American folklore and are said to be small troll like creatures that lead people into the woods never to return. Sadly we didn’t go at night to poke at these phenomena but we did decide to check out a bit of indigenous history in exploring King Philip’s Cave.
King Philip was the name we gave the local chief of the Wampanoag tribe in the days of our early colonization. He was initially in favor of working with the white colonists and establishing trade but things sort of went south when we kept coming over in droves insisting the locals bow down to our rules and religion. And so “King Philip” (Metacomet) started to lead the other indigenous tribes in a war against colonist expansion.
King Philip’s Cave is where he hid during key moments during the war. We thought this might be an interesting thing to see so we prepared for a day of hiking and drove to a quaint little neighborhood on a private road that had a sign up saying, “Residents and guests only.” We decided we were guests and drove in anyway and at the end of a cul-de-sac there was a couple parking spots on the grass a big sign reading King Philip’s Cave completely obscured by another truck parked there.
We headed in and realized this wouldn’t be a day’s hike. The “cave” wasn’t far from the road at all and was just barely obscured by trees. It wasn’t a cave either, rather just a pile of glacial rocks sitting atop each other in such a way that a small tunnel was created through them. You see this sort of thing a lot around these parts and I suspect being at the end of a cul-de-sac this may have been some child’s favorite place to play. It was interesting but entirely underwhelming. There wasn’t even a plaque at the cave itself explaining it (though there was one at the entrance of the trail.) It was all very… half-assed. We’d seen this before looking at other places important in King Philip’s War and other bloody skirmishes with the people who already lived here. It’s almost like we’d like to forget it ever happened…
Luckily we had other plans that day to go see Dighton Rock and the Mayflower Hill Cemetery also in the area so the day wasn’t a complete wash.
