During this adventure we got lost and turned around half a dozen times reading conflicting information on other blogs. So before I go any further here is how to get there: First locate Historic Cemetery #45 (Also called the Hopkins Mills Cemetery) at the beginning of Danielson Pike. Go to the very end of the cemetery and you’ll find a trail head with a few parking spaces. Take this path to the river (not that far away… certainly less than a mile) and voila! You should see the ruins there. SUPER EASY.
The History:
Foster RI is a pretty rural place, even today. It has a certain rugged beauty and this apparently is nothing new. It was incorporated in 1781 after separating from Scituate and for the next hundred or so years it was considered a rather rough place to live. Indeed, there was a factory here that was the soul of this village. It was the Rams Tail Woolen Mill, powered by the river. Of course at this time in history working the mills would have been a brutal existence and there would have been a lot of unmarried girls and children working the machinery and probably a good deal of accidents and possible deaths but strangely it’s none of these that have led to the area getting a haunted reputation. Instead this may date back to 1822 when former owner Peleg Walker had to hand over his ownership of the factory due to debts. Instead of complying he decided to lock himself in the factory on his last night and slit his own throat. They say his ghost haunted the grounds for many years afterwards – with the factory machinery starting up on their own as well as a litany of other complaints. The factory ran until 1850 before closing and was set ablaze by arsonists in 1873 – some say to rid it of it’s ghosts. But if that was the intention it did not work. If anything it just added to the frustrated energy felt here.
The Factory is little more than a bit of a foundation and a rock wall aside the stream now. Everything that is left has been taken over by the forest and it seems strange to think this was once a bustling center. I sat on a rock in the stream and enjoyed the summer day here feeling like I was in the middle of the ruins in the Jungle Book. It was calm, peaceful, and refreshing. I didn’t see any ghosts, nor feel anyone’s disembodied torment, but I don’t disbelieve the stories others tell. A place so rich in history probably does have a few spirits still lingering around.
Bonus Destination: Nearby Haunted Bridge
If you take a very quick walk down Daniel’s Pike you’ll find a bridge, under the bridge was a once popular swimming hole that claimed several lives with it’s mucky quicksand-like bottom. Just a little ways up stream Betsey Grayson drowned in 1860 after toppling into the river while fetching a bucket of water. Some attribute the ghost along the river’s edge to her, others say it’s a different drowning victim. Either way the place is eerie calm. Both the bridge and the Rams Tail Factory Ruins were super quiet when we visited. Quiet and except for the child’s mask lying on the ground – quite abandoned. It was an interesting little jaunt into yet another little corner of historic New England.
I would like to think I know a little bit more about New England history having done all these travels but that’s not to say I am not still routinely surprised or deeply disturbed. Nine Men’s Misery was on of those delightful WTF moments. It was something I had never heard of and neither had my travel companion until he spent one too many hours in Barnes and Noble and came home with yet another book on local oddities. It peeked his interest so we went.
So what is Nine Men’s Misery? And what’s up with the super dramatic title? WELL… it is yet another little gem we don’t teach our school children even though it’s historically significant (serving as the US’s oldest monument to veterans.) Legend says it marks the spot were nine men were skinned alive. So now that I’ve got your interest the story goes thusly:
In the beginning the colonists and local Wampanoag indigenous people got along as good as you could have expected from two completely separate cultures. The first settlers in the area actually got a lot of help surviving from the locals but tensions built over several generations when we just kept bringing over more white people. And taking more land. And trying to convert the “savages.” You know, being the world’s worst fucking neighbors. ANYWAY… Despite all this the colonists actually were on good standing with some of the indigenous peoples still (“praying Indians” who had been converted) and really this was a year-long war in which those indigenous allies and the English were pitted against the larger population that had enough of our shit. A lot of shady and crazy things happened in this year (1675-76) to spurn legends, ghost stories, and an unending trauma to the area. Nine Men’s Misery is just but one.
The story starts when colonialist Captain Michael Pierce brought sixty of his men and thirty “praying Indians” into the area in search of the tribe responsible for burning several Rhode Island towns to the ground as well as attacking Plymouth Massachusetts. They found the guilty party but were led straight into a trap. They were greatly outnumbered and almost everyone was slaughtered – fifty of Pierce’s men and all thirty of the “praying Indians.” Only ten colonialists survived the battle and fled into the swampy woods. Eventually they’d also be tracked down, cornered, ritualistically tortured, and finally killed, leaving only one survivor. It was a complete victory for the natives. The bodies of the nine colonist soldiers were eventually found skinned like deer and chopped up into many pieces – hence the name Nine Men’s Misery.
The monument marks a mass grave where the remains were buried. It was erected by monks who ran a local monastery in the early 1900’s. A plaque was additionally added in the 1927 and the bones of the fallen were eventually returned after being found within the old monastery in the 60’s where they’d been apparently stored after an early archeological dig. WHOOPS. Guess these men can’t get any peace, even in death.
With this all being said these blood soaked grounds are eerily peaceful, maybe because of the paths so tenderly created by the monastery (which is now a beautiful library.) Even so it’s supposed to be haunted with the sounds of screaming and the quick hoofbeats of horses echoing through the hollow. Even a small girl is supposed to be found here – although there’s no real explanation as to why. She may have died at a mill that once stood near the site but there doesn’t appear to be any specific legends around her. The nearby library also suffices as a unearthly home for one of the monks who died so many generations ago.
Now that the history is out of the way I’ll tell you where this monument is and what I thought of it. First you must find the town library, still called the Monastery, and drive around it. On a one way street towards the back of the property you’ll find parking spots near a trail. The trails are obvious but unmarked. There are maps at the library if you ask politely. We however just stumbled blindly until we came to a path diverging off and onto hill that just didn’t look right. Sure enough it led right to Nine Men’s Misery.
The spot where the monument sits is eerily quiet… but it’s also in these gorgeous lush woods and wetlands. So it’s hard to imagine something so horrible happening here. In fact had I not known about it I would have found this whole little nature walk to be quite a pleasant adventure.
Believe it or not we didn’t go to Foster Rhode Island to go cemetery hopping but when in Rome…
Historic Cemetery #45 (Also called the Hopkin’s Mills Lot)
The first cemetery we came across was adjacent to the Ramshead Trail we wanted to walk down and just a stone’s throw away from a purportedly haunted bridge. So why not wander through the cemetery as well? It was a fairly decently sized cemetery, well maintained, with most of its stones from the mid 1800’s. There wasn’t any particularly interesting stones or monuments about but I did enjoy reading some of the names – like the last name Willowby (HOW ADORABLE IS THAT?) or the first name Zilpha. Mostly it was just a ton of Hopkins though.
Since it’s near a bunch of ruins which were once a bustling little town there are a lot of ghost stories around this cemetery. The specter of Betsey Grayson has made her rounds on the nearby bridge, as well as the ghost of an old man who vanishes alongside the road, and the vision of a small girl picking flowers. Today however was hot and sunny and although I was loving the beauty and serenity of such a wild place I didn’t feel at all uneasy or see anything from beyond the veil. Perhaps that is an adventure best suited for the night.
Historic Cemetery Number 27 (Also called the Hopkins Tucker Lot)
We actually went out to find this cemetery on purpose. You see my navigator and myself were playing “whose ADD will lead us to the weirdest location” and so he picked random spots and I drove. I don’t know why he picked this little lot, situated ever so cozily in between a bunch of houses on a narrow dirt road. He was taking it out of a book about hauntings so I’m guessing… it’s haunted. That being said I have no idea who by. It was cute, maybe slightly spooky in how decayed it looked. There were only about 30 stones, unremarkable, but nestled sweetly between lovingly built stone walls and a little iron gate.
UPDATE: Having gotten my paws on said book I learned this cemetery is haunted by an old woman, Aunt Lonnie Davis, who lived nearby whose last wishes were that her house be completely demolished after her death – claiming she would come back to haunt anyone who left so much as two boards still nailed together. Legend says out of curiosity someone did indeed leave just two boards nailed together and now she’s seen sitting on the cemetery wall… a cemetery which she is not actually buried in. Strange.
Historic Cemetery 26 – (Also called the Hopkins-Ide Lot)
This last cemetery was an adventure! I don’t know why we went there but it has to be one of my all time favorites. Getting there was a challenge – especially in a Prius. The locals were already aware of a Prius driven by someone with vibrantly orange hair circling the area like a vulture going up and down and up and down the same roads. It was just one of those days and finding this last destination was no different. Pretty sure we scared the tar out of a woman walking her baby in a pram who probably thought we were stalking her down a long dirt road with seemingly VERY few houses.
The directions were to “go down the lane directly across from electric pole 15.” And with directions like that how could we possibly get lost, right? Well… it was a very long and very thin dirt road which the Prius was none-too-happy about traversing and was even less happy to be repeatedly turning around in the few driveways we found. The problems started with the electrical poles. My navigator didn’t realize they were numbered – and being a city dweller who doesn’t make a habit of such excursions, why would he? So I showed him the numbers and we started to count starting with the first pole #5… We drove quite a ways and found pole #15 sitting alone in the middle of nowhere, nothing but woods to be seen around it. We then got into a discussion about what “lane” could possibly mean. A road’s a road but what is a lane? Neither of us knew.
So we kept driving, occasionally turning around when we thought we’d gone too far only to turn around again. Eventually, after passing the woman and baby three times, (at which point it’s a bit awkward to roll down the window and ask, “So is there a cemetery on this road?”) we finally came to Crowfoot Farm. They were the first driveway I’d seen in what seemed like miles and they had the pure gumption to have a farm stand way out here selling eggs “on Saturdays and Sundays – first come, first serve.” WOW. I used to try to sell eggs on a main road and failed, the fact that they sounded like they were selling out way out here made me immediately love these people. But we weren’t here to see a farm, as fun as that is, we were here looking for a cemetery which as luck would have it was directly across the road from their driveway.
A tiny sign peeked out from the woods reading Historic Cemetery 45 and just beyond there was indeed a lane. Now this “lane” was actually just a path for occasional cars. It had tire tracks but was mostly weeds and grass, was even narrower than the road (if that was even possible) and more terrifyingly still it was down a small but steep hill. I had nowhere to park aside the road so I was forced to turn the Prius onto this little lane and pray we wouldn’t get stuck. It has all the strength of a great grandmother, especially in reverse, and up hills.
I was obviously nervous about the car but the fact this place was so far out in the middle of nowhere really intrigued me. We couldn’t see the cemetery from the road and didn’t know how far we’d have to walk the “lane” before getting there. Luckily it was only a short jaunt, it was just blocked by trees, and there out in no man’s land, almost completely forgotten, was the most beautiful little cemetery I’d ever seen.
Long gone were the well mowed lawns that surrounded the stones, instead ferns and weeds jutted up from a thick pile of dead leaves. The stones were antiquated, and although most were only from the mid 1800’s they were worn and often sunken into the ground. Most were long since illegible. I got the distinct feeling we’d stumbled into some special secret realm no one else knew about but believe it or not someone else had been here. Sticking out like a sore thumb there were two brand new wooden benches, just chilling, no memorial tags, no explanation, just a couple benches minding their own business. And it made me fall in love with the place even more.
I was taken in by a couple of stones – one with a particularly unique Cherub’s head, and another that seemed more like a scroll than a stone with so much writing on it. My navigator meanwhile disappeared to the other side and when we came back together he noted the oldest stone he found was from 1805. According to Find A Grave this place had, “175 burials with 70 inscriptions from 1797 to 1937.” Most notable to my companion were the many Civil War burials, each still brandishing a flag and a metal marker and some with inscriptions that told stories about dying in battle or in battlefield hospitals hundreds of miles from home. It was sobering.
We quietly wandered off after this with a deep memory and fondness for this place – well, that is, except for the Prius who was still parked on that little slope, it’s little Prius butt sticking almost straight in the air and looking towards the road. I said a little prayer before backing out of that spot and it must have worked because we made it.
Sometimes I get tired of finding new locations or I just lack inspiration. It’s at these times I like to hand the torch over to my travel companions and tell them to pick a place. I’m always happy to drive and the surprise of these adventures ticks off my ever expanding need for novelty.
On this day the choice was to go to Gay City State Park – a location in Connecticut that came up as a FaceBook suggestion to my travel companion. Let’s go!
Gay City State Park was easy enough to get to but they were taking trees down at the entrance when we drove up so we had to wait for them to move it out of the way. From there there was a really large parking lot for a park. This place was sort of huge. We followed several other people who were already out walking their dogs. They all made their way to a shut off road that goes straight into the center of the park. It had a toll booth and all. To the side there was a campground and signs were up for swimming holes, By Scouts, and various other activities. I am glad I didn’t come to this place during the summer season. It looks like it’d be flooded with children escaping the city. In this sense it was a lot like Rangeley, just bigger. What were we here to see again?
“The remnants of a ghost town.”
OK then! We took what looked like the main trail and began to hike into the woods. It was a pretty easy trail, a few mild inclines here and there but nothing too bad. Since it was gray and threatening to rain on this day the bare trees took on a bit of a foreboding appearance. When we came to a fork in the trail we just started walking down random branches of it. I have no idea how my travel companion can find his way back after doing this – I never could. One wrong turn and I’m screwed. We did eventually come across the foundation of an old house aside the trail. Ferns grew out of the walls and gave it a bit of a Secret Garden kind of feeling. Still, we’re a both a bit jaded at this point having seen quite a few ruins, we had to ask was this it? We continued to hike. Luckily it wasn’t raining yet and the temperature was perfect for a brisk walk through the leaf litter.
Eventually we made our way back to the main path which was supposed to have a ruined mill on it and sure enough it wasn’t long before we found it. I’ve seen lots of ruined and abandoned mills but this one was old! Only part of the foundation remained (after the structure burned down on three separate occasions) and it was not messing around. I’m pretty sure it’ll still be there in another 100 years! It made me wonder what it looked like when it was fresh and new and how many people worked here. I took some time wandering around taking somewhat artsy photos. It was worth the trip!
There’s rumors of a few weird terribly New England-y murders happening here back in the day when the town was thriving. Some people pay for permits to camp so they can ghost hunt at night. We did not… for we had other places to go!
We wandered back to the car to explore a second destination. There was supposed to be an abandoned missile silo from the 1950’s hidden just eight miles away. However the GPS just brought up to a random neighborhood and there was no indication there was a trail, an appropriate place to park, or anything else you might think would go with such a destination. We didn’t even bother getting out of the car. Instead we headed to our third and final destination of the day – the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry.
On the way to Holy Land USA we passed a sign reading Gillette Castle which sounded familiar. I decided if we had the time and I noticed the sign on the way back that I was going to check it out, but I didn’t tell my travel companion, instead letting this detour be a spontaneous surprise. Coming home and a mile from the exit I saw the sign again and asked him to look it up to see if it was anything worth it because I couldn’t for the life of me remember what it was.
After a moment he looked down at his phone and yelled, “YEP! Worth it! Take the exit!”
I just smiled. Most people I travel with get a bit flustered with me being so unpredictable. Going to a specified destination is always fun — going to a completely random one on the fly is arguably more fun. Besides when you’ve been kicking around the road for as long as I have you start remembering things you might like to see and like a moth to flame you just end up there at random…
So far my visit to Connecticut showed me a state that more or less just felt like a huge suburban backyard for NYC. Maybe this why even people in New England seem to have an indifferent attitude towards Connecticut… it feels… different. But now I was driving through a little town it was feeling a bit more familiar. Everything here was super well kept and quaint. A little Mayberry if you will. I however was once again back to scaring the shit out of my passenger because we found ourselves in the Prius going up a 90 degree hill which was also a hairpin turn.
“TWENTY-FIVE! The speed limit is TWENTY-FIVE!”
“Yes, but if we dip below 20 this car is going to slide back down the hill and there’s a car behind us!”
“Oh my God!”
We were lucky we went before it snowed. The Prius would have never made it up, going 27 MPH or not.
I followed signs (and my travel companions phone suggestions) to the park, again not knowing what to expect. As we drove in there was a nice little paved road through the park like you’d see in a typical city set up. However, we were both caught completely off guard when we drove up to this profoundly beautiful (but dry) manmade lake/fountain overshadowed by a little hobbit bridge. So quaintly pretty! It was like being in an English countryside!
“Where do we park?”
“Just wait, there will be parking at the end I’m sure…” And indeed I was right. There was parking just behind a huge castle!
We hopped out of the car, knowing we were on a two hour time constraint before the park was closed and gated up. This place was grand! I was not expecting anything quite so massive but here was what looked like a real castle…. overlooking a serene riverside scene. To add to the Gothic flair two turkey vultures circled overhead. I immediately wanted to attend a Gothic wedding here. I didn’t even care whose. Just a big Gothic wedding.. with at least one black-clad bride. Yep. I’d be so happy to attend.
The 24-room, 14,000 square foot castle is apparently furnished and normally open to the public but has been blocked off since the Covid pandemic. We both immediately decided that we would be back to peer inside when this whole thing blows over. In the meanwhile we wandered around the outside taking photos and admiring the dragon gargoyle jutting off the side.
The castle took 5 years to build and was completed in 1919 costing a cool million dollars at the time (that’s over 15.5 million dollars today.) It was the creation of an eccentric stage actor by the name of William Gillette who retired here with his seventeen cats. He was apparently quite the character and built into his home a series of secret passageways and spy mirrors to help him make a “dramatic entrance” when entertaining guests. Unsurprisingly he died in 1937 without any heirs and left a bizarre will reading the estate was not to go to any “blithering sap-head who has no conception of where he is or with what surrounded.” Somehow this resulted in the state of Connecticut buying the property in 1943 for the low-low sum of five thousand dollars. It languished in ruin until a four year eleven million dollar restoration project allowed it to reopen to the public in 2002. And boy is it worth it!
We wandered off after thoroughly checking out the outside of the castle. To the side of it was an old train platform. Apparently at one time it ran a private rail 3 miles onto the property.
“This is the kind of place we could fortify for the apocalypse.” My travel companion plotted.
“Well there is a huge root cellar, access to the river, and my God it’s peaceful up here.”
We found ourselves a trail and tried to make our way to the weird hobbit bridge with nothing but our broken sense of direction. This resulted in a delightful face-paced walk through what seemed an enchanted wood. There were lovely slate outcroppings, some nice view of the bogs, and random ruins such as disused wells smattered about. We found our way to a tunnel, perhaps part of the old train rail? We walked into it. It was super dark and cold. Had a weird feel about it but I suppose any place like that does. On the way back I’d joyfully suggest we go through it without our phone flashlights. I found this more enjoyable and less creepy!
Meanwhile the trails in the woods eventually did bring us to the fountain and bridge which made for a lovely photo opportunity and I am sure would have been far prettier in the summer when it’s full of water and not swamp mud and dead leaves.
On our way back we found an old wooden trestle that had partially collapsed and took a few photos. By now it was getting late and we had our nice little walk. It was a fun day and this was the perfect detour to add to it. When we found ourselves back to the car the turkey vulture swooped very low above us and showed its immense size. And then a stairway on the hillside caught my travel companion’s eye so up we went to check out this last little nook. Up above there were a series of picnic tables and another strange little ruin. I am not sure what it was but it was fun to poke at. Maybe it was a tower? Who knows.
When we drove out of that place we were WELL satisfied but the day wasn’t done with us yet because only a few miles down the road I found myself forking over $5 to drive the Prius onto a “historic ferry.” I’ve been on a car ferry before… in Europe…. but never in the US! And this was a hell of a ride. The expanse between the river banks was shockingly wide. And what do you know – I am still phobic of boats. I was fine until it started moving and then I wasn’t so fine. I know, it’s a ferry, chill. I calmed down but it took me a moment. I was still happy to get to the other side… feeling accomplished. Exposure therapy? Something.
ANYWAY, I’d highly recommend the castle and even the ferry ride to other explorers, travelers, and lovers of the strange and unusual.
UPDATE:
Last week we realized the castle was once again open for visitors to see the inside so of course we had to go for a repeat trek. We were not disappointed!
There weren’t many people there that day – just a few families and a tour of elderly including an 84 year old man who looked great for such an advanced age and a woman he was travelling with that had the Muppets theme song for her ringtone (how adorable is that??) ANYWAY… we parked in their super sunny parking lot, slipped on our required masks, and went inside the information center to buy tickets to the castle. They only allowed 15 people at a time in at any given point and tour guides stood in various locations to answer questions. The first was a young woman with a lot of enthusiasm for her job who delighted in showing us all how cat-proofed the castle was since it was more or less dedicated to the seventeen felines that shared Gillette’s life. Cute little froggy knickknacks were literally cemented to the fireplace so the little furry bastards couldn’t knock them off. An ornate table nearby clacked to life when it was realized it’s elaborate wooden skirt was actually built to be a cat toy. This place was awesome just for that but it got better…
The doors were all unique contraptions with complex steam punk mechanisms carved into them. The light switches matched. And if that wasn’t enough to love the wonderfully weird mind that came up with this then the description of his life here really settled it. On the balcony overlooking the first floor there were mirrors placed everywhere so he could tell who was in the house and where. If it was someone he didn’t like he’d retreat to his bedroom and pretend not to be there (and introvert’s dream!) Or if he was in the mood to be playful, which seemed to often be the case, he could lock wandering souls into the adjoining bar. The only exit was obviously a trick door – I mean at that point, why not? And watching them scratch around like rats in search of an escape probably amused him more than it should have.
Gillette grew to be an increasingly intriguing figure as we made our way through his castle. He was a stage actor in NYC whose claim to fame (and fortune) came from his performance as Sherlock Holmes. He was even cited as being the one who added the line, “It’s elementary, my dear fellow!” (which was later changed to Watson.) The castle was so far into the middle of nowhere he had to build his own train line to get there. Some of the stations still remain. And if all of that isn’t impressive enough he also wrote a popular play at the time about the Civil War and wrote a novel as well – a mystery novel with that I can only guess had intensely flowery language. If it were still being printed I would sooo have bought one from the gift shop but alas, there is only a copy in his little second floor art gallery in a little glass box. And that’s the other thing – a whole little art gallery full of paintings, books, and local history! The architecture equally as baffling as the rest of the castle. It was amazing. I love eccentric historical figures. They’re never boring. In fact with renovations still ongoing there was this odd playful feeling throughout the whole second floor. I pondered if maybe he wasn’t still lingering the halls. A copy of his most unusual will was displayed on the wall.
I’m super happy we went to this castle – twice. I will probably go again just because it’s so damn weird and beautiful. And outside the hiking trails around the property are just as quaint as can be and you can find tiny train stations and tunnels strewn about still, although the tracks are long since gone. I sort of naively hope maybe they’ll be replaced someday.
Holy Land USA, dubbed “Jesus’ Junkyard” by fellow enthusiasts is one of those places that I had heard about a lot in the past couple of years and had on my bucket list. I realize I have done painfully little in Connecticut but it’s a bit harder to get to than some of the other places in New England I have haunted on a more frequent basis. I may have continued to put this particular trip off except I mentioned it to my travel companion and how if I was going to go this year it’d have to be soon before it starts snowing. His eyes lit up and we started actual plans to go.
Holy Land USA was built in 1955 and enjoyed up to 40,000 visitors a year in its prime before being closed in 1984. The hope was to expand the site or move it elsewhere but it’s founder died in 1986 and it remained abandoned. Since then it’s been a bit of a morbid attraction to urban explorers like myself. It grew an even darker appeal in 2010 when a sixteen year old girl was raped and murdered under one of the crosses, bringing not just urban explorers to the site but paranormal investigators.
Obviously, we were going during the day just to see the ruins rather than exploit a tragedy. The last two abandoned amusement parks we went to were pretty much stand alone sites with not much around them. One had been turned into a park and one was nestled in the woods. I expected something similar with this but that just wasn’t the case. When I was maybe a mile off from my destination I found myself winding through a rough neighborhood in the middle of a proper city – Waterbury. This couldn’t be right. There couldn’t be an abandoned amusement park nestled in the hills amongst derelict homes smack dab in the middle of a city block – could it? I figured the internet and the GPS were once again conspiring to kill us. But then I drove up a hill to where it said the destination was and I’ll be damned… I was greeted with two big gates and a lot of signs all reading Holy Land. Huuuuuuuh. I guess Jesus really does love impoverished peoples.
There was no official parking lot, nor any clear place to park aside the street and no one else was here so I basically just scooted the car as far as I could off the road (which wasn’t much) and we got out. Initially visitors used to be discouraged from coming here but it’s been such a popular destination that locals gave up trying to police this and instead put up signs saying no visitors after dark. Fair enough.
We were the only ones here at this point so we headed in. The gates were purely aesthetic as the park itself was not fenced in and we were able to just waltz right in. We were greeted with a little entrance that gave three options, “Jerusalem, Holy Land, Bethlehem.” It must have been made for a shorter generation as I barely got under it without ducking. Beyond this was what looked to be a tiny ruined city reminiscent of the apocalypse. The Virgin Mary lived on here… behind bars in a cave. Morbid.
There were trails remaining around the park and through the weeds as well as a circle of pavement around the back. We made our way through reading some of the signs that had been repainted. I was particularly amused by one that said, “Jesus speaks to the women.” Ah yes, the women, I remember them well. What did he say to them? Go back to the kitchen and make me a sandwich? Maybe. There was no further explanation.
We eventually got to the top of this hill where the crosses were. I guess they’re still lit up at night. The one on it’s own read, “Our Lady of Peace” but was wrapped in barbed wire. It was a jarring juxtaposition that my travel companion noticed first while I was busy taking in the view. We were high above the neighborhood we’d driven through and I could see a large chunk of the city from this vantage point – houses, churches, a decrepit mill, the winding highway… It was very interesting! An unexpected bonus.
We walked around and found the saddest Tower of Babel ever, standing a mere few feet in height. A set of three crosses also overlooked the city. And then I found Satan! I think, anyway. He came in the form of an adorable serpent sunbathing on the pavement. I’d never seen a bright green snake like this just roaming free in New England and wondered if he wasn’t someone’s lost pet but a quick Google search revealed he was Smooth Green Snake, totally native to the area. Wasn’t expecting to see a new species today! We took a few photos and let the poor beast be…
“Everywhere we go seems to take two hours of driving and thirty minutes of messing around and then back in the car to drive two hours home.”
“Well, I mean…. we can find somewhere else to go…”
And so on the way home we did end up at a second and actually far more impressive location. The Gillette Castle.
After escaping the velociraptors in the Enchanted Forest we continued our adventuring to yet another abandoned amusement park in Rhode Island. This one was more familiar to my travel companion as he was here in the mid 1990’s before it was abandoned making happy childhood memories. Curranty it’s been transformed into a regular park. Most of the rides were taken apart and sold or thrown away but some structures still remain on the grounds, now accompanied by little plaques!
Actually the park is very pretty even without the added allure of a decaying amusement park. It sits next to the ocean and there’s a lot of open space to run around and enjoy. Upon entering we were greeted with the remains of an old gondola ride – cables and pulleys reaching for the sky, rusted in place. It was pretty dramatic.
As I walked along a fledgling screech owl flopped to the ground at my feet. I was a little stunned, didn’t know if the tiny beast was OK, and started to walk towards him when he gave me that familiar look that I am accustomed to seeing from a cat, the one that says, “I MEANT TO DO THAT! Don’t look at me!” And with that he made a very klutzy return to the air. It was an event that only took a few seconds but it delighted me.
People were fishing on the docks, several children were flying kites on the grass, and we were moseying about reading the plaques. Apparently this place was where the first presidential phone call was administered in a very public setting. The whole story was recounted on this plaque: (or not as the photo doesn’t want to upload…)
But as interesting as that history we were here to poke around the weird structures. By now we couldn’t even figure out what they were anymore. Weeds and vegetation had taken its toll and it just wasn’t obvious anymore without the help of the plaques. Still my travel companion wanted to see the caves which were reportedly a little teenage escape back in the day… hidden from the rest of the park they would take the Gondola ride up there and jump off to meet clandestinely.
So we made our way up there and there was indeed a little rocky alcove with a few caves. Clearly teenagers were still living it up in the area as there was the usual scattering of broken glass, used condoms, and F*ck Tr*mp graffiti. Ah, the passion and the angst. I goddamn love you little delinquents.
We scrambled about the rocks going deeper and deeper into the woods before deciding to head back. It was a fun little escape and this park endeared me to it. We got to see some creepy trees, the haunted house, and what remains of the swing before we left. It was a good time all around and the perfect fall day to attend such a place.
Last week’s adventures had a theme – abandoned theme parks! And we started with this one which was… an adventure. It always is.
It was another FaceBook suggestion which I have found to be a total coin toss when it comes to being worth it. I thought this was the place with the abandoned fairy village but no, that was a different Facebook suggestion which I will refind later.
In fact this place was kind of hard to find. It wasn’t really around too much civilization which you would expect of a theme park… The GPS played a few games with the street address before we finally arrived. There was a decrepit sign aside the road that led to a terrifyingly rough parking lot which had been nearly completely taken over by weeds and shrubs. The parking lot was paved but that isn’t’ saying much considering there was grass jutting out from the many cracks in it. This was like all the photos you see of current day Chernobyl, probably the sketchiest place we’ve been yet!
Things got even more creepy as we made our way towards the woods and found… a couch! Why? I have no goddamn idea but here it was, covered in spray paint, torn apart, but still in bizarrely good condition considering which suggests it hadn’t been there for long. Clearly this was where local teenagers came to drink. Been finding a lot of their secret hiding places as of late… maybe I am trying to find my own inner teen who didn’t really have much of a life back in the day, certainly less adventure than I do now.
Beyond the couch there were trails, of a sort, although there were no signs, no markers, no real suggestion that they were for people and not just overgrown deer paths. This place was supposed to have ruins scattered about but we didn’t come across much until we were fairly far down these paths. The first things looked like maybe the roof of a doghouse? And a wishing well nearby. From there we found what looked like an abandoned mini barn which some delightfully positive delinquent spray painted, “Someone loves you!” on the front of. You got to love life affirming graffiti. You, my dear tagger, have it right. Keep on shining!
The insides were of course covered and more typical of what you might expect. From here we crossed a little bridge, found some sort of open storage house decaying out here with perfectly good PVC still stacked up under them. From he we ended up wandering cluelessly onto a nearby golf course before going back into the woods from whence we came. This place was so overtaken with vegetation I felt like we were urban explorers trekking through Ingene Island trying to dodge nests of velociraptors…. and maybe a few pterodactyls.
When we came back to the parking lot I noticed trees blocked all of the Enchanted Forest’s sign except for what looked like “The END.” Fitting! And creepy! And of course when we got back to the car the one other person there had emerged from the thicket and was looking suspiciously at us. He was clearly a teenager, loitering about, maybe waiting for friends and we… were probably just a confusing sight to him with our unfamiliar baby faces.
In Part Two of last week’s Maine adventure I learned about my family history. I was told my great grandmother had spent a great deal of time (more than three years) in a sanitorium where she was being quarantined as a tuberculosis patient. It was called the Central Maine Sanitorium. It was a trying time for the family that clearly had a negative impact but beyond that I knew very little about this particular event… until by happenstance I was talking to a random person on FaceBook who mentioned an abandoned sanitorium in Fairfield Maine. Could it be the very same?
My great grandmother standing in the Central Maine Sanitorium
I did some digging. There was an epidemic of tuberculosis in Maine that resulted in a great deal of people being thrown out into the streets because their family did not want to catch this disease. This resulted in several tent cities being formed, one of which was in Fairfield Maine. At some point the problem became too big for a mere tent city and the state stepped in and built two large facilities for tuberculosis patients. The one built in Hebron was called the Western Maine Sanitorium and this was where patients who were expected to recover went. The other one built over the tent city in Fairfield was called the Central Maine Sanitorium and patients that were sent here were of only the most severe cases, basically expected to die. I guess that explains why she was there for over three years and could not receive visitors in all that time.
This photo was found in my family albums we *think* it’s of the sanitorium. If it’s not feel free to comment and tell me what it really is.
Basically what had started as a vague curiosity during a random conversation with a stranger turned into something a little more meaningful. I had to go but urban exploration isn’t really what I specialize in… though I do love it, it can be dangerous, and so I felt better dragging someone along. And so this became the one most important destination that week as I dragged an equally curious hostage behind me.
Initially I had a hard time finding this place as I once again got the wrong address and wasn’t even on the right road but once that was amended it was an easy drive down a sleepy street. It didn’t look like anyone cared about this place anymore although someone had put a For Sale sign up. I do not know if it was for this property or the neighboring acres though…
In any event a small parking lot was still there and even though two buildings that were still on the site were boarded up someone had unceremoniously de-boarded them. The structure was in perfectly fine condition for poking. There wasn’t any rotting floorboards or anything like that.
We initially started in the first floor but it was all boarded up and so dark we couldn’t see a thing. Our cell phone flashlights barely penetrated the darkness. It was… unusually dark. However light came in through all the windows upstairs and the place seemed alive. Graffiti decorated almost all the walls. A few pieces of furniture and equipment remained along with a sign requesting to keep the door closed. An elevator languished in in a pit but otherwise the structure seemed pretty intact.
There’d been whispers this place was haunted but the only odd feeling I got was when I entered what I think was the nurses’ area. Here I felt dutiful, fulfilled, like whoever was still here was still doing good work for the people. It was interesting. I wouldn’t expect to get that feeling in what essentially was a hospice. Still, it was pleasant. I suspect most of the spirits here had long enough to come to terms with their own deaths before finding their way elsewhere. I must admit though that I was a little heartsick to find a room painted in pastels… was it a nursery? A nursey in a ward devoted to consumption? Surely, babies can not generally recover from such a thing.
I took a bunch of photos with my cell phone having forgotten my camera. It’d already been a long day before we arrived. In any event this place is a photographer’s dream – so many weird angles, lighting, and decay. Just watching the paint fleck off the wall was amazing. I could see whole photo shoots done here – maybe even little horror movies.
Certainly the local teens knew about this place. I was entertained by their graffiti which distressed my travel companion. He lamented it was frustrated with too many tags dissing each other by name and using pretty profane language. C bombs and N bombs danced with lesser slurs of slut, bitch, and whore, you know, the usual sprinkling of misogyny. I couldn’t help but laugh. That’s small town life for ya… when you live somewhere that everyone knows you the only thing of value you tend to have at that age is your reputation. That’s what makes it such a delicious target for others with a chip on their shoulder. That explains the need for such fiercely negative language. It has to be the worst, although these little delinquents miss the fact that two white teenagers slinging the N bomb at each other isn’t edgy, it’s utterly meaningless. As it should be!
The graffiti wasn’t all bad though. Some had some artistic merit or humor to it. There was a very Beetlejuice-like “exit” painted on a brick wall in one of the closets. A cute plague doctor did his rounds nearby. Another room amped up the horror by scrawling “grandma’s house” on the peeling wallpaper while a little ways away another piece of art cheerfully stated, “I am a cat!”
Outside I walked around the building a little bit and came to a second much smaller building that I thought at first was a garage for ambulances or something like that. However in walking in I came across a somewhat unnerving sight – a single chair sat overlooking the door, behind it was a large furnace and what appeared to be a cast iron crematorium with space for four cadavers. You’d think I would be a little creeped out by this, especially since by this time I found myself alone, but it was such a beautiful day and I didn’t feel anything lingering HOWEVER my camera seemed to disagree. This one photo I took came out with a mysterious fog over it for no reason whatsoever.
Onto the galleries! Because I took SO MANY PICTURES!
Up first are my Black and Whites…
Abandoned Sanitoriums always look better in black and white.
Life these days can be overwhelming between trying to keep your head above the water financially and dealing with the plague going around… it’s becoming increasingly difficult to take a break and get back in touch with what’s really important. And so here I am once again inspiring someone else to solve an old mystery and mark off something on their bucket list – you know take an adventure and learn something, live.
It had started off as a mild curiosity a week ago. Basically we were talking about a big gap in my travel companion’s family tree that seems to just end with his great-great-great-great-great grandfather who fought in the Civil War. Somehow it was known that he was buried in Springfield Maine. I had to go up to Maine anyway so I figured why not take a little detour to satiate curiosity?
And so we gathered some charcoal and a large sketch pad for a rubbing, woke up early, and headed out to the tiny village of Springfield. It would be a two hour drive and as usual I did not have the exact address of the cemetery because it wasn’t around any houses and cemeteries don’t have their own address. Initially I even got the road wrong. I drove out there and was greeted not with the village I was expecting but instead a vast expanse of dirt road that led us absolutely nowhere.
We decided to redirect towards the town office thinking that perhaps they would have some old records or something of interest. We ended up in the center of town which had a few of the usual buildings but no town office was in sight. We decided to stop at the post office and ask for directions. The post office was TINY. There appeared to be one parking space, taken, and the inside waiting area for a queue could only comfortably fit two people. The clerk there looked at us like we’d just landed from Mars, which I am sure we looked like with both of us sporting unnaturally colored hair. She said he town office was across the road behind the little café. Basically we could hit it with a rock if we tried.
I drove over and found it. It was a refurbished hunting cabin, no parking lot, no sign at the road, and yes, hiding behind another tiny building that was apparently a café. There was a sign out front that said there was only to be one person in there at a time which could be because of Corona or equally because it was only big enough for one person to be inside in the first place. I waited outside for a few minutes. Basically, the women in there directed us to the town’s unofficial genealogist – a woman working across the street at the Smith’s general store. Smith’s aye? I am supposed to be related to the Smiths in these parts… somehow…
Suddenly it was like being in an episode of Northern Exposure. There was nothing about the developing scene that wasn’t terrifically cliché. The general store was again, tiny, with just two gas pumps outside that looked like they were installed in the 1950’s when road trips were the height of entertainment. Inside we found a solitary woman working who turned out to be the person we were looking for. She lit right up when we started asking about her work. She’d been archiving the local cemeteries since 1990 and had already written up as many family trees as she could using information from these cemeteries. She instantly recognized the graves we were asking about, likely due to their odd first names: Liberty and Christopher Columbus. She directed us to where the cemetery was as well as where those particular graves were. She revealed that Christopher Columbus was Samuel’s father which filled in a blank for at least one generation more. She had more information in a locally created book of Spauldings and promised to send a copy. This was wild.
So after this we continued down the road where over the hill we came across Bog Road which contained the South Springfield Cemetery. It was a small cemetery, with maybe 150 stones or so, if that. I parked aside the road the best I could.
There was indeed a Spaulding family plot just to the left-hand corner. There we found a series of crumbling stones under a big oak tree being eaten away by lichen and moss. Some had fallen over, some were possibly sunken into holes in the ground. Several were in pieces and legibility varied greatly. We’d been warned they were in poor condition so I didn’t know what to expect. After surveying what we could find we started to piece together an interesting story.
We learned that Samuel Spaulding was the son of Christopher Columbus Spaulding and Lydia A Mapes Spaulding. He was one of four brothers, served in the Civil War, and probably lost all three of his brothers to the same war. William T Spaulding was the first to go in 1862 at the tender age of 13 (yes, children served – usually as drummers, fife players, and gophers) followed by John W and Liberty B. John W’s age was lost but Liberty B was 20. None of them appeared to be married and the stones all matched implying they’d been bought at the same time. In the Civil War era this frequently means there was either no bodies under them or possibly the wrong bodies who’d been shipped back. Samuel outlived the war and went on to have a family which would move out of Maine. I was struck by the loss. I’m more into Revolutionary War era stones so it was easy for me to bypass the devastation of the Civil War, even this far North.
We took some time to absorb this new information and take a rubbing of Samuel’s stone which was by far in the best condition. I took a few photos and took note of all the Spencers and Websters out here – two more family names I am supposed to be related to somehow. I wondered if this meant that five generations back our two families could have been related somehow. This whole excursion had been as enlightening as it was curious.
On the way home I got the additional adventure of having one of my tires melt off the Prius and explode as we were going down the highway. Luckily I noticed something was off and was already slowing down and turning into the break down lane when we heard a loud pop followed by a lot of wobbling. Trying to tell AAA where we were was a challenge and took at least 20 minutes as we had no idea and the GPS coordinates my phone gave me didn’t come up the same on the phone operator’s side. Another hour of waiting for a driver – the fear of not being able to be let in the cab due to covid – and finally being dropped off at Lincoln’s only tire store which did not carry appropriately sized tires – and we were starting to get punchy. We left with a tire that was too wide but still worked. The next day we’d tour three more tire stores before finding anything that could work for us. This ate up a great deal of time and tried everyone’s patience. Still, it was better than having more exploding tires!
