“There’s scarcely a town in New England that has not sometime in its history a legend of a haunted house. Hampton is no exception,” Susan Griggs Jewett wrote in the local classic Folklore and Firesides”.
Most notably was the haunted house that once stood on the corner of Windham and Reilly Roads. Griggs writes: Only the cellar hole is left of the century old gambrel roofed house in the southern part of Howards Valley just east of the three bridges on the road to Canterbury. For many years it stood empty, with sunken door sills and gaping window frames. Tradition says that more than a hundred and twenty-five years ago a peddler was murdered in the old house; anyhow, he disappeared mysteriously, after having lodged in the house, and when uncanny sights and sounds were heard, his memory was revived – his uneasy ghost haunted the place.
One story goes that a family had moved out because of the weird noises at night. One day, going into the cellar, the woman noticed a sword protruding from the thick walls of the chimney. Wondering why she had never noticed it before she tried to pull it out, an awful groaning and shuttering sounded throughout the house. Terrified, she fled upstairs and told her husband, who went to the cellar but failed to see the sword; although he had heard the groans and moans. Naturally, they moved out as soon as possible.
The next family, the Ebenezer Jewetts, had an even more terrifying experience. Sounds such as the drip of water from the ceilings were heard day and night. The front door, which opened into a small entry, could never be fastened all night, no matter what pains to lock it securely. Nails driven over the latch would be removed; a knife placed as a wedge to prevent the latch being lifted would also prove futile. The door was also found unlatched when morning came. In the night all through the house, the latches would rattle mysteriously. Upon investigation the rattling would cease, but commence in another part of the house.
East of the entry opened a long room. Before the south, front window, Mrs. Jewett kept her spinning wheel. Her bed stood against the east wall, opposite a fireplace built into the big center chimney. One evening when some neighbors had come into the kitchen, she opened the door from the kitchen into this bedroom to take out an extra chair. Her seven year old daughter Laura followed as did also the child’s small pet dog. They were startled to see the bowed figure of a man peering through the window. In a second, the figure seemed to come through the window, right through the spoke of the spinning wheel, rolling over and over. A headless body of a man; it vanished with a “whishing” sound up the chimney. The child remembered the experience perfectly and her fright at the terrible sight. The dog bristled and barked; and the household was much upset.
Mr. Jewett did not believe in ghosts; he poohed at the story. But one night, sometime later, he was awakened by something heavy falling on him from the ceiling. In horror he recognized the same headless, hairy thing that had frightened his wife and child. As before, it vanished in the fireplace. There was no longer any doubt, and the family moved at once. “
Another haunted house in Howard Valley was the Bennett’s on South Bigelow, which might explain why it was vacant for so long. George (Washington) Smith, who frequently tried to convince townsfolk that he was the first president of the United States, lived in the Bennett place with his mother, who could usually be seen sitting at the window, observed by teenagers who went horseback riding in the woods behind the property, and noted how still she was. Seems George’s mother died and he never reported it, instead driving down to the Little River where he lived, in the car, until someone reported a vagrant. Returning to the house, it was discovered that his mother died sitting at the window, which explained her stillness.
Other accounts confirm later hauntings and suggest an earlier cause. A subsequent owner would sleep in his car because of the unnatural cold which would overcome the house nights; the dog, as well, was petrified to enter. An addition was built to avoid living in the original structure, however, consumption of the property’s water would result in illness. One legend claims that Elizabeth Shaw, who was the first woman in the state to suffer the fate of the gallows, drowned her newborn in the well of the house and then brought the baby to the nearby Cowhantic ledges where the child was later discovered. Hence the warning – don’t drink the water!
Though Howard Valley is notorious for paranormal activity, it’s not the only place in town to experience apparitions. In the November 1978 issue of the Gazette, Agnes Steyert wrote of the “G-G-Ghost of Grandma Dooley”. The Steyerts purchased the “old Dooley house” on East Old Route 6 in 1941, and realized they were sharing the homestead with a ghost. The legend is that Grandma Dooley died during a blizzard, and drifts of six feet prevented anyone from visiting her. When someone finally reached the house, “to her surprise and shock, she found Grandma Dooley sitting up in her rocking chair by the fireplace, fully dressed and cold and stiff as the weather outside.”
Though “Grandma” was a friendly ghost, she didn’t like being ignored. “Once we were entertaining friends in the living room, when she impatiently started the automobile horn blowing noisily in the garage, and didn’t give up until we went out and stopped her. Often in the still of the night, and indeed some days, she stomps across the floors upstairs. One night last year she tried forcibly to get in past our heavy kitchen door, rattling it impatiently. There was no wind nor person about outside. When we opened the door to investigate she slipped quietly into the house. Many times she opens cupboard doors to let us know she is present while we are quietly sitting reading.” Once when the Steyerts returned to Hampton in the spring, a worn deck of cards was discovered in a desk. “Grandma Dooley’s pastime is no doubt a game of Solitaire to while away the long winter nights,” Agnes wrote. “If anyone should care to play with these cards, you are welcome to do so, but be careful not to cheat, for Grandma Dooley will be watching you.”
Others remember a presence there, too. Ruth Halbach relayed that Dave used to mow the Steyert’s field summers, and when she would deliver lunch to him, there was a spot as one approached the house that caused her to shiver she grew so cold. Once while sitting in the living room, Ruth was suddenly covered with long white hair, a foot in length, she recalled, adding that this was when her own hair was still black. Daughter Helen remembers her mother saying “where is all this hair coming from?”
“That was the first time I heard of the ghost. It wasn’t really scary,” Ruth said, “just a bit unnerving.”
“My first experience with bizarre ‘ghost’ events was in that house,” Helen recalled. “I was maybe eight years old. Mrs. Steyert made these figurines out of shells. I remember I saw with my own eyes, while sitting at the table waiting for my dad to finish raking hay, one of these figurines levitate, at least five inches off the table!” Though very intrigued, and a little scared, Mrs. Steyert assured Helen it was “just a sweet gramma letting me know she was there”.
The village was not immune from friendly hauntings. In the Main Street home which is now empty, Susan Latimer, who grew up there in the 50’s and 60’s, relayed that both she and her brother recall their mother saying she saw a ghost in the house, and in the 70’s, Lori and Sandi Kraschnefski simultaneously, from different bedrooms, saw a woman wearing white walk through the upstairs hallway and down the stairs. She was a frequent visitor.
Growing up, nearly every place that was empty at some point was a source of ghostly tales. The house at the corner of Parsonage and Cedar Swamp roads, the Bennett place, the one at the summit of Hammond Hill and Main, at the corner of Reilly and South Bigelow, with rumors of suicides, homicides, and ghostly apparitions. Perhaps it was only to keep us from playing in abandoned buildings. If so, it worked!