Urban legends spread because they touch the universal in our human nature. They tell us our worst fears are true and the thing that we do not want to happen will occur when we least expect it. We relate to it and tell it to someone else because there is that cringe factor when we hear it. The more realistic the legend, the more we say know it could happen to us. We never think an alligator is going to climb out of the toilet, but we still check before sitting down. They attack us where we eat and sleep. They attack us in our most vulnerable moments and in the places where we spend our time and know that while everything might feel safe, it could flip on us at any moment.

It is no surprise then that there are so many urban legends involving our cars. To most of us, the machine is where we spend hours in traffic, sitting within tons of steel and glass, protected by a four inch wide piece if nylon. To others, the car represents freedom and independence. Cars seem to be at the center of what it means to be American and as we have grown as a country, our cars have become more a part of our lives. They are our identity.

Cars can be scary as well. Before you leave the driveway you need to have insurance because chances are something bad is going to happen to you. Once inside you are at the mercy of every other person on the road, most of whom you would not speak to if trapped inside a locked room with. If you survive all of this, there are still the ghost hitchhikers, escaped criminals and mental patients and the person waiting under your car to slash your ankles as you turn the key.

Some of the legends are harmless and tell us more about our sense of greed or our tendency to overreact. There is the legend of the man who buys the expensive sports car for a cheap price only to find he cannot get the smell of a person who died out. Another great deal is found when a scorned wife is asked by her cheating husband to sell his car before he gets back into the area with his mistress. One man, thinking his wife is having an affair because of the beautiful car in his driveway, fills the car with cement before he can be told the car is his, a present from his wife.

Others hint at the fear we feel in the car and our distrust of people. The woman parked in the car with her boyfriend can either drive off before the man in the hook opens the door or find her love hanging from a tree above her, his feet scraping the roof. Chances are there is someone in your backseat, but you’ll only find him if you trust the person in the car behind you flashing their lights. Chances are if you flash your lights at the car passing you to warm them their lights are not on, gang members will turn that car around and kill you.

These legends work because they take a situation we always find ourselves in and make the unthinkable possible. Sometimes, however, the myth touches us because it forces us to come in contact with something outside of the everyday.

Ghosts are on the road with us.

Some drive behind us and others walk the sides of the street. They blur the line between legend and a genuine haunting and are so familiar to us we feel they have to be true and accept them as fact rather than fiction. While the ghostly hitchhiker is the most famous of the road ghosts, there are two others that tell us we are not alone as we coast down the pavement late at night.

The first is the more well know of the two and might be as popular as the hitchhiker. A few years ago a bus loaded with children stalled on train tracks, leaving them defenseless against the oncoming train. The driver and his passengers all died, but they have returned to make sure no other souls share their fate. On these same tracks any stalled car will be pushed to safety by unseen hands. People, not believing the tale, have driven to the crossing, turned off their cars and mysteriously found themselves out of harms way. Sometimes the laughing of children can be heard, and the story often continues with people putting baby powder or flour on their bumper only to see small handprints when they investigate later.

Chances are you have heard the story before. The original event was said to have happened in Texas, usually outside of San Antonio, but most people have heard a version coming from their own backyard. The story seems believable because we want it to be true. It has all the elements of a good ghost story. We would never want to think of small children dying, but if they have to, we are comforted by the fact they become guardian angels. The urban legend takes one of our worse fears, leaving your child in the hands of a stranger to get safely to school, and twists it by making their death an uplifting lesson about the power of spirits.

The story is completely false. While most people believe it has happened in their town, there was only one such traceable tragedy in 1938. It continues to be told because we want it to be true, but also because there are some very true aspects of the story. Many roads have an odd optical illusion that makes it appear to go uphill when in fact there is a slight decline. Some of these roads are near intersections with tracks, so people who stop and place their cars in neural find themselves going uphill. They believe something is pushing them, but in fact they are traveling downhill. The other aspect has more to do with crime scene investigators than paranormal investigators. Our cars may seem clean, but there are always smudges we do not see with the naked eye. Placing flour on your car brings makes these mark visible, like dusting for fingerprints, and many can seem like small handprints, especially if you car is exposed to children.

No matter what evidence might be out there, people still believe. They know someone who remembers the tragedy and they have even tried it themselves. No one can ever remember the year it happened or knows someone who died on the tracks, but they know it has to be true.

The second is seen by many paranormal investigators as a true haunting when they first hear it. It is not as widely told as some other urban legends, so most slip into the trap of falling in love with the story before they can verify the facts. However, when the same haunting happens in many locations all across the country, it has to start being seen as more than meets the eye.

The story starts once again with the death of a child, usually a young boy. While playing near the road, the child is hit by a car, almost always said to be a drunk driver, and killed. The parents, or maybe the community, create some kind of memorial for him. The site of his demise is covered with signs, a cross or teddy bears. The ghost of the child then becomes like the ghost hitchhiker, appearing in cars or seen playing on the side of the road.

If this was where the story ended, an investigator might be able to find a legitimate haunting. There is another ghost seen, however, in connection with the little boy. In almost every report, there is also a ghost car that follows people in the same area. The phantom vehicle come from behind, often honking at the observer or flashing their lights. The car disappears going around the next turn. Most believe the car to be the one that killed the child. The psychic impression of the violent demise is trapped on the road and is forced for some reason to replay itself.

In Massachusetts, there is the tale of Rockadundee Road in Hampden. In this legend a boy was killed by a drunk driver and his parents, in their grief, built a gazebo as a memorial. The boy is seen playing in the structure or nearby. The story goes on that a group of teenagers suffered a mysterious death while jumping on the gazebo as part of a dare. A haunted tailgater is seen in the area and has been reported to run people off the road.

Other states report similar hauntings. In Idaho, the little boy is remembered by a stuffed bear in a tree. His ghost is seen in the same tree, and on some nights a car with one light out will bump you if you stop to observe the stuffed animal. In Maryland, the boy is seen crying at a cross bearing his name before walking into the woods. Again, a car is seen and disappears.

Like the legend of the little ghost helpers, there are very few people that actually experience the haunting. More have heard the story in their neighborhood or might have experienced one of the two and is told of the other. There are other elements of the story that force an investigator to lean towards a new urban legend.

The haunting seems too good to be true and involves a situation too familiar to not connect with the majority of people. We have all seen the memorials on the side of the road and wondered what the back story is. When the deceased is a child we become even more empathetic and more likely to believe the story. We feel for the little boy unable to find peace.

There are usually contradictions or inconsistencies involved in the story. The driver is said to be drunk and never caught. There is also the fact that no one ever reports of seeing both ghosts. The stories are always retold as, “I saw this and I was told this is the reason why and there is this other ghost…” The teller fills in the holes, making the story more exciting. Most importantly, the same haunting is told and told again in different towns around the country.

The lack of provable facts, the perfect design of the story and the multiple locations experiencing the same action make this story feel more like a new emerging urban legend. Like most urban legends, there is probably a true ghost at the heart of the myth, but time has changed it to something different. What might have been a private truth now belongs to us all.

Urban legends change and evolve to allow them to continue to relate. They are always current because we have the same fears and anxieties generation after generation. They wear different clothes, but they boil down to the same theme, playing over and over again. Ghosts have the same ability to connect with modern reader. At the intersection of that common ground are those ghostly urban legends we continue to read and listen to. As long as we have to drive late at night on a dark deserted road our minds will always wander to those tales we are told that seem silly by day and inevitable by the light of the moon. Like the ghostly hitchhiker, we allow them in only to watch the truth behind them slowly fade when we try to take a second look.

By Christopher Balzano

This article originally appeared on Ghostvillage

When I began my paranormal career, I wanted anything but a career. I was a storyteller looking to document what I thought was the most interesting topic I could find. I knew it was engaging because I was fully engaged in it, and for many people who start to look into the paranormal, the idea of ghosts and spirits and all that come with them can be something of an obsession. In those early stages, many of us consume anything we can find, and when we can’t find the best stuff, it hardly matters to us. It’s all good because it’s about ghosts. But not all that glitters is gold.

Case in point: A few years ago, after becoming somewhat of an authority on an especially haunted area of my state, I was contacted by a newspaper that was doing their traditional Halloween stories. After the interview, they published an article that included many of the locations I talked about. There was even a map included. There was no follow-up with any of the places or checking of my facts or even permission from some very public areas to use what I had said. My words were truth, and as Web sites and other media outlets got the story, my naming of names spread throughout the area and investigators and researchers hit the field looking to touch the things I had talked about. It was not that I had told any lies; it was a storyteller retelling the most engaging things he had heard.

Innocent, right? One of the subjects I talked about was a local college known for some amazing hauntings, although like most colleges, the back story and the folklore were the real star and the details of the ghosts were secondary. As the head of the library and the college archivist both sat down to breakfast that morning, they saw their college in bold letters (and a special generic clip art picture on the map) and knew they were in for a tough time. There were no ghosts on campus and the stories had been the subject of folklore for years, which they explained to dozens of people who called over the next few days to request permission to investigate. They were just good ghost stories. A letter they wrote to the paper explaining just that never made it to the editorial section.

A few years later I met them both as I was doing research for my book on that area. Both eyed me suspiciously and knew me by name. They gave me a detailed account of what they had gone through and continued to go through because of my article. Of course, as a folklorist, I was bringing the information to the masses, something the newspaper felt was more of a detail than a direction. The women both eventually understood my focus and helped me with the book, as well as helping me a few times since, gather information or to check a detail of a case.

I’m not sure if the line between folklore and fact is any more blurred than it was years ago. We have a tool that can help verify the stories we are told, but so often we can’t trust the second source or don’t bother to look. A phone might help, but there are deadlines and the stories are not meant to be more than casual reading. Why check facts when you are talking about something as silly as ghosts anyway? The odd thing is that these stories become the foundation of something almost uncontrollable. An article becomes a posting which becomes a blog entry which is used as the background of a book, and before anyone has time to check the batteries in their EMF meters, legend becomes modern haunting.

Don’t get me wrong. The folklorist side of me loves seeing this. I am as intrigued by the way information is spread as the information itself. I was thrilled last year when someone cited a personal experience of mine as something that had happened to a friend of theirs, and it wasn’t until I pressed that they confessed they heard the story during a ghost tour and wanted to spice it up. The bigger point for those looking for truth is to understand the bringers of that truth. Newspapers don’t ask for a list of works cited by those they interview, and when speaking on the record (and all investigators should always assume everything they say to a reporter is on the record) those words become part of the paranormal landscape that over time may harden like cement.

I have already seen these articles appearing in the papers, and for the most part I don’t print them because it is hard to say which ones are more newsworthy than the others. I’m not asking people to stop reading them, and I am definitely not asking people to not share what they hear with their friends and other lovers of all things unexplained. Maybe when you do, however, you should include a special disclaimer that might be more accurate than the one you might be tempted to use. Instead of claiming a place might be haunted, we should all start out by saying, “Once upon a time, there was a tale of a haunting.”

Many hauntings fall into the realm of legends in a land as old as Massachusetts, and current reports as well as old folktales fall into basic motifs seen for over three hundred years. This does not invalidate reports as being untrue or merely a symptom of misunderstanding or fear. There is that element to them. Rather they help explain the possibilities of why these hauntings may be true. Deeper examination of these motif help to get a more complete picture of the relationship between settler and modern American to Native Americans.

The idea of the ancient burial ground often comes up in reports of ghosts in older times and modern days. The story is usually the same. Unexplained things happen in a house, most often poltergeist-like activity and odd dreams, and a deeper investigation reveals the house was built on an ancient Indian burial ground. The family is forced to leave the house or somehow expel the spirit or purify the land, which really means cleaning out the old to make room for the new. The concept is scary, the first essential element to a good ghost story. It invades our house where we are supposed to feel safe. Also included in this motif are instances where artifacts are removed and continue to curse or haunt those that take them, as well as dark tales of falling into a sacred land and being haunted or even killed by unseen forces.

It is important to note the wording of the phrase for it is always the same. Take the words “ancient” and “Indian”. “Ancient” allows us to see Native Americans as old, outdated and somehow mystic. The use of the word “Indian” helps paint a picture of the classic images of the people. Never is the more politically correct term used. “Cemetery” is never used in place of “burial ground”, creating a foreign feel that further serves to separate.

This concept has been seen in movies for years. It is interesting to note the modern day version of this tales where the American house is built on a cemetery like in the movie Poltergeist. The interesting aspect is that there are very few if any tales of this type of haunting in folklore until after Native American culture influenced European and American storytelling, although there is a rich tradition of falling into fairy circles and straying from the road into a haunted land.

Mary, a resident of Lexington, tells how her house became haunted by the spirits of “Indians” as she referred to them. She would hear chanting and find items in her house turned around facing the wall. After asking someone to investigate, she discovered her house was built on top of Native cemetery. She called upon a “witch doctor” to make the peace and her problems were promptly solved. She refused to watch the man clean the house and wanted no part of what he had done to help her. There is a Native cemetery in Rehoboth that has the reputation of being haunted. Dogs bark near the site at unseen people and travelers going by notice a dramatic change in their behavior and mood, even at night. There have also been reports of a shadowy figure walking through. In his book New England Ghost Files Charles Robinson describes a man from Middleboro who had his own experiences. The town uncovered an ancient site and went about digging it up. The town experienced unusual occurrences, but one man took a item he found on the site. He woke up to find a Native American ghost in his room and the next morning the item was gone.

The next motif involves attacks that occur on the coast or in lakes and ponds. These stories involve abductions, attacks or murders in a place people are already tentative about although they are places of recreation and enjoyment. Unseen hands drag someone under or tip over a boat. Children are seen and then disappear a moment later. Someone watches an old fashion canoe vanish. Afterwards the site is confirmed as being a location of tragedy, usually sparked by settler misdeeds. This motif is different from the others in that it sometimes extends beyond the spirits of people to include the gods of Native Americans. While a sacred land might be connected to a certain god or myth, the gods only consider the site sacred and therefore suitable to be used for burial. The human does the attacking. In contrast, it is the god who might attack people directly in the water, independent of the tension between Natives and the people attacked.

Any book on hauntings on the Cape and the Islands will reveal scores of tales involving Natives. Massachusetts lakes and ponds also have a high level of paranormal activity. A Westwood paper told the tale of Black Bear and his haunting of WigWam Pond in Dedham. Black Bear was a Native who tried to steal from a settler and was discovered and beaten. He returned later and tried to kidnap the man’s baby but was caught again. He was shot in the water trying to escape and jumped overboard rather than be caught. That part of the pond does not freeze over and cries have been heard there. Horn Pond in Woburn was the site of an ancient battle between the gods of light and dark. The gods of light trapped the bad guys there and then drown them. There have been multiple deaths in the pond through unexplained means. There is a rumor of tragedy in another pond in Lakeville. A branch has been seen being dragged across the water and people have heard voices and been hit, sometimes going as far as being touched on the leg and being dragged under.

Sexual tension and the rape of Native American women proves to be the spark of many hauntings, often becoming the root of water attacks, a certain buried spirit coming back or spectral lights. As settlers moved in they took a different perspective on the males and females they encountered. While males were a source of fear, native females represented sexual mystery and unattainable beauty, as well as objects of affection in a situation where women were not always available. The men took by force and the sexual attacks at times led to the eventual death of the woman. In other reports the woman kills herself rather than be disgraced or goes on living but becomes tainted or changed. While this is an excellent example of guilt in past behaviors, it is also a major aspect of paranormal activity. A rape and murder or suicide could produce enough negative energy to create a ghost.

One such case involves a Native woman who was sunbathing near a pond. Some local boys, angry at her attitude towards the settlers started to taunt her. She died while trying to get away from them and has stayed on at the pond. She has been credited with pushing people in the water and knocking boats over, sometimes trying to grab them and force them under once they are in. Her hand has been seen coming out of the water and some report to have heard her screams.

At times the relationship is consensual but the love is not allowed by one side’s culture. The lovers are kept apart. One or both might kill themselves or a misunderstanding may cause the death of one by the other’s people. It is a story as timeless and romantic as Romeo and Juliet and the numerous reports of old lovers seen at bridges or by the side of the road and widow balconies looking for their lover reveal this motif as still very much alive in the haunted sites of today. One such case is a bridge in Greenfield. A Native woman was in love with a settler and hung for trying to be with him. The bridge is still believe to be haunted by her ghost, although other aspects of the hauntings make it feel more like an urban legend. People entering the covered bridge can invoke the spirit by blinking there lights four times and honking there horn twice.

The last motif is the appearance of apparitions, seen as lights or orbs, in places of betrayal. This betrayal may be a battlefield or the site of a signing of a treaty gone bad, but it becomes tainted ground for Americans. Although there are some physical attacks at these sites, the bulk of the reports seem to be focused more on keeping the grave memory of what happened there alive. Full-bodied spirits are sometime seen looking lost or confused or reenacting the tragedy that happened. Whole battles are seen. Voices are heard or the sound of some action. Other times an unknown feeling overwhelms people in the area. They sense they are unwelcome and should leave the spot. People report feeling like they are being watched. Buildings constructed on the site burn down or suffer unexplained damage.

Two classic examples of this are seen in the southeastern part of the state. In Rehoboth there is Anawan Rock, the site of a surrender to the settlers that occurred during King Phillip’s War, considered by historians to be the most vicious war in American history. The settlers broke the treaty that was signed there causing more bloodshed. The forest near the rock has long been seen as haunted with dozens of reports, including lights, spectral Natives and drums. There has also been a voice heard threatening people in the forest that has been roughly translated into, “stand and fight.” In the Freetown State Forest the hauntings have a different feel. The land there was bought for short money and became a source of tension between Natives and settlers during King Phillip’s War. Today there is a reservation on the land, but that has not seemed to stem the tide of activity or violence the forest has become home to. In addition to suffering similar activity as Anawan Rock, the forest has become a magnet for violence. There have been several murders in the forest, most involving cult activity and even more bodies have been found dumped there. Cases of rape and assault were also common in last few decades there. One Wampanoag spokesman has been quoted as saying the violence there will not stop until the land is given back because the spirits in the forest and the ancestors of those robbed are unhappy and therefore restless.

Given the area and nature of the original settlers of New England, relationships between the societies were destined to create folklore and tales of spirits. Confusion, fear and miscommunications laid the groundwork for hostility and those hostilities flourished into traditions. Again, this does not validate the cynics who say paranormal activity is in the participants mind. Some of these tales, especially those that follow established folk motifs, may very well have never happened or originated in truth and then found themselves changed and manipulated by time. There is little doubt some of the hauntings out there are little more than cultural propaganda, but there are other reasons for the activity reported and for the survival of the legends.

Possible reasons come down to the two views of Natives; the savage and the mystic. The savage was someone to fear. Upon arriving in the Americas, Europeans form tentative alliances and relationships with the people they found. There began a sense of community, but I the backs of both side’s minds there remained an underlining fear of each other. Conversion and the desire for property brought this to light and sides began to form. Friends were now enemies and settlers began turning tribes who had alliances of their own against each other. This created a new need to see the enemy as an enemy. The land had to be cleaned for civilization and these people stood in their way. Details of attacks on settlers became exaggerated. Places were unsafe to go into because you may be attacked. These ideas and beliefs help to establish uniquely American folklore, giving people a sense of identity.

In a paranormal sense, these conflicts led to deep emotions that may still be replaying themselves. Anxiety and animosity are powerful feelings that are often associated with hauntings. People lived in fear and the abstract concepts became concrete in the form of strained relations and violence. Both the negative daily interacts and the killings on both sides led to deaths that still remain unresolved. It is not farfetched to see a spirit trapped by negative energy manifesting itself to the root of its imprisonment. Looking over the reports, most hauntings involve the killing or attack of a native or the invasion into sacred areas as the source of the activity.

Closely related to this is the native as mystic which formed the basis of some anxiety for the two groups as well as acted as ammunition in the propaganda war against one another. Their close religious relationship to the land around them was a source of confusion for settlers and possible trigger for activity. Settler could not fully understand the mysticism of the natives and this helped further isolate the two groups. It also led to the notion of conversion to a Christian belief set which invariably led to the idea that settlers were better and natives should be submissive. Religion also led to misunderstandings. Certain tribes did not understand the concept of ownership of land because of their religious beliefs and breaking legal agreements help escalate conflict. Certain rituals were seen as threats to settlers.

Native’s religion might be the source for actual hauntings as well. Their connection to spirits that they saw as very much active in their lives make them more likely to be sensitive to paranormal forces. They existence of ghosts is an integral part of their religion not in opposition to it. Whether their gods endowed them with certain powers after death can not be said, but it would at least make them open if that sort of thing is possible. At the very least, their deep religious connection with nature would prompt them to come back if they could to defend their land and seek revenge for promises broken.

There can be a debate on the nature of ghosts. An examination of hauntings over thousands of years reveals the same ghosts making their presence known in different places with different names. A vampire appearing in Romania starts to mirror one found in Rhode Island. This lends credibility to people who firmly state the paranormal should be seen as fiction, the recycling of folk beliefs passed off as fact. Science has yet to prove ghosts exist, although what evidence would cynics believe. Fact or fiction, Native Americans have played an important role in the paranormal history of this country. Examining haunted burial grounds and rivers, looking at the folklore passed down about the exploits of the savage, debating the truth and relationship of these separate disciplines, strengthens our identity.

The name may have changed through the century and a half it has been open, but not its draw to famous people in the world of entertainment and politics. It has been a phoenix of sorts, originally open in 1855 and then reopened in 1927, and all the while it has been a stop for people seen in history books. It is said John Kennedy stayed there on more than one occasion and even asked Jacqueline to marry him there. It was the stop over for Malcolm X and Hô Chí Minh in their professional careers, the latter acting as a baker, although not the primary figure in our story.

Over the years, the hauntings there have become as infamous to paranormal enthusiasts. There seems to be several ghosts that roam the rooms, and the property has seen its share of tragedies that have created different culprits for the hauntings. The most frequently seen is that of the original owner Harvey Parker. Many residents and staff have seen a man matching his appearance, with his characteristic beard, walking the halls, often disappearing through walls. Some people have woken up to see him standing at the foot of their beds early in the morning or very late at night. Legend has it he sometimes asks if everything is alright or if there is anything he can do to help you. The most documented hauntings have happened in Room 303 where a man killed himself in 1949. People have heard conversations or laughing in the room when no one else was present. The odor of cigars and cigarettes have been smelt there although there was none lit, and a staff member returned to the empty room once to find a lit cigarette although he has just left the room. Fires have been set in the room, always found before any serious damage is done. People have also seen the man, whether it be a flash in the mirror, seen across the way in the window, or as a full person who opened the rooms door and shouted at one employee. The haunting had become so bad that the room was closed and turned into storage, and many people feel it is the inspiration for the short story and movie 1408, originally written by Stephen King.

The most lasting story of the hotel may be the one that never happened.

Some time ago, usually it is said to have happened in the late Sixties or early Seventies (although some have placed the story as happening only a few years ago), some friends were enjoying a lunch in the same place Camelot was formed. The Omni Parker House is said to have invented the Boston Crème Pie, so it was their tradition to order it as their dessert. Have finished, and having just finished the story or her last failure in making on in her own kitchen, one of the ladies asks the waitress for the recipe. The baker, just coming of his shift, deliveries the handwritten recipe on the hotel’s finest stationary and wishes her luck. Both women are floored and enjoy a good laugh until the bill comes. The restaurant has added five hundred dollars to it. They leave, paying only the price of the actual lunch. The woman is later contacted by the hotel’s lawyer and told she will have to pay or they will be pressing charges. Her lawyer tells her the same. You see, she received the letter, clearly looked at the recipe, and because she had asked for it on her own, she was liable for the price.

The woman pays the bill in disgust. She is so put off by the incident, she types the recipe out on note cards and travels the Green Line handing it out to anyone who will take it. She even gets it printed in the Boston Globe and goes on to post it anywhere she can on the Internet.

The story, however perfect, never happened. There was no handwritten code to the secret of the Boston Crème Pie or the march of revenge. If you ask authorities at the hotel, they will laugh and tell you it is all part of the mystique of the hotel, but its truth lies somewhere this side of the Tooth Fairy. It is what urban mythologist call a David and Goliath story and has its own history in the lore of Friend of a Friend (FOAF) tales. While it may have not been the first of such stories or the most widely circulated, it is the version Bostonians hold on to the most.

Most people who study folklore trace it back to an old wives’ tale told about a red velvet cake from the Waldorf-Astoria in New York City back in the 1960s, but the concept of the overpriced bill for a recipe was seen for two decades before that. Since then, the story has been told about Neiman Marcus Cookies, Mrs. Field’s Cookies, Ben and Jerry’s Ice Cream, and even Gatorade. The basic elements of the story, the request, the recipe, the bill, and the revenge, carry through all the stories, and while the food changes, the appeal never does. There is even a similar legend told about a man who asked to borrow HTML code from a Web site, but that is not nearly as circulated, probably because you can’t eat code.

The draw for the audience is clear. A simple person, the David, is charged by the faceless company, the Goliath, and ultimately gets her revenge (it is important to note the hero of the story is almost always a woman). The basic setup is odd in that most people who eat at the places mentioned are members of the upper class, usually the bad guys in urban legends. Their revenge speaks to our basic feelings of being rolled over by big business and our desire to see the little guy win out over them. This is intensified by the fact places like the Omni Parker House are surrounded by “average” people and struggling students. There is also a deeper meaning in the story that points at our disappointment towards the hero herself, and one of the sexist themes unfortunately seen all throughout modern folklore. If she had just been able to make the snack herself, none of this would have ever happened. In fact, that is what happens when ladies go out to lunch and gossip.

The legend endures, and most places embrace the legends and use it as a way to poke fun at themselves. Many of the restaurants mentioned, including the Omni Parker, actually have printed note cards with the recipe ready for those who ask about the story (although the Omni Parker stopped this years ago). Some will even provide you with a fake copy of a bill with the recipe price included. Stories like this can not be killed, and it is better to be part of the joke than the butt of it.

If you are downtown and taking in a slice of history, stop in to the restaurant in the Omni Parker House and get a slice of Boston Crème Pie to go with it. It is a delicacy well worth the price, and better than the doughnut with the same name you can get at any of the 27 Dunkin Donuts you can get walking distance from the hotel. Enjoy the view and the company, even enjoy Massachusetts official dessert free of guilt. Let it end there though. Don’t ask for the secrets of making it in your own kitchen or they may just change their minds and force you to wash dishes for it. As the lawyers in training at Suffolk Law School on the next block will tell you, a law is a law if everyone believes it.

It all supposedly started with a life lesson all people need to heed, “Listen to Obe Wan Kenobi.” As part of his fast paced and dangerous reputation, Dean spent much of his time acquiring and racing fast cars. His favorite became a rare Porsche 550 Spyder he had customized and detailed to his specifications. In what would become a series of faithful moments, the car he originally wanted was delayed, and the Porsche was only supposed to be used in the interim. It was nicknamed Little Bastard and according to sources, Alec Guinness warned him a week before his death to get rid of it or risk dying in it.

Seven days later he was dead. On the afternoon of September 30, 1955, shortly after being ticketed for speeding, James Dean collided head-on with a car going the other way on Route 446 in San Luis Obispo County, California. All others involved in the crash survived, but the legend expired before he reached the hospital. Since then, his image has appeared time and time again as an example of wasted youth and suave not-caring, but the stories of that crash have grown as well. The original rumors began with a commonly seen motif in urban legends. James Dean was alive but so disfigured by the accident he dare not show his face and limit the potential earning power of his image. Similar things have been said about such public figures as Elvis, Tupac Shakur, and Health Ledger, who along with Dean is on the short list of actor to receive an Academy Award nomination after his death.

The story that has persisted is more about the car, the murderous Christine of its time. It was salvaged and used as a money maker and cautionary tale by a used car dealer. Then, according to Snopes.com and several other online sources, the car was bought by car customizer George Barris, who’s mechanic suffered a sever injury as it was unloaded from the truck. He seems to have stripped the car and sold off the parts. Troy McHenry and William Eschrid, two doctors living in the Beverley Hills area, got into an accident with each other immediately following their using the part to repair their own cars. McHenry died, as did another man who bought the tires from the doomed Spyder. They exploded the first time he took the car out.

Where is the car and its parts now? No one seems to know. One legend tells of it being transported by eighteen-wheeler to serve another stint as an example of how not to drive. On the way the truck got into an accident, killing the driver, and the car was stolen. Another tells of it being transported but never arriving at its destination, even though the truck arrived late but in one piece.

Of course, none of this can be faithfully tracked down to any reputable sources. Barris was spoke publicaly about it, but was never able to have his version verified. Troy McHenry did die in a car accident, but in an actual car race, not racing a fellow doctor who also had Dean parts. Instead the circumstances of the crash and the legends of the cursed car feed one another, and while there may be no proof that either are true, the stories stands as an example that Hollywood stories are always made from a little bit of truth and a little bit of imagination.

In 1971, the Texas legislation passed a resolution honoring the killer for his unselfish service to mankind and the “unconventional” way he dealt with overpopulation. It passed unanimously. The resolution was introduced by State Rep. Tim Moor because he wanted to show the legislation did not read things they just nodded their head and raised their hands.

The tale, which is true, surfaced again in 2000 and linked to President Bush who had no hand in the praise of the killer. It most likely made the rounds in an attempt to link him to it and smear his name.

I thought it might be an obscure law of days gone by until I had a student transfer from Texas. I was telling the class about the legend and he confirmed it. The next day he brought in his school calendar from the year before. It was clearly listed as Boston Strangler Day, and he said it was a day off of school and a “teacher work from home” day for the instructors. The date…April 20th. I thought that was odd, and he said he thought it always fell on that day.

But that is a legend for a different day.

The legend takes place on September 1, 1675 during King Phillip’s War. Most of the town of Hadley, at the time a little more than an outpost in the wilderness, was at church. The Wampanoag Indians attacked the town, catching them by surprise. They were disorganized and no match for the well prepared Natives until a stranger stepped forward and organized the troops. We was tall with a gray beard and hair and his military skills and paranormal appearance drove the natives back into the woods and turned the tide of the war. When the troops returned to the town, the stranger was gone, never to be seen again.

This story draws us in for different reasons. It informs us of our past and how we came to be a nation. There is also the draw of war and battlefield ghosts, and this helps justify the truth of the story. Battlefields are places of death and great sorrow, and if there was ever a place where the paranormal could happen, where ghosts could walk and remind us of the dead who gave their lives to the greater good, that would be it. Just look at the documentaries on television and the amount of literature this subject takes up.

More importantly, it reinforces our conflict and superiority over the Native Americans. Even though we were unprepared we prevailed. The appearance of the spectral general, godlike in features and voice and coming from nowhere, is like God himself tipping his cap to the settlers, a sort of divine intervention for his chosen people.

But there might be a supreme reason the tale prevails, which might be the best reason to excuse it as being false, more myth than history. Tracing back the legend one finds the very people from who’s lips and hands it came from being the same people who felt the strong pull to create local history to prove our independence from Britain. If you want to create national pride, create a rich history for oneself.

The legend goes deeper, however, and this is where the records conflict about the general’s appearance as well as the possible human who inspired it. One source says another source is wrong, while another reinforces the idea.

Erza Stiles wrote in 1794 of a man, very much human, who saved the town of Hadley. She claimed the man who led the troops that day was William Goff, a fugitive staying in the town with military skills and the kind of personality to assemble a army out of confusion. In 1648 Goff was a jurist in the trial of Charles I of England. Charles was overthrown and the Parliament accused him of crimes against the people. Goff was one of the people who signed his death warrant and the king was beheaded. Oliver Cromwell took over the country, but after his death Charles II came into power and sought revenge on those who had killed his father. Goff and another man hid out in England before sailing to the New World and hiding in parts of Massachusetts and Connecticut. One place he was rumored to stay was in John Russell’s house in Hadley.

Indeed, Russell had a hidden room in his house that could have been used to hide the outcast, but there is no report from either the town’s people or the local law of any such person being seen at all around town. It would have been almost impossible to hide the two men and there are conflicting reports. Some say that Hutchinson, the governor of Massachusetts at the time was the first to write of the story in his journal and then publish it and that other people picked up the story and continued to retell it until it became truth. It is said that Hutchinson, who allowed Goff to hide in Boston for a time, got the information directly from another source, but that source has never been found. Goff’s journal of his time has no reference to his helping the people, staying with Russell or a battle in Hadley.

In fact, there is no record of a battle even taking place.

The legend endures though, being published in Fate Magazine and in their collection of stories entitled Visions of Ghost Armies. There are other references to it in the official history of Hadley and Massachusetts as well as segments in television shows such as Sightings. The truth may never be fully known about what did or did not happen in Hadley in 1675, but over 225 years later its goal is still felt. It has become part of our collective history and part of the mystic of Massachusetts

I’ll let you decide.

The volunteer at the Newburyport library was sure the case had been a hoax.  Older people in town knew of the haunted house, or knew the old story of the dead child and class tortured for month by the odd winds, the voices and the floating arm.  The children had all seen the ghost of a boy in their classroom, but it had been disproved over one hundred, thirty years ago.  The case had been closed and the hoaxer had become infamous, but there was still a lingering doubt. 

In 1873, a twenty cent book was published entitled Expose of Newburyport Eccentricities, Witches and Witchcraft by someone calling himself H.P.  The small pamphlet included a story about a the ghost of a murdered boy who had come back to haunt the children of the school, and after its publication, the well known haunt became an open and closed case.  The truth, however, tells a slightly different story, and sometimes proving a fraud means having to ask more questions.  

By 1872, the Charles Street Schoolhouse had become a black spot of sorts for the community in Newburyport.  The building was falling apart and should have been remodeled decades before.  The heating system was ancient and the floors creaked when students thought about moving.  The drab color stuck out against the changing neighborhood, and most wished that it could be torn down.  

The school was a weigh station for the unwanted, “untidy”, students of the town and the leftovers from other communities.  They were the wayward urchins and the special needs kids of their time.  The sixty-three desks were always filled, rotating as pupils dropped out to work or because they had become bored.  

Lucy Perkins, the young teacher who accepted the job of instructing them, was known as an intelligent but sad woman.  She had worked at the school for two years, but when she was hired she was not told about the teachers before her.  The school committee kept why several teachers had quit suddenly.  

The children knew why.  

“The enemy to their public peace was supposed to be in the air, invisible, intangible and malignant, irregular but certain in its visits, and positive in it disturbances. “  

The schoolhouse was haunted.  In about 1860, a child had committed some “horrible” act in the school and had been given the appropriate punishment.  He was severely beaten and locked in the basement of the building.  He was left there the entire day and students were ordered to ignore his cries and moans.  When the school day ended he was helped home and died later that night.  The teacher, well within his rights as a disciplinarian, suffered no repercussions.  

While it is impossible now to say what the inhabitants of the school experienced in the next few years, the rumors say it was well known the place was haunted well before Ms. Perkins was hired.  She taught for two years without recording any negative instances, but late in 1871 things changed.  

The class was often made to suffer through 2-3 hours of knocks on the walls.  They came from the floor, from the ceiling, from the back wall and their own desks.  They often became so loud the students could not work.  A loud banging could be heard some days on the front door.  Several times Lucy tried to catch whoever was distracting her class, but there was never anyone there.  One days she opened the door and felt a person brush by her.  The children in the room also felt something enter the room and go by their faces.  

Doors would open and close by themselves.  A frustrated Lucy would lock the offending doors, but they would swing back open after she turned her back.  Clothes hanging from hooks in the back of the room would fall off.  Students suffered bad headaches and noises in their ears as atmospheric conditions in the room would changes dramatically from moment to moment.  A large vent located in the middle of the classroom was used to allow in fresh air.  It had a manual latch so heavy Lucy had to use all her strength to open it.  Sometimes the vent would open on its own or refuse to move no matter how she struggled.  

Lucy kept two bells on her desk to announce class and breaks throughout the day.  The bells would often ring by themselves in perfect time and in tones the bells should not have been able to make.  One time, during an outside break, one bell rang so loud all the kids lined up to reenter the building.  Lucy, outside and confused, unlocked the schoolhouse door to find the bell still on her desk and the room empty.  The children laughed, and she decided to start telling people what was going on.  

The school committee refused to hear her and most of the people in town believed she was crazy.  The story, however, was starting to attract attention to the town.  

Things intensified when the lights started.  While Lucy was conducting her class, a bright yellow light would appear through the window and remain shining “like the sun” for hours.  The light would come through almost everyday, even when the sky was overcast and there was no way the sun could be reflecting into the room.  

Once while Lucy was conducting her lesson, there were loud rappings from the attic.  She armed herself with a stick and took one of the young boys up with her to investigate.   The rapping was replaced by laughing as they climbed the stairs, but when they reached the top they found nothing.  As they searched the attic, they began to hear the same laughter below them on the bottom floor.  Running back down the stairs to try and nab the culprit, they found no one nearby and again heard the laughing upstairs.  

Until now the ghost had seemed playful and taunting but never really caused anyone harm.  It was a nuisance, but the class pressed on.   Then in 1872, the ghost finally took form.  The children began to see an oddly dressed boy standing outside looking in at them.  No matter how many times Lucy ran outside, she could never catch him.  The boy’s arm then started to appear inside of the room.  No one ever touched it, but they could see it floating in midair; the hand, arm and upper shoulder of a boy their age.     

In October things reached their peak.  The boy had already made several appearances to the children, but Lucy was finally able to see him for herself.  She described him as a boy of about thirteen with blue eyes and a sad mouth.  His clothes were of an older style and were brown and faded.  

Later that winter, the school committee finally decided to do something.  The whole town knew of the boy who had died fifteen years earlier and there was no silencing Lucy or redirecting the attention the town and its dilapidated schoolhouse was receiving.  They held séances over the next few months to try and contact the murdered boy and put him at ease.  The hauntings stopped, but most doubt it was communicating with the dead that caused peace to fall to the school.   

Historical research can be a tricky feat.  Old words can be translated and slang can be made understood, but euphemism is sometimes harder to nail down.  A prostitute becomes a woman of ill repute.  Alcoholism becomes a blackening of the gall bladder.  Lost to history is what people really thought of Edward De Lancy and his family.  

Edward lived near the haunted schoolhouse and his family was described as being eccentric and of “retired habits.”  He was said to be unsociable but with a good sense of humor and of “little sympathy with his local associates.”  Edward had received as a gift from a family member living in Europe some type of glass projection machine that could throw object far distances by catching the sun and then shining the trapped light.  He fiddled with smaller object before hearing of the odd noises in the school and the murdered boy.  He decided to project the image of a desolate schoolchild directly into the classroom, all the time laughing at the children down below.  

When the news came to light, Edward would entertain anyone who arrived at his house by throwing ghosts into the classroom and explaining the methods behind his practical joke.  The town considered the haunting solved, and as the author of the pamphlet writes, “Thus has Science given the world another proof of its power over the superstitions of the day.”  Nothing is said of what happens to the children or sad Lucy Perkins, but the case was lost to a locked file cabinet in the Newburyport Public Library.  The school is now a private residence and the latest owners report no loud noises, no odd laughter and no arm of a murdered boy hovering in their dining room.       

Questions still remain, however, and while Edward’s antics explain the most intense aspect to the haunting, they do not clarify all that happened in that schoolhouse.  While the atmosphere of the old building could have easily activated the imagination of the more undesirable students of the town, there was still Lucy Perkins and the other teachers who had quit the post.  There was no way Edward could have faked all of the haunting and never admitted to ever going near the school.  Rather the legend of the ghost and the murdered boy already existed and acted as his inspiration.  Someone might have been outside pounding on the walls when they heard it, but what about the laughing in the attic and mysterious bells that rang behind a locked door.   

What happened in the schoolhouse will never be fully explained.  Since the first unexplained cold spot, the town swept things under the rug and kept the truth locked inside the building.  People of the time did not want to face what might have been left behind by a boy beaten and left to die, but the story remains.  The school was once described as “dismal at best, and if built by the spectral-loving fraternity themselves for their special accommodations, it could not answer their purpose better.”  But the schoolhouse was more than just a prop or the backdrop to a story of tragedy, and if tragedy never rest, the murdered boy of the Charles Street Schoolhouse may never truly find peace.

Paranormal researcher and author launches new legend tripping resource Web site.

BOSTON, MA — July 13, 2010 — The idea of legend tripping has been around for thousands of years. There’s a good chance you’ve already done it. Remember sneaking off into that cemetery at night as a kid to see if there were any ghosts? Remember hearing there was a monster lurking in that old abandoned building and wanting to check it out? Or hearing about a UFO landing site and wanting to plan your next vacation in the area so you could stand where the craft was said to have left its mark? That’s legend tripping. But it can be so much more. We can become part of the story. Today people still seek out these legends in record numbers in an effort to touch the unexplained. In Jeff Belanger’s new book and accompanying DVD, Picture Yourself Legend Tripping: Your Complete Guide to Finding UFOs, Monsters, Ghosts, and Urban Legends in Your Own Back Yard, he explores how to find, experience, and chronicle these legends.

Legend tripping offers a unique and inexpensive paranormal investigation opportunity for those with a big sense of adventure, and it’s an activity that can be done alone or in groups. You don’t need complicated or expensive equipment, just your human senses and a sense of wonder.

“Legends are real,” said Jeff Belanger, author of Picture Yourself Legend Tripping, “They are born, they can travel, spawn offspring, and they can die. For millennia humankind has told stories of ghosts, creatures from distant planets, monsters, and religious legends to each other as a way to connect with the past and explore the future. These legends can be experienced almost anywhere, and oftentimes they are based on more than just stories.”

Any television program you’ve ever seen that explores haunted places, ancient mysteries, UFO sightings, or strange creatures is legend tripping. First there was a story: a legend that was born and grew because people had unexplained experiences and shared what they saw, heard, and felt.

Belanger draws on over two decades of legend tripping experience to show readers how to find these legends close to home or in their travels. When a person stands where the legend is said to have stood, when they interview eyewitnesses, there’s a transformation that often takes place: stories become real, and sometimes, if you’re lucky, you catch a glimpse of something paranormal.

“The journey is everything with legend tripping,” Belanger said. “Imps, fairies, aliens, bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, Bloody Mary, ghosts, demons-it’s time to start believing.”

In addition to the new book, Belanger also announced today the launch of a new Web site: LegendTripping.com — an online resource for legend trippers that includes a directory of paranormal legends from around the world. Belanger said, “The goal of the Web site is to have legend trippers everywhere submit their local legends and tell our readers about their own experiences while out hunting the paranormal.”

About the Author
Jeff Belanger (www.jeffbelanger.com) is one of the most visible and prolific paranormal researchers today. He is the author of a dozen books on the paranormal (published in six languages) including the best sellers: The World’s Most Haunted Places, Our Haunted Lives, Who’s Haunting the White House (for children), and Weird Massachusetts. He’s the founder of Ghostvillage.com, the Web’s most popular paranormal destination according to Google.com, and a noted speaker and media personality. He’s also the host of the Cable/Web talk show, 30 Odd Minutes. Belanger has written for newspapers like The Boston Globe and is the series writer and researcher for Ghost Adventures on the Travel Channel. He’s been a guest on more than 200 radio and television programs including: The History Channel, The Travel Channel, PBS, NECN, Living TV (UK), The Maury Show, The CBS News Early Show, National Public Radio, The BBC, Australian Radio Network, and Coast to Coast AM.

About Picture Yourself Legend Tripping
Picture Yourself Legend Tripping: Your Complete Guide to Finding UFOs, Monsters, Ghosts, and Urban Legends in Your Own Back Yard (ISBN: 1-43545-639-4, pages: 228, DVD, price: $24.99) includes a DVD featuring the author and other paranormal experts and is published by Course PTR (a subsidiary of Cengage Learning) in July of 2010. The book is available at Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, Borders, and many other booksellers.

The tradition is not dead.  The passing of ghost stories, whether they are true or not, still has the same effect.  No longer is the telling crucial to maintaining the social structure, but its value as part of an initiation lives in sleepovers, camp outs and in the spreading of local legend.  To believe is to belong and to be part of the tradition means to be part of a group.

At Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts tales of lost love and ghosts forge a special relationship between those that search today and those that found generations ago.

In 1700 John Hunt built a house for his family outside of the main military complex in Northampton.  The area was still a prime location for attacks from the Native Americans in the area, so like most houses of its time, it was built with a secret passage to hide the family from any invaders.  The passage perhaps was also designed get them out of the house safely.  Some say the passage leads to a nearby pond, but few know for sure. Those that do keep the secret well.

The house passed through different hands over the decades and was finally purchased by Ruth Session in 1900.  To earn extra money for her family, she rented out rooms to the students at nearby Smith College until she finally sold them the property in 1921.  Sometime before then she is said to have found the secret passage and the legend of what had happened there was born.  In the next few years the story grew, and although peopled with actual figures of the day, the truth of what lives in the darkened hallway is only hinted at.  The young women who now use Session House as their dorm fully embrace the legend and participate in passing it on to the next generation.

It’s the traditions and rich lore of the campus each student experiences that the online universities of today are lacking.

The story of the hauntings differs depending on the source, but the most accurate account comes from the play put on every Halloween in the dorm.  General “Gentleman Johnny” Burgoyne fought against the colonist and was eventually caught and held prisoner in the house, then still owned by Hunt.  The war raged on, but the general found comfort in Hunt’s daughter Lucy.  The young girl quickly fell in love, but the Generals motives are hinted at as being more out of boredom than passion.  Her family was strongly opposed to Burgoyne’s political and military alliances and they were forbidden to see each other.  Lucy knew of the secret passage though and encouraged him to meet her there.

Eventually Gentleman Johnny was sent back to England, promising to return for young Lucy.  Upon his return he was returned to active service and sent to Ireland never to return to her.  Lucy was heartbroken.  She eventually married into a passionless marriage but never got over her first love.

Ever since, the ghosts of the two lovers has been seen and heard from the passageway.  There is not much detail about the nature of the hauntings, but what is interesting is not the ghosts that might exist in the hallway but the ceremony that has evolved around the them.  Every Halloween the young women at Session House are allowed to search for the hidden passageway and the souls that are suppose to haunt there.  They are presented with the figures of their past and are invited to become part of the story as actresses dressed as the ghosts that preside in the dorm perform a play of the tragedies that have become legend there.  Then for twenty minutes on that night only they search the nooks and crannies of the house without any light looking for the passage that contains the spirits.  If they find it, a senior who has found it in one of her previous years is there with a flashlight to congratulate her.  She must tell no one that she has found it and must sneak downstairs unseen during the night to tell the house mother.  Her accomplishment is announced at the Thanksgiving dinner and for the rest of her college days she cannot reveal the location to anyone who does not know yet.  If she has not found it by her senior year she is told where it is.

The unlucky lovers are not the only ghost said to live in the dorm.  Another tale tells of a mother and her two children who were alone in the house one night telling ghost stories and scaring each other.  The mother thought she heard a noise and grabbed an ax to protect her family.  She began to search the house, eventually making it back to the room her children were in.  Thinking they were intruders who had broken into the house, she chopped them up.  When she saw her mistake, she killed herself in a room on the third floor of the house.

The other famous tale from Session House takes place after it had become a dorm and the passage hunt had already become part of its tradition.  Two girls found the secret passage but fell into a hole in the staircase and either broke their necks or injured themselves and starved to death.  They are said to be heard as you near the staircase and might also try to push or drag you into the hole.

All of these stories add to the aura of a classic site for a ghostly haunting.  The college dorm has been the set of ghost stories as long as there have been underclassmen for upperclassmen to tell stories to.  The older the college, the more tradition contained within its walls, the more colorful and powerful the story becomes.  If you were looking for a set for a Gothic story you would search the campuses in New England in the wall when the leaves are starting to change and the grey skies match the masonry.  They are often isolated and in rural settings.

Taking a walk through these campuses in late summer when the students have gone reinforces the weight of the power of these buildings.  They are larger, more overwhelming versions of the classic haunted house seen in every town.  In fall the students arrive from all parts of the country bring the tales of their hometowns with them.

These stories feed into the already active minds of people on their own who have been forced to start taking responsibility for their actions.  The fear and pressure of the situation becomes fertile ground for ghost stories.  Add the architecture of older college buildings, the mystic of secret societies and the already charged atmosphere of fall, the start of the school year and the season of Halloween, and those anxieties manifest themselves as scratches on the wall and ghostly visions.  A quick check of most college students usually finds at least one story of a famous haunting on campus.  That fear gets more intense when the dorm is used by women.

There is an entire section of urban legends that focus on females at college.  Most people have heard of the student who comes home to the darkened dorm room and thinks that her roommate is engaged with her boyfriend.  Not wanting to disturb them she slips under the sheets and pretends not to hear them.  When she wakes up she finds her roommate dead and the word, “Aren’t you glad you didn’t turn on the lights’” written in blood on the wall.  There are also several tales where one girl goes out and the other stays in.  Later she begins to get scared and hears a scratching on the door.  She locks herself in but in the morning she finds her roommate dead outside the door with her fingernails broken off.  They are extensions of legends involving younger girls who become victims of murders while babysitting and older women who lose their children because they leave the house for their own benefit.

The traditional interpretation of these tales is that the woman deserves what she gets because she should not be at college in the first place.  They reflect people’s subconscious objections to the woman’s leaving the home and rejecting what has been her role for generations.  She should be in the home learning to become a good mother and wife and not learning to become a professionals and leader.  This may only be part of the inspiration of these stories though.  Society does not frown on a woman getting an education like it did during the genesis of these urban legends.  There is still a prejudice acting in the subconscious and the stories have already taken on a life of their own, but similar tales were alive and well before women even started to attend college.  For hundred of years men at college have shared their classrooms with the supernatural and the bonding experience of telling of these stories serves the same purpose no matter what the sex.  It would seem the role of women outside the

house might add to the depth to the legends and act as a variation, not just the cause.

What purpose does it serve for the women of Session House and is it a genuine haunting or a localized legend?  The first hint is that it is probably only a legend is the fact that it is not localized at all.  While there may be historical people mentioned throughout, and it might involve an actual location, the themes talked about are seen in other stories since the beginning of oral and written history.  Here we have the ageless story of two people kept apart who return from the grave to live out their love.  In some of the tales, Lucy is the only ghost, searching the passage for Gentleman Johnny and unable to rest until they are reunited, searching for in death what she could not have in life.  Some stories say that she killed herself, one of the most common elements to cause a spirit to not rest peacefully.  They set the table perfectly for a haunting and draw us in because we can feel the passion for a lost love and enjoy the romantic notion that their love could exist even in the afterlife.

It also is common to have secret passages where ghost may be. There are several stories throughout the country of hauntings in passages that used to be used to hide runaway slaves along the Underground Railroad.  The Winchester House in Seattle is known for its hidden hallways and the ghosts that walk them.  In Massachusetts, there is the House of Seven Gables and other historical buildings that either are known to be haunted or have inspired ghosts stories from the people that have seen them.  It is not unusual for the dark areas of our house to produce fear.  In the safest place for a person, the one place where everything is thought to be secure, there is something secret and foreign invading that peace.

It might be unfair to say something has not happened because it reflects a theme seen in other hauntings, but there are other elements to the story that make it seem more like legend.  There are glaring inconsistencies in the story of the hauntings as well as the ritual the girls play out.  Some accounts say both ghosts haunt the site while others say it is just Lucy.  Some say Gentleman Johnny returned and found her married and went back to England.  Some say she immediately killed herself while others say she married, left and only returned after her death.  Some sources say the women are allowed twenty minutes and others fifteen.  One account has Martha, another daughter of John Hunt, as the woman who loved the wrong man.

The other hauntings in the dorm raise an eyebrow as well.  It seems highly improbable that a mother searching a house would come in through the room she came from and attack her own children.  There is however many legends where a person, often a parent, mistakes an ally for a foe and accidentally kills them.  There are also no records of students dying in a hole in the passage at Session House.  If it had happened there would have been an investigation that would have revealed the location of it.  The most common response for this is that the college covered it up to avoid negative publicity.  That excuse always comes at the end of a good urban legend and offered as the reason the story is known to only a few.  This is in conflict, however, with how the students tell and retell the story.  It is the details that are somewhat mysterious, but the deaths are stated as fact.  And why where the screams of the girls or the fall not heard by the senior hidden in the passage?  Let us not forget there are also conflicting stories of how the girls died from the voices inside the house telling the tale to the girls on Halloween, something unusual when you consider the story is fairly recent and not likely to be forgotten.

It is important to note all three stories involve places the young women come into contact with over the course of the night.  The lovers haunt the hidden passage and the ghosts of the former students are there waiting for them.  This heightens the excitement and anticipation as they look for it with no lights.  The mistaken woman kills her children in the same room where the students sit hearing the story.  One can imagine the story being told by candlelight and the shadows dancing against the wall looking like axes and nooses.   How many good ghost stories begin, “It was a night just like this,” or, “It was three years ago tonight?”

None of these elements alone prove the story false.  Tales often change over time and each teller adds their own personal slant to the story.  Several different newspaper articles written at different time use the same language and terms to describe the story at Smith College.  It seems likely one paper used the other as research and one error in reporting led to new facts presented as fact.  With the invention of the Internet the information is spread to countless people who tell the story to their friends and distort the details even more.  People make the stories their own and there is something to creating an aura when telling a story.  When everything is taken together, though, you have to start to wonder about the truth of the story.

What the truth is does not seem to matter to the young women involved in the ceremony.  It is hardly the point in this setting and the truth is not what the students need.  We know most of the ghost stories we hear are not true and yet that does not diminish our enjoyment of them.  We doubt the things we hear could happen, but we still sleep with the lights on.  It is the possibility of the improbable; the fact that we do not know for sure that awakens our imagination and turns the things around us into apparitions.

The students at Session House take it one step further though.  The telling and retelling of the stories that happened there bonds them as much as singing a school fight song or remembering the long list of past presidents of a sorority.  While most colleges shy away from any ghost that might be rumored on their campuses, Smith College embraces them.  A check of their website finds several references to the ghosts at Session House and pictures of the play are displayed with pride.

This has an impact on the student inside the dorm and forms their belief in the spirits and their likelihood of seeing things other college students might deny.  To dismiss the story is to be on the outside looking in among your peers in a small community during a time where it is difficult to fit in.  To not look for the passage is to be isolated from your friends and roommates.  Who wants to be the one not to find the passage, especially when those that do are praised?  To believe in them means instant belonging, which might account for the added stories of paranormal happenings inside the house.  The tradition creates an environment where seeing a ghost is not only accepted, it instantly burns a place for you in the lore of the house.

When the story of Lucy Hunt is told and the young women of Session House listen they are tapping into a larger tradition of the college and the dorm.  Candles replace a fire and upperclassmen replace the elders pressed to preserve their ancestors.  It gives them an automatic past, a legacy to be a part of.  Their stories become part of the myth and will be told as legend to generations that follow them.  They become the heroes and villains of a living, breathing history book.  The women are also part of a larger play, one that continues whenever we hear or read or watch a ghost story and feel the skin on our arms start to rise.