Concord’s Colonial Inn. Click to view larger or view more images of haunted houses

The overnight shift at the front desk of Concord’s Colonial Inn is a lot like most small inns. After the last guest is checked in, restaurants and bars closed, there’s paperwork, reports and printing out bills for those checking out in the morning to keep you busy during those hazy hours of sleeplessness.

One evening, the quiet of the lobby was interrupted by a woman, whose attire made it fairly obvious that she had dressed in a hurry, running wild-eyed into the room. She conveyed in no uncertain terms that her room was haunted, that she would not be spending the night anyplace in the inn, and that someone was going to have to go up to her room and pack her bags, as she was not going back under any circumstances.

The staff at the Colonial Inn is nothing if not accommodating, and sent someone up to gather her belongings. He came back down in short order, with bags in hand. He broke the news, somewhat hesitantly, that upon entering her room he had found her bags. Already packed.

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It didn’t take a lot to get the staff at Concord’s Colonial Inn to talk about the ghosts. In fact, all I needed to do was approach the host at the Inn’s main restaurant, Merchant Row and give him my room number to secure a reservation.

“Room 24! Oooooooooh!” he wailed in a spooky voice. “I hope you didn’t pick that room to get a lot of sleep.”

The main hostess came over and tried to shush him, but when I relayed that I had actually picked that room he proved very informative. As he accompanied me to the front desk to give me an info sheet they keep on the ghosts, he told me that he’d stayed in there once. “I didn’t see anything, but it was creepy,” he said. “Then again I didn’t tell the spirits to appear to me, which is something the ghost hunters who visit here say you have to do to get them to make themselves known.”

I winced at this, as I find most ghost hunters to be as useful as testicles on the Pope, but he was on a roll.

“One of our chefs spent the night in there, as he was working late and had to be in early for the breakfast shift.” As Room 24 is one of the Inn’s premium rooms (topping $300 per night with tax), it’s also at times, one of the few empty ones. “He said he didn’t see anything that he could describe, just this feeling that someone was in the room watching him that he couldn’t shake. Finally, he shouted out ‘leave me alone, I have to be up early for work in the morning and I have to sleep!’ He said it was as though he could feel someone moving to the door and it just left, and he went to sleep. Weird!”

The history of Concord’s Colonial Inn goes back literally to the founding of our country. As those of you who paid attention in history class will remember, Paul Revere’s destination on his famous ride was to Concord, Massachusetts, where he was to alert the locals that the British were coming to seize the local militia’s weapons and gunpowder, which was partly stored in a building which was later to become part of the Inn. Room 24 is in the adjoining building, which at the time housed the office and residence of Dr. Timothy Minot.

Paul Revere didn’t make it to Concord, as he was busted by the British just past Lexington on what is now known as Battle Road, but was at the time the main road to Boston. Still the word got through. By the time the main British force reached Lexington common, the Minutemen were waiting for them. A few short minutes later the Minutemen who weren’t lying on the ground bleeding were scattered and running, and the British continued their march to Concord. There they found a second force awaiting them on Concord’s North Bridge, and this time the British were stymied. The British hoofed it back towards Boston, and found themselves under attack nearly the whole way by thousands of colonists who seemed to come out of nowhere to take potshots at the fleeing force. The Minutemen gave chase and thus began the American Revolution in earnest.

The wounded from the skirmish on the North Bridge were brought into town to Dr. Minot’s residence, who did what he could, though it would be entirely understandable to find that he was overwhelmed and perhaps out of his depth at the number and types of casualties. It is also said that Dr. Minot’s residence became the morgue for some of the dead. Which would explain the bloodied soldier in colonial garb that is occasionally spotted in Room 24, usually to groggy tenants who aren’t entirely sure that they believe what they are seeing.

Others claim only to see a dark shadow which seems to watch them from the side of the room, before moving to the foot of the bed, standing in front of the fireplace and disappearing. There are no shortages of theories about who the ghost is. Some believe it is Doctor Minot himself. Other’s claim Ralph Waldo Emerson, who likely spent some time in the room. Another popular theory is that it’s Henry David Thoreau, who lived in the house while attending college. Others have seen a young woman with her hair in braids, thought by some to be an indian maiden, by others to be Thoreau’s aunts who also lived in the house.

The aforementioned info sheet on the Colonial Inn’s ghosts tells the story of another guest and his experience in Room 24. Awakened by a flash of light early in the morning which didn’t seem quite right, he soon went back to sleep. When he did he reported an incredibly vivid dream of a woman who sat in a wooden chair in the room, which was now transformed into how it must have looked a couple hundred years ago. She spoke to him and said that she was the mistress of a man who lived here in Concord, who was now gone, and that they had used this room for their rendezvous. The guest reported that the scene then changed and he saw the woman lying in her nightclothes in bed, and a man enters the room, who then placed a pillow over her face and struck her with some sort of weapon. The dream ended with the voice of the girl saying “my body was removed by others and taken away from here.”

With dreams like those, one can only hope that the experience of staying in the inn has more to offer than mints on the pillow.

The dinner was one mark in its favor. My companion dined in the main restaurant, Merchant’s Row. Boasting “an elegant yet welcoming atmosphere,” it’s at once upscale and also comfortable. There are hints of early American decor to be sure, but it feels a bit more continental than colonial. My lady friend had the shrimp and cheddar fritters off the small plate menu ($12), and pronounced it yummy. She also pronounced the Huckleberry Lemonade to be an especially tasty and potent concoction. Being a traditionalist, I opted for the yankee pot roast, which did indeed melt in your mouth. It seemed pretty obvious however that perhaps it wasn’t entirely traditional, as the crisp vegetables and mashed potatoes obviously wasn’t cooked in the same pot as the roast. The cornbread rocked as well, and it was all washed down with liberal quantities of Mayflower Ale.

On this particular swing through Massachusetts, I vowed to sample as many different recipes of clam chowder as I possibly could. And I have to go with the chowder at the Colonial Inn for tastiest of the bunch.

Concord’s Colonial Inn also boasts the Village Forge Tavern, whose wooden floors and heavy wooden beams were once the storeroom for supplies during the revolution. This evening a group of older musicians were plugging in to perform music of the Woodstock generation, and as we made our way out into the night for a stroll around Concord, they were tearing into a tune by the Kinks.

Concord is a great town to walk at night, the quiet of their streets coming as some surprise after the constant flow of traffic during the day. There is however, a dearth of taverns and pubs. I only spotted two in addition to the Colonial Inn, one of which had a trio of young Asians blasting out blues numbers originally performed by African-Americans in the rural south, which was a bit surreal. So after dinner was walked off, we ended up back in the Village Forge Tavern for a nightcap. We chose the barroom this time, away from the band, though you could still hear them reveling in memories of the purple haze of a more recent past. As we made our way up to Room 24 once more, I paused to be sure and yes, it was what has to be the first time I had heard any band attempt John Lennon’s Cold Turkey. Which they did remarkably well at that.

Room 24 of Concord’s Colonial Inn

Room 24 looks the part of an upscale colonial era Inn. It’s not decorated in the period to excess, but it still retains a hint of 18^th century charm. Prints by Oriental artists and Audubon grace the walls, the bed is firm, the linens clean and of a high quality. The bathroom is roomy and modern, even boasting two sinks, something which might have Thoreau turning in his grave at the wicked modern excess of the 21^st century. After ten, there is very little traffic noise from outside, remarkable considering you’re right on Monument Square, which is a nightmare at times to navigate during the day. Even the thump, thump of the band disappears when you close the door.

The official literature of Concord’s Colonial Inn proclaims the spirits in Room 24 to be friendly. There’s a story of another guest which bears this out. It seems he had overindulged at dinner at Merchant Row, and awoke to find himself quite uncomfortable. Aware of the ghost stories, he called on the spirit of Dr. Minot to help him out. He then began to experience a tingling sensation, as though electricity was coursing through is veins. As he lay there, paralyzed by the strange sensation which only lasted at most five seconds, he began to relax and found that his stomach ache had eased.

When the popular TV series Ghost Hunters investigated the room however, they had a different experience. Calling out to the spirits to make their presence known, the door suddenly closed. They then made the spirits a deal. If it would close the door once more, they would pack their equipment and leave them alone. The spirits obliged and it appears that the ghost hunters then kept their words and called off the investigation.

Perhaps the ghosts of Room 24 have taste after all.

As I switched off the light however, I didn’t get the sense that the room was haunted by friendly spirits. I don’t often feel things in haunted locations, I’ll be the first to admit. But laying in the dark, I had the distinct sensation of something menacing in the room with me. I got up, turned on the bathroom light and adjusted the door so there was a bit of a glow to the room, and found myself trying to fall asleep with one eye open. It’s an eerie feeling to be facing the very fireplace where several people have reported seeing a spirit fade away. But soon it was I who was fading away, and before I knew it I was waking up to another lovely fall morning in New England.

Gothic Travel Rating

Concord’s Colonial Inn consistently draws a three to four star rating on travel sites. With their attention to detail, the wealth of history in the buildings and fine entertainment and dining options, it’s a great place to stay in the heart of New England. It seemed to be somewhat overrun with Harvard students meeting their parents for a weekend getaway, which was an interesting experience in and of itself. For lovers of all things gothic however, Room 24 is a great experience. Admittedly, it might have been the power of suggestion, as so many ghost stories are tied to the room. But honestly, as I was trying to fall asleep I was scared. One would expect the modern amenities of the room to distract from that feeling, but it was indeed creepy. Creepy enough to pull a four crypt rating from this humble reviewer.

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You can get used to about anything, living at the Jamesport Manor Inn on Long Island. A former dishwasher who was also a tenant before it burned and was restored, proved it one afternoon as he was at his sink, doing his job. A waitress, who was also familiar with the specter of what people presume to be a former Lady of the Manor, was somewhat taken aback to come into the scullery and find her a short distance from the dishwasher, watching intently.

The dishwasher, David Ferreira was used to this, and shrugged it off. The ghost was equally non-plussed by the arrival of the waitress, and continued to watch Ferreira, oblivious to anyone else in the room. After all, there’s nothing unusual about people sharing a house spending a little time together. Even if one isn’t of this world.

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Editor’s Note: I received this article from David Ferreira, who spent a decade living and working at one of Long Island’s most famous haunted houses, and who has an interesting story to tell. Since there appears to be quite a lot of interest in the Jamesport Manor Inn, I thought I’d pass it along.

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I really enjoyed my ten years living at the Jamesport Manor. I would have purchased it, but I did not have the money. I took great care of it as much as possible, putting buckets under the falling water to keep the house from completing rotting or worse. I had to rid the place of vermin with my own money when it was closed. I also mowed the whole lawn with a little push mower.  Well here are some of my stories, which I hope you find interesting. They are factual and actually happened, some of stories have witnesses.

One day many moons ago, I had been driving on Manor Lane in Jamesport, looking for a place to eat.  I still remember the first time I came in- a middle aged waitress greeted me and I sat down at the bar. I had a few drinks and left for the night when they closed.  Being that I did not have anything to do most nights after work, I came in frequently.  One day, while eating my dinner, a waitress came over and said the owner wants to speak with me. It was Neil Kopp,  who informed me that I could move in the manor if I was willing to work there. I just had to wait a month for Neil to evict the other tenants. I agreed, and began washing dishes as a start. I was told about the ghosts, but really did not see much at first, just the large doors flying open once in a awhile, while I ate at the bar. Sometimes the lights would flicker in the front alcove at night when  the customers left. After living there for a month or so, I had noticed that there was a rose sscent on my way upstairs to the apartment, butI really did not pay much attention. I actually grew accustomed to it.

One  time during the day I was relaxing in the afternoon in the bar area and a black mist came out of the large air condition duct on the ceiling. It was a strange, large mist or mass, which wrapped around the front stairs and then went up.  It was not smoke but a weird mist.

Many other events took place, such as one night I was having a few drinks with a waiter and a waitress. There were no customers. The alcove lights began to do their thing and then the whole house began to flicker. It actually was a bit frightening, and we went in the kitchen. When we got ourselves together, we came back to the barroom area and all of our glasses were smashed on the bar.  That night, as I slept there were voices in some other language coming from the yellow room. The yellow room is where they used to store liquor. These voices were not quiet, but very loud. Sounded as if they were arguing.

I used to have a pager. The pager would call me from the number of the Manor when no one was there. I would call back thinking it was the owner. However, either no one was there or a waitress picked up and said no one paged me.  It would usually happen when I was at my mother’s house.

During Halloween, Donna who was the owner’s wife at the time, used to hang a frightening costume figure in the front main upstairs window. When I would go upstairs to the apartment. It would turn around and look at me. This happened every time.

In severe weather, the house as large as it was…used to shake.  The tenants who lived before told me about this. Kind of a strange shaking as if the place were alive.

When the manor closed for five year, very little activity happened. An occasional child sounding as if playing.  Sometimes I would wake up with bug bites on my legs when I did not see any bugs.  I usually spent the time in the manor by myself studying for my BA in Art Education. I also painted almost every angle and season of the Manor.  The manor when it was closed was a great place to use as an art studio.  I still own some, but sold most of them to the Kar’s.  When they purchased, I left, leaving the furniture and some of my belongings  in the apartment.  I was going to ask for them later when I had the opportunity. The Kar’s had some people living upstairs in the apartment.

The most frightening is experiences are what I would call, the follower ghost. I am not sure if it is the women or who or what it is. Anyway, this entity calls my name early in the morning 2-3 per year. It can be a female voice, male or even a voice from someone that I know.  It always calls from downstairs when I am lying in bed. The voice will call my name until I wake up from sleep, then it stops.  This entity came after I lived at the manor. I actually forgot about these occurrences while I was in the military.  While  living with my first wife in Portsmouth VA.I was living in a in a townhouse and my name was called. While this happened. I thought to myself. How can this be? I am living in another place and not even in the bed alone.  A few years later, I  moved to northern VA, where it happened a few times, though I never told my new wife, who happens to be Peruvian. She had a dream that this old woman was downstairs and could not come upstairs. She was mad and tried to touch the baby who was in her stomach but could not.  I told my wife after this, and she understood. However, I am very protective of my baby. Now that the baby is born, I haven’t heard that voice. Nor would I dare answer it if I did. My mother says to answer it,  but no way. I don’t know what it is,

When I heard of the lady who came to the manor to bring back the ghost, I was not too thrilled. Better to just leave and let alone.  That’s fine if they just stay there. However, I do not want them to get curious and see how I am doing.

It was sad when I did see the ruins of where I used to live. I was told about it burning to ground from my older brother. He is a member of the fire department and was there when it crumbled. I was living in Winchester, VA and was about to go into the US Naval boot camp  I visited the new manor when I had some leave time. I did not feel anything there. That’s not to say nothing was there or on the grounds.

Submitted by David Ferreira

Click here to learn more about the hauntings and history at the Jamesport Manor Inn, as well as the travel review

Click here to see pictures of real haunted houses on Long Island

The Salem Inn, Salem, Massachusetts. To view larger or to see more haunted houses in Salem, click here

The young lady had just walked away from her post at the guest counter of the Salem Inn, a tiny little thing tucked into a nook just below the staircase – and stepped into the parlor to light the fire and warm up a bit. It was cold, early winter in Salem, Massachusetts, and having to be at work at seven in the morning sucks at the best of times. But with a dead battery on the car which meant a walk to the train station, a half-hour train ride and then a slippery walk along Salem’s icy sidewalks as the sun was just coming up – just not a good start to the morning.

Hearing someone calling she answered and stepped back into the foyer and felt a cold breeze whoosh by. “Not the kind that comes through the front door sometimes, but like someone rushing by me and up the stairs.”

Somewhat freaked, when another employee came in a bit later, she related the tale above. “Oh that’s just Katherine,” she replied.

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The identity of Katherine isn’t known, and to take the owners at their word, Katherine doesn’t exist. “Please note that we have many guests who write about their visitations and experiences with the supernatural or hauntings or whatever,” writes Diane Pabich. “Neither we, the owners for 28 years, nor any of the staff have had such occurrences. I personally think it is the power of suggestion and the fact that these guests are visiting Salem with its fascinating history.”

Centrally located and within walking distance of virtually everything in Salem that would be of interest to the creepy traveller, the main building is known as the Captain West House. A rather imposing brick structure in the Federal style, dating to 1834 and on the National Register of Historic Places, it’s a nice step back in time. With a welcoming fire in the parlor fireplace, as well as complimentary sherry, which is much appreciated on cold Salem nights, there’s a personal touch to the Salem Inn which you don’t find in the much larger and more famous Hawthorne Hotel. It’s also possible to snag a bargain here.

I had booked myself into a room at the Salem Inn once again, picking my favorite – queen with working fireplace and adjacent hallway bathroom. Sure, it’s a bit of a hassle to step out your door and into the next to have a wee in the middle of the night. But it’s a quaint touch like this which makes a house feel like a home. I’ll take a bit of inconvenience any day to stay in a place which respects the integrity of its original layout. Which often means squeezing the shower into a space which was never meant to hold one.

Room 17 gets all the attention when it comes to ghost stories at the Salem Inn, but all you really find from guests staying there is reports of noises – the ever-popular “things that go bump in the night”, as well as case histories from paranormal investigators and all the poppycock they produce. Having stayed in many old houses, I can say without hesitation that most older buildings will have things going bump in the night. And true, it could be the ghost of one of the deceased occupants of the home pounding on your door. But it could just as easily be the furnace kicking on in the next room. Besides, my own room there, which I’ve stayed in multiple times has its share of knocks and bumps.

Salem isn’t the most happening of places on a weeknight in the dead of winter, so I had plenty of time to talk to the lady at the desk. It turns out that the staff believe there are three ghosts in the Salem Inn. The first is of course Catherine, and aside from her there is the cat which haunts the parlour. There are no cats on the premises, but frequently guests who are allergic to cats find themselves with the old familiar symptoms when stepping inside this room. Others have spotted a cat darting about out of the corner of their eye.

The parlor in the Captain West House, Salem Inn, Salem, Massachusetts. To view larger or for more Salem photos, click here

The third ghost is thought to be that of a little child, whose laughter and pitter patter of little feet can be heard trotting up the stairs and down the hall above the front desk. And most disconcerting, several of the workers have heard him dropping paranormal pebbles onto the desk from the staircase above.

The guestbook has its share of haunted encounters. One of the best is of a woman who watched her bedroom door slowly open, and then slammed closed again.

On my first visit I had my own weird experience, though of course one which would never hold up under the watchful eye of the Skeptical Inquirer. It had been a long day already the first time I checked in, and I thought a short nap in order before stepping out again for the evening. So I stretched out on the comfortable brass bed and closed my eyes. I knew I was falling asleep and continued to do so even as the voices began. It was a conversation between a man and a woman, and at first I thought it must be in the next room, except it was very clear. Not at all the kind of thing you hear through a wall. It wasn’t a particularly memorable conversation, apparently a husband and wife discussing their child. And I thought to myself, “hmmmm, very odd,” but fell asleep all the same.

Those few moments between consciousness and sleep are always interesting, and I’m not for a second going to tell you I heard a spectral conversation that afternoon. There might very well be a perfectly reasonable explanation. But why ruin a good experience that way? There’s nothing like lying in a bedroom damned near 200 years old, listening to a conversation between two disembodied voices to set the mood for a night of wandering around old Salem. After all, the first thing you see upon walking out the front door of the Salem Inn is the infamous Witch House.

There are so many layers to Salem – from the witch hunts to its role as a nautical powerhouse, and to the new-age/wiccan center that it is today – that you can find magic everywhere in this historic town. For architecture buffs it’s a dream come true. Ghost hunters have a field day. Historians actually live here and still don’t know the full history of the place. There’s just too much history to absorb for one lifetime. And for $110 a night I got all this, along with a pretty impressive breakfast in a dining room converted from the original kitchen, which is reported to be haunted as well. Located in the basement, it oozes atmosphere, as well as offers one of the wider varieties of continental breakfasts I’ve come across. And a fireplace in the room to boot. There’s something that just feels right laying in bed and listening to the fire crackling, the wind howling outside the window.

I guess it was my second or third visit to Salem when it suddenty occured to me – I had just been outside for the last smoke of the evening, and there hadn’t been even a breeze. Nor had there been on any of my visits to Salem. But here I was laying in near darkness, listening to what sounded like the making of a pretty impressive storm. That this had happened on every occasion that I had stayed in this room was the key of course, and so I got up and closed the flue on the fireplace for a moment and the wind stopped immediately. Damn reason and common sense. Perhaps the owner of the Salem Inn is correct, and there are no ghosts, just the power of suggestion at work. Either way, the Salem Inn is a great place to lay your head and let your imagination come out to play.

Gothic Travel Rating: If you’re looking for a hotel with all the comforts of a Holiday Inn, you’ll be sorely disappointed in the Salem Inn. The place is old, the decor is old and antiques abound. Which means drawers are sometimes hard to pull out, closet doors don’t always close exactly right, and the bathroom can be oddly situated. It has character, and there are those of us who see those things as ideal. For those I’d give the Salem Inn a four crypt rating. Salem isn’t a town locked in time like a witch’s version of Disneyland. There are dark corners and it’s a little tattered around the edges. In a town where spirits could be lurking in every shadow, the Salem Inn fits.

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If you go: The Salem Inn is located at 7 Summer Street, 
Salem, MA 01970. For reservations or more info call 
978-741-0680
 or visit www.saleminnma.com

For a Salem Travelogue and History click here

For more creepy articles about Salem and Essex County Massachusetts, click here

View of Old Dutch Church Burial ground from the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow. View larger or see more spooky churches by clicking here.

The Old Dutch Church in Sleepy Hollow has been perched on the hill overlooking the Pocantico River and the Albany Post Road for well over 300 years. As a young man, Washington Irving would often sit and look out the window in the above photo, daydreaming and watching the life of the graveyard just outside the three foot thick walls of the church.

One sunny afternoon, Irving was struck by a strange illusion. The sun casting shadows on the carved face on one of the tombstones looked exceptionally realistic. So he went out to investigate, making a note of the name, Catriena Ecker Van Tessel, whose name he anglicized when she bacame the love interest in The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, Katrina Van Tassel.

So you can honestly say that the Legend of Sleepy Hollow was born in the Old Dutch Church, which I returned to last October 30th to catch a performance of the Sleepy Hollow storyteller, Jonathan Kruk. Jonathan has spent a good part of his life telling the story and running down the history and the legends behind Irving’s famous tale. You’d be hard-pressed to find anyone else better-suited to tell the tale, particularly in the venerable old church which played a prominent part in the story, as well as the history.

Jonathan Kruk performs the Legend of Sleepy Hollow in the Old Dutch Church, October 20, 2010. To view more Sleepy Hollow pictures, click here

Jonathan’s performance runs each weekend from October 8-9 through October 30th this year, and tickets sell out. Rightly so. Few stories tap into the archetype of American halloween like the Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and I was amazed to find out a few years back that not only was the Old Dutch Church still there, but that one could experience anything that still captured the mood of Irving. At the time, Kruk was giving his performances at Legend Weekend at Philipsburg Manor, which also is featured in the tale. Beginning last year however, Historic Hudson Valley came up with the idea of moving the performances to the church and turning Philipsburg Manor into a headless horseman haunted theme park, Horseman’s Hollow.

Which is oddly appropriate, as over the years the original legend has been pushed further into the background by a series of ever more comical, ever more gruesome films. Historic Hudson Valley has perfected both – the modern and the traditional with these two events. It’s impossible to ignore the fact that over the years the Legend of Sleepy Hollow has become something different, and why not celebrate that, as long as you still keep the original story alive as well. With Jonathan Kruk’s performance, the tradition is respresented just as perfectly as the spectacle across the highway.

The interior of the church is lit only with candles – an ancient chandalier, wall sconces and jack-o-lanterns, and capacity crowds fill the sanctuary for each performance. Wisely, Historic Hudson Valley doesn’t try to squeeze a person into every available space in the pews, and so every seat has a great view and room enough for comfort.

Jim Keyes in a performance of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow in the Old Dutch Church, October 20, 2010. To view more Sleepy Hollow pictures, click here

For the first performance I joined multi-instrumentalist Jim Keyes in the organ loft. Keyes alternates between the massive pipe organ, and the accordion for quieter passages, and in the process, earily recreates the feel of an old silent film. He showed me how the stops of the organ are written in Dutch, and I found myself echoing a thought that occurred to him in an earlier performance. We were in the organ loft of the Old Dutch Church, which if you stop and think of it is a wonderful nightmare come true.

Jonathan’s performance starts off lightly, almost casually. There is an air of Ichabod Crane about him – tall, lanky and costumed for the period. The script which is no doubt burned into his memory from over 50 performances this October alone, follows the original story, but told in large part in his own words. Purists might snort in disapproval at that, but the story is somewhat long as written, and I’ve sat through readings of the story before, and it can be a lot like paint drying. The story was written to be read, but the tale was written to be told.

Kruk throws himself into the legend with abandon. Keyes’ score adds mood to the tale, which also features appearances by Jonathan Kruk’s wife, Andrea Sadler as the unfortunate White Lady of Raven Rock. As the tale picked up steam I noticed the audience began to sit up and pay closer attention. In the quieter portions you could hear a pin drop, and while there is occasional laughter, by the time Kruk gets to Ichabod’s wild ride with the headless horseman, the crowd was literally sitting on the edge of their seats.

Such is the power of storytelling when done by a master, that one could feel the spirit of of Irving descend on the congregation. The Legend of Sleepy Hollow is one of those tales that you can’t help but believing, and the performance enhances the effect. When he speaks of the horseman being buried in the lonely churchyard, he gestures to a place not thirty feet from where he’s speaking. You can’t help but realize that you are now sitting in the sanctuary that Ichabod was racing towards – hearing the same tale told for over 200 years, and everything just fits. Kruk darts in and out of shadow during the permance, the old graveyard behind him through the windows, leaves blowing in the breeze. His only props are a lit lack-o-lantern, his tri-cornered hat and his walking stick, which he waves in the air at times, turns it horizontal for the reins of Gunpowder, ichabod’s horse, and slams it onto the floor for emphasis. Kruk alternated between dialogue, sound effects of the horse’s hooves, cries, yelps, his voice rising in pitch and fever with Keyes’ working the organ like a madman, the white lady of Raven Rock moaning and crying and by the time the horseman threw his head at Ichabod, the crowd was utterly transfixed.

Andrea Sadler as the White Lady of Raven Rock in a performance of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow in the Old Dutch Church, October 20, 2010. To view more Sleepy Hollow pictures, click here

You can call it the power of suggestion, but the reality is, Sleepy Hollow is one of the few places where it’s still possible to become enchanted. You can feel it strolling the grounds of Philipsburg manor, the forest of Rockefeller Preserve and in the Burying Ground of the Old Dutch Church. Inside the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow, I saw a congregation of believers become spellbound through the power of story telling and legend. And that’s as old as mankind itself.

Gothic Travel Rating: First a disclaimer … I contributed photography to Jonathan’s Book, Legends and Lore of Sleepy Hollow and the Hudson Valley. However, I don’t get paid by the number of books sold, so I think I’m a petty impartial observer. That said, Jonathan has also been my guide to the world of Sleepy Hollow and the Hudson Valley, and probably has done more than any person besides Washington Irving to feed my love for the area. With that out of the way I’md give Jonathan Kruk’s performance of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow at the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow five crypts, even if I had never met the man. Simply because if you think the idea of having the tale told in the Old Dutch Church around Halloween sounds like something you’d enjoy, his performance is perfect. It’s funny, spooky and a prime example of the storyteller’s art, which is fast disappearing. Keye’s score and Ms. Sadler’s wailings and eerie appearances add just enough to enhance, rather than distract from the performance. You can spend a full evening in Sleepy Hollow any weekend in October and still be wishing the night was longer.

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View an excerpt above of Jonathan Kruk performing the Legend of Sleepy Hollow in the Old Dutch Church of Sleepy Hollow

See more Sleepy Hollow pictures or purchase prints by clicking here
Visit Jonathan Kruk’s website here, and order a signed copy of his book Legends and Lore of Sleepy Hollow and the Hudson Valley
Click here for information about the performance
Click here to order Legends and Lore of Sleepy Hollow and the Hudson Valley from Amazon
CDs by Jonathan Kruk including the Legend of Sleepy Hollow
Jim Keyes homepage with CDs

Jim Keyes at CD Baby
 Andrea Sadler’s homepage featuring her documentary, the Sacred Run: The Lotus and the Feather
Andrea Sadler at the IMDB

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Old Yarmouth Inn, Yarmouthport, Massachusetts. To view larger or for more haunted house photos, click here

One can only wonder if the fellow sleeping in a bedroom at the Old Yarmouth Inn, in Yarmouthport, Massachusetts had heard the following story … Early one morning, a guest in the Quisset Harbor room awaoke to find a man in Victorian era clothing standing at the foot of his bed, apparently confused at the presence of the stranger who was occupying his bed chambers. Sporting jowls and robust cheeks, the apparition watched the guest while the guest watched the apparition, until the spirit faded from view.

Had he heard this story it’s unlikely he would have agreed to take a room there alone, as by all accounts, this fellow was terribly afraid of ghosts. So you can imagine his chagrin when in the middle of the night, he felt a weight settling down at the foot of his bed. His eyes opening wide, he could see no one there, but in a few minutes he felt a touch upon his foot, which proceeded into a full foot rub. One can only assume that even in his fear, the patron enjoyed the experience as the unseen hands finished its task, and then took the footposts in its grip and began to shake the bed violently, back and forth.

Needless to say, the guest spent the remainder of the evening on the porch. Now you might put this down to an over-active imagination, except the innkeeper’s 89 year old mother stepped onto the deck that morning and announced that she wasn’t able to sleep due to all the racket across the hall.

For myself, I was more than happy to walk through the door of the Old Yarmouth Inn, even though it was only for dinner. I had spent a fitful night in the also haunted Beechwood Inn in Barnstable, Massachusetts, the gateway of Cape Cod the night before. And I had a full day of exploring from Barnstable to Providencetown and back. I had caught and photographed the most amazing sunset I’ve ever seen just before, and I was cold, tired and hungry.

Stepping inside the Old Yarmouth Inn, it feels a lot like stepping inside someone’s house , sometime in the 19th century. Hospitality has been the stock in trade of the establishment since 1696, making a reasonable claim to being the oldest inn on Cape Cod. Ideally situated almost dead center between Plymouth and Providencetown, it made an ideal stop-over on what would have been a day and a half coach ride, providing the weather was accomodating. As a result, you can assume that thousands of people have crossed the Old Yarmouth Inn’s threshold, and so putting a name to an apparition would prove difficult. Not that people haven’t tried.

My favorite is a theory put forth by one of the myriad of websites offering the tale of the ghost-fearing tenant above, who believes the spirit who gives foot rubs to be a woman, as a woman of the period would have been likely to have done this. Or even better, a slave. And there’s the story that a secret room in the attic was used for the underground railroad, where escaped slaves were shuttled northwards to safety.

But then again, many an attic room had what looks to be a secret entrance, including the house I live in now, which was built in the decidely non-slavery era of 1896. Besides, once an escaped slave had reached Cape Cod, there wasn’t really a lot further they could go to be away from the south, except perhaps Maine or off the coast into the Atlantic Ocean.

Which helps to explain why I don’t do a lot of reading up on a location before I visit. Just the facts ma’am, discern which rooms are thought to be haunted, and then go in with few preconceptions and an open mind.

I knew that the only places where apparitions had been spotted in the Old Yarmouth Inn, at least in stories told publicly were in the guest rooms. But that was out of the question this night. It was to be dinner and a drink or two – in and out. Which meant the most active rooms I could visit were the Rose Room, which I caught a glimpse of immediately upon entering, and the bar, on the other side of the wall from the Rose Room.

The Rose Room, Old Yarmouth Inn, Yarmouthport, Cape Cod. To view larger or more haunted house photos, click here.
I opted for the bar, though in retrospect it might have behooved me to have pleaded for a spot in the empty Rose Room. Even if something did happen in a rather busy section of the restaurant like the bar, which has been known to happen more than once, the fear factor is dissipated. Fear is best experienced alone in my opinion. You might not have a witness, but you have an experience. It puts me in mind of a quote of the late Frank Zappa, and one can only believe that he’d make an iteresting ghost – whiskey makes a man want to beat his wife. Beer makes him want to do it with his buddies around. I’m paraphrasing, but you get the idea. A communal ghost experience just doesn’t make it.

There are several reports of communal paranormal experiences in the bar. One woman, proclaiming her disbelief in ghosts found the shutters covering one of the windows coming off and sailing across the room, narrowly missing her head. The owners experienced a single pane of the same window vibrating wildly, with no earthly cause to be found. Ashtrays have hovered over the bar before sailing to the end. Kitchen equipment turns on and off, lights dim of their own accord, in short a fairly active poltergeist seems to be roaming the place. Most recently, the wait staff has begun hearing voices calling to them by name, when no one is there.

I experienced nothing like this in my short time at the Old Yarmouth Inn, but it wasn’t without discoveries. I’m from the midwest, and seafood in the midwest is a risky proposition. It’s either frozen or you’re taking a chance at food poisoning. At some point I vaguely remember having New England Clam Chowder, probably Progresso or something similar, and the experience left me scarred. As I’ve said elsewhere on this site, I tend to order from the bottom of the menu, the lowest price items. This allows me to also explore the liquor cabinet of the establishment, and if they do the cheapest items on the menu, well, you can be assured that they do the top end well also. If the specialty is steak, it’s a bacon cheddar cheeseburger. If I’m in a nautical area, it’s fish and chips.

So on Cape Cod it was the fish and chips, with fresh haddock. But I also noticed in the soups New England Clam Chowder. Remembering my earlier experience I blanched at the thought, but remembered that after all, I’m in New England. So I gave it a try. Let me tell you, $7.50 for a bowl of something so yummy that it opens your eyes to a whole new taste treat is a bargain. From the first bite on, I didn’t care if I saw a ghost or not. And no, I didn’t see a ghost. There was no sign that the bartender had to hold the glass still when my beer was poured, evidently a common occurance as the ghost of the Old Yarmouth Inn has a tendency to move it from beneath the taps otherwise.

The fish and chips were alright, certainly nice portions, but the crust tended to fall off as soon as you cut into it. So if you wanted your haddock with crust you had to sort of assemble it at times on the fork. Not bad and certainly tasty, but for nineteen bucks you expect a bit more. Then again, my fish and chips experience in Massachusetts has been decidedly hit and miss, so perhaps frying fish is something New Englanders just don’t do well?

After dinner I did manage to slip into the Rose Room, still empty and took a seat at one of the tables. Some years back, a theatrical presentation of a seance was held in this room, but seemingly the spirits didn’t realize it was just an act. The next morning the owners found a vase which had held blue marbles and roses, split in two on either side of the fireplace. The marbles had been arranged in front of the hearth, with the roses fanning out between them. And then there’s the apparition of the fellow waiting at his table in the Rose Room, who disappears when you go in to take his order.

All this made for a creepy few minutes there, alone in the Rose Room. But eventually the hostess wondered what I was doing, and I made some sort of excuse about admiring the decor and wandered back to my table. It was a nice place to people watch and nurse my beer, but eventually I paid my bill and took one last walk through the inn. With its rich history and virtual wish list of hauntings, it would be a dream come true to have the run of the place alone.

But in the end, you come to the Old Yarmouth Inn for the history and the food. And on those two counts, you shouldn’t be disappointed.

Gothic Travel Rating: Some restaurants just feel creepy, but the Old Yarmouth Inn isn’t one of them, despite the plethora of supernatural occurances. If one can procure a guest room, which are available seasonally, then the sky is the limit. But alas, even though the food might rank an extra point, on the creepy scale it’s a tasty three crypts.

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Dek’s American Restaurant, Rocky Point, Long Island, New York. To view larger or to see more pictures from Haunted Long Island, click here

The bartender and a friend are shooting pool in the empty restaurant, waiting to lock up. It’s either late at night or very early in the morning, depending on one’s perspective and level of inebriation. The restaurant was built as a home in the 18th and 19th century, and our two subjects are in the oldest part of the house, now the bar. The front door opens and closes and the bartender’s heart sinks. Closing time is 4 a.m., and he’s looking forward to being out the door at four on the dot. To make matters worse, he’s quite recently evicted a paron from the bar who didn’t want to leave. And it could be him coming back, which means anything can happen. The bartender is a burly fellow, but one can never underestimate a drunk.

He has a clear view into the hallway by the doorway, a great beast of a door complete with a truly impressive brass door pull on the outside. So when it slams closed, it does so with some authority. The bartender sees a dark shadow on the floor, then strangely, a pair of old fashioned boots at the bottom of a pair of old fashioned pants. He moves towards the door at one end of the bar, his friend to the other. They both step out into the hallway at the same time, expecting to be on each side of whoever it was. Instead, they find themselves looking into each other’s confused face. The hall is empty.

It’s early January, the sun is down and I’m heading west on Route 25a on Long Island, skirting the north shore of the island. I’ve been out on the north fork, shooting locations for Lynda Lee Macken’s book, Haunted Long Island II. And I’m cold. Patches of snow are still frozen to the ground, and I’ve been in and out of the car all day. Some people walk into a building reputed to be haunted and sense spirits. Often instantaneously and almost without exception. I’m not one of those people.

Do I get a creepy feeling come over me when I’m in a space where others have seen ghosts? Sure, who wouldn’t. But let’s be honest. You can’t believably say that there is no chance that the feeling that just came over you wasn’t instilled by the power of suggestion. You might be right 99% of the time (I doubt it), but that still leaves a chance that you’re not. And if you can’t be certain, I call it a creepy feeling, not communion with the bloody dead. And if you have something to gain by being known as someone who can feel, see or hear spirits, like myself for example, be it money or fame, then your story is even more suspect. Unfair perhaps, but true.

So I’m not one of those who just naturally senses things. But let’s face it, spending the day wandering from haunted spot to haunted spot is going to leave you in a bit of a macabre mood. And aside from being cold, I’m heading down Route 25a which is winding, canopied with trees and dotted with Colonial era and early American houses and buildings. It’s scenic, and just cries out for Blue Oyster Cult on the stereo. Who incidently, lived not far from Route 25a, when they were at their creepy best. So I’m in the mood.

There’s one stop left to make, DEK’s American Restaurant in Rocky Point, New York. Lynda Lee has given me a list of places to shoot, and Dek’s is on the list, but she’s not sure if it’s going to make the cut. So if I can make it, great, and if not, that’s fine too. All I need is an outside shot, and so I whip into the nearly empty parking lot, bring out the tripod and in a few minutes I’ve got the shot. It’s early on a Friday evening and I’m looking forward to getting home, but I’m also hungry. And cold again.

I might mention another factor which led me to think of DEKs as a mandatory stop. DEKs has a beer list hovering around a hundred varieties, including on occasion, hand-pulled English ales. In addition they carry one of the largest varieties of single malt Scotch on Long Island. And also, as I learned from a source I have who lives in Rocky Point, one of the best cheeseburgers anywhere.

The holy trinity, beer, single malts and cheeseburgers. It’s cold, I’m hungry and the place looked warm and inviting. I’m sold.

Walking into DEK’s is like walking into an English pub. The oldest part of the building is the bar, which dates from the 1700s, with most of the rest added in 1825 in a Greek rvival style, and I entered into a narrow hallway, momentarily without hostess and easily found my way into the bar. The bar sports a low ceiling and heavy wooden beams, thought to have originally come from the wreckage of a ship. The Christmas lights were still up, or perhaps never come down, and even so, the pub feeling was hard to mistake. The bar was nearly empty, no more than a half dozen people and I took a stool and immediately felt better. Perhaps someplace deep in my psyche I felt the presence of evil or the long-dead, but if you can sit down at a bar like this and not just feel sheer joy at all the treasures just waiting there in the coolers, then you really need deprogramming.

I regret to say that I can’t name the beer I chose first, nor any of the others which came later. The waitress was a friendly, middle-aged lady, I ordered the cheeseburger with bacon and cheddar and settled in. The beer came and by then I had settled on a single malt, strictly to warm me up and I looked around the place.

DEK’s is an acronym made up of the three brother’s names who own the place. Kerriann Flanagan Brosky, who I frequently find myself lifting passages from, in her book Ghost of Long Island II spoke with Dean, the D in DEK’s about his experiences there. He spoke of seeing a dark, stooped shape on several occasions, prowling the bar. The curious part in my opinion, was that he could only make it out by watching it out of the corner of his eye. If he turned to face it, nothing was there. And I can relate to that feeling.

I tried it myself and of course saw nothing. But Dean also mentioned to K. Brosky more than once that the building is pretty quiet now, with most of the stories dating from a few years back. And there are many stories.

Several have to do with poltergeist activity – table settings messed up in empty rooms, objects flying off the shelves, others disappearing, odd noises – enough to have kept several of the wait staff over the years on their toes. There was a rumor than a brother and sister lived together for a while in the house, and the brother caught his sister in a feverish embrace with her lover, chased her into the attic and chopped her to bits with a hatchet. The basement was reputed to have been a bordello as well. Perhaps the poltergeist was once a patron of the ladies in the basement, as one waitress was even goosed by an invisible hand as she bent over to pull a bottle from the cooler.

I have to admit, I was disappointed by my first choice in beer, so I finished it quickly that I might try again. I chose better this round, as well as ordered one more single malt. If you’re going to drink, do it before the dinner so you have the maximum length of time to sober up. It’s not a bad plan, providing you know when to tell the bartender to cease.

But I was comfortable by this point. Very seldom do I get comfortable in a bar, but DEK’s was just too cozy. And so I ordered another round with the cheeseburger. And good God the cheeseburger was fantastic. Probably one of the top 5 bacon cheddar cheeseburgers that I’ve experienced. And I’ve experimented with quite a few. Every experiment has to have a control, and mine, for restaurants which specialize in standard American fare, is the bacon cheddar chesseburger. If the cheeseburger is average, it’s a safe bet the steak will be too. But as in this case, if the cheeseburger is exceptional, it’s a safe bet that the attention to detail which went into the low end of the menu will also be there in the higher end. Alas, I don’t have the budget to sample the high end at all the places I visit.

A couple comes in and takes the two stools to my right. They’re considering ordering from the cajun section of the menu, but the lady would really like a cheeseburger. Keep in mind that this is Long Island, and to many people here, when you order red meat people look at you like you just requested a human turd. By this point I’m in my cups and feeling chatty and talk her into eating the dreaded cow flesh. They wonder what I’m doing out here and I tell them of the Haunted Long Island gig, and that this was the last place on the list. Skeptical and a bit loud, she asked the bartender who smiles and claims to know nothing about the ghost stories in the place. But the fellow on the other side of me has pretty much the whole story, and pretty soon a few others around the bar are chiming in. As I said, DEK’s makes a person comfortable.

I stumble out into the hallway and back to the restroom, and spot the room where silverware has a strange habit of moving about on its own. The room is nearly dark, as is this section of the hall and yes, there it was. The creepy sensation that you’re not alone. But with several rounds of drink in me at this point, anything I might have felt has to be taken with a grain of salt. Then again, I see no reason why a spirit would be less likely to make itself known to a drunk than to a sober person.

So we all chatted for a while longer, became close friends, conspirators and eventually I sobered up enough to attempt driving. I said good night to my new best friends and ventured back out into the cold, Long Island evening for the long drive home.

Gothic Travel Guide: DEK’s American Restaurant has a great story, casually told. The hauntings don’t revolve around anything or anyone specific, and so it feels more real to me. Even though the place is supposed to be much quieter now, paraonormally speaking, I still had the feeling all evening that the other shoe was about to drop. There’s a certain romance to eating and drinking in a building roughly two centuries old, like wearing one’s favorite drinking suit. The food is great, people are friendly and you might catch a glimpse of a hunched over figure prowling the bar out of the corner of your eye. That gets a four crypt rating.

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View images or order prints from Lynda Lee Macken’s Haunted Long Island II

Horseman’s Hollow, Sleepy Hollow, New York. Click here to view more images from Horseman’s Hollow to view larger

When I was a kid I used to love haunted house attractions. It probably started with a visit to the Haunted Mansion at Disney World, and was fed almost every year by some form of Halloween event all the way through high school.

As time went on however, the events became less about instilling those two favorite emotions – fear and gloom – and more about going for the jump. You know the trick … send the visitor in a darkened room where they have to cling to each other just to make their way, and invariably someone jumps out and screams in their faces. Or you notice someone following you through the maze, dressed like Jason from Halloween, carrying a big knife and generally just lumbering after you. And you knew at some point, when you least expected it, he would disappear, only to jump out in front of you and get in your face. And the exhibits became more gruesome and less ghostly.

I blame it on the slasher movies of the eighties, but that’s another story.

The point is, somewhere along the line it all became too predictable and not very scary. And I quit going.

Last fall I heard about Horseman’s Hollow at Philipsburg Manor in Sleepy Hollow. Philipsburg Manor, for those of you who don’t know your history, is one of the earliest Dutch farms in the United States, till it went British at the same time New Amsterdam became New York City. Most of what you see here now – the manor house, the grist mill, barn and outbuildings were all there by 1693, including the Old Dutch Church just across the road, which figured prominently in the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. In fact, the pond which gives the power to the grist mill was the same pond that in the book, Ichabod Crane took his female friends on walks around for courtship purposes.

So the headless horseman aspect of Horseman’s Hollow was a natural and appropriate fit.

Intrigued by the possibilities, and needing to be on the East coast during October anyway, I hit Sleepy Hollow the day before Halloween. Halloween is a great time to be in Sleepy Hollow. More like a quaint version of Salem, Massachusetts’ Halloween celebrations, with a bit of history and fall foliage mixed in. A year prior I had attended Legends Weekend at Philipsburg Manor, which was a family-friendly Halloween event, and was impressed at how the crowds turned out even in a driving rain, only to leave when forced to by high winds and lightning. Hudson Valley citizens take their legends seriously.

Immediately upon entering the grounds of Philipsburg Manor, I realized the family-friendly aspect had been tossed out the window. The tikes were instead being shuttled via hayrides through the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery, and the more traditional-minded folks were catching Jonathan Kruk’s incredible performance of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow in the Old Dutch Church. Which I did as well, twice, and then made my way across the highway for the last trip through Horseman’s Hollow.

There was the standard warnings – people who are claustrophobic or have respiratory conditions should stay away. Enter at your own risk. Those with weak bladders or bowels should wear diapers. The screams in the distance brought the point home for anyone who thought this was going to be like the quaint, Legend Weekend. This was Sleepy Hollow from Hell.

You enter the attraction through the gallows and follow a trail through the woods and around the pond, lit with small lanterns. There are crypts, tombstones, scarecrows and jack-a-lanterns, which being a traditionalist I thought was some of the better parts. Then the lady on the tombstone turns from a statue to a vampire and you realize this is a pretty high class affair.

With over 40 costumed actors, professionally designed and built sets, as well as special effects out the ass, historical accuracy might have been out the window, but it was a lot like walking onto the set of a high budget horror film. The plot, if there was one, is that the residents of Sleepy Hollow have been driven insane by the Headless Horseman, as well as vampires, satanists and what appeared to be zombies. In an effort to remain somewhat historically accurate, you don’t find chainsaws or other modern weapons. But historical accuracy, or allegiance to the story of the Legend of Sleepy Hollow is only at best, winked at.

When you reach the manor house, you are within the haunted attraction proper. Costumed characters in various stages of decay approach you, and rather than doing the typical scream and lumber behind, actually engage you in conversation. Rather menacingly I might add, which certainly adds an air of discomfort, which in this kind of situation is a good thing.

There was a coven of Satanists which set the mood nicely as we fell into line, and you started getting to know the people around you quite well. There was Miss Scream At Everything, Miss Scream On Occasion, a couple of well dressed colonial French men, actually college age fellows down from Quebec who must have taken a hundred photos of themselves with their cell phones, proving that being annoying isn’t strictly an American trait. The Satanists were followed by some disemboweling, some victims flayed alive and other gruesome treats before you found yourself in a line line stretching through a field, waiting to get to the indoor portion of Horseman’s Hollow.

It seemed to be a purpose-built structure which stretched out for some distance, the flashing of lights punctuated by screams of those lucky enough to be inside. Which we weren’t. The downside of Horseman’s Hollow is its success. The crowds were huge, which means the lines were long. Disney World long even. Which is one thing when you’re waiting to get into an attraction. But it’s something else entirely when you’re in the middle of one, with nothing to entertain or maintain the mood but the Headless Horseman trotting his pony through the field. And after all the brains, bones and guts of the first part of the tour, a bloodless, decapitated horseman brandishing a sabre isn’t all that menacing.

Honestly, it felt like the only reason the line moved at all was that the delay was so long that people were actually shedding pounds, therefore taking up less space and were adjusting their place in line accordingly. But eventually I found myself at the Jack o’ Lantern which announced the entrance to the main part of the attraction, and was greeted by what appeared to be a bloodied prostitute and a pirate. The pirate seemed a bit out of place, but actually pirates were well-known along this stretch of the Hudson in colonial days, so at least had historicall accuracy.

There was a winding path through a well-done corn maze, which was totally creepy as you were constantly being brushed by the corn leaves, and so wouldn’t realize at first when it wasn’t the corn, but instead a bloody hand caressing your arm. I witnessed probaby the best example of someone losing it in a haunted attraction when the young lady in front of me came almost completely apart when she realized the hands around her ankles belonged to a bloodied and undead waif in a den in the cornstalks. Then there were more jack o’ lanterns, a rather neat cave of skulls, ghouls, goblins and once more you’re back outside, before entering the finale, the ancient barn at Philipsburg Manor, christened the Horseman’s Workshop for the event.

There severed heads abound, headless corpses hang by their feet from ropes attached to the ceiling, and there was the horseman himself, brandishing an axe this time in the midst of all this carnage.

There were plenty of opportunities for the big scare at Horseman’s Hollow, and I was feeling pretty smug that I hadn’t even jumped yet. I was watching a fellow preparing to carve up a young lady’s tummy, and it was obvious that she wasn’t a manequin, but flesh and blood. Horseman’s Hollow is so well done, that I was curious to see how they managed to pull of her gutting. It was classic sleight of hand. While my attention was on the knife denting her flesh, she easily reached out and grabbed my arm and I jumped, uttering an indecipherable sound. Not so much a shriek or scream, but a prolonged grunt. So they got me in the end.

And then it was back out and down the path through the woods and into the still hopping Sleepy Hollow night. In the end, it bore even less resemblance to the Sleepy Hollow story than the Tim Burton movie of the same name, which is saying a lot. But was it well-done? Yep. Entertaining? Absolutely. Worth the twenty buck admission? If you love cheesey Halloween attractions I’d say so. It was certainly the best of its ilk that I’ve seen, and has given me a taste to try a few more this year, to see what I’ve been missing.

Gothic Travel Review: Gore, guts and ghouls, stylishly and realistically portrayed. If you’re looking for authentic, catch Jonathan Kruk across the street at the Old Dutch Church. But if you want to feel like you’re in the midst of a big-budget slasher film, Horseman’s Hollow is the place to be. I have to knock one crypt off the rating for the long lines, but here’s to hoping they’ve solved the problem for this year.

Click to learn more about Gothic Travel ratings and what they meanClick here to view a gallery of images from Horseman’s Hollow, 2010

Click to learn more about Gothic Travel ratings and what they mean

Horseman’s Hollow in Sleepy Hollow doesn’t shy away from the gruesome, and they do it quite well. Click here to view larger or more pictures from Horseman’s Hollow

The Old Gaol, Barnstable Village, Massachusetts. To view larger or more haunted house photos, click here

Ghost tours are great, don’t get me wrong. They’re fun and informative, and a great way to get leads for this site. But they aren’t typically bone-chilling, or even frightful. It’s hard to feel creepy in a group of people strolling the sidewalk. So I was looking forward to Barnstable Village’s Haunted & History Walking Tour, led by members of the Cape And Islands Paranormal Research Society. True, when dining with paranormal researchers I use a long spoon, but it’s possible for one of the elect to give a good tour, I’m firmly convinced of that.

Barnstable Villiage is your standard, run-of-the-mill picture-perfect Cape Cod villages, dating back to before the American Revolution and seemingly teeming with ghost stories. I checked in on the afternoon of All Hallows Eve at my bed and breakfast – the haunted Beechwood Inn, explored a bit along the old King’s Highway, Route 6A which is was all decked out in fall colors and colonial charm, then settled in for the Tavern Burger and a beer or two at the Barnstable Restaurant and Tavern, also reputed to be haunted. I watched the daylight wane and Halloween settle in, then wandered down to the Old Gaol which is the appointed meeting place for the tour.

Our guide was a practicing witch, a tiny lady battling a cold in the brisk New England evening. The breeze was picking up, which must have been even more of a strain on her throat to be heard above, but she did yeoman’s duty. Leaves were blowing onto the sidewalk at our feet as we set out, having been forewarned by our guide that it would be a quick pace. Impressively so for her little legs I might add. The first stop was a private residence, whose owner had come out one evening and relayed his own ghostly experiences in his home on a prior tour. Most of the stops were houses of a fairly ancient vintage, rarely dating from later than the 19th century and typically the 18th-19th century. The longer a building is around, the more of a chance it has to build up stories, and at that Barnstable is hard to surpass.
The tour ranges east on Old King’s Highway, past the Stugis Library and its little old lady ghost who loves attending the theater there, down to the Barnstable House, ominously described and named also The House of Eleven Spirits.

The Barnstable House, also known as the House of Eleven Spirits, Barnstable, MA. To view larger or more haunted house photos, click here

A few years back, a lawyer rented an office in the Barnstable House, and was working there alone one evening, when he heard and saw the latch to the closet drop of its own accord. The following day he saw a woman in a dress enter the room carrying a hatchet. Of course it’s unlikely she was up to any mischief with the hatchet, as in her time, there was frequently a bit of killing needing done around the house. Perhaps it was a chicken she was looking for? The unfortunate lawyer also came across the spirit of a woman churning butter by the fireplace.

The house was built in 1716 by an ancestor of Robert Treat, a signer of the Declaration of Independence. Over the years the house that James Paine built has seen its share of tragedy. One owner, Edmund Howes, hanged himself from a tree in the yard. Dr. Samuel Savage was thought to be practicioner of black magic, using the house as the location for his experiments in the occult.

Most tragic of all though, is the story of poor little Lucy Paine, who drowned in the basement by falling into the entrance of an underground river which passes beneath the building. For years she still tried to get residents of the house to play ball with her, as well as just seemingly showing up at will, and scaring the pants off of whoever might be around. Oddly enough, it’s thought that perhaps Lucy migrated to the Barnstable Restuarant and Tavern down the road, perhaps linked to a piece of furniture or other piece of decor which made its way to the building after a fire in the Barnstable House. A second spirit is thought to have left the Barnstable House after the same fire, settling in at my bed and breakfast, the Beechwood Inn just east of there.

But it was to the Barnstable Restaurant and Tavern we went next. One wing of the building houses offices, and it was there that our intrepid guide picked up the tale of Lucy, who the occupants believe is responsible for a number of michievous pranks which are fairly common. Our guide told us the story of one woman who was so pestered by Lucy that she finally had to shout at her that she didn’t have time to play today, as she had a looming deadline. Lucy was so upset that she disappeared for a while after that. We were even allowed to entered the deserted hallways, two at a time, testing the resolve of our little group, or perhaps weeding out the believers from the skeptics. And it was creepy to walk down the hallway after hearing the stories. But alas, not even a creak of the floor.

Cobb’s Hill Cemetery, Barnstable, Massachusetts. Click here to view larger or to see more haunted house photos

After a few more stories and a couple of more stops, we were directed to Barnstable’s Old Cobbs Hill Cemetery, which we were assured, is if not the most paranormally active cemetery on Cape Cod, certainly in the top echelon. Which is indicative of the only problem I had with the tour. Many of the stories were were told, certainly most of the anecdotal evidence we were presented with, was collected or happened to members of the Cape and Islands Paranormal Research Society members themselves. The words “sensed a presence” were bandied around a bit too often, and no more so than at Cobbs Hill Cemetery. Which really didn’t need any priming of the fear pump.

Dating back to the earliest days of the village, perched on a hill and dark as coal, the cemetery itself is ghost story perfect, though undoubtedly more so without the presence of a group. After a few minutes wandering among the tombstones, we were led back to the Old Gaol, past schedule and still rather harried from the fairly long trot.

The Old Gaol (The Old Jail), Barnstable Village, Massachusetts. To view larger or view more haunted house photos, click here 

The Old Gaol, or Old Jail to use the vulgate spelling, was built in 1690 and there are no doubts that conditions there were brutal. The scructure has been added onto over the years, remodeled and even partly burned, but when you get to the cells in the back, aside from the glaring lightbulbs, it’s distinctly 17th century colonial torture pit.

I was one of the two who volunteered to take a seat in one of the cells itself, and the guide dutifully shut out the lights. As total darkness fell, she then began relating the ghost stories of the place, paying particular attention to the ones regarding the cell we were now in. She then played an EVP recorded in the same cell, which was certainly chilling. I’m a skeptic when it comes to EVPs, though with a caveat. I do believe at times they capture voices which are not easily explained, and are remarkably clear. This was one of them. Of course it’s easy to believe that it’s completely a fake. But not as easy to believe when sitting in a chair in total darkness and total silence in that very cell.

For the tour of the jail we were joined by Derek Bartlett, who is the creator of Barnstable’s Haunted History Tours, who was actually waiting for us in the dark when our guide led us into the jail, scaring the living crap out of her. He added what I believe was a stroke of genius, just after the lights went down. When doing investigations of the Old Jail, and investigators are alone in the cells, they have reported on several occasions the sensation of someone brushing up against them. True or not, it was good fun hearing the sharp intake of breath of one of the female members of the tour, followed by “oh sorry” from one of the men who had accidently brushed against her in the darkness.

Eventually the lights came on and everyone breathed a sigh of relief, and the tour broke up. The guide, as well as Derek stuck around to talk and answer questions, and are quite knowledgable and eager to share. In addition, the Cape and Island Paranormal Research Society is responsible for care and upkeep of the Old Gaol, and I would presume at least some of the proceeds for the tour go to that, which is certainly worthwhile. And at $20 a pop for adults, and $10 for children 8-12, the fee is certainly reasonable. The tour made believers of some of our group, to be certain. And that’s a lot to ask of a ghost tour. There was enough history in the Haunted History tour to keep a hardcore history addict from jonesing, and enough discussion of paranormal investigations to keep those who are fans of the endlessly regurgitating ghost investigation shows currently polluting the airwaves quite happy. For those of us looking for good tales well-told, we went away happy as well.

Of course the star of the show was the Cape Cod night, dark and tinkling with the sounds of leaves falling in the breeze, Halloween certainly brought along the atmosphere needed to make the evening complete.

Gothic Travel Rating: I love a good ghost tour, and the Barnstable Haunted History tour ranks up there with some of the best. It’s long, clocking in at over two hours, with numerous stops, certainly more than related here. As stated, I’d prefer less of their own experience, and a bit more color in the other tales they told. But the Barnstable House and its eleven spirits is a good enough story to get the blood racing, and the house itself, stark and foreboding is an ideal setting. Coupled with the Old Gaol which was almost worth the price of a ticket itself, the tour deserved a solid four crypt rating. Click to learn more about Gothic Travel ratings and what they mean

For more information about Barnstable’s Haunted & History Tours, click here

The Rose Room of the Beechwood Inn, Barnstable, Massachusetts. To view larger or to see more haunted house photos, click here

It’s Halloween, and I’m in the tub of the Rose Room at the Beechwood Inn in Barnstable, Massachusetts. I’m just back from the Barstable Village Haunted and History Walking Tour, which was a two hour or so stroll through the haunted spots in this stereotypically perfect Cape Cod village. The tour ends at the Old Jail in Barnstable, where there were a few moments that were just about downright chilly – a rarity on ghost walks of any type. I ask Derek Bartlett, the creator of the tour and founder of Cape And Islands Paranormal Research Society if my bed and breakfast, The Beechwood Inn has any spooks.

“Oh yeah, that place is definitely haunted” he says, “we did an investigation there and the place has been featured on Ghost Hunters. Are you in the Lilac Room?”

“Nah, the Rose Room,” I answered. “I’ve heard stories about the ghost of an old lady in there?”

“Yeah, she has a habit of throwing the locks from the inside,” he added. “We’ve got some strange photos of it over here from our investigation …”

The Beechwood Inn is surrounded by trees, and there was a fairly stiff breeze this night – the sound of leaves blowing in the wind was like the applause from a crowd, coming at you from a distance till the wind reached the two large beechwood trees which give the inn its name, and they would join in, heavy limbs creaking. The 1853 home features a wrap-around porch, and as I turned the corner I was faced with the eerie sight of the inn’s rocking chairs, all rocking away in a frenzy without occupants. Yes, I realized that it was the wind, but it’s still a good effect.

The Rose Room is ideal for a haunting. Aged wood floors, stocked with antiques including a solid mahogany queen-size canopy bed that might as well date from the middle ages, a red velvet fainting couch, and a hand-carved Italian mahogany armoire. The first thing I had to do when entering the room was turn face-down a portrait of a woman with haunting eyes which seemed to date from early in the twentieth century, that sat on the mantle of the fireplace. And that was in the daylight, when you couldn’t ask for a sunnier room.

So I’m in the tub which okay, I admit has always been my thoughtful spot. Pooh had his tree, I have the tub. The water is running and the bathroom is one of those long, narrow spaces so common in New England homes, where toilet facilities were by invention an afterthought. So the water is echoing loudly, and I’m just about the lean back for a long soak, having ascertained that the faucets could be controlled with one’s toes. And I hear the door slam. Now there are only three rooms on my end of the house, all of which were empty when I had reached my room. It was late when I got back, and Barnstable isn’t exactly a hopping place on Sunday night. Besides, the parking lot had been empty all afternoon.

I shut the water off and listen to footsteps on the hardwood floor. They seem to stop just outside the door of my room. I realize I’m holding my breath. Then silence. Gradually I regain my courage, figuring it must be someone in another part of the house, or the owners checking the rooms for the night. I decide it’s a good night to skip the tub and stand, turning on the shower. I start to rinse when I hear the footsteps once more. It’s a friendly spirit by all accounts I remind myself. But when the door slams again I forego rinsing for the evening and scramble out of the shower.

Unique to most haunted inns and restaurants, the owners of the Beechwood Inn, Ken and Debra Traugot, have seen the woman herself. And before the Traugots owned the inn, the previous proprietors had mentioned the resident ghost. But the Traugots were skeptics. That is until one afternoon in 2005, when Ken was outside doing some landscaping and saw an older woman in a white dress with greyish white hair, seemingly poring over a display of travel brochures which the Traugots had converted from an old closet. Ever the dutiful host, Ken hopped up and went to lend assistance to the woman, only to find out when he got inside that she was gone. Thinking that maybe she was outside looking for him, he went back out, only to once more see her where she had been. Noticing no cars in the driveway, it dawned on him that he was seeing the ghost, and it seemed to be playing hide and seek with him. It was also likely about this moment that he became a believer.

His wife Debra was washing sheets in the laundry room which butts up against the Lilac room, where she heard music from inside. Thinking the previous night’s guests had left a radio, she turned the key to the room to retrieve it, and upon opening heard a friendly voice chirp “good morning!” Fearing that she was intruding upon a guest, she immediately backed out and closed the door. She went to check with her husband, as she had thought the guests had already checked out, a fact confirmed by Ken, and that they were alone in the home.

The spirit doesn’t confine itself to the owners, however. Writing in Haunted Massachusetts, a great guidebook for those looking for chills in the Bay State, Thomas D’Agostino relates how a family with kids in tow abandoned the place one evening with the statement “you have ghosts, we’re leaving.” A southern lady prefaced her own description of the lady in the white dress in her room with “Do ya’all have ghosts here?”

And in the Rose Room, after the guests had checked out one afternoon, Ken found that his keys no longer worked on the door. Eventually he had to remove the window and climb in, only to find the door bolted from the inside. Reports of a misty figure has been reported in the same bathroom which I was now abandoning, dripping water and suds across the floor.

Now it wasn’t terror I was feeling, I am after all, a Professional. A certain nervousness was being experienced, we’ll leave it at that. So I dried and dressed, one eye continually popping out of my head to look behind me, and plopped down on the bed, clicking on the TV. It was Halloween as I said, and there was Jason making his rounds, and the next channel had Freddie and so on down the band. I believe I passed the night with a marathon of the Suite Life of Zack and Cody, finally falling asleep on the fainting couch in front of the fire.

The next morning at breakfast, an incredible concoction whipped by the owners by the way, there was a happy foursome at one of the other tables, obviously good friends with Ken and Debra, and quite possibly the source of the slamming doors and footsteps heard the night before. Ken talks freely about his experiences in the house, and has no fears from the resident spectre. He related to me the story oft told of how when the nearby 1716 Barnstable House burned in 1975, an elderly woman was spotted in an attic window by firefighters. Racing inside the house to rescue her, they then watched her float away towards the Beechwood Inn, where perhaps she’s stayed till this day.

Gothic Travel Review: So I didn’t see an apparition, and the slamming doors and footsteps I heard likely had an earthly explanation. The point here is that the Beechwood Inn is an ideal environment to believe, where every noise at night can become cause for alarm, if you’re of the mind to. It’s a lovely house with friendly owners, in a beautiful village steeped in history and hauntings. By the end of October it felt as though I had Cape Cod to myself, barely encountering anyone on the beaches even. The leaves turn later here, so a Halloween visit is ideal. Five crypts by raising the bar on what a haunted bed and breakfast should be. Face it, even the odds of visiting every haunted inn on the planet and witnessing a ghost is beyond remote. What you’re left with is the experience and the ambiance, which is best served by letting the house speak for itself. The Beechwood Inn excels at both.

The haunted Beechwood Inn, Barnstable, Massachusetts. To view larger to see more photos of haunted houses, click here

The Jamesport Manor Inn, Jamesport, Long Island, New York. To order fine art prints or view larger, click here

One could argue that the main character of The Witching Hour, a novel by Anne Rice is the Mayfair mansion on First Street in New Orleans, Louisiana. In the book, the house is painstakingly restored, making a dandy home, custom-built for the spirits that live within.

But this begs the question, what ties a spirit to a particular location? When you gut a house and rebuild it, is it the house or its furnishings holding the spirits earthbound, the ground the house sits upon, or is there something familiar about the structure, which as long as it is extant, even in a restored version, will be familiar enough to the spirits so that they can find their way home?

It’s also possible that as long as the house looks enough like the original, and sits upon the same spot, and looks haunted, that people will still tell the old tales, and therefore keep the spirits, even if they never existed, alive.

The Jamesport Manor Inn in Jamesport, New York, out on the north fork of Long Island is a study in these questions.

Aptly described by the New York Times, “The Jamesport Manor Inn looks like Halloween every day of the year. The landmark, which dates from the mid-19th century, would be a suitable abode for the Addams family. It is a typical haunted house, Hollywood style.”

And yet it hasn’t always been so. In fact, before the present owners purchased the house in June of 2005, it had fallen into disrepair and was in such a dilapidated state that locally it was referred to as “the haunted house.” No doubt the look of the house itself drew people to make this conclusion. But that a woman was frequently seen in the center, upstairs window of the abandoned house helped quite a bit.

Originally known as the Dimon Mansion, the restored Second Empire building that you see today, beautifully topped by a multi-colored slate Mansard roof and surrounded by farmland, is a fair approximation of how it must have looked after an expansion in 1870-80.

Originally it was thought that this was the time the house was built. But it seems to have been a much older structure, as evidence turned up by the present owners showed.

The Dimon family first laid claim to the property in the 1750′s, and in all probability, Jonathan Dimon built the original structure around then. His son, also Jonathan, served in the American Revolution as a minuteman, a minority in a part of New York which swarmed with loyalists.

It’s fitting that the family was a family of shipbuilders, as one of Jonathan’s descendants collected a cannonball which came rolling through the fields as he watched a battle in the 1814, during the War of 1812, fought out on Long Island Sound and the nearby shore. The Dimons founded a shipyard in New York City with Stephen Smith, and built what is believed to be the first clipper ship, the Rainbow, as well as its more famous sister, the Sea Witch. Both the Rainbow and the Sea Witch set records for the fastest trip from China to the United States in the middle of the nineteenth century. In addition, Smith and Dimon were also associated with Cornelius Vanderbilt, both in racing competition and friendship.

As the Dimon family fortune grew, the house in Jamesport retained its position as the ancestral home, with the children summering there, in addition to frequent visits. But in the mid 19th century, the first of the scandals and tragedies which would rock the family occurred as one of the family ended up in the cups of the demon rum, and took up residence in the town’s poor house.

John F. Dimon made his fortune trading bird crap from Peru. The guano trade was incredibly lucrative, being used as fertilizer, and it was in Peru where John met Rosalie and fell in love. Sometime in the 1860′s they came back to Jamesport and made their home in the manor house.

But their lives in Jamesport would not prove to be a happy time. In 1868, their ten-year-old daugher, Margaret Olivia was climbing one of two large oak trees in the front yard and fell, breaking her neck. Her mother, Rosalie was plunged into an inconsolable despair, from which she never recovered.

Perhaps in an attempt to cheer up his wife, John F. began renovating the home about 1880, stripping it down to its frame and essentially starting over, building something quite like the structure you see now. Another daughter, Laura became embroiled in scandal with her lover and future husband, which became tabloid fodder at the time. Laura later accused her husband of threatening to poison her, a fate which suspiciously befell his next wife.

Laura’s future proved no more cheerful than her mothers’. Her own daughter died at the early age of 29, and Laura, “dazed by an immeasurable and uncomprehended grief,” visited her grave on an almost daily basis till her death four years later. Her obituary read “Born in Lima, Peru, she was brought to this country in early childhood, and reared in strict seclusion in the old mansion on Manor Lane. . . . Of remarkable beauty in youth, time and sorrow but softened that beauty as it faded, and the little black-robed figure with the white pathetic face, never failed to appeal to the sympathies even of those who did not understand.”

By 1931 there were no more Dimon’s living in the manor house, and in 1947 it became the Twin Oaks restaurant, named for the trees in the front yard. The restaurant went through several owners and several names, before it was eventually abandoned and left to its later incarnation as Jamesport’s haunted house. Rumors swirled about the building, in addition to the woman in the second floor windows, it was also whispered that the house, probably without basis in fact, at one time was a brothel.

When Matt and Gail Kar and Frank and Anne McVeigh began lovingly restoring the property in 2006, they were amazed at the home’s features which were continually being revealed, such as beautiful parquet floors hidden by ragged carpets on the first floor, as well as the frame of the original 18th century house. And by fall, the building was almost ready to open for business, when on the early morning of October 20th, some rags seemed to spontaneously combust and the whole building was gone in just over an hour.

Luckily, much of the house had been documented during the restoration, and by August of 2006, with the support of the community and a gaggle of architects and builders in tow, the house rose again, almost identical to the original, except where modifications had to be made to bring it up to code. Included in the restoration are replicas of the original archways through the house, with their signature decorative keys.

Ironically enough, it was these keys which put me in mind of Rice’s The Witching Hour, where a signature architectural motif of keyholes is what acts as a portal for the spirits of the Mayfair ancestors to recognize and find their way home. And perhaps it’s this attention to detail which has brought the spirits back to the Jamesport Manor Inn.

According to Matt Kar, “The first few weeks that we were open, someone came in and had this candle that they said would bring the Manor’s ghost back,” Matt told me. “I told them that I didn’t believe in ghosts. Later on in the conversation, I repeated that I didn’t believe, and as I said it, he took the candle out. Literally the moment the candle hit the table, lightning struck the telephone pole across the street and all the lights in here started to flicker. After that, it was kind of hard not to believe, even for me.”

But as so often is the case in haunted restaurants, it’s the workers that most keenly feel the presence of spirits. A waitress reports that roses still grow in the spot where young Margaret fell from the tree and broke her neck, despite attempts to get rid of them. A bookkeeper claimed to hear the sound of heavy breathing behind her when working alone in the building. Restaurant staff give witness to the sounds of people walking around and closing doors, in parts of the restaurant which are empty of human occupants. It’s said that the staff try to leave all at once, in order to avoid leaving anyone in the building alone. And of course, Matt reports that he still hears from customers that they’ve seen the woman standing in the upstairs window, long thought to be Rosalie looking out at the spot where her daughter fell to her death.

“Before the fire,” says Matt, “there was most definitely a presence here. When I first walked into the building, you could feel it – something was here, something was going on.” And if the stories are true, the spirits have found their way back to the Jamesport Manor Inn.

Gothic Travel Review: It’s a fairly long haul from Manhattan to Jamesport, pretty much the full length of Long Island, which can be surprisingly long. Hence the name, eh? But in my studied opinion, well worth it. On the north fork of Long Island you find yourself in true countryside – farms, picturesque small villages and wineries. For those of historical bent, you’ll be pleased to know that the first settlements on Long Island, and some of the first in the country are to be found on the north fork. And for those who don’t relish the long drive back to the city, there is a plethora of interesting bed and breakfasts to be had at a much more reasonable rate than Manhattan hotels.

I don’t find haunted restaurants to be particularly creepy, and the Jamesport Manor Inn is no exception. Instead, what you’ll find is a lovely drive, an enchanting ambiance and an incredible dinner. If you’re looking for upscale dining with a grown-local bent, and you should damnit, this is the place.

I arrived racing the sunset for photos and the view and the light was breathtaking, and after a long day of visiting haunted Long Island sites, of which there are many, the dinner and service was much appreciated. I highly recommend the duck by the way. But as for a chilling atmosphere, it’s probably not going to happen. Then again, with a wine list like theirs, does it really matter? Three crypts for an overall wonderful experience, and a great history.

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Sources:
Ghost Story of the Jamesport Manor Inn, Long Island, New York. 123HelpMe.com. 13 Sep 2011
Haunted Beauty: Great Design, Scary Details by Chelsea Foster
www.jamesportmanorinn.com
History of the Jamesport Manor, Richard Wines – 2007

The Jamesport Manor Inn, Jamesport, Long Island, New York. To order fine art prints or view larger, click here