Aimed at adults, teenagers, and tourists, this is the most comprehensive collection of tales, legends, folklore, ghost stories and strange-but-true facts ever assembled about Vermont and the surrounding areas of New York, Massachusetts, New Hampshire and Quebec--one that can be used to find these haunted sites. Called the "Bard of the Bizarre" by the Boston Globe, Joseph A. Citro is a popular lecturer and public-radio personality. Green Mountain Ghosts, Ghouls & Unsolved Mysteries By Joseph A. Citro, Bonnie Christensen Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Publishing Company Copyright © 1994 Joseph A. Citro All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-1-881527-50-3 Contents Title Page, Contents, Copyright, Dedication, Foreword, Introduction, Epigraph, Vermont's Ghostly Gallery, Communing with Spirits, Haunted Houses, Haunted Spots, Vampires, Graveyards and Ghouls, Whose Woods Are These?, Here Monsters Dwell, The Monster Hunter, The Hunt, Champ Scrapbook, The Alien Aquarium, Alien Skies, Perchance To Dream, Curses!, The Vermont Character, Lingering Mysteries, Sources, Vermont's Ghostly Gallery, CHAPTER 1 Vermont's Ghostly Gallery I SUSPECT EVERY TOWN IN VERMONT has at least one haunted house. And because we have 255 political divisions — 237 towns, 9 cities, 2 unorganized towns, 3 unorganized townships and 4 gores — telling the story of each ghostly residence would require a work nothing short of encyclopedic. Consequently, in the following pages, we'll only be able to visit a few of Vermont's more notable ghostly haunts. The first section, Communing with Spirits, introduces Vermonters who have held conversations with mysterious supernatural entities. In one case, the dialogue cost the individual his reputation; in another case, it cost the man's life. In the second division, we'll visit a few Haunted Houses, just to get a sampling of what can lurk behind closed doors. And in the last section, as a reminder that ghosts don't confine their activities to houses, we'll explore a number of Haunted Spots — parcels of land whose ethereal boundaries natives and visitors cross at their own risk. To begin our journey, we'll travel to Chittenden, a little mountain town not far from Rutland. The story of the Eddy brothers is one of the weirdest things ever to happen in Vermont. See if you don't agree ... Most of us learned long ago that it's not a good idea to talk to strangers, and nothing could be stranger than the entities you'll meet in this section. CHAPTER 2 Communing with Spirits At last he was reduced, like the newly bereft mothers who came to wail at one last vision of babies doubly torn from the body, to belief at once grudging and enthusiastic. — Seth Steinzor Echoes of the Eddys Chittenden's Ghost Shop It was a case of nineteenth-century ghostbusting. The year: 1874. The investigator: Henry Steel Olcott, on assignment from the New York Daily Graphic. The target: highly peculiar goings-on at a remote Vermont farmhouse in the tiny mountain town of Chittenden. The house was a shunned place. Some locals called it "the ghost shop"; others swore it was "the abode of the devil." It was owned by William and Horatio Eddy, two middle-aged nearly illiterate brothers, and their sister, Mary. Olcott, renowned for his rigorous investigations of corruption in military arsenals and naval shipyards after the Civil War, had been awarded the title of Colonel. But it wasn't bandits in uniform the Colonel was after this time — it was supernatural creatures, ghosts and spectral phenomena of such magnitude as to be unrivaled before or since. The events at the Eddy farm were so powerful and strange that people came from all over the world to witness them. In some circles, Chittenden, Vermont, became known as "The Spirit Capital of the Universe." Olcott's job was to determine whether William and Horatio were villains or visionaries, humbugs or heroes. If they were gifted clairvoyants, he would tell the world there was some validity to this "spiritualism" business. If they were ingenious charlatans, he'd expose them and let public contempt do its worst. In either event, Olcott was determined to be fair. In his comprehensive book, The History of Spiritualism, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle describes the Colonel this way: "Olcott was not at that time identified with any psychic movement — indeed his mind was prejudiced against it, and he approached his task rather in the spirit of an 'exposer.' He was a man of clear brain and outstanding ability, with a high sense of honor ... loyal to a fault, unselfish, and with that rare moral courage which will follow truth and accept results even when they oppose one's expectations and desires. He was no mystical dreamer but a very practical man of affairs...." Perhaps there was no better man for the job. But what about the mysterious Eddy brothers themselves? What type of men were they? Sketchy records indicate they were descended from a long line of psychics.