FtV – A Haunted House in Portsmouth
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Welcome, legendary listeners. Thanks for tuning in to From the Vault, a second look at some of our classic episodes. Look for a new episode every week. Now, can you go back and listen on your own at OurNewEnglandLegends.com? You bet. But you won't get the added bonus of an After the Legends segment featuring new commentary about that episode from your old pals Jeff and Ray. So let's open up the New England Legends Vault and revisit another legendary episode.

Hey kids, welcome to The Vault. We are back in The Vault, going to a haunted house in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. First aired May 6, 2021. Enjoy. All feeling patriotic today, Jeff? Yeah, sure. And this is the perfect song to listen to as we roll up on the historic Oak Glen House on Union Street in Portsmouth, Rhode Island. We're just a bit north of Newport. All right, how so?

Because this house was built by Julia Ward Howe and her husband Samuel back in 1870. It was their summer retreat. Now, after Samuel died in 1876, this became Julia's permanent residence right up until her death in 1910. And Julia Ward Howe, of course, wrote the song The Battle Hymn of the Republic.

She did. She wrote the words to the song and then said it to the music of the abolitionist song, John Brown's Body. So is she haunting the Oak Glen house or something? Yeah, you know, I'm not sure about that. In fact, the Oak Glen house isn't even our destination today. It's just our starting point. But somewhere nearby, we're going to find the story of a haunted house with a dark and tragic past. ♪

Hi, I'm Jeff Belanger. And I'm Ray Ogier. Welcome to episode 194 of the New England Legends podcast. If you give us about 10 minutes, we'll give you something strange to talk about today. Portsmouth, Rhode Island is the next stop on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England, one story at a time. We're a community of legend seekers who love sharing stories through this podcast, through our super secret Facebook group, which, by the way, is now more than 3,000 people strong. Wow.

Through my ongoing story tour, you can find the dates and links on our website, and through the New England Legends television series that you can watch right now on Amazon Prime. All right, now, before we go searching for this haunted house, we just want to take a minute to tell you about our sponsor, Nuwadi Herbals. Yes, indeed. So, summer is coming, and I have an insatiable sweet tooth. Well, me too, and the struggle...

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Okay, Ray, take one last look at the Oak Glen House here in Portsmouth, because as I said earlier, this is not our destination. All right, got it. So where are we going? We're going to have to estimate our destination. But I can tell you we're close, within half a mile. We just need to figure out which direction. All right, what do we have to go on? I dug up this story in the newspaper archives. It's from the August 20, 1887 Newport Mercury newspaper, and I love the opening. It says...

Haunted houses are going out of fashion these days, and one rarely hears about them. But here in Newport, where the aspect of life is modern to the most extreme degree, there's another side which is older, mustier, more in the shadow of the past than any corner of this great country that I have ever seen. Man, that is a great opening. Right? I guess in 1887, haunted houses were out of fashion, but not today. No, not today at all. So the article continues, and this is where we get our clue as to the location.

Not half a mile from Oak Glen is an unfrequented side road leading from one crossroad to another, and on this rough little traveled thoroughfare stands a veritable haunted house. It is an old-fashioned two-story building of that wonderful gray color which unpainted wood soon acquires in this climate.

A color which harmonizes with the gray and gnarled trunks of the queer old apple trees, so crooked and torturously twisted that when one comes suddenly upon an orchard of them, like that which grows near the haunted house, one is startled. That's pretty poetic. Yeah. Newspapers don't write like that anymore. No, I know. Okay, so our clue is less than a half a mile from the Oakland house, if we look at our map.

That's not a big area. It's pretty obvious most of the streets within that half mile are relatively new housing developments. But I do see two farms within that half mile circle. Maybe this farm further up the road used to be an orchard? It's possible. I think we have to accept that the house and even the side road are likely no longer here. But we're close to the spot for sure. Let's head back to 1887, meet this intrepid paranormal reporter, and investigate this haunt. ♪

It's a gray and gloomy, cloudy spring day here on Union Street in Portsmouth. With the exception of the Oak Glen House there in the distance and a couple of farmhouses, there isn't much to see in this rural section of town. There are stone walls over there, and I can see those gnarled apple trees next to a decaying house. That must be the place.

It's got that gray and decrepit look. I'll let our Mercury News reporter continue her description. This curious, nameless tint is seen again in our stone walls, which fence and divide every man's acres from his neighbors and from the high roads.

and on certain of our gray days the whole atmosphere and face of nature seems steeped in an ashen-faced monotone sky and sea and landscape all tuned to the key of color which the old house keeps even on the sunniest july day it stands so close to the road that one easily sees in passing its dilapidated condition

"'The windows hardly contain an unbroken pane of glass. "'The chimneys are encrusted with a thick grey mould, "'and little tufts of ferns and weeds hang pendulous from the gutters under the eaves. "'The great solemn trees which stand between it and the road "'stretch out their shady branches and throw their heavy shadow on the house, "'and the bushes and underbrush have grown about with a luxuriance "'rarely seen in the poor soil of this part of Newport.'

It's as if the very vines and climbing weeds strove to mask the ruined windows and what they might show. A friend of this reporter recently took an interest in the property. He figured a coat of paint, clean up the weeds and vines, fix the broken windows, and put up some new curtains. It really wouldn't cost much money to turn this place into a nice little property for someone and put to rest any talk of ghosts and hauntings.

This friend asks around about purchasing or even renting the house, but soon learns the house is not for sale, not even for rent. And who would do that? Have this empty, spooky-looking house that you don't want to live in, and you don't even want to sell it, and you don't want to rent it. Not only that, the landowner doesn't even want to talk about this place because it's haunted.

in the course of time i succeeded in getting at some of the stories told concerning it there were the usual sounds of the opening and shutting of doors or carriages driven up to the porch there were lights sometimes seen at night in the windows and shadowy figures guessed at rather than perceived in the corners of the grim old orchard but these tales are always part of the property of a haunted house and had nothing original about them

Finally, I struck rock bottom, after penetrating through layers of loose sand and stones, and learned this singular story. It's here we learn about the last people to live in this house. There was a young carpenter, a guy everyone knew in the area, and he's well-liked. A steady, sober fellow who is good at his job. He falls in love with the daughter of one of the well-off farmers. He's a good man, and he's a good man.

It's a relationship that is not approved by the girl's parents. Still, the two are in love, so against the wishes of her parents, they run off and get married. Star-crossed lovers. It's a tale as old as time. Now, not having much money or support from their families, the two settle into this small house right here. And they're happy. They have each other. They have what they need in this small building. And pretty soon...

Pretty soon, baby makes three. With such a happy young family living here, and considering how much the young carpenter fixed up the house, folks sort of forget about the haunted reputation for a while. But only for a while. Five years pass without much incident. But then, the missus gets a visit from family. One day, the young wife received a visit from her sister who lived nearby, and who asked, after the usual greeting, What visitor have you staying with you?

"'No one. Why do you ask?' answered the carpenter's wife. "'Why, yes,' persisted the other. "'I have seen him at the sitting-room window twice lately as I passed by. An old man with white hair and a long white beard.'" The wife is befuddled at this point. She figures maybe a neighbor stopped by when no one was home, but why would they come in the house uninvited? This would be only the first mention of something out of place, not the last.

Shortly after this conversation, the young woman was dusting the sitting room, her child playing meanwhile in the corner. Suddenly, the little creature threw down its toys and ran to her, saying under its breath, "'I want the old man to go away.' "'There is no old man here,' said the mother. "'Yes, there is,' persisted the child, pointing to an empty corner where the mother could see nothing. "'I want him to go away.'

That night the child was taken ill with the croup, and a week later the carpenter's wife sat alone in a plain black frock beside an empty crib. The couple move out of the house shortly after the death of their child, and the house sits empty. It doesn't take long for the haunted reputation to return as the house begins to weather and fade from a lack of care.

As the drab color blends into the landscape once again, and the vines and weeds return and crawl up the sides of the structure, as if nature's trying to take back what's rightfully hers. Now, locals know that a child died inside, and they know of the haunted reputation. It's more darkness than a humble little house can take, so the house sits empty and rots. And that brings us back to today. ♪

Today, this haunted house is long gone, but we have an idea of where it may have once stood. We got a little help from John at the Portsmouth Library, who was able to find some old maps and historic data on some of the properties along Union Street.

Though we can't say with certainty, we suspect this old house stood in the vicinity of the Lawton-Almy Hall Farm. The farm dates all the way back to 1690, though the main house has had several additions over the decades. There's plenty of stone walls, as we described in the 1887 Mercury News article, but also many outbuildings on the 40-acre property. It would have been common for a farm like this to have some small homes for farmhands.

None of those survive today, but we know this property is located just a little less than a half a mile east of Oak Glen. So it fits the bill. But again, if the house wasn't right here in front of us, it was nearby. When a house is gone, the story quickly fades. It's the nature of these things. But we resurrected this one because we love the language of the old article and the connection it gives us to the old days of Portsmouth. ♪

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I appreciate all the great feedback so far. We'd like to thank our sponsor, New Audio Herbals. We'd like to thank Boston-based voice actor and voiceover artist Lisa Strakowski for lending her voice acting talents this week. And our theme music is by John Judd. Until next time, remember, the bizarre is closer than you think. All right, we'll break it down right after a word from our sponsor.

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I got excited when we first did this because I thought it was Portsmouth, New Hampshire, which I love. I know. I've never been to Portsmouth, Rhode Island, other than this thing when we time... Remember we time traveled and we went there? Right. I remember. I remember. That's the only time. So, yeah, it's a cute town. But this story, I was thinking about it, you know, nothing haunts us like the death of a child. Oh, that's horrible. You know...

you know, if someone like died of natural causes in a house, you could absolutely see yourself to be like, okay, well, I'd still buy the house or live in it potentially or whatever. You know what I mean? Yeah. Peaceful death or whatever. Murder. Okay. Maybe you're a little more macabre. You're going to save some money. Yeah. And you'd be like, all right, well, it's, you know, we'll get it like blessed or something, right? Death of a child. Yeah.

Yeah, I think it's automatically haunted at that point. Well, because nothing's worse. There's nothing worse than the death of a child. Right. That's it. Old people are supposed to die. An unfulfilled life. Yep. The child might be left behind. All the potential that didn't happen is gone.

You know? And in fact, like, I mean, I've known some people that have lost children and they'll tell you that this is, it's a cliche, but it's completely true. If you lose a spouse, you're a widow or a widower, right? That's, that's, there's a term for that. If you're a child who loses their parents, you're an orphan. Yeah. There is no word.

for a parent who loses a child. I don't think it's worth making, you know, putting a word together for that because it's the worst thing in the world. There's nothing worse. Why even name it? Yep. There's no term for that thing. And that is really powerful. And so, yes, it haunts us. It should haunt us. We've got to protect the kids. That's, you know, job one. Mm-hmm.

That's the most unforgivable crime. When you hear someone murdered someone, you're like, they might have had their reasons. You know what I mean? It's not right. I'm not condoning it. I'm not judging just yet. Tell me the story. Yeah, but when a child dies, you're like, how could we have prevented that? Whatever it was, whether it was an illness or an accident or whatever.

a dangerous intersection, whatever it was, you're like, oh, what could we have done to make sure this doesn't happen again? Well, there's an innocence to it, right? Yeah. Whereas adults killing each other, it's like, well, tell me the story first. Right. Oh, that's right. The age of Froot Loops. Yeah. I get it. Fair enough. Yeah, you were hungry and upset. But yeah, a child, there's no reason

Yeah, and then the house goes away. But if you know the story, like that's the grounds can even sort of, and we even admitted it in the episode. We know roughly where the house was. Right. But not exactly. And, you know, just going from the newspaper clips and stuff like that. But yeah, it's one of those stories where you're just like,

yeah, I don't want to move into that house. Yeah, and like you said, when you hear that story and you know the story, it automatically becomes haunted. So you could be driving by and feel like you can sense something there because you know the story. Yeah, yeah. And it's such a strong story. And anyone who thinks that maybe you're just full of it or whatever, ever drive by a little memorial where a kid died and there's pictures and there's flowers and teddy bears? Yeah. Oh my God, tell me your guts aren't ripped out. Oh, it's horrible. Every time you're just like, oh, right. I mean, yeah.

And so, yeah, imagine that. It's just like that. Same sort of feeling where you're like, ah, child lost their life right here. And that, of course, will haunt us. And that's part of the nature of why we share these stories, right? Like if you get haunted by the past, you get reminded like, hey, you know, we don't all make it out alive. And none of us do, right? But what can we do, right? What can we do to make the world better, safer? How do we live in the moment knowing that this could be our fate forever?

Life is so unexpected too, that you can never prevent everything a hundred percent. No. You can baby proof your house, but it's just not enough. We've all been there. We've done it. Yeah. Put the things on the corners. Yeah. Oh gosh. Now they do it for me. Right. As you get older. Getting older, falling, tripping all the time. Getting clumsy. Oh, there's Ray. Oh, we did talk about putting mats on the stairs because we, I, I fell up the stairs the other day.

As did Molly, too. I fell down a couple months ago, and I fell up, and then she fell up. Not easy to do. No, it's not. Yeah. Congratulations. It's horrible, though, because you just imagine your chin. Oh, right. You fall up, and your chin hits the... My sister was walking upstairs once, and it was a cold, rainy day, and she had on a long coat with her hands in her pockets. Oh, no.

Oh, no. Yeah. And she lost a tooth. She had blood on the face. Like, yeah, she just did a face plant because her hands were stuck in her pockets. Yeah.

she couldn't get them out. I'm like, "Oof." So, but my sister's pretty klutzy. She'd be the first to tell you. Yeah. We always called her a klutz. Do you fall a lot? No, I'm not much of a faller. Good for you. I'm pretty sure-footed. I'm short though, so it's less of a fall for me. Yeah. Yeah, which is nice. Nope, I'm pretty good about not falling over in general. Yeah, no, I've been all right. But yeah, but Portsmouth is a cute town, and

And this is one of the stories too, because the house is gone, a lot of locals probably don't even know it. Right. Right. It's a, and why would you, right? If it's a house that's been gone for, you know, literally a century. Yeah. More, more than a century. You know, you wouldn't pay it much mind, but, but you think about that. I think about that when, whenever we're like researching a haunt, you know, it's not just what's there now, but what was there before. Yeah. Like you go back as far as you possibly can, you know? And, and so who knows, maybe some housing development comes in.

And then what's next? This is a story I'm pretty sure I've told it before, but Danvers State Hospital up in Danvers, Massachusetts was one of these old huge Kirkbride asylums. There's a decent horror movie called Session Nine that was filmed there before the buildings were taken down. It's pretty good horror. It was not a huge blockbuster mainstream movie, but if you find it, good scare, right? Apparently some weird stuff happened during filming and they couldn't explain it.

So, anyway, so state hospital, they're almost all haunted anyway. They tore just about all of it down and they put up condos. And so I remember I was giving a talk up in that area, not Danvers, but like the next town over.

And I said, yeah. People are like, what about Danvers State Hospital? I'm like, yeah, really haunted. Session nine. But they tore it down. And now it's all condos. And this one guy's hand sheepishly goes up. And he's like, I live in one of those condos. And we're like, is it haunted? What did he say? He said, no, but now I'm going to look. So yeah, because you think, well, this place is literally six months old. It's brand new. It can't be haunted. But then you go, what's buried beneath, though? You've got to remember. What's underneath? Yeah.

- Yeah, I know. So in old town San Diego, there's a place called the Whaley House, which is, they sell the t-shirt America's Most Haunted House, which is, by the way, I can name you a dozen other places that sell the same t-shirt and it's not there. But Thomas Whaley built this house on this corner lot. It was a house, a courtroom, a store. He lived there, he leased space to the court and it was a store.

And he built it on land that was literally the gallows. Oh, yeah. He watched a guy named Yankee Jim Robinson get hanged for borrowing a boat. He returned it. Yeah, yeah. But they were going to make an example of him. And literally, when they were bringing him up to the gallows to put the rope around his neck, he still thought, you're just trying to teach me a lesson and make a show of this. But then they pulled the door. And the problem is, he was so tall, the rope was too long.

And so he strangled to death. Oh, I thought he just fell to the floor. No, no, no. It was just too long that his neck didn't snap. Oh, I get you. Which is horrible, which means you're going to just strangle to death over minutes and minutes and minutes instead of like an instant death. And he watched it happen. That was like the year before. Whaley builds the house. And then on day one, he wrote, like he heard these bootstops.

Right? Coming up the stairs. And he said, I think that's old Yankee Jim, who I watched die right here on this land. So one week into a brand new construction, he writes that the place is haunted. And then there were lots of other stories and so on. So it's not the house. It's not the building. It's not the structure. It's the area. It's the property. Well, as we know from Star Wars, there's always prequels. Yeah.

That's true, yeah. There's always something that happened before the thing. You just know what happened when you walked in. Well, there was something here before that. Before that, there was the gals. But it doesn't get demolished with the demolishing of the original building. Not necessarily. Not necessarily. And somehow that's how haunts work. It's a multi-layered sort of lingering sort of thing. It's complicated. It always has been, and I think it always will be.