The voices grew quiet, and she found no sign that other living beings had been there that night.
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SPELLBOUND MUSEUM
190 Essex Street
Salem, MA 01941
(978) 745-0138
Web site: www.spellboundtours.com
Evil Avoided
While hunting for ghosts, I not only found my roots but discovered an enemy.
If Cotton Mather had had his way, I would not be here today. Not only did the self-righteous Puritan oppose Margaret Rule, from my father’s side of the family, he proposed selling my ancestors on my mother’s side into slavery.
William Penn first landed in Old New Castle, Delaware, near the site of this dock. When I stood on this dock, I had a profound sense of connection with the area but did not yet know that my great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather Thomas Stackhouse had been herewith William Penn. Not only did Cotton Mather want to execute my relative, Margaret Rule, but he also wished to sell William Penn and my ancestor into slavery. (Leslie Rule)
My great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather, Thomas Stackhouse, traveled here via ship with William Penn in 1682. When Cotton Mather heard that twenty-three ships carrying Quakers were on their way from England, he proposed kidnapping the passengers and selling them into slavery. His bright idea came a decade before he stirred up the Massachusetts witch controversy.
But destiny had its own plan. Both the Stackhouse and the Rule lines survived, and here I am, seven generations later, researching the ghosts of those who died at the hands of Cotton Mather.
“I wonder how many people he killed?” said my mother, Ann Stackhouse Rule, as she pondered the evil deeds of the Boston minister.
I have walked the paths that Mr. Mather walked, and have spoken to those who have encountered the ghosts of his victims. I’ve stood on the dock in Old New Castle, Delaware, where William Penn and my ancestor arrived on October 27, 1682.
It is here, on the Delaware River, where headless apparitions have been witnessed. I did not see the ghosts, believed to be Dutch soldiers, but could almost hear the sound of their whispering beneath the rush of the waves.
History’s harsh lessons and the ghosts they have wrought make me acutely aware of the fragility of life. From the murder of accused witch Bridget Bishop in Salem to Quaker Mary Dyer hanged on the Boston Common, the deaths were cruel and ugly.
While the unjust killings silenced the heartbeat, they did not stop the spirit.
Survivors carry family names. Ghosts still wander their old homesteads. And, despite Cotton Mather’s objections, William Penn founded Pennsylvania.
Cotton Mather is buried in Boston’s Copps Hill Burying Ground. I won’t be putting flowers on his grave.
five
The Enemy Within
When I stayed at the Heathman Hotel in Portland, Oregon, in 2001, I did not ask for a haunted room. In fact, I did not yet know the hotel was haunted.
I had checked in to meet with Diana Jordan, who has a syndicated radio program called Between the Lines.
My first ghost book, Coast to Coast Ghosts: True Stories of Hauntings Across America, had just come out, and she had scheduled an interview.
My room was 702. I thought it odd when the bedside lamp turned itself off and on but figured it was just a short in the wiring.
Diana taped the interview in my room and picked up a background static that was so bad that she almost couldn’t air it.
“I decided to use it and play up the fact that the disturbance might be from the hotel’s ghost,” she told me.
We had learned that it was common knowledge among the hotel staff that all of the rooms ending with two were haunted.
I soon discovered why when I searched Portland’s newspaper archives. In December 1965, a man who had worked long years at a nearby restaurant had been promised a promotion when new management took over the business. Instead, he was fired.
Devastated, he went to the top of the Heathman and jumped to his death.
My guess is that his fall took him past the row of windows that belonged to the rooms ending in two.
One of the saddest things about suicide is the fact that depressed folks don’t have to suffer or die.
Not anymore.
Chemists have figured out how to balance the human brain so that many who are depressed can feel calm and hopeful again. All types of drugs are now available, and with a little patience and persistence, those who suffer from mental anguish often can find the medication to set their brain chemistry right.
Depression is not a weakness. It is a physical imbalance in the brain that affects millions of people. The medicine helps makes the depressed person’s brain function as it is supposed to.
When they are in the grips of depression, however, people cannot believe that they will ever feel better. Some take drastic measures, and sadly, find themselves forever trapped in the gloom.