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October 31st is traditionally called “Halloween,” a time set aside to honor those who no longer live with us. Of course, special honor has always been paid to the Saints (AKA “Halloes”), as well as to other martyrs and devotees who have gone before us, but other deaths should not be ignored. As the doors to the next world would open that day, perhaps less enlightened spirits might wish a return to their once-familiar earthly lairs.
Disguise may be advisable for the living if these spirits want to harm us. (Hence the costumes associated with Halloween.) Being kidnapped and taken to “another world” seems like something best avoided.
I would like to tell an October Halloween tale by observing the last day of that month. It is a story of restless spirits and the living who have spoken of their return. The story is fundamentally true, although it certainly cannot be verified in its entirety. I’ve been asked to recount it several times over the years, even repeating it as a podcast for The Day newspaper with Lee Howard on March 10, 2018. (“Day Paper Podcast: Nazi Spy in our Midst,” always available online.)
This story begins on a beautiful October day not too long ago at the Smith Harris House City Museum in East Lyme. (More recently renamed “Brookside Farms.”) Preparations were underway for the annual “Heritage Weekend,” scheduled for mid-month. Two women worked in the house, once again making the 1845 Greek Revival house presentable for this popular and highly anticipated annual event. Suddenly they stopped what they were doing when they heard a terrifying sound. What was that? It was unlike anything they had ever heard before. It seemed to come from somewhere inside the old house, perhaps from an upstairs bedroom, and with one woman grabbing her wallet and the other her coat, both quickly made their way out of the building.
Later that year, as preparations for the annual Christmas program were underway, the same happened again. Another woman was working alone in the house and after hearing a similar blood-curdling noise, locked herself in the upstairs kitchen. There she telephoned a friend, saying she thought the creepy sound she had heard was coming from the hallway of the master bedroom. She was advised to flee the building, which she did in haste.
As was the case with the previous two women, it would be some time before enough courage could be mustered to handle a comeback.
All three witnesses said the sound sounded like a woman’s cry, a long, prolonged moan, the sound of a tormented soul. At the very least, they agreed that it was a disturbing noise and something very out of the ordinary.
Members of the Smith-Harris Commission and the Friends of the Smith-Harris House reflected on this strange event. What was making this disturbing noise? Squirrels? Bats? Wind-blown tree branches scratching against the side of the house?
Was it the wind trying to force its way through the old walls? Or was it perhaps a paranormal event?
After checking the most logical explanations without success, we decided to consider this last idea. My son, Kevin Littlefield, suggested that we contact a friend of his who was involved in paranormal investigation and research. His name… Ed Bird.
Ed Bird is a founding member of a group called The Regional Investigators of the Paranormal, or RIP, for short. The group at the time consisted of four main members, but could expand to more than twice that number depending on the difficulty of the task.
We were told that there were 30 or 40 other such groups operating in the state of Connecticut and thousands more operating across the country. For the past six years, they said, their group has worked primarily in the New London County area.
The group members came from all walks of life … there was a banker, a baker, shopkeepers, a private investigator, to name a few. Ed Bird was a baker at Tri-Town Foods in Flanders at the time. All of the members had one thing in common: a burning desire to investigate and learn more about paranormal activity.
We have accepted that these “ghostbusters” come to pay us a little visit. They were eager to accept our offer, as they felt it was paranormal activity that was at the heart of the disturbing rumors.
“Spirits (ghosts) stay on earth when their natural life is cut short or tragedy occurs,” Ed recounted. They wait for a “remake,” a different outcome, before they finally come through. We have discovered over the years that these spirits become more active when threatened with changes in their immediate environment. That’s why this noise was heard by the workers just as you were getting ready to do your public programs, ”explained Ed Bird.
The group arrived at Smith-Harris House with great fanfare. Their cars had “RIP” signs on the doors and they carried a surprising array of sophisticated equipment with them. Cameras with infrared light, a sensitive real-time tape recorder called EVP, a K-2 meter for measuring electrical energy, computers and mixers, and a space-age gadget that projected a beam of red light to record the ambient temperature. They took their gear upstairs to the master bedroom where the noise was supposed to be coming from and started working. What they would find was simply extraordinary in our opinion.
Now there is another part of this story that needs to be told here. It is a more concrete piece, an archaeological piece to be more exact. It was the discovery of a blue spectacle glass that my anthropology class had found on this same property earlier while we were doing a dig there.
It was a rather odd artifact, discovered while the class was processing a “bed” or area that the family who lived there had once used for garbage.
The artifact was small, rather delicate, and oval in shape. It felt like something a woman could have worn. The corresponding lenses and frames have never been found.
However, this artifact was one of hundreds that had been discovered, cleaned up and cataloged. Research on this only came later and happened quite by accident, when a Civil War actor at a domestic event began to share with us his knowledge of colored spectacle lenses and the role they once played in the past.
Nineteenth-century physicians, he said, believed that tinted spectacle lenses exposed the body to helpful sunlight that relieved certain medical conditions. Yellow lenses, he said, were often prescribed for people with venereal disease. Rose-colored glasses treated depression as they were thought to have a calming effect on the brain (the phrase “looking at the world through rose-colored glasses” remains with us.) Blue was yet another color that glasses could be. tinted to relieve human suffering. Blue spectacle lenses, we were told, HAVE BEEN PRESCRIBED BY DOCTORS FOR MADNESS!
Let us return to the investigation conducted by RIP at Smith-Harris House. After setting up their equipment, the members of this paranormal group sat quietly together in the upstairs bedroom. With the tape recorder in the “on” position and the K-2 meter searching for electrical power, a red beam could be seen scanning the far reaches of the dark room for hot or cold spots. This continued for a while.
The silence was finally broken when a female member of the group announced, “I can sense the presence of two women in this room. Mother and daughter, maybe. The mother is quite young, ”she added. The room then fell silent again as RIP investigators remained silent for an additional 15-20 minutes.
The lights were finally on and the machines were turned off. Ed Bird then drew attention to the tape recorder in front of him. He said it was a very sensitive instrument that often picked up sounds that the human ear had missed. Most couldn’t hear anything when he started playing it back, but Ed continued to listen intently. Finally, turning off the machine, he asked this question based on something he said he detected. “Has there ever been a girl named ‘Sarah’ living here? No one in the room at the time could offer an informed answer.
Later, however, while going through the documented history of the Smith-Harris House, it was discovered that the original owners of the house, Thomas and Elizabeth Avery, had lived there with their two sons, William and Charles, and a daughter. youngest named SARAH Elisabeth. Tragically, the girl fell ill and died at the age of 2.
To add to the family grief, the young mother would soon follow the daughter to death. The mother was only 29 years old.
We wondered how Ms. Avery met her end as nothing specific about her death appeared in the historical record. Did she die of a broken heart? Has this woman perhaps gone mad, forcing her family doctor to prescribe blue-tinted spectacle lenses for her? In her grief, did she commit suicide?
Whatever tragedy befell this person, it most likely occurred in the master bedroom on the second floor where these sounds were heard and where the investigation was conducted. Was it the lamentations of Elizabeth Avery, a woman perhaps unable to cope with the loss of her child and despite the many years that have passed, continues to cry out for a “remake”, a very different outcome from the unhappy life had sent her?
Jim Littlefield is a retired East Lyme history teacher who has written two local history books and two historical novels. His columns can also be found in the Post Road Review.
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