Ghosts of the SouthCoast Read Online Free Page B
Author: Tim Weisberg
when it was built by Isaac Bump and his family. Israel Fearing later took ownership and added another portion to the building in 1765, and it remained in his family for hundreds of years. During its long history, the sixteen-room Fearing Tavern has served as a tavern, courthouse, town hall, post office, private residence and is now a museum housing a collection of antiques from the seventeenth, eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
Warehamâs Fearing Tavern has a mysterious past as well as a haunting present.
As a Wareham resident and host of a paranormal radio show, I was able to convince the townâs historical society to allow myself and some colleagues the opportunity to conduct a paranormal investigation of the tavern, the first time it had ever been done. We had heard stories about a ghostly woman seen sitting in a rocking chair by schoolchildren on a tour, but we mainly wanted the chance to investigate it because of its long and rich history.
I had an opportunity to talk with one of the last residents to live in the tavern before it was turned over to the town in the 1950s. He told me that when he lived there with his family as a child, it was just like any other house in town. He had indoor plumbing, electricity and all the other modern amenities of the time. However, in 1958, the historical society restored it to its original colonial condition, and it remains so today.
There are two unique features to the tavern that are a prominent if unsolved part of its history. The first is a hidden room wedged between two bedrooms on the second floor, and the other is that two black bands are painted around its dual white chimneys and have been since colonial times. Many historians believe that the black bands were a sign that the ownerswere loyal to the British crown during the Revolution, and the hidden room was used to hide Redcoats from the militia. The other school of thought is that the black bands indicated that the home was part of the Underground Railroad in the 1800s, and that the hidden room was used to house escaped slaves en route to Canada.
In my research, I found at least one other home less than a mile from the tavern that had a similar hidden room, this one in the basement. The owners of that particular home had passed down a story of its use as part of the Underground Railroad, as the home had not been built in the time of the Revolution.
Adding to the legend is the rumor of a hidden tunnel under the foundation of the tavern that leads under the street and comes out under the Tremont Nail factory across the way. During the early part of Warehamâs history, a cotton mill stood on the site of the current nail factory, right along the shore. Historians speculate that aside from Loyalist or Underground Railroad implications, such a tunnel might have also been used to carry goods back and forth from the tavern to the water.
It is this rumored tunnel that led to one of the more frightening pieces of evidence of the paranormal Iâve ever experienced. In our investigation of the tavern, we brought along our good friend and EVP specialist Mike Markowicz. EVP is an acronym that stands for electronic voice phenomena, when ghosts can imprint their own voices on audio recordings through manipulation of energy. These voices are not audible during the course of the investigation but are discovered later upon review of the tapes.
Mike has his own unique system of conducting EVP research, and it includes using ten condenser microphones (like you would find in our radio studio) strategically located throughout the location, tied into one central mixing board and then recorded digitally on a laptop. With his ultrasensitive and high-end equipment, itâs not uncommon for Mike to leave a location with dozens of solid EVPs, while other investigators using hand-held recorders might be lucky to come across one or two prime examples in their entire career. It was with this equipment that Mike captured a
Warehamâs Fearing Tavern has a mysterious past as well as a haunting present.
As a Wareham resident and host of a paranormal radio show, I was able to convince the townâs historical society to allow myself and some colleagues the opportunity to conduct a paranormal investigation of the tavern, the first time it had ever been done. We had heard stories about a ghostly woman seen sitting in a rocking chair by schoolchildren on a tour, but we mainly wanted the chance to investigate it because of its long and rich history.
I had an opportunity to talk with one of the last residents to live in the tavern before it was turned over to the town in the 1950s. He told me that when he lived there with his family as a child, it was just like any other house in town. He had indoor plumbing, electricity and all the other modern amenities of the time. However, in 1958, the historical society restored it to its original colonial condition, and it remains so today.
There are two unique features to the tavern that are a prominent if unsolved part of its history. The first is a hidden room wedged between two bedrooms on the second floor, and the other is that two black bands are painted around its dual white chimneys and have been since colonial times. Many historians believe that the black bands were a sign that the ownerswere loyal to the British crown during the Revolution, and the hidden room was used to hide Redcoats from the militia. The other school of thought is that the black bands indicated that the home was part of the Underground Railroad in the 1800s, and that the hidden room was used to house escaped slaves en route to Canada.
In my research, I found at least one other home less than a mile from the tavern that had a similar hidden room, this one in the basement. The owners of that particular home had passed down a story of its use as part of the Underground Railroad, as the home had not been built in the time of the Revolution.
Adding to the legend is the rumor of a hidden tunnel under the foundation of the tavern that leads under the street and comes out under the Tremont Nail factory across the way. During the early part of Warehamâs history, a cotton mill stood on the site of the current nail factory, right along the shore. Historians speculate that aside from Loyalist or Underground Railroad implications, such a tunnel might have also been used to carry goods back and forth from the tavern to the water.
It is this rumored tunnel that led to one of the more frightening pieces of evidence of the paranormal Iâve ever experienced. In our investigation of the tavern, we brought along our good friend and EVP specialist Mike Markowicz. EVP is an acronym that stands for electronic voice phenomena, when ghosts can imprint their own voices on audio recordings through manipulation of energy. These voices are not audible during the course of the investigation but are discovered later upon review of the tapes.
Mike has his own unique system of conducting EVP research, and it includes using ten condenser microphones (like you would find in our radio studio) strategically located throughout the location, tied into one central mixing board and then recorded digitally on a laptop. With his ultrasensitive and high-end equipment, itâs not uncommon for Mike to leave a location with dozens of solid EVPs, while other investigators using hand-held recorders might be lucky to come across one or two prime examples in their entire career. It was with this equipment that Mike captured a
Readers choose
J W Rocque
Timothy Zahn
Julia Crane
Jenn McKinlay
Tina Leonard
Edward Eager
Laird Barron
Graham Hurley
Anne Hampson
Arthur Koestler