Slightly Odd Fitchburg

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! Now, to be fair, these are all "know a guy who knows a guy who knows a guy" stories. I can't verify a single one. Still, DID YOU KNOW Leominster has a haunted park? Leominster, Massachusetts, holds tales of the supernatural, particularly in Barrett Park , where fellers and fellettes whisper of two spirits said to haunt the area. The most well-known is the “Lady in White,” believed to be the ghost of a woman who drowned in the park's pond in the early 1900s. Witnesses describe seeing her spectral figure wandering the water’s edge at dusk, her flowing white dress glowing faintly in the twilight. Some claim she appears to be searching for something, or someone, lost to the depths. An...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW there’s a Christmas ghost of Route 2A ? Yeah, so, the stretch of Route 2A between Acton and Concord already feels like the kind of place where a ghost might wander out of sheer boredom, but every December it becomes home to a haunting that locals mention. They call him the Christmas Ghost of 2A, though older residents still prefer the name Lantern Man , as if giving him a title makes him easier to live with. The story traces back to the 1920s, when a traveling tinsmith named Elias Cutter vanished during a Christmas Eve snowstorm. He’d been walking the long road between towns, carrying a lantern he’d crafted himself, the sort of sturdy handiwork that could survive anything except, apparen...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchbur ! Now onto the odd story! DID YOU KNOW the human soul was discovered right in Haverhill, Massachusetts ? Well, as long as you cross your eyes and squint hard enough, anyway. Dr. Duncan MacDougall was his name, and soul searching was his game! He set out to document the weight of the human soul back in 1901 , and his results have been a part of the public consciousness ever since. Duncan’s method was simple. He found six nursing home patients on the verge of death and put them on scales to measure their body weights at the moment of their expiration. His theory was that they would lose weight as their souls left their bodies and his results were, well, mixed. Four were suffering from tuberculosis , one from diabetes , and one from un...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchbur ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW the Chelsea Soldiers' Home is haunted? Yeah, so, the Chelsea Soldiers’ Home has the sort of quiet that doesn’t feel entirely empty, the kind that settles in old military buildings where too many men once waited for news that never came. Staff have been reporting oddities there for decades, long before ghost hunters started showing up with gadgets that beep at dust. Nurses talk about footsteps in the hall after lights out, steady and purposeful, the way a man walks when he’s spent a lifetime following orders. They check, of course, because that’s what you do, and find nothing but the long corridor stretching ahead like it’s holding its breath. One orderly swore he saw a figure in a World Wa...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW there's a hitchhiking ghost in Maine called The Girl in the Snow? Yeah, so if you’ve ever driven Route 2A through Haynesville Woods in northern Maine during the dead of winter, you know the kind of road we’re talking about here. They’re narrow, twisting, hemmed in by skeletal trees and just waiting for the next accident. It’s the sort of place where headlights feel more like flashlights in a cave than actual illumination. If you happen to be on this road in the winter, you might just meet the hitchhiker ghost that’s been terrifying truckers and travelers since the 1960s. The legend goes like that, on icy nights when the snow is blowing sideways and the thermometer has given up entirely, dri...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story!   DID YOU KNOW that Pittsfield, Massachusetts has a ghost train? Back in 1958, a guy by the name of John Quirk was in the Bridge Diner which sat right next to train tracks. He was just minding his own business when a phantom train drove right by the place. He got a good look at it and told people it had five or six coaches, a baggage car, and a tender with coal in it. The same thing happened one month later at 6:30am and he contacted railway officials about it. They looked into what happened, since they had no idea why a steam engine was using their tracks and confirmed that a train running on coal hadn’t operated on them for many years. The whole thing played out again a few months later, and the ...

Frostbite takes hold in fewer than 5 minutes. Numbness grips your limbs. Pins and needles race over your skin. Ice crystals form on your body. Your muscles stiffen. Your joints stop working. Your face turns white, then waxy, then hard. That’s what the cold does to you and the cold is New England. You can’t separate them. When a tourist comes in with smiles and words, you don’t have time for it. They get to leave and go back to the warmth. You, the New Englander, live in the cold . Do you really have to wonder why there are so many ghost stories to be told? Up in northern Maine , on the outskirts of Haynesville, there’s a stretch of road so lonely that it’s only named Route 2A. This is the extreme north of Maine in a forgotten piece of the United States that’s so distant from the rest that it gets its electricity from Canada. Not that it needs much power, though. The population of Haynesville, Maine is only 97 and it’s not set to increase anytime soon. There was a time, however, when th...

Watch the video above or read the article below! This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW that Newport, Rhode Island is home to a Christmas ghost? In the late 19th century, the Beechwood Mansion was a luxurious mansion, frequented by the elite during the Gilded Age, so the fanciest people of the fanciest time. One Christmas Eve, a maid named Abigail was found dead in one of the grand halls. Rumors swirled that she had been pushed from the staircase by a jealous lover, though her death was officially ruled an accident. Fancy people in a fancy time rarely get prosecuted. Anyway, since that fateful night, guests and staff at the Beechwood Mansion have reported strange occurrences every Christmas season. The scent of Abigai...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW the USS Salem is hella haunted? Commissioned in 1949 as a heavy cruiser for the U.S. Navy, the USS Salem wasn’t just any ship. It was the flagship of the Sixth Fleet which is, you know, fancy. This 717-foot-long hunk of ship patrolled the Mediterranean during the Cold War. Although the Salem never saw combat, it had its fair share of dark moments. It served as a floating hospital for victims of a devastating 1953 earthquake in Greece. Hundreds of wounded and deceased were brought aboard, beginning a spectral legacy that ghost hunters just can’t ignore. The ship was decommissioned in 1959, but its story was far from over. In 1994, it became a museum, and that’s when the weirdness began. Visi...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the haunting story! DID YOU KNOW that Georges Island has a Civil War ghost? Yeah, so on a cold December night during the Civil War (the one where the blues fought the greys), Fort Warren on Georges Island became the setting for a tragic ghost story with some light crossdressing thrown in. The tale goes that Melanie Lanier , the wife of a Confederate soldier imprisoned there, disguised herself as a man and snuck onto the island to free her husband. Unfortunately, her plan was foiled, and she was captured. She probably stuck out as the only man who didn't smell like rat urine and sepsis.  Anyway, the legend says Melanie was sentenced to death by hanging, still wearing the black mourning dress she was forced to cha...

This post was originally shared as a Facebook and Instagram "DID YOU KNOW" post. I share them and you can get in on the fun by liking my page at  Facebook.com/TheNewSlightlyOddFitchburg  and following me at  Instagram.com/SlightlyOddFitchburg ! Now onto the sad story! DID YOU KNOW that Ruth Blay was the last woman hanged in New Hampshire?   Say hello to Ruth Blay. She was the last woman to be hanged in New Hampshire and all she did was give birth to a stillborn child out of wedlock. There’s a lot going on here, so I’d like to talk in more detail later, but here’s a quick rundown:   Ruth Blay was a teacher and seamstress in 18th-century New Hampshire. She was born on June 10, 1737, and remained unmarried into her 30s. That would turn out to be a very bad thing for her.   She came down with a severe case of being pregnant in late 1767, which was a taboo thing for an unwed woman to do back in olde timey days. She continued to teach and carry on with her life u...

Welcome to this month’s patron exclusive post ! If you’re anything like me, you’ve already learned something new in the title, and there’s plenty more! Portsmouth, New Hampshire History Portsmouth, New Hampshire was first explored in 1603 and found to be home to a natural harbor that would allow big ships to use as well, a port. It was incorporated as a town in 1653 and given the name “Portsmouth”, but not for the reason you think. You see, it wasn’t given that name because it was a port, oh no. It was given that name in honor of the colony’s founder, John Mason. You know, John Mason, Portsmouth, makes sense, right? No? Oh yeah, that doesn’t make any sense. Wait, hold on, here it is! You see, John Mason used to be the captain of the English port of Portsmouth, Hampshire, England! Now it’s all coming together. They named the new town after his old workplace! It also turns out that ports have captains! You really do learn something new every day. Like, just yesterday, I learned that...

  Watch the video above or read it in article form below! Fitch Bits: The Gloucester Sea Serpent DID YOU KNOW that Gloucester, Massachusetts has its own sea serpent cryptid? The waters around Gloucester and Cape Ann are said to be home to a 60 foot long, serpent-like creature with the head of a turtle! These sightings have been going on for many years, with the first occurring in the 17 th century. In 1638, just 18 years after the pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock , a feller name o’ John Josselyn made the earliest sighting. If you don’t know who that is, well, you’re not alone, but he was well-known in his time. He was a traveler to New England, and he wrote about what he saw and heard “with credulity.” Then there were a few hundred years’ worth of additional sightings, with the creature’s highest activity being recorded in the years between 1817 and 1819. These sightings were reported by fishermen and sailors with the descriptions always being pretty much the same. Sometim...