Haunted Schoolhouse in Newburyport
Did the School on Charles Street Really Have a Ghost? Was it a Hoax?
Jul 9, 2007
The schoolhouse was a small drab building, appearing desolate with marred weatherboards, broken fence and bare yard. The classroom and entry way were stuffy. There were no closets. There were no mirrors and no place to create echoes. It was an ordinary simple schoolhouse. It was a boy’s primary school in a New England small town seaport and Miss Lucy Perkins was the teacher. Rumor or truth had it that a pupil was beaten and heaved into the cellar in the 1850s.
Eerie Happenings in Newberryport Schoolhouse
- In 1870, people became aware of strange things occurring in the Charles Street schoolhouse, including
- A loud knocking sound would begin on the floor while the boys were reciting their prayers. It would resonant from the wall, then near Perkins’ deck.
- Knockings on the outer door, but no one would be there.
- The stove in front the of pupil’s desks. Sometimes, the lid would be lifted off of the stove, suspended in air, then lowered in place. Finally, the custodian refused to enter the building if he was alone. The weird things got to be too much for him. He would often find the stove was moved and its utensils and fuel, scattered.
- One of the bells on Perkins’ desk would ring by unseen hands. The wooden ventilation valve in the attic would be open or shut without human hands.
- Sometimes the room was filled with an eerie yellow glow. During the darkness of storms, the room would be illuminated by a soft light. The building was buffeted when there were no gusts of wind.
School Board Investigates Haunted Schoolhouse
Perkins was thoroughly examined and cross-examined. The students were threatened and bribed to no avail. It was said the Oliver Wendell Holmes tried to bribe Amos Currier to confess to a hoax, but this did not work. The papers publicized all of the events. Loring of Boston published a pamphlet about these.
Some people wanted to close the school down and, perhaps, demolish it. Others took their boys out of the school. The phenomena ceased in 1875. It remained a school for years until it was reconstructed into a house. The homeowner, in the 1970s, said nothing strange happened while he lived there.
Years later, Amos Currier claimed he was responsible for the phenomena and it was a hoax.
Newberryport Schoolhouse - Haunting or Hoax?
The knockings, wind and moving objects are typical poltergeist phenomena while it is unusual for one to create light. Generally, the phenomena start and end spontaneously. Theoretically, a part of the human survives death of the body. There is intelligence. Psychokinesis, PK, is the ability of the mind to affect matter. This type of poltergeist is the entity agent poltergeist.
It would not be possible for a person to produce all of the events at the schoolhouse by manipulation, especially not in the presence of witnesses.
Holmes tried to bribe Currier into admitting that he perpetuated a hoax and, years later, he said he did. Could Currier have been a human agent poltergeist? The profile of the human agent is one who is having very unpleasant feelings. Emotions are repressed and come out subconsciously in the form of PK. The phenomena only happen when the person is present. For the most part, people, unless they are told they are a poltergeist agent, do not know they are subconsciously causing the phenomena.
During the 1870s, the study of psychic phenomena and Freudian psychology was embryonic. It was not until the 20th century that the poltergeist was studied, investigated and researched as being theoretically linked to psychology.
Article Related to Haunted Schoolhouse:
Readers who enjoyed this article might be interested in Poltergeists! The Reality, Not the Movie
Sources:
www.usgennet.org/usa/ma/county/essex/books/haunted/cover.htm
Mysterious New England, Austin N. Stevens, ed., (Yankee Inc., 1977)
