Spooky places in Rhode Island URI Students can visit to learn about haunting local history bibiography goes here
According to Steve Gonsalves and Dave Tango (professional ghost hunters) the reading on the K2 Meter increases to a reading of 8.0. This happened in the same spot that the words "help me" appear on the wall. The K2 devices works on electromagnetic fields and reads its strength. Coincidence? Go inside this frat house to see for yourself.
Still want more? Go on a ghost tour! The ghost tour in Newport, RI is great!
Details here: http://www.ghostsofnewport.com/
Take a lantern-led evening stroll down historic Newport, Rhode Island's shadowy lanes and discover the ghosts, ghouls, and legends of our haunted city by the sea.
At 29 Old Post Road in Kingston RI, is the Lambda Chi Alpha Fraternity house. It's said that a girl named Abigail haunts room number 7. Sheets on the bed have been unfolded as if someone had been laying in the bed. The mirror in the bathroom spells out "Welcome" in steam. Along with doors slamming, something else also keeps happening. "Welcome" was not the only words that appeared in the building. "Help me" was written on the wall. Paint won't even cover up these words. Its been painted over time and time again, and the words reappear. Whats said to have been Abigail's shadow has been seen also throughout the house. Multiple times.
Why does this page only have three likes???!!??!!! Is it because the rest of you don't believe in paranormal activity? Is it because you doubt the stories that have been told to you - the stories of ghosts in the structures around the campus and the rest of Rhode Island? Many people that now believe in this, probably also did not believe this at some point. Perhaps if you just try it, you will believe. I challenge you to spend some time in one or two of these places. Tell me if you changed your mind after your experiences.
Looking for another adventure? Check out the allegedly haunted Hanton City, a ghost town in Smithfield, RI!
For more information about the site, go here: http://www.ghosttowns.com/states/ri/hantoncity.html
Bressler Dormatory Hall! According to the URI Campus Ghost Busters there are 716 claims of ghost appearances in Bressler Hall. If this doesn't freak you out think about the 37 people that died in the hall.
Many people enjoy the thrill of haunted houses, scary movies, and other spooky attractions. We like these things because they scare us. But why? Isn’t it kind of weird that we like to scare ourselves like that? Research shows that this is completely normal. According to an article by Kate Williams, a historian and the author of “The Pleasures of Men”, we seek this sensation of fear because we lack it in life. This crave of fear sometimes comes out in various art forms including literary works, such as “Frankenstein” and “The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde.” “Exposing ourselves to fear in art,” Williams states, “is a way of reminding ourselves that we are alive.” (Williams)
For those looking for a thrilling adventure, check out the graves of Sarah Tillinghast and Mercy Brown, commonly known as some of Rhode Island’s alleged vampires. First, the story of Sarah Tillinghast whose grave you can find at historical cemetery 14 just off of Forest Hill Drive in Exeter, RI. At the very end of the 1700s, Sarah, 19, suddenly became ill one day and died a few weeks later. Shortly afterward, her brother started growing ill too. Along with his illness, he claimed of having dreams of Sarah sitting on top of his chest. Their parents thought it was just his grief until one by one the rest of the Tillinghast children died shortly after developing the illness and having these odd dreams. Overly superstitious Rhode Islanders were convinced that they were dealing with a vampire. After the children had died, the mother also started to develop the illness, which was apparently the last straw for old Mr. Tillinghast because he unearthed his daughter Sarah, who was said to have a trace of a smile on her lips and blood coursing through her body when they dug up her co**se, and burned her heart. After this barbaric act, the mother’s illness dissipated and Sarah sightings never occurred again.
The next, most famous vampire cases of Rhode Island was that of Mercy Lena Brown. In 1892, Mercy, or Lena as she was known to her family, died quite suddenly of consumption. This illness is known as tuberculosis, but was known to the villagers of that time as consumption. Her brother Edwin also had developed some symptoms of this illness around the time of her death. The neighbors and her own father, with their superstitious beliefs claimed that she was a vampire and was causing the sickness of her brother. Desperate, the villagers and her father dug her up to find her cheeks were still rosy and her body hardly decomposed. So, they did what any cautious person living in this time would do -- they cut out her heart and burned it. Not stopping there, they also fed Edwin the ashes of his sister’s heart, thinking it was going to remedy his illness. It did not and he also succumbed to the illness a short time later.
Today Mercy Brown is renowned all over the state of Rhode Island and her existence lives through the fearsome stories passed down from generations. Lena’s grave is located in Chestnut Hill cemetery behind an old Baptist church in Exeter, RI. Sarah’s story is not as popular as Lena’s but equally, if not more, horrifying. So venture if you will to either of these gravesites and you will most definitely satisfy your hunger for fright.
Another spooky spot in Rhode island is located in the capital city of providence. Historic Benefit street. Benefit street which was once a narrow cobble path called Back is home to some of the state’s earliest colonial history. Rhode Island was found upon the basis of religious tolerance and which resulted in Providence not having an agreed upon location to bury the dead. This led to families bury their dead on their own plot of land as a family graveyard. Around the time of the Revolution, Back street was widened and names Benefit Street as it was meant to be a “Benefit to all”. Inorder to expand, Tim Lehnert, a writer for Gonomad.com explains that, graves occupying the hilly area above the Providence river were moved, and Benefit Street was laid out. The area soon became fashionable, and Providence’s ascendant merchant class built fancy houses overlooking the city below”(Lehnard). Legend has it that not all of the bodies were relocated and still remain beneath the street. Because of this, the numerous sightings a horse drawn carriage, an old woman in an attic window, and even the spirit of Edgar Allan Poe walking the street in the early morning hours (Poe had dated a women from the area before his death) and many more supernatural occurrences have been blamed upon. A few of the house built during this time in mid 1700’s still stand today. These houses include the John Brown House which is now a museum operated by the Rhode Island Historical Society, the Nightingale- Brown House, and the Amos Allen House which are great places to visit to learn more about the history of Providence.
Historic Benefit Street is Located right off of I95 about 45 minutes north of URI. Check it out next time you visit near by Providence Place Mall or Thayer Street!
For more information about Benefit Street and other haunted places in Providence, read "Haunted Providence" by Rory Raven.
The Ladd School is located in Exeter, Rhode Island only 25 minutes away from URI. The origin of this place is pretty creepy, in 1907 it opened as a mental rehabilitation hospital. Shortly after opening the hospital it began to overcrowd and there was only one certified doctor on staff. Much of the staff had little to no training to help care for the patients, wrong dosages of medications were constantly being administered causing constant deaths among the patients. Mental patients were forced to sleep on cots 9 inches apart. A nine-year old boy was found dead in a laundry bag, and it was a common thing for patients to hurt one another. The staff was said to have abused patients and treated them as if they weren’t human. The school was open for a long time finally it closed in 1993! Locals and trespassers all agree that this school is truly haunted. Sadly you can’t go inside but you can check it out from afar. People have reported seeing all types of shadows and loud cries. People that have broken in have some crazy stories to tell, one girl said she kept feeling hands touch her. There have been reports of voices murmuring things all over, especially in the basement where the morgue was located. This is a dream place for any ghost hunter; enter this place at your own risk! If you are interested in checking this place out the address is 76 Main Street in Exeter, Rhode Island.
Abigail, are you home? I just saw the lights flicker in the Lambda Chi Frat house. What is this writing on the wall? Why does it keep appearing?
Some of you may not have to travel too far for these must see spooky spots. Infact, some of you may not even have to travel out of your dorm room. Thats right! Bressler dormitory straight across from the bright and modernized Hillside dorm and at the bottom of the stairs from the Union lays the dark and dismal living quarters. Perhaps living quarters, to be exact, for not JUST the current students of URI… The full story coming soon!
Do you like a healthy rush of adrenaline every so often? You may be a sensation seeker. In an article by Ann Whitman and Johanna Goldberg, Dr. Marvin Zuckerman, who has performed much research on the topic, states that there are four subtypes of sensation seeking: thrill and adventure seeking, which can lead people to engaging in potentially dangerous activities; experience seeking, the drive to explore the unfamiliar such as traveling to new places and meeting new people; disinhibition, which is the subtype of sensation seeking that people have the desire to lose their inhibitions and can lead to dangerous behavior such as substance abuse; and lastly boredom susceptibility, which describes a person who grows bored with routine and therefore turns to seeks new sensations (Whitman).
Scientists have a term closely related to sensation seeking called novelty seeking. From an evolutionary perspective, novelty seeking is a key trait for our existence. Humans needed to emigrate throughout the world and hunt, and those who had a drive to explore and seek these experiences survived. Although, Dr. Marvin Zuckerman states that most people are somewhere in the middle in terms of sensation seeking and then there are the extremes of desperate sensation seeking and those who avoid it. This is because evolutionarily, people who are desperately sensation seeking may die before they have the chance to pass along their genes, and the others who avoid all risk may die from not taking small risks for gathering resources, such as food. This could be the reason why some people enjoy horror films because they know that nothing can hurt them through the screen and still have the satisfaction of a good thrill (Whitman).
Rhode Island has a range of spooky places which can quench your thirst for thrill whether you seek low or high sensation.
Fort Wetherill State Park is located about 30 minutes away from URI. Its known for being haunted, countless people have gone to repot all kinds of freaky stories. The history of this place dates back to the American Revolution, it was built in 1792. At the time it was used for American colonists that wanted to prevent British attacks on Newport. The location is right by the water and allowed the colonists to keep a watchful eye of everything going on. The most common thing you may experience when visiting here is an unsettling feeling as you enter the ruins of Forth Wetherll. If you are daring enough you may want to check out the dark underground tunnels, there is said to be a phantom angry black dog walking around the premise. Its glowing red eyes are know to have driven some of the British Soldiers insane back in the day. Some people say the tunnels are filled with lost souls from the previous wars. If you enjoy being scared this is the place to go, the concrete walls are covered in graffiti and the place was left to demise on its own. There is a lot of history that goes along with Fort Wetherill that’s also interesting to learn about so you should definitely check it out!
The address to plug into you GPS is:
Fort Wetherill, Jamestown, RI 02835
Kingston, RI
02881
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South Kingstown Parks & Recreation
Columbia Street, Wakefield