Halloween is the spookiest night of the year, the night when the dead walk the Earth. Throw in a neighborhood full of costumed children, on the only holiday I can think of where you roam around on a dark October night... Very spooky!
New England itself is pretty spooky, Massachusetts especially so. Unless you are one of our urban readers, you most likely live on some dark side street, surrounded by ancient trees.
You roam the land of King, Lovecraft and Hawthorne. If you leave a blank spot after "Boston" and ask people to provide the next word, you won't wait too long after answers like "Massachusetts" and "Bruins" before words like "Massacre" and "Strangler" start coming up. We're a creepy place.
If that's not enough for you this Halloween, might we recommend some spots with a bit of Evil for you to visit? Please note that the "Places To Avoid" part of this article's title can be interpreted as "Places To Check Out" by people with the proper mindset.
Here we go...
LIZZIE BORDEN HOUSE, FALL RIVER
No, "Fall River in general" doesn't count.
The Lizzie Borden house is where America's most famous axe murder went down. These days, it is run as a BnB place, because of course it is.
It is widely rumored to be haunted, and you can take a tour or even go to the gift shop.
Please note that, unlike the homes of axe murderers in the movies, this is a fine Victorian era home rather than an abandoned haunted house type place like, say, the Myers house in Haddonfield, Illinois. If you lurk around in the bushes like Dr. Loomis here, they're gonna call Johnny Law on you.
EXETER, RHODE ISLAND
Exeter is where the bodies of Mercy Brown and Sara Tillinghast lay. Both were exhumed by local farmers, who had farmer-type reasons to believe that they were vampires.
They had actually died of tuberculosis, but that just gets in the way of a good ghost story. The farmers thought they were vampires, and that's good enough for me.
Their graves, while in different cemeteries, are about 200 yards apart.
If I lived in Exeter, I'd be anywhere but Out on Halloween, lest I take a walk and run into two weird sisters.
THE SUN TAVERN, DUXBURY
While stumbling around a misty cemetery on Halloween makes for a better Travel Channel show, there is no iron-clad rule in ghost hunting that prohibits you from doing it in a fine Duxbury restaurant. You wear the night vision goggles, slappy... I'll have me some steak and wine.
You just have to choose the right restaurant. The Sun Tavern fits the bill. It was once the home of Lysander Walker, who one day in 1928 hung his flag upside down (an international symbol of distress), then went inside and had himself a Colt .45. I do not mean the malt liquor.
His home is a restaurant now, but he still hangs around. Candles light on their own, chairs with no one in them move and there was a famous incident where a Duxbury cop actually drew his weapon when responding to a burglar alarm there. The footsteps he heard, however, came from no living man.
I do believe that they are open for business on Halloween.
ROUTE 44, SEEKONK/REHOBOTH
This is where, at night, you might drive by a redheaded man dressed as a lumberjack. He will flash the thumbs-up universal gesture of the hitch-hiker.
Now, picking up lumberjack (who are known to carry axes) hitch-hikers at midnight is probably not on your menu anyhow, but Route 44 is the very last place you'd want to try it out.
I'm not 100% sure what the Redheaded Hitchhiker does, but I presume that he kills whoever picks him up. He might just vanish when you give him a ride, which would fit the Vanishing Hitchhiker motif.
If you don't pick him up, they say that you can hear him laughing in the static if your radio is set between stations. Other tales have him suddenly appearing in the back seat, although you want to throw the vodka bottle far into the woods before trying that story out with a Seekonk cop who is asking about your wrecked car.
FREETOWN STATE FOREST, FREETOWN
This is deep Bridgewater Triangle.
This area lacks a superheavyweight like Lizzie Borden or Mercy Brown, as the big name here is the Mad Trucker of Copicut Road.
However, it is a genuinely creepy place, and it checks off a lot of boxes. UFOs, ghosts, giant snakes, Satanic rituals, orbs, "Cursed Forest" nickname... this is where you find it.
The Bridgewater Triangle has 4-7 of our top 10 spots on this list, depending on how you draw the boundaries.
WITCH ROCK, ROCHESTER
Short, provable story: Rochester has a rock with a witch painted on it.
Longer, spookier story: Rochester has a rock with a witch painted on it that also cackles, emanates mist, swallows up bad children and God knows what else.
It appears to be a lighthearted piece of work, but it would be a very spooky Halloween if you walked by Witch Rock at night.
Please note that this rock lays in the yard of someone's private home before planning any Blair Witch sort of expeditions.
HILLCREST CEMETERY, PLYMPTON
Mother Crewe is said to be buried here.
Mother Crewe comes from a book, but facts only get in the way of a good Witch story. She was most likely based on a pair of "real" Plymouth witches, Aunt Rachel and Bethia Hazel.
Mother Crewe, who wasn't in the 2 Live Crew, was known for a pair of curses. The first was on Ansel Ring and his family. Ansel had been betrothed to Bathsbeba Crewe. Bats fell ill, and local girl Molly Peach was sent to nurse her.
Molly and Ansel soon had a thang goin' on. Bats found out, and died of a broken heart. Ansel then took Molly as his bride. Mother Crewe cursed their whole family.
Rings started dying shortly after. Ansel was a sailor, sailors are superstitious and no one wanted to sail with him. Once, during a storm, they were going to throw him overboard. He left voluntarily, braving storm waves in a small dory. His lifeless body later washed up on Duxbury Beach. This story is very similar to the Aunt Rachel legend.
Mother Crewe was just warming up.
Shortly after, someone who apparently hadn't heard the Ring Curse story tried to evict MC from her squatter shack on the Carver Road. Crewe cursed him as well. Immediately, Crewe's black cat attacked the man as he got on his horse. The horse reared up, threw the man from the saddle and dragged him to his doom.
Mother Crewe died in Plympton, and is supposedly buried there. I took the picture of Plympton's cemetery during broad daylight about a week ago while parked next to a Plympton cop. I know the story is some bullship from a novel. I was still scared.
THE MOORS, TRURO AND WELLFLEET
Cape Cod leaps into the mix with a truly spooky pair of stories.
This was the stomping grounds for the Beast of Truro, who was either a cougar, a werewolf, a dog pack or a legend.
He was around in the early 1980s, and hasn't been seen since.
Much earlier than that, we have a ghost catfight. In 1850, opera singer Jenny Lind oversold a show in Boston. To prevent a riot, she climbed a tower in a railroad station and sang to the crowd from there. The tower was later disassembled and built back up in North Truro.
More than 100 years before that, the pirate ship Whydah Gally went down, killing Captain Samuel Bellamy. His lover, Wellfleet's own Goody Hallet, was known locally as the Sea Witch.
The Witch of Wellfleet took it well, if "well" means "roams the moors of Wellfleet and Truro, using a Banshee cry to curse boats sailing by." Wellfleet and Truro had an enormous amount of shipwrecks, right up until
It is said that when the ghost of the Sea Witch begins her Banshee cry, the ghost of Jenny Lynd will appear in the tower and begin singing. Her song overpowers the Sea Witch... sometimes.
Never mind sharks or Suicide Alley... I'd rather I be chased down Suicide Alley by a shark than to find myself trapped on the moors while these two ladies slugged it out.
HOCKOMOCK SWAMP, BRIDGEWATER
Hockomock translates into "place where the spirits dwell." Paranormal enthusiasts consider it to be the heart of the Bridgewater Triangle. It is 16,000 acres of evil.
It is, to my knowledge, the only place in Massachusetts where someone has reported seeing a Sasquatch. A Bridgewater man claimed to have seen one there, eating a pumpkin.
There have been Thunderbird sightings by police there, as well as cattle mutilation (more of the ritual sacrifice type than the UFO sort) and even Pukwudgies.
It is the Superheavyweight of this list.
DUXBURY BEACH/GURNET/SAQUISH
Duxbury Beach is long, dark and isolated. The Gurnet/Saquish area is much darker and much more isolated. Gorgeous during the day, ominous at night... no one will hear you scream here.
Duxbury Beach is where Ansel Ring washed up. It is where Daniel Webster saw the sea serpent. It is also a Great White Shark hunting ground.
It is home to the Blue Lady myth, which also gets tied to Onset and Sagamore Beach. A ghostly young woman shining pale blue light has been seen on certain nights. I assume that she either drowned herself in misery, or is waiting for a love who never returned from the sea. Molly Peach is mentioned as a suspect in the Duxbury version.
Gurnet Light dates back to 1769. It is located at the Plymouth end of the beach. It is reportedly haunted by the ghost of Hannah Thomas.
Thomas was the first female keeper of the lighthouse, taking over after the death of her husband, the prior keeper, in the Revolution.
They say that when a priest gave her the news, she said a quick prayer, then went back to tending the light before the priest left. That is the kind of dedication that keeps someone at her post even after death.
****Note that some places should have made the cut, including Taunton State Hospital, the Myles Standish State Forest, Dighton Rock, Suicide Alley, Burial Hill and the old Plymouth County Tuberculosis Hospital.
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