Haunted Places in Connecticut

Looking for some eerie places to visit while traveling in CT?  Try one of these....

Abigail's Grille and Wine Bar, Simsbury CT
     Built in 1780 to be a stagecoach stop and tavern, this colonial house has been both a private home and a restaurant business at various times over the years.  The story goes that Jonathan Pettibone, the original owner, came home from sea to find another man with his wife. He remedied the situation with an axe, and supposedly his wife haunts the house wandering throughout.  Other spirits are a man (her lover?), a boy and a tavern wench. Furniture has been moved at night, lights that were turned off are turned back on, and the second floor Ladies' Room is a hot spot. Located at 4 Hartford Rd., Simsbury Abigail's serves lunch, dinner and brunch. phone: 860.264.1580
    

The Benton Homestead, Tolland CT
     The Benton Homestead, a pre-civil war home, is now a museum. During the Civil War, Elijah, who lived in the house, left to fight in the war. He left behind his fiance Jemima, who he would marry upon his return. Unfortunately when he returned he had a fatal disease, smallpox (?) and died. Jemima took care of him until his death, risking her own life to do so. She did indeed contract the disease herself and die. A female apparition has been seen. Men's voices have been heard from the basement.  People have described a cold, suffocating feeling upstairs, and general feelings of sadness and oppression are associated with the house.  On Metcalf Rd., Tolland, the phone number is (860) 974-1875.    

Mystic Seaport, Old Mystic CT
     At Mystic Seaport  you can go onboard the whaling ship, the Charles W Morgan, which some say is haunted.  According to the Boston Globe (6/26/06) three people have independently  written to a local paranormal research group telling them that they had been very surprised to hear after their visit that there were no period dressed staff on the ship. Each email recounted a similar description of seeing "a man dressed in period clothing sitting on a pile of rope and smoking a pipe." All of the sightings were below deck in the room where the whale blubber would have been stripped from the whales.  So enjoy some history, keep an open mind and bring your camera! 

Two good haunted house novels by Carol Goodman

The first "ghost book" I read by Carol Goodman was The Ghost Orchid. Although the author of many novels, this and The Widow's House are specifically about haunted places.  Ellis Brooks is a writer invited to an artists' retreat at the long abandoned Bosco estate in the Adirondack mountains to write her first novel.  Inspired by a pamphlet she fatefully discovered describing a seance that took place there in 1893,  Ellis Brooks comes to Bosco to write about the tragedies that befell the Latham family and the role Corinth Blackwell, a spiritual medium, might have played.  Bosco and its grounds seem to have never been able to shrug off the aura of tragedy and the past intermingles with the present to affect the people staying there now.  The book travels back and forth between the past and the present.  Events become more eerie and mysterious as the past seeps into the present.  The pacing, dialogue and characters are all excellently done. It is a very good ghost story.  

Another suspenseful ghost story by Carol Goodman, The Widow's House follows Clare and Jess, financially strapped married writers leaving the city for more peace in a college town in the Hudson River valley where Clare is originally from.  They end up moving into a large but decaying estate owned by their former professor and mentor as caretakers.  While struggling with the state of their marriage Clare also starts hearing nonexistent infant cries and seeing visions of  apparitions of a ghostly woman.  A beautifully written gothic novel, it evokes many classics (Rebecca, The Turning of the Screw, Haunting of Hill House and The Yellow Wallpaper to name a few) as the reader is taken down many twisting paths along the way to the climax.  Highly recommended.