“A simple sign would work. If you can move something—it doesn’t have to be much.”
For a few moments there is nothing except the hushed breathing of the group. Eyes are naturally drawn to a small window, which reveals the welcoming silhouettes of pine trees on a moonlit night. Somewhere, an owl hoots, and traffic can be heard whooshing in the tiny roundabouts of Concord’s cramped downtown streets.
Then suddenly: A series of unmistakable knocks from the closet.
At the same time, the door leading out to the attic alley creaks open several inches, its hinges screeching the part of something from a horror movie.
“You’re not trying to get out, are you?” the leader asks the closeted volunteer.
“That’s not me kicking.”
“You’re not leaning against the door?”
“I’m not leaning against the door.”
The pendulums in the hands of the “experiencers” begin swinging in vigorous circles and arcs; the dousing rods pivot back and forth. One visitor, sitting closest to the exit door, feels an unexpected chill coming through it—the kind that causes one to defensively lift one’s shoulders as if expecting a hand to reach out of the darkness for a light caress.
“We’re really curious about you and we’d like to speak with you.”
The EVP device begins to crackle. Distorted voices seem to form words, which the group’s leader deciphers: “Careful.” “Simple.”
He continues, “These people came a long way to meet you, to visit you—to try to understand why you’re here.”
The garbled translated response: “Correct.”
“Is there more than one spirit here tonight?”
After a moment, what sounds like “pupil.”
“Would you like to learn from us? Are we your pupils?”
With no reply forthcoming to this question, a different volunteer, this time female, takes a place in the closet—which the group has also learned is referred to as the “sermon room”—fittingly, because it was where ministers-in-training practiced their recitations.
As the questioning continues, the female volunteer reports a slow audible rapping inside the closet, as well as a distinct temperature drop.
To facilitate further otherworldly communication, a “spirit box” is retrieved. Also known by the nickname “shack hack”—referring to the now defunct Radio Shack line of electronics stores—this modified AM/FM radio scans up and down the dial, a process that is said to enable spirit voices to more easily cross the divide.
“What is your name?”
Several voices “reply” as the box tremolos up and down the channels like hands running along piano keys.
“Luther.” “Mercy.” “Stop.”
“What are you trying to tell us?”
Indecipherable voices fade in and out with the squawk of feedback.
“Do you want us to leave?”
“Uh-huh.”
The whole group joins in with a volley of queries: “Open the door for us.” “How about just rattle the door?” “Can you just make a noise?”
One voice, ominous and final, comes through on the spirit box: “Leave.”
Then the room falls silent. That’s apparently all the ghosts wished to reveal this night.
The Old Manse is one of many historically significant buildings in Concord, Massachusetts.
It is also believed to be one of the most haunted buildings in a city where history is, absolutely and literally, glimpsed at every turn.
Most renowned for its role in the American Revolution—its Old North Bridge was the site of one of the opening battles of the American Revolution, which in those initial days was referred to as the “American War of Independence”—it has also been called the “American Athens” because of the fertile transcendentalist minds who congregated in the city in the 1800s.
The Old Manse was built in 1770—although it’s not known whether it was constructed from the ground up or remodeled out of an existing building, according to author Paul Brooks—and is today a buttercream-colored, Georgian clapboard building sitting on nine acres overlooking the Concord River and a replica of the Old North Bridge. On April 19, 1775, still a relative infant when it comes to the lives of buildings, it was a silent spectator to the fateful Battle of Concord.
The nonprofit Trustees of Reservations purchased the property in 1939; located just off Monument Street, through a gate down a path bordered with trees, it is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and as such is a popular tourist destination.
Two hundred and forty years ago, it was built for William Emerson, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s grandfather, pastor of the Church of Concord, according to Brooks’ book The Old Manse. Emerson was succeeded by Ezra Ripley, who boarded Ralph Waldo Emerson for a year in 1834—the year that the then thirty-two-year-old poet and essayist spent writing his first book, Nature, which essentially became the founding of transcendentalism, a philosophical movement based on the belief that people are inherently good but are easily corruptible by society and institutions.
Eight years later, in 1842, the young, Salem-born writer Nathaniel Hawthorne moved in with his new bride, Sophia. The newlyweds spent three years there, a period in which Hawthorne wrote some of his most famous short stories, including “The Celestial Railroad” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter”—but before he set down the works that would make him an American icon, The Scarlet Letter and The House of the Seven Gables. During his tenure in the Manse, Hawthorne welcomed the greatest minds of the time, including Emerson; Henry David Thoreau (who would publish his renowned Walden in 1854); pioneering teacher and philosopher Bronson Alcott; Margaret Fuller, an Emerson protégée, journalist and women’s rights advocate; and poet William Ellery Channing.
Not surprisingly for a romantic couple based on their literary proclivities, Hawthorne and his wife used a diamond ring to etch simple pronouncements onto window panes at the Manse: “The smallest twig leans clear against the sky,” “Man’s accidents are God’s purposes,” “Inscribed by my husband at sunset, April 3, 1843. On the gold light.”
Along with several of their transcendentalist compatriots, Nathaniel and Sophia are buried not far away in an area known as “author’s ridge” in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery (sharing a name with
