Tag Archives: massachusetts

Ghost on MA-70

[The subject is PD. His words are bolded, mine are not.]

Context: PD is a college student from Massachusetts. He is Caucasian, of Irish-Catholic heritage, and has lived in the United States for his entire life. This story was told to a small group of people during a party, just after midnight, when the conversation had shifted to ghost stories.

PD: It was like… this is how I know it was definitely a ghost, because it was like 2 AM, like broad daylight, like I was driving from Clinton to Worcester, and like to get from Clinton to Worcester is like this ten mile stretch of like nothing but woods. Like no people, no houses, no nothin’… and I was like stuck behind this like 19-like 80s, 90s, like fuckin’, like a… it was like a Plymouth, like a car they don’t even like make anymore and shit. And the dude was going like 10 miles below the speed limit, and I was like fuckin’ pissed as shit. And like out of nowhere, the dude just like pulls over to the road, and like gets out of his car, and sprints and just like leaps over the fence and into the woods. And I’m like, ‘what the fuck was up with that?’ So ten seconds later I do a three point turn and turn around, dude’s gone, car is gone, I don’t know what in the fuck happened, but I asked my fuckin’ boss Emily, who’s like been in the parks department for like five hundred years, and she was like, “oh yeah, I’m pretty sure like a bunch of people died on route 70 back in the eighties before we started like improving it.” And I’m pretty sure I saw a ghost!

Thoughts: At the beginning of the story, I think PD meant to say it took place at 2 PM, since it was in broad daylight, and he was sure that this was a ghost because he could see it clearly. I noticed that this legend is very dependent on the modern time frame that it is set in, because the old style of car that the ghost was driving stood out to the storyteller, and connects to what Emily had said about the roads being unsafe in the eighties. I also found it interesting that the car the ghost was driving was said to be a Plymouth, since the story takes place in Massachusetts and Plymouth, Massachusetts is one of the oldest towns in the United States and is generally thought of as a place with lots of history and folklore, including ghost stories.

Going to the wagons

A family friend, Ruth, grew up in a small town outside of Boston that had an unusual 4th of July tradition called “going to the wagons.” The following is a conversation between us about the tradition. “R” is Ruth and “L” is myself.

L: So what is the name of the town you’re from?
R: Dedham, Mass. And this would happen in Oakdale Square.
L: Okay.
R: And so the night before the 4th [of July], late at night, um like, we were young kids so we would go to bed first and our parents would wake us up and we would walk down to Oakdale Square, to take us to the wagons. And we would get there and y’know there’d be a crowd of people and like kids–it was kids I guess–who would roll these burning wooden wagons into the square. [It was called] “going to the wagons.”
L: So they were on- like what do you mean they were on fire?
R: They were burning!
L: Like they had, they were just set ablaze? Like the whole wagon?
R: Yeah!…I think what prompted them to stop this custom was, um, the drugstore windows broke from the heat of the flame, and so they stopped doing it. This was in the ‘50s.

The 4th of July is usually celebrated with fireworks, so in a sense this tradition seems an extension of the pyrotechnic theme present in the holiday. It makes sense that peculiar local traditions surrounding independence day would be most common in the Northeastern United States, particularly around Boston and Philadelphia, as that region was the site of much of the early political history of the U.S. as a nation-state.

The Brooks Mansion Ghost

The interviewer’s comments are denoted through initials JK, while the interviewee’s responses are denoted through initials MJ.

 

JK:  Got any stories weird stories from your past growing up in the suburbs around Boston?

 

MJ:  Yea I’m from a town called Winchester about ten minutes north of the city.  I live across the street from these woods called the Brooks Parkhurst Forest.  So, there’s an old mansion called the “Brooks Mansion” in the middle of the forest close to this pond.  Apparently it was built at some point in the late 1800s.  The town tried to restore it and turn it into this kind of landmark at some point over the last 20 years, but people didn’t keep it in good shape and… so it kinda fell into ruin.  Anyway, me and some of my buddies had always heard it was haunted by the ghost of the lady that owned the house and died there sometime in the early 1900s.  Now, being normal people, ya know, we all thought this was bullshit….  We did not believe in ghosts.  In the past, I’d walked by the house with my dad.. but I’d never gone inside.  I’d heard stories about other kids going there to drink, but that was pretty much it.

 

JK:  Was there specific kind of story that you had heard about this ghost?

 

MJ:  Yea, a couple kids who were a few grades ahead of us told us they went in the house one night in the early fall.. had heard a bunch of weird noises, got freaked out, and left.  They mentioned they had heard the front door slam while they were upstairs in the mansion, and that made them freak and run out one of the back doors.  I told them it was probably the wind, but they all said it was a super calm night with no breeze at all.  So anyway, like a year later, me and two of my friends are smoking a spliff out in the woods and we start talking about the mansion and how some people think it has a ghost.  We all decide to take the 10-15 minute walk through the woods to get to it.  It was a mid September night, probably around 60 degrees– and get this– no wind.  Like none.  It was a wicked nice night, that’s why we were out there smoking in the first place.  So basically, we get to the mansion, open the front door and roll inside.  At this point we were definitely all a little high, but no one was stoned.  The inside was pretty run down.  The floors creaked, the walls were a mess.  A lot of windows broken, some graffiti on the walls.  It was all typical abandoned house stuff.  So we walk around taking it all in and head up stairs.  As soon as we get to the top we hear this noise that sounds exactly like wind blowing through an empty house…. But there’s no wind at all.  The night is dead still.  We look outside and none of the trees are blowing around.  This starts to get us scared.  Maybe we were higher than we thought.  After like 15 seconds of this, we hear the door slam, like loudly slam, beneath us.  We all let out a couple swears and bolt down the stairs and out one of the back doors.  Freaky stuff.  I’ve never gone back in the house.

 

Conclusion:

This sounded like a classic old haunted house story:  old lady dies in her mansion and then her spirit stands guard over it for the rest of time.  When I asked the kid if he now believes in ghosts, he said, “Uh well before I didn’t but now I don’t really know what to think.  Maybe I was higher than I thought, but that door definitely slammed and there was no wind– or other people around– to do it.  Definitely makes you think.”  From this response, it is clear the interviewee is still unsure about the existence of the supernatural, but– if I had to bet– I would say he is slightly leaning towards believing in ghosts.  

Trot Trot to Boston

Folklore Piece

‘This is a song my mom would always sing to me and my siblings when we were little. She’d place us on her lap and move them up and down while she sang “Trot Trot to Boston / Trot Trot to Lynn / Look out little [T.R.] / You might fall in!” and then pretend to drop us between her legs. The second first was “Trot Trot to Boston / Trot Trot to Town / Look out little [T.R]/  you might fall down!” Then repeat the dropping motion. Finally, “Trot Trot to Boston / Trot Trot to Dover / Look out little [T.R]/  you might fall Over!”

 

Background information

“Yeah, I learned it from my Mom. I mean, I don’t really remember learning it, and I certainly don’t really remember her performing it, but I’ve seen her do it with some of my younger cousins, and I have too. Uh, I don’t know, I just, I like the piece because it’s catchy, and it makes me nostalgic about Boston and my Mom and stuff, you know? You’ve probably heard it too, right?” ( I have)

Context

He certainly did not bounce me on his lap, however he did say that he “would definitely do this with his kids when he’s older, no matter where he lives. I just like the way I hold on to something from my home town, you know? Being 3,000 miles away, like, you lose a lot of that. I think I wanna move back eventually, but who knows?”

Analysis

My mom also performed this song for me when I was younger. I, too, perform it with my younger cousins and babies from the Boston area. I’ve always found it so interesting, because growing up in a town north of Boston where most people move to from all over the country, we don’t have too many unique traditions or pieces of folklore that bring us together as a town. But this song, even though it’s about Boston, is shared amongst almost all of us in the metropolitan Boston area. I tried to find the origin of this story, and was unable to locate a direct source. However, the book Trot Trot to Boston, published in 1987 is referenced as saying that it is a Mother Goose poem. Additionally, there are a number of variations of the poem I found. An online forum found here has at least 8 variations of the song.

The informant said that it reminds him of his mother, too. It’s funny how songs that are performed to us when we are children – often before we can even remember – make us so nostalgic. Certainly we can’t remember the circumstances under which these songs were performed. However, we know that our mothers took care of us at a time that they sang this song, and it’s so embedded within us, associated with childcare and motherly love, that it’s hard not to look at it so fondly.

 

Top Place to Go On a Date in Shrewsbury

“Okay, so, umm, the guy who created the pill, um, invented it in Shrewsbury, Massachusetts. And there, the first factory where, um, they started, like, getting manufactured or whatever is in Shrewsbury. Umm, and now it’s like a thing, I guess, where you like take your significant other on a date to the factory where the pill was first made. So, that’s a thing people do in Shrewsbury. Or, like, not my generation but like, people who are, like, slightly older, that’s what they do.”

 

It’s an interesting and funny story. You can understand the connection between dates and the pill factory, I guess? It seems odd, but the way I see it, dates lead to love which lead to sex which leads to a need for the pill. Perhaps whoever first started this trend was hoping to have a happy, birth-free relationship. It’s cutely ironic and sounds like something that was meant to be a joke, but perhaps became mainstream after one couple did it.

What’s also interesting, though, is what the source says about this not being part of her generation. It’s something that occurred among an older generation and then died before her generation go to following in their footsteps. Perhaps it’s because the factory was still in use during this older generation’s childhood. They may have seen and known of the factory, probably even heard about it once a week, what with what they were manufacturing. So when it shut down, it was more relevant for that generation to sneak in and see what was going on and, eventually, start going on dates there.

The source’s generation, however, would’ve grown up never knowing about the factory. Had they not researched it or heard about it, they might never have known what was made there. If they don’t know what the factory was for, then it loses the attraction as being a “hot date” spot. The irony and comedy of it is lost.