Mystic ? Mystic Seaport interpreter Juanita Babcock was teaching a hearth cooking class in the Buckingham House on the museum grounds about 15 years ago when she held up a glass of mulled wine and made a toast.
?I wonder what Mrs. Buckingham would think about us drinking wine in here,? she said, referring to the matriarch of the Congregationalist family that lived in the house and likely would not have allowed liquor.
As soon as Babcock uttered those words, she felt something slap the back of her hand. The wine glass went flying into a wall 4 feet away and shattered on the floor in front of a group of people.
Babcock said she was being very careful with the glass and is sure she did not drop it.
?I actually felt a hard slap against my hand. It was so weird,? she said. ?I don't know if it could have been Mrs. Buckingham. Maybe it was someone before her.?
Babcock's experience is not unique at Mystic Seaport, where other staff members have their own stories about strange occurrences in the historic buildings of the recreated 19th-century whaling village. In addition to strange sightings aboard the Charles W. Morgan whaling ship, there were reports of unexplained screaming from the Buckingham House in 1997 during the filming of the movie ?Amistad.? A member of the film crew told of being tapped on the shoulder and turning around to find no one there.
Then there are the workers in the membership building who describe a number of strange happenings that they attribute to the work of the late Mildred Mallory, who began the museum's membership program. Mallory's portrait hangs on the wall over a fireplace.
Dawn Johnson, whose desk is just to the side of Mallory's portrait, said that when she started working in the membership building three years ago, staffers told her that sometimes the clock would ring at 2:20 p.m. One day not long after, it happened. She said the museum worker who looks after the clocks was at a loss to explain why the clock would sound at 2:20 p.m. and then return to its usual pattern of ringing on the hour.
Johnson said that several times the phone in the building has rung, although it seemed no one had placed a call to it. When Johnson picked up the receiver on such occasions, a person whom she knew picked up the phone on the other end at precisely the same moment. The other person said ?hello? just as Johnson did. Sometimes the other person was someone Johnson hadn't talked to in a while.
?They'll say, 'You called me,' and I'll say, 'No, you called me,' ? Johnson said. ?It's like someone wanted to connect us.?
At other times, Johnson has opened the door to the building in the morning to find that such items as flowers and candlesticks on the mantle under Mallory's portrait have moved overnight.
?Mildred doesn't like things out of place,? she said. ?We have a running joke when it happens. We say 'Mildred is acting up again.' ?
Babcock said staffers say they sometimes hear footsteps in the small room above the circa-1695 kitchen in the Buckingham House. She said she hopes the investigators from the Rhode Island Paranormal Research Group check it out.
?When I go up there now I say, 'Is anyone here? Don't bother me,? she said. ?It's not spooky up there, it's actually tranquil. But there's something about that room.?
Source: http://www.theday.com/re.aspx?re=455ddc ... e7c647b783
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
