It's October. Get yer ghost on!

Though we've been quiet on the blog-front, it's only because we've been geeking out so hard with tours, research and many, many lovely books to read. In fact, our current favorite, Death In Early America, is geekishly unputdownable, while providing excellent fodder for our most recent tour offering: Ghosts in the Gloaming.

We know. How cliche to offer a haunted tour in October. But really, it's not like July is idyllically ideal (Phantoms on the 4th?) or that peoples' thoughts naturally turn to ghosts during the December holiday and Christmas season. Well, except for yours, Mr. Dickens.

In any case, it's become difficult to overlook all the spooky jiggery-pokery that's gone down in Concord over the last 375 years.

Just for kicks, let's trot out this charming sample from 1845, shall we?

"I never saw nor imagined a spectacle of such perfect horror. The rigidity...was dreadful to behold. Her arms had stiffened in the act of struggling; and were bent before her with the hands clenched. She was the very image of death-agony; and when the men tried to compose her figure, her arms would still return to that same position; indeed it was almost impossible to force them out of it for an instant. One of the men put his foot upon her arm, for the purpose of reducing it by her side; but, in a moment, it rose again... It is impossible to express the effect of it; it seemed as if she would keep in the same posture in the grave and that her skeleton would keep it too, and that when she rose at the day of Judgement, it would be in the same attitude."

Ah, Nathaniel Hawthorne. You melancholy man! 

Rather than a dark bit of fiction however, this gruesome imagery is taken directly from Hawthorne's own journal while he lived here at the Old Manse. He was describing the recovery of the body of young Martha Hunt - a neighbor and school teacher - who apparently came to the irrevocable conclusion that throwing herself into the river was a far more enticing prospect than carrying on in this life. For Nathaniel, it became almost like a real-life haunting as the entire episode affected him so strongly. Not to mention, a truly bizarre twist in this story turned up during our research. It would appear that Ms. Hunt wasn't the only female in her family to perish beneath the cold waters of the Concord river...

Oooo. Good stuff, isn't it? 90 minutes of ghost stories, burial customs, haunted places and graveyards that feature lost riders, ethereal ministers, disturbed damsels and um...chamberpots.

If you think you're ready for more, give us a call and we'll give you - a flashlight! All the better to see where you're going while we explore Concord and all her creepy tales after dark.