Just hours after their wedding on the 9th of July 1842, a honeymooning couple moved to Concord, MA and into the house they would rent for the next three years. Shortly after their arrival, the groom, who was also an aspiring author, noted the following, “Houses of antiquity in New England are so invariably possessed with spirits that the matter seems hardly worth alluding to.” 

The writer continues, “Our ghost used to heave deep sighs in a particular corner of the parlor; and sometimes rustled paper, as if he were turning over a sermon... Once, while friends sat talking with us in the twilight, there came a rustling noise, as of a minister’s silk gown, sweeping through the very midst of the company, so closely as almost to brush against the chairs.” 

That writer was Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the house those newlyweds shared with their ghost is known today as The Old Manse. 

To many who have worked in the various house museums and buildings of antiquity in Concord, Hawthorne’s assertion has more than just a specter of truth about it. Engage in enough conversations and you’ll discover it’s the rare curator or tour guide who isn’t at the ready with several personal anecdotes of That Time That Freaky Thing Happened. 

Fortunately, at least in Concord, these experiences seem to err on the side of amusingly benign for both the historic residents and modern-day staff. Sara Patton Zarrelli, Engagement Site Manager at The Old Manse, shares this current and ongoing incident, “Ever since I have worked at the Manse, there has been a piece of wool (fleece) in the garret room floor by the spinning wheel. I’ve repeatedly tried to clean this up, and every time I remove it from the attic, it just comes back. I’ve finally given up on it and just left it. Oddly enough, this came up in conversation recently, and before I could tell the story, our curator just said, ‘it always comes back, doesn’t it’? “

Hawthorne apparently had a reoccurring episode as well, and he humorously speculates on the possible reasons for it, “A yet stranger business was that of a ghostly servant-maid, who used to be heard in the kitchen at deepest midnight, grinding coffee, cooking, ironing — performing, in short, all kinds of domestic labor — although no traces of anything accomplished could be detected the next morning. Some neglected duty of her servitude, some ill-starched ministerial band, disturbed the poor damsel in her grave and kept her at work without any wages.” 

But sometimes, people aren’t amused at all. Especially when they weren’t expecting anything out of the ordinary, such as Judith Fellenz who stayed at Concord’s Colonial Inn during her own honeymoon in 1967. Upon returning home, she sent an odd letter to the hotel in which she writes, “I have always prided myself on being a fairly sane individual but on the night of June 14 I began to have my doubts. On that night I saw a ghost in your Inn…

The incident sounds very melodramatic. I was awakened in the middle of the night by a presence in the room—a feeling that some unknown being was in the midst. As I opened my eyes, I saw a grayish figure at the side of my bed, to the left, about four feet away. It was not a distinct person, but a shadowy mass in the shape of a standing figure. It remained still for a moment, then slowly floated to the foot of the bed, in front of the fireplace. After pausing a few seconds, the apparition slowly melted away. It was a terrifying experience. I was so frightened I could not scream. I was frozen to the spot . . . For the remainder of the night, I could not fall asleep . . . ” 

Although this is the most famous of the Inn’s ghost stories, (and the reason so many visitors wish to now stay in Room 24), it’s definitely not the only one. Like The Old Manse and dozens of other old houses in Concord, the charming and cozy Colonial Inn has centuries worth of inhabitants who may or may not be making themselves known to us still. 

As historic interpreters, our first mission is to present the past as a cohesive, factually accurate narrative. And yet if you agree with Ralph Waldo Emerson that “all history is biography” then surely personal experiences, like the ones Nathaniel and Judith so vividly describe, are still a kind of history, even if not the kind we put into textbooks. 

Whether or not you believe in ghosts, these stories tend to stick in our imaginations, not just because they’re spooky, but also perhaps because they remind us that we’re not so different from a famous author or historic figure, even if they lived in another century. To experience the unexplainable, is, after all, utterly human.

If you’re looking to get more out of Concord than meets the eye, a guided visit through a historic site or walking tour is a perfect place to start. And if you happen to be staying here for your honeymoon, don’t forget to ask what else is included in the price of the room.