Night at the Haunted Museum

We know what happens late at night in museums. We know this from the Ben Stiller flick that came out in 2006: Tyrannosaurus Rexes (Rexi?) come alive, and so do statues of Civil War soldiers and groups of grungy cavemen (the smell is probably worse than their club-wielding).

Now that the Martha’s Vineyard Museum has an option to buy the old Marine Hospital in Vineyard Haven, everything is being taken into account—architectural feasibility, neighborhood goodwill—but has anyone stopped to consider the site’s well-known reputation for spirit activity? I mean, after the Vanderhoop homestead in Aquinnah (now the cultural center), and the Captain Osborne House on North Water Street in Edgartown, the old Marine Hospital, long operating as the St. Pierre School of Sport, is one of the most haunted spots on the Island.

Let’s take a look at its history: Constructed in 1895 with 29 rooms, it resembled a New England Tara, with sweeping views over a vast lawn to the Vineyard Haven harbor. It treated soldiers and sailors through the two sets of World Wars. And just as an extra-quaint touch, until 1911 it was lit by kerosene lanterns.

In 1959, the St. Pierre family bought the hospital and ran it as a summer camp with an emphasis on sailing the normally unruffled surface of Lagoon Pond. They also offered archery, crafts and tennis. It was a sleepover camp until 1977, and operated almost until the present time as a day camp. The property went on the market last April with an asking price of $3.195 million. As an additional incentive for a museum purchase, the attic is crammed with old marine relics.

So how do we know it’s haunted? Well, every so often, as a ghost-hunter and writer of other-worldly stories, I’ve received calls from St. Pierre counselors inviting me to the traditional last-day-of-camp Fright Night when the staff ushers the kids into the darkest, creakiest part of the house and scares the you-know-what out of them. I was never able to attend one of these scintillating events (I might have been more avid had there been a campfire and s’mores), but I’m sure the counselors had a roster of stories without any help from me.

“So it’s true what they say about the old marine hospital being haunted?” I always asked.

I’d hear a shudder over the phone. “Oh, yeah.”

It was all the classic stuff—taps on the shoulder when no one was there, doors opening and shutting in vacant wings, distant shouts (well, yeah! those 1895 amputations were no fun whatsoever), everyday items like kitchenware going missing, then showing up where it should have been all along . . . like that.

As a researcher of the paranormal, two main areas of, well, to put it scientifically, ghostly gushings, suggest themselves: One, an old-time hospital is bound to carry psychic imprints of suffering. Nothing is lost in the multiverses of the atmosphere: If you sit in a chair and weep over a broken heart, some time in the distant future a person with heightened sensitivities is going to pause in that spot and feel unnaturally saddened. The link might be strong enough that a transparency of you from long ago, poised like Marcel Marceau seated in the air because the chair is long gone, will appear to the live person standing there (who by this time will have bolted for the door). That’s how that part of the deal works.

Another aspect of the marine hospital’s history poses a second area of paranormal possibility, this one potentially more serious: Before the St. Pierres bought the property, the 10,000-square-foot building stood empty for seven years.

OMG.

Seven years of deserted rooms creates what psychical investigators term a negative vortex. That’s where spooks get to romp without the neutralizing effects of living souls with their healing chatter, laughter and all-over loving attention. Yes, we humans are moving vessels of positive energy (unless we’re sitting in traffic), and we should feel very proud of ourselves.

So what can we conclude about the museum buying the old Marine Hospital? Well, in addition to hiring architects and engineers to check out the place, who ya gonna call? Ghost-busters! I myself have worked with a group called Pilgrim Paranormal Research, based in Plymouth. At no charge, they could visit the Marine Hospital, say on a foggy night, armed with electro-magnetic-field readers, infra-red nighttime video cams, ultra-sensitive sound recorders, and the guys’ groovy helmets with red lights on the visors. They even have their own T-shirts! When all the data is collected and analyzed, the group will supply the museum with a meticulous report of what’s shakin’ in each of the 29 rooms.

One thing’s for sure: There’ll be no Tyrannosaurus Rexi on the monitors. It wasn’t that kind of hospital.