Harpswell Maine Ghost Ships,Witches and Strange Happenings

Harpswell Maine is rich with the stories of out of this world happenings. Stories that have grown with time and stir the mind to see things that should not be.

The Curse of Harpswell Neck

It is said on the most beautiful of days when the sun is bright and the wind is calm you could experience one of the most infamous oddities of the Maine coast. Harpswell neck is the part of Harpswell that is directly connected to the mainland and it is also the location of the strangeness. “The Curse of Harpswell Neck” occurs when you least expect it. Bright sun, calm wind and calling seas bring you in to the clutches of the most terrifying fog that man knows. It has caused the disappearance of many a traveler without any explanation at all. disappearances of all sorts from single traveler walking the road to car load of family members on their way back from dinner to sailing vessels tied to the mooring in a calm harbor. It can’t be explained. It just happens.

This artist rendering of a creature spotted around the water’s of Bailey Island

Artwork By Emily Boisvert “BlindCalus@DeviantArt$Tumblir”

A Halloween Display

The Last Thing I Saw

This is the last thing I saw when they found me. It was a day pretty much like today. Cold and windy, you could feel the terror in the air. Sounds that were so ghostly even the lobstermen did not dare to venture from their homes. I had just locked up for the night. A sudden change in the direction of the wind had brought a cold, heavy fog. Turning to go to my car a chill surrounded me and a smell unlike any other made me gasp for a fresh breath. The smell of death filled the air. Walking, then running I tried to tell myself that I was having a panic attack. It was all in my mind. I had done this a thousand times. This time it felt different I could feel the breath of a 1000 souls on my back. The weight of each step was a struggle. The rain started to fall and the wind howled and it formed swirls resembling shapes to hideous for my mind to contemplate. Rain filled my eyes as I reached for the car handle. Was it all in my mind? I laughed at my fearfulness as I thought, I am safe. Then my mind buzzed with the thought of every horror movie I had ever seen. The victims always thought they were safe just before. No it was too horrible even to think about. I am safe. Suddenly a blood curdling sound like that of a cat whose tail had been stepped on filled my ears. The hair rose on my back and a fear of such intensity smacked me that I could not open the door. I was filled with fright.  I fell to the ground in a twisted heap to see what took the breath of my life away. Here I lay gazing at the fall display the crew had set up for those daring to enter our establishment. It was a day pretty much like today. HAPPY HALLOWEEN. ;[

There are many strange disappearances around Halloween. Could these bones that were dug up on the point of Cook's Lobster House explain some of those disappearances?

Artwork By Emily Boisvert "BlindCalus@DeviantArt&Tumblir"

A special Thanks to the Harpswell Historical Society for providing a lot of the information contained on this Page. Here we will try to inform, to give you the facts as we see them, and prepare those of you that dare venture to this beautiful and mysterious part of Maine.

Ship Of The Fog

There are tales of a ship going down around the choppy waters of Bailey Island. The tides and current in and around the Island can snatch away even the most seasoned captain. For years stories have been told of the appearance of a ghost ship. They say on a foggy night you can hear the sound of ropes being hoisted and sails being filled with the gusty breezes that spin around that part of the coast. Well on August 4th 2009 on a fog smothered sea. I captured the only picture known to exist of that spirited ship. I have produced it here for your viewing so that you might give a warning to those that seek the ship, to stand clear. For no mortal soul is allowed to approach this vessel of the fog, least ye be taken with it. So be warned and be safe.

The Dead Ship of Harpswell

The Harpswell Historical Society’s website has an account written by elementary-school kids of a local ghost ship.

The Dead Ship of Harpswell was a ghost or phantom, it was not a broken up ship. The ship was always under full sail and sailed straight ahead no matter what the wind and tide was like. The ship was mostly seen just before dark and between the afternoon and night.

Sometimes it was seen as a four masted ship, sometimes a two mast ship or sometimes a brig. As the ship was going toward the dock, the watcher saw there was no one on the ship and no one to steer the ship to the dock. When the ship was about to crash, the ship would disappear or go backwards and go into a mist. People thought that if someone saw the ghost ship that someone in Harpswell would die. The only people who saw the ship were the ones that were waiting for a ship. The ship was seen many times at Lookout Point in Harpswell Center and Potts Point in South Harpswell. It was also seen at Bailey and Orr’s Island.

The account includes a reference to an 1866 poemby John Greenleaf Whittier.

THE DEAD SHIP OF HARPSWELL.

What flecks the outer gray beyond
The sundown's golden trail?
The white flash of a sea-bird's wing,
Or gleam of slanting sail?
Let young eyes watch from Neck and Point,
And sea-worn elders pray,--
The ghost of what was once a ship
Is sailing up the bay.

From gray sea-fog, from icy drift,
From peril and from pain,
The home-bound fisher greets thy lights,
O hundred-harbored Maine!
But many a keel shall seaward turn,
And many a sail outstand,
When, tall and white, the Dead Ship looms
Against the dusk of land.

She rounds the headland's bristling pines;
She threads the isle-set bay;
No spur of breeze can speed her on,
Nor ebb of tide delay.
Old men still walk the Isle of Orr
Who tell her date and name,
Old shipwrights sit in Freeport yards
Who hewed her oaken frame.

Artwork by Emily Boisvert “BlindCalus@deviantArt&Tumblir”

 The above picture is a drawing of the Bailey Island Bridge Keeper who appears to collect a fee on Halloween night. Pay or loss your soul to the Keeper of the Bridge.

The Witch of Harpswell

Goodwife Hannah Stover

In the 1700′s a woman named Hannah became the second wife of Elkniah Stover who lived in the southern most part of Harpswell Neck. Some Harpswell people said that Goodwife Hannah Stover was a witch. She had come from Freeport and she was a Quaker. She refused to go to church at the Meeting House in Harpswell Center. Stover wasn’t a good person.

When Goodwife Stover died, the men of Harpswell Neck refused to carry her coffin to the Meeting House for a Christian burial, Some of the women of the town went against their husbands’ wishes. Six fisherwives carried the coffin of Hannah Stover all the way from South Harpswell to Harpswell Center.

Ezra Johnson was one of the men that had accused. Hannah Stover, He called her a “witch wife.” When the women finally reached the Meeting House, Ezra Johnson spoke out against Hannah again He said that he had a cow that had been “bewitched” an a broken seine that Hannah Stover hid caused. He said drat two days before Hannah Stover died, he had been taken in his sleep to Potts Point where he was dragged up and down the sides of a ship. He accused Hannah because he said he heard her voice while this was happening.

While Ezra Johnson was still accusing Hannah of being a witch her stepdaughter, Mercy Stover, and also Goody Cole spoke up. They reminded people of Hannah Stover’s kindness and the help that she gave to Harpswell people. At this time Parson Eaton took over. He said that Hannah should be buried, The men still refused to touch the coffin, so the women carried it the rest of the way and Hannah Stover was buried in the old graveyard behind the Meeting House.

“We have buried a witch!” Ezra Johnson growled.

“We have made the grave of a. saint,” Parson Eaton replied.

Halloween Haunted House