The Haunted Tavern

Another Chapter in the Hanover Reminiscences of Stephen Chase '96

SOME eight miles north of Hanover on the New Hampshire side of the Connecticut River stood an old, three-story, stone tavern with an open shed connecting to a weatherbeaten, decrepit, horse barn. Weeds, sumac bushes and discarded remnants of wagons and farm tools littered the yard.

It was truly an abandoned place. In the old stagecoach day it had been a famous tavern serving travelers from southern New England cities to the "North Country" and Canada. Broad acres descended westward to the river and gentle wooded hills across the road gave a sense of security and restfulness.

Legend had it that a traveling man, with a valuable pack, had one night stopped at the tavern and occupied the southeast bedroom on the ground floor. Sometime during the night someone had broken through the window and, after a furious fight in which the salesman was killed, had escaped with the pack. The escape window was closed with a board shutter ever after that, and the room never again used. When the railroad went through across the river, on the Vermont side, traffic ceased by stagecoach and the tavern was closed.

Through the succeeding years various families moved in to farm the fertile fields toward the river. But none stayed long because of weird noises at night and even sometimes in the day.

So the legend of the murdered salesman spread with the conviction that his ghost often fought again his death fight, and the place was utterly abandoned.

In my college days of the early 1890's I often passed it in hunting trips and explored the place — even the bedroom with the boarded-up window. Bats and birds evidently were not fearing ghosts.

One summer day as I drove over the almost abandoned road I was surprised to find the place cleaned up, cloth plugs in the broken window panes, and the front door rehung. So I stopped to investigate and found a rather rough-looking man fixing up some stalls in the old barn for a pair of horses.

We visited for an hour or so and he told of his intent to farm the place regardless of ghosts that were all damn nonsense; and even if there were one, he didn't fear God, man, or the Devil, and sure not a ghost.

The top floor of the tavern was a large room the entire area of the house with no roof supports and a large fireplace at each end. Several rusty chains from the center ridge evidently were for hanging lamps. The floor was smooth and had been used for dancing and community meetings in the long ago.

Early the following summer I visited the place again, curious to see how the new tenant had made out with the ghost. He had the place still better cleared out and announced the ghost had visited several times but he felt sure he had killed it. Describing the visits, he said they began with loud knocking that sounded through the house; then came gentle tapping that sounded like someone walking up stairs, then more pounding and walking, intermittently through the night. But I couldn't get him to tell me how he had killed it because, as he said, he was a squatter and if the story got out he would be forced out and the property would be valuable.

In talking it over with the rest of the young bunch at home, we thought it would be a fine lark to have a dance in the old tavern in the top-story ballroom.

The squatter fell in with the plan enthusiastically, after a five dollar bill was tucked into his hand, and agreed to clean up the hall, arrange evergreens to hide some of the fallen plaster on the walls, and place the kerosene lamps we brought.

We engaged the old Concord coach that was used to meet all trains at the Norwich station, with its four horses and famous, eccentric driver, "Old Dud." But I can't remember what we had for music for the dance.

The dance went on, waltz, two-step and schottische, with gay laughter in such an unique experience in an old haunted ballroom.

Suddenly, well toward midnight, a violent pounding, that almost shook the floor, stopped all movement. Then a gentle tap - tap - tap as though someone was slowly coming up the stairs, sent the girls closer into the arms of their partners. The noise stopped but the gaiety could not be revived. In about ten minutes again the pounding and tap - tap - tap sounded through the hall and all semblance of bravado forsook even the bravest of us.

Soon the squatter appeared and when he saw the hushed assembly he began to grin from ear to ear. "Guess you heard the ghost," he laughingly announced. "Now all of you follow me and I'll introduce you to it if you can stand it." No one had the courage to stay in that spooky room, so we all trooped down the two flights of stairs and followed him out the back door into the shed.

He had a large fan in his hand and as we gathered around him he waved the fan violently and again came the pounding and tap - tap - tap. High up on the wall of the shed, on a big old-fashioned, hand-wrought nail, hung a large grain winnower. It was shaped like a giant dust pan, about two feet wide from front to back and four feet across with a rim some four inches wide around three sides. A hole in the center of the back side, just under the rim, allowed the whole contraption to hang on the head of the nail a couple of inches from the wall. When just the right wind blew through the shed that thing would sway on the nail head as a pivot and pound the wall, then the momentum of the first violent pounding caused the tap - tap - tap as the board came to rest.

The ghost was made to walk several times by the big fan, then quieted simply by lifting the board off the nail and re-hung with the opposite side to the wall.