From the October 30, 1986 edition of the Vineyard Gazette:
Few old New England communities have as rich a lore in ghosts as the Vineyard. One needn’t go very far into the woods at night to understand that something altogether different dwells there. There are at least a handful of old creaky houses from Gay Head to Chappaquiddick that have been called havens for an entirely different underworld.
Of all that reside in Edgartown, the ghost or ghosts that attract the most attention these days occasionally stay at the old Daggett House, an inn on North Water street.
Daniel B. O’Connor, 34, innkeeper, says when he started working over two years ago at the former colonial tavern he was skeptical about believing in ghosts.
“What scared me most was the sound of footsteps at night, when I knew no one else was in the building and all the doors were locked,” Mr. O’Connor says, describing an incident that happened one December night last year.
The ghostly visits come in episodes lasting a few days. Months will go by between visits. “The incidents always begin in the same way. It starts first when someone knocks at the door. You go to the door and no one is there,” he says. And then the episodes begin.
Helen Alwardt, an eight-year employee, remembers a distinct voice calling “Karen” one morning in August at about 11 a.m. “I was in room three, right next to the office. Karen Bumpus was in the office.” She stepped outside and found there was no one around able to make that call.
There were other incidents where staff members at the inn heard the names of staff called.
Despite the visitations of the ghost, the business of running an inn goes on.
The public room, where breakfast is now served, and its fireplace date back to the 1660s. “It seems that the incidents center around the fireplace,” Mr. O’Connor says. Fires still burn over the large granite boulders that make up the hearth flooring. Kitchen utensils dating back to the 18th and 19th century are displayed and attract considerable attention from visitors staying at the inn.
The Daggett House has a rich history. At one time it was a sailors’ boarding house. During the 19th century the house was the residence of Captain Timothy Daggett, a highly regarded citizen in the town and partial owner of several whaling ships. The inn was purchased by the present owners, Mr. and Mrs. Fred Chirgwin, in 1948.
Adjacent to the fireplace in the dining room is a secret stairway which leads up to a bedroom — known simply as room eight. The circling stairs are hidden by a door designed to look like one of several bookshelves and cabinets. The upstairs room contains a double bed and period furniture and has a beautiful view of Edgartown harbor. The fireplace in the room uses the same chimney built 300 years ago.
On one occasion, Mr. O’Connor heard a crying baby. “I asked who is in the breakfast room with the baby. I was told there was no baby.”
Mr. O’Connor concluded that the sound of the crying baby came from upstairs in room eight, but no baby was found.
“The ghosts seem to be children —perhaps two of them,” Mr. O’Connor says. The children aren’t mischievous, Mr. O’Connor says, though there is one occasion when a visitor staying in room eight found that all her jewelry and belongings were moved from one spot to another. “The ghost doesn’t seem to have a lot to do with us. It seems oblivious to us,” he says.
Strange occurrences aren’t limited to just the ghosts. “I am told that eight or
nine years ago a man came from Bermuda and checked into room eight. That evening the guests at the inn watched as the man from Bermuda left the dining room and retired to his room through the secret door. The man was never seen again,” Mr. O’Connor says. “Only his luggage remained.”
About a month ago, Mr. O’Connor was sitting at a dining room table with a couple of maids from Ireland who had been hired to work at the inn this summer. Mr. O’Connor says he told the group the stories he had learned about the ghost. “Just then a brick fell down the chimney — raising a puff of brick smoke in the hearth. We jumped.”
The strongest piece of evidence to suggest that a ghost visits the inn appears in a photograph that hangs on the wall in the dining room. Mr. O’Connor says a group of photographers visited the inn in the mid-1960s. Later a large black and white photograph of a fire burning in the fireplace was delivered to the inn.
Inside the flame are two faces which many think are the faces of the ghosts that haunt the Daggett House.
Whatever purpose the ghosts have in the inn is not yet determined.
Mr. O’Connor works and sleeps at the inn. “In an old house you get to know every creak, every sound. I like to know. I’m constantly curious. Usually I can figure things out,” he says. But the evidence is overwhelming. “I have heard the door open and close and someone walk from one end to the other. Oh, I think, it is someone coming in for breakfast,” he says.
“But upon inspection, no one is there.”
Compiled by Hilary Wall
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