The 5 Most Haunted Places in Rhode Island

New England is a ghost story all to itself. Since the first Pilgrims stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, the country’s oldest settled region has been the site of untold paranormal activity. As spook hunter Lorraine Warren, a born-and-bred New Englander, once told the Los Angeles Times, New Englanders “are living in the most haunted area of the United States.”

Consider New England has given the world the Salem Witch Trials, Lizzie Borden, the tales of Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft, not to mention an epidemic of vampires. New Englanders have always reveled in this history. According to folklorist Richard M. Dorson, “Pioneer families crowded around the hearth…entertained themselves with tales of mystery and marvel…cradled and nurtured in the wonder-laden atmosphere of a new world and stimulated by brimstone theology that clothed evil in human form…”

It’s no understatement to say that the six New England states abound in ghostly abodes, haunted graveyards, possessed roadways, and more. Even for its diminutive size, Rhode Island, the tiniest of the New England states, brims with everything haunted. Before we discover 5 of the most haunted places in Rhode Island, let’s take a few moments to immerse ourselves in its history. That way, it might not be so difficult to understand why there is so much haunting going on.

Roger Williams and the Founding of Rhode Island

Kicked out of Massachusetts for supporting the separation of church and state, Roger Williams was a highly educated man with a mind of his own. Schooled at Cambridge University in Scotland, Williams hobnobbed with Oliver Cromwell and Thomas Hooker, two Puritans who were active in politics. Williams traveled to America in 1661, refusing to abide by the dogma set down by the Church of England.

No one can deny that Williams was indeed a radical. While living in Massachusetts, he called for the separation of church and state, which was nothing short of heresy. In response, the Puritan overlords did what any good Puritan would do — they banished Williams and his separatist followers from the colony.

The gaggle headed south and settled along Narragansett Bay, establishing a settlement in 1636 in which they called Providence. It was land given to them by the indigenous Narragansett. Rhode Island soon became a sanctuary for other dissident Puritans, including Anne Hutchinson. In 1644, Williams asked for and received a patent to set up the Providence Plantations, an English colony that later became Rhode Island.

Rhode Island was a beacon of hope for the religiously persecuted. Baptists, Quakers, and Jews, among others, flocked to the colony, all seeking freedom to worship as they wanted. It is under this backdrop of religion and all its supernatural underpinnings that we must view 5 of the most haunted places in Rhode Island.

Chestnut Hill Cemetery, Exeter

A vampire lies in the town of Exeter, in the shadow of the Baptist Church. Her name is Mercy Brown, and to hear author Joseph Citro tell it in his book “Passing Strange: True Tales of New England Hauntings and Horrors,” Mercy is the most famous vampire, not only in New England but also in the United States.

Mercy had a large family that, in the late 1800s, began dying off. They succumbed to what people called the “white death,” better known as consumption. We know it today as tuberculosis. Tuberculosis is a dreaded disease of the lungs that can spread to other parts of the body. As people die, they waste away. But in a rural 19th-century New England town, it was assumed that something more malignant and not of this world was occurring.

Mercy’s family took ill. One of the first to die was Mercy’s mother, who was just 36 when she passed in 1883. Her daughter, Mary Olive, died six months later, leaving Mercy’s father, George, with one son and four daughters to take care of. On January 12, 1892, Mercy, herself, succumbed. She was only 19. The family was cursed, or so everyone believed. They had little knowledge of consumption and quickly blamed the death of Mercy and her family on a vampire. Many people in New England believed at the time in vampirism, a holdover from its colonial past.

Grave Diggers

There was only one way to find out whether a vampire was at work in Exeter. The proof lay in the graves. Only then could the town determine which member of the Brown family was the bloodsucker. Edwin Brown, Mercy’s brother, had escaped the travails of his family’s affliction. He had moved to another town. But when he started to come down with the first symptoms of tuberculosis, he left for Colorado. After Mercy’s death, he traveled back to Exeter to watch as the bodies of his family were exhumed. By his side was Dr. Harold Metcalf, who reluctantly agreed to examine the dead. As the bodies were unearthed, Metcalf went to work and found nothing out of the ordinary.

But others in Exeter weren’t so sure and set out to prove a vampire was at work. They examined the bodies themselves. Mrs. Brown and Mary Olive’s bodies decomposed. As for Mercy, well, that was an entirely different story. She was mostly intact. And there was something else strange—she was lying on her side. She obviously wasn’t buried that way. This led many to believe she had moved. “Vampire,” they shouted. One onlooker, who fancied himself a surgeon, cut Mercy’s heart from her corpse and said it was wet with blood. He burned it on top of a rock near her grave.

A mixture of Mercy’s ashes and liquid was then made for Edwin to drink in the hopes it would cure him. He died despite the cocktail. Today, as the locals tell it, Mercy Brown walks the cemetery. Her ghostly apparition is a common sight.

Southeast Lighthouse, Block Island

In the summer, Block Island is the quintessential New England island. A pristine speck on the Atlantic, the population swells in the summer and dwindles to only a few diehard Yankees when winter arrives. First spotted by Giovanni de Verrazzano in 1524, the island was “rediscovered” in 1614 by Dutch explorer Adrien Block. English colonists settled in the area in the early 1660s.

Despite its Lilliputian size, a lot of mayhem has occurred on Block Island. The island had been home to several indigenous tribes for thousands of years. In 1636, the same year that Roger Williams was setting up his crib in Providence, the island’s Native Americans murdered a Massachusetts man named John Oldham. Oldham had a reputation as a shifty trader. In response, a group of armed Puritans traveled to Block to seek their pound of flesh. They burned wigwams, murdered men and women, and “shot every dog they could find.”

Mad Maggie

In another instance, according to legend, 40 members of a Mohegan raiding party were driven to their demise off the 200-foot-tall cliffs on the southeastern part of the island. Today, not far from those bluffs, sits the Southeast Lighthouse. In the early 1900s, the lighthouse keeper and his wife had an argument. Apparently, she did not like living in such a desolate location. Her husband’s answer to his wife Maggie’s problems was to shove her down the stairs, or so the story goes.

The keeper said she fell. The police said she was murdered. The keeper was tried and imprisoned. Today, people say “Mad Maggie” skulks around the Southeast Lighthouse, showing her disdain towards any males who may venture inside. Some have found themselves inexplicably locked in rooms, while others claim to have dodged thrown knives and other sharp objects. Mad Maggie was so enraged at one lighthouse keeper that her ghost allegedly chased him outside and then locked the door. The keeper, standing in his underwear, had to call the Coast Guard to let him in.

In 1993, workers moved the lighthouse back because the cliffs were eroding. Maggie’s ghost, it seems, was not at all happy and manifested her anger by moving furniture, throwing food, and rushing up and down the stairs.

White Horse Tavern, Newport

Newport is, perhaps, one of the most gracious and genteel places in New England. First settled in 1639, the port grew into a bustling center of trade and a beacon of religious tolerance led by Anne Hutchinson. Indigenous people had lived in the region for some 5,000 years. They were expert fisherman and good stewards of the land.

In time, Newport became popular with the most wealthy families of the Gilded Age. People like the Astors, Morgans, and Vanderbilts built magnificent summer “cottages” facing the ocean. Long before these industrialists built these ornate mansions, the White Horse Tavern stood as a reminder of what came before.

A man named Francis Brinley built the original structure in 1652 as a home for his family. Twenty-one years later, William Mayes purchased the building and turned it into a tavern and inn. His son, William Jr., was a rapscallion of a sort, a bona fide pirate who plundered the Red Sea. He eventually came back to Newport to help his father run the family business. William Jr. inherited the tavern in 1702.

Sometime in the 1720s, a man lodging at the inn died in his sleep. No one knew the reason. Fearing whatever killed him was contagious, the authorities sent Mary Nichols, William Sr.’s daughter who was running the inn at the time, as well as an indigenous girl who worked with her, to Harbor Island. While there, the women came down with smallpox. The girl died, but Mary survived.

People say that the man who died at the inn haunts the White Horse. Those who work there, as well as guests and customers, have seen a man dressed in period garb in the main dining room and in the upstairs men’s bathroom. People have been tapped on the shoulder, and others have heard a little girl crying. Some have claimed at times that a female apparition floats above dinner guests. Others have heard footsteps upstairs when no one was around.

The Breakers, Newport

The Breakers is one of the grandest “cottages” in all of Newport. With 70 rooms, the Italian Renaissance-style palazzo was the summer of home for the Vanderbilts. Built in 1895 by Cornelius Vanderbilt II, the Breakers has three floors, as well as an attic and a basement. Although Cornelius did not often stay there, his wife, Alice, and seven children regularly visited the cottage every summer. Alice employed more than 30 servants to run the place.

Alice loved the Breakers, but she also had a lifetime of heartbreak. She survived her husband and four of her children. Alice died in 1934, but as those who have visited the Breakers attest, she never left. People say Alice still walks the massive hallways. Perhaps, as some claim, Alice is still trying to relive the glory days of wealth, gild, and happiness she surely must have felt at this cottage by the sea.

Nathaniel Green House, Coventry

Nathaniel Green was an original American patriot, serving as one of George Washington’s most competent generals during the Revolutionary War. Born in Warwick in 1742, the Greene family was one of Rhode Island’s original families, helping Roger Williams establish the colony.

Greene was a studious soul who read every available book, ultimately building a massive library. When he wasn’t reading, Greene managed his father’s mill while also being an active member of the Coventry community. In fact, he helped build the first public school in town. Greene loved to read about military history, a hobby that served him well during America’s fight for independence. When the first shots of the American Revolution were fired in 1775, Greene rushed with four others to Boston to join the fight. He later became commander of 1,600 Rhode Island troops.

Many consider his Coventry house one of the most haunted in Rhode Island, if not New England. The house is today a museum, and workers swear it is haunted. They have noticed that artifacts have been moved. Door latches supposedly open and close by themselves. People have heard voices when no one else was inside. Various apparitions have been spotted.

According to reports, Greene doesn’t seem to be the one haunting. Other members of his extended family seem to be culprits, including a girl named Julia, who one worker described to a reporter as “the most beautiful girl in Coventry.” She married a man who ruined the family fortune and is buried in an unmarked grave on the property.