By Kathy Murray
Dr. Eliakim Phelps was a reverend who lived in a mansion with his wife and children in Stratford, Connecticut. Dr. Phelps had an unusual hobby, especially for someone in his profession: he was obsessed with trying to contact the dead. There’s an old saying, “if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” Dr. Phelps eventually succeeded. But he’d soon be sorry that he did.
PHANTOM FUNERAL
It was a cold day in early March of 1850 and the Phelps family had just returned from church to find all of the house’s doors open. This was alarming, as they were always kept locked. But the strangest part was that there was a black cloth draped over the front door. This, in some cultures, is the sign of a death and funeral. The family cautiously walked into the house and discovered a shrouded corpse on the living room table. After a few minutes, it vanished into thin air. This was only the beginning of the poltergeist activity that would plague the Phelps family for many months.
THE DOLLS
It became a common occurrence to see family member’s clothing laid out on their beds with the arms folded across the chest, as if they were in a coffin. But the scariest sight must have been the dolls. On more than one occasion, a witness would leave a room and return moments later to find dozens of life-sized dolls made out of stuffed clothing. These dolls were often bowed, as if in prayer. It got to the point where the family, along with reporters and curiosity seekers, would leave a room empty, lock it, and return thirty seconds later to find twenty or so of these dolls. As creepy as this was, no one had been hurt — yet.
CHILD’S PLAY
Dr. Phelps had four children. Two of these children, 12-year-old Harry and 4-year-old Anna, became targets to what was now undoubtedly a poltergeist. Harry and Anna would squirm or jump from the impact of the poltergeist’s slaps and pinches, and red marks would appear where they had been hit. On one occasion, Harry was actually lifted off the ground and pulled up towards the ceiling, where he stayed suspended for some minutes.
CONTACT
Household objects would throw themselves around, windows would shatter and strange noises would come from every corner of the house. Eventually the spirit that haunted the mansion decided to make some more personal contact. Pieces of paper from seemingly nowhere would float to the floor, filled with scribbles and still in fresh ink. Dr. Phelps, who by now realized that he had probably invited this entity into his home, decided that the only way to find out who this was and what he or she wanted was to try yet another séance.
THE CULPRIT
Many people assumed that Goody Bassett, a woman who was killed for being a witch, was behind the haunting. After all, she did die not far from the mansion some two hundred years earlier. But during the last séance, through a series of knocks, Dr. Phelps was able to determine that the poltergeist had actually been a male in life and according to this male, he was scaring this family “for fun.”
NO MORE
The Phelps family had had enough. They moved to Philadelphia and the mansion was turned into a nursing home in 1947. It stayed that way for twenty years, but during that time, staff and residents complained of knocking on the walls, disembodied screams and strange gurgling sounds among other things. The mansion was left to decay and was eventually torn down. What happened to the spirit of the man who thought it would be fun to torment the Phelps family? It appears we’ll never know…