October 8, 2024
Introduction: In this article, with Halloween approaching, Melissa Davenport Berry writes about ghost hunter John Parker, who investigated more than 30 haunted houses. Melissa is a genealogist who has a website, americana-archives.com, and a Facebook group, New England Family Genealogy and History.
John Cuthbert Parker (1904-1997), a famous paranormal investigator, bewitched a whole generation of New Englanders with his tales of ghost hunting and all things paranormal.
Parker covered over 30 spook dens, and most were historical dwellings which he preserved in sketches. His daughter Wilma, an artist herself, shared with me stories about her father’s work, as well as newspaper clippings from her collection that cover his ghost hunter tales.
Parker’s lecture “New England Ghost Houses” was booked solid. He was also featured in Yankee Magazine in 1968 and hosted several radio talk shows.
Parker’s fervor for the paranormal was sparked in his youth right in his own home, the Josiah/Joshua Little House (aka Benjamin Hale House), on 350 High Street in Newburyport, Massachusetts.
Below is a photo of his childhood home in Newburyport courtesy of photographer Wayne Marshall Chase. Parker claimed he was lured by a boy ghost who roamed the rooms looking for his coat and hat he lost at a party held for the son of Benjamin Hale (1797-1863). Legend has it Hale was jealous of this boy, who was trying to woo his lady friend away, and hid his hat and coat – so the chap had to walk home in the cold. The boy got sick and died, and every year on the anniversary of the party he returns to the scene looking for his coat and hat.
In 1965 Parker made headlines in a five-page spread in the Worcester Telegram as one of the best-known ghost hunters in America – and the guy to call if you had spooks and spirits.
In the photo on the first page of this article, we see Parker (on the right) talking to Dr. James L. Huntington, owner of the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House in Hadley, Massachusetts. Parker visited that haunt in 1957. More on that story below.
One of the haunted dens mentioned in this news article that Parker recalls investigating was the Jonathan Moulton House in New Hampshire, built in 1769.
This article reports:
“A New Hampshire haunted house, the Jonathan Moulton House in Hampton just off Rt. 1, is called the ‘Ghost House on Dead Man’s Curve,’ [Parker said]. John Greenleaf Whittier loved the house as a boy, visited it often, and listened to the gossip about its ‘haunt.’ He tells the story in a macabre poem, ‘The New Wife and the Old.’ Look it up.”
Moulton, a general in the French [and] Indian Wars [and a Revolutionary War hero], had a wide reputation as a miser. On the day of his first wife’s funeral, he shocked mourners by stripping the dead woman of her jewels and rings, wedding ring included.
After another marriage to a much younger woman, the new wife was often awakened by the chilling specter of the first wife, tugging at the rings that had first been hers – so the tale goes.
Some sources say that Moulton’s penny-pinching maneuver to save a few bucks by taking the wedding band from his dead wife Abigail to give to his new wife created a very aggressive ghost.
Abigail’s specter visited the tightwad and his new bride on the eve of their wedding night and retrieved the ring by wrenching it from her finger.
Parker’s family said that when he met with the Moulton House owners Harland Little and two sisters in 1952, they heard strange noises at night – like andirons being thrown on the floor, and creepy moans which sounded like that of a jilted lady.
Harland Little furnished Parker with a letter dated 15 September 1776, written by Nathaniel Weare, who attended the second wedding of Moulton. The letter was addressed to Lt. Richard Weare, a brother serving at Fort Ticonderoga.
The Parker family sent me this newsclip about the contents of Nathaniel’s letter:
This article reports:
…Col. Moulton was married last week to Miss Sally Emery; had the honors of being at their wedding which frolic lasted three days…
Even while the gentry frolicked, the townsfolk talked – whispering that it was mighty suspicious about the first wife’s death… and now here he was marrying this handsome young woman. (The fact seems to be that he was 50 and she about 35.)
“And do you know what they say?” said the gossips. “They say the old skinflint – him with all his money – took the wedding ring off his first wife’s finger before she was laid in her grave, and used it again for this new wife. And his gifts to her! What are they but his first wife’s jewels!”
“No good will come of it, mark you,” they said.
And there is more. When Parker stepped into the Moulton House, he detected bad vibes. Moulton had spun a wraith web of weird energy when he sold his soul to the devil to acquire a fortune. The devil delivered but Moulton got greedy and the devil scorched him good – so goes another version I found in GenealogyBank’s Historical Newspaper Archives.
As mentioned above Parker visited the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House in Hadley. He was called to investigate a haunt in 1957 and had quite a night of mystery and intrigue. Here is a newsclip of Parker gearing up to do a stakeout hoping to catch a snapshot of the specter of Elizabeth Porter.
Parker is holding a sketch he made of the home and showing off his scientific equipment that records all things from the other side. You can read all about his findings in my story “It’s Haunted! The Ghosts at the Porter-Phelps-Huntington Mansion?”
To be continued…
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Note on the header image: haunted house. Credit: Melissa Davenport Berry.
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