October 10, 2024
Introduction: In this article, with Halloween approaching, Melissa Davenport Berry writes more 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.
Today I continue with John Cuthbert Parker (1904-1997), a famous paranormal investigator who 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 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.
To recap: My last story covered the Jonathan Moulton House and the Porter-Phelps-Huntington House. In addition, Parkers’s childhood home was haunted by a boy specter. This initial encounter prompted Parker’s interest in pursuing ghost hunting in some of New England’s spookiest historical homes. (See: Part 1.)
Parker visited the site of the Green Mountain Tavern (aka the Second Bowker Tavern) in Savoy, Massachusetts. It was one of the eeriest places he visited. Whatever lingered in the mist there is part of the rich history of the Bowker family.
The tavern was long gone by the time Parker visited the location in the 1950s. All that remained was a stone foundation and several reports of townspeople claiming the area was full of spooks. Parker made a watercolor of the tavern by copying an old sketch.
There were two taverns owned and operated by the Bowker family. The first one burned in 1820, and a second one was built which burned in 1893. Both fires were mysterious, and strange happenings plagued the place.
Part of the story of the tavern’s famous haunting is told in a 1937 news clip.
This article reports:
For years Savoy had a haunted tavern where a traveler riding horseback stopped for a night’s lodging and never was seen again. The horse was found wandering through the adjoining lots the next morning and a farmer fed it and cared for a wound in its neck. It was believed the traveler was murdered for his money in the tavern and the horse wounded to give the impression of a hold-up outdoors. Blood stains were found on the stairs leading to the chamber occupied by the equestrian. Late at night his specter used to be seen in the window of his room. Queer sounds were heard all through the house by travelers who stopped there. When the story of the murder became widely known, the tavern ceased to be popular and went to ruin.
Three generations of the Bowker family occupied the property.
The first was the town postmaster Liberty Bowker, son of Luke and Joanna (Dunbar) Bowker, and his wife Sarah Gurney, daughter of Lt. Joseph and Sarah (Shaw) Gurney. They were the owners of the tavern at the time of the murder. According to legend the blood stains would reappear on the tavern stairs when the ghost was present.
Then their son Calvin Bowker, also a postmaster, along with his wife Eliza Belden, daughter of Augustus and Kata (Weeks) Belden, took it over. They ran a stagecoach stop, post office, and store on the premises.
During Calvin’s reign the building hosted the International Order of Odd Fellows meetings. One of the curiosos of the tavern is in its name “The Green Mountain Tent,” given by Calvin Bowker. This historical tidbit attached to this haunted hotel is a connection to a temperance league which was much promoted by Nathaniel Currier, who headed Currier & Ives.
This article reports:
Few of the present generation (says a Massachusetts paper) ever knew the name of the once popular secret temperance organization known as the [Order of] Rechabites. The only “tents” now dwelt in are at Marblehead and Rockport. On Calvin Bowker’s noted old tavern, in Savoy Hollow – whither the Adams sleigh-ride parties are wont to go – still remains the sign of the “Green Mountain Tent I. O. of R.,” the puzzle of many a passer-by.
The tavern also had a doctor’s office run by Calvin’s nephew Dr. Alonzo Melvin Bowker, son of Melvin and Betsey (Willett) Bowker, who married Hepzibah Ann Barney Sturtevant, daughter of Daniel and Hepzibah (Barney) Sturtevant.
In 1885 the town report of Savoy stated that Calvin’s daughter Katherine Elizabeth “Kate” Bowker and her husband Zelotes Richmond Wood took over the tavern and named it the Green Mountain House.
Disaster struck again when, on 23 June 1893, fire destroyed the Green Mountain House – just like the first Bowker Tavern.
This article reports:
The Green Mountain House, a summer resort well known in all Berkshire County, and one of the earliest country hotels in the region, was burned at 6 o’clock Friday night. The household goods were saved. Two barns were burned with it. The loss is estimated at about $4000. The tavern was owned by Calvin Bowker and leased by Zelotes R. Wood of Adams, his son-in-law. It was a famous inn since 60 years ago.
This next article gives much background on the town of Savoy and the Bowker family, if you’d like more information.
John Parker had a reputation as a serious ghost hunter (note in the following ad he is called a “nationally known ghost expert”).
With its long history of ghosts, it’s little wonder John Parker came to see the remains of the Bowker Tavern in the 1950s. According to reports, when Parker went to the site he was met by a 90-year-old woman in the town who admonished him: “Don’t go into the field across the way.”
The townspeople claimed the whole Bowker family lot was haunted – not only by the man murdered in the tavern, but a fellow who was haying in the field and fell off his wagon when his horse got spooked. He broke his neck and died instantly. He is buried in the field and many informed Parker that when they would pass by the field, they could see his apparition standing on his gravestone shaking it.
Whatever you may choose to believe about the Savoy haunting, nothing matches the crooked forest dubbed the “Hansel and Gretel Forest” in Savoy. That alone has its own eerie tone.
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Note on the header image: spooky ghost and horse. Credit: Melissa Davenport Berry.
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