In some cases a demonic spirit can seek a person out for one reason or another, as countless stories attest to, but one can also attract a spirit to show itself in various ways, anywhere from a ghost-like sighting to strange, unexplained sounds, such as a voice around the corner or footsteps coming up behind you, only to turn and find no one there. In some cases we encounter these restless spirits when we seek them out, by visiting the site where their grim deaths occurred.
it should not come as a surprise to anyone that restless spirits, or ghosts, are rarely if ever encounter during bright sunny conditions, that is simply not how the spirit world operates. Restless spirits seem to be mostly at home under conditions they find most favorable, during a storm, when fog creeps in, in a dark place with candle light of a burning fire, and at those prime times at dusk or early dawn. Many times people encounter those from the spirit world not by a sighting or through strange sounds, but through their senses, you will suddenly feel a chill come upon you, perhaps the hairs on the back of your neck will stand up, and you will suddenly find yourself focusing on an area, sensing something, or someone there.
Your best chance of encountering the spirit world is by visiting a location where a horrific death has occurred, at dusk or dawn, preferably when a fog is present or just coming in, and watch and wait for a sign to show itself.
TWELVE YEAR OLD MEETS MOST HORRIFIC DEATH
In August of 1853 one of the most tragic deaths to ever occur on Mount Desert Island took place on the cliffs of the Precipice, and it was perhaps the earliest recorded death on that trail, the most dangerous in all of Acadia National Park. This death of a young girl who was about to turn 12 occurred in an area just above a site known as The Great Cave. Some women from town had taken a group of young girls up by the Great Cave for a picnic and to pick wild blueberries, as the baskets were filled with nice plumb berries, the women gathered up the girls to head back down the mountain side, but two girls, Lucreatia K. Douglas, going on 12, and Almira Conners, a few years younger, had spend the entire time talking with one another, so as the group prepared to depart, the two girls begged to remain behind so they too could fill their baskets with berries. No one knows why, but the women consented and the group was soon out of sight as the two girls began picking berries. At some point, one of the girls spotted a nice clump of berries not far away, and the girls made a dash for them, not realizing the clump of berries was perched on the edge of a high cliff. They no sooner reached the berry bush when a section of the cliff gave way, carrying both girls downward. The Conners girl ended up landing in the upper branches of a tall tree and had broken bones, cuts and bad bruises , she was the lucky one and would live to tell of the horror which followed that tragic accident, for the pain and suffering had only just begun.
For the Douglas girl, it was not a question of rather she would die, but when, for as she rolled on the ground from the fall a large boulder rolled on top of her. Both girls were badly injured and one was being crushed by the weight of a huge boulder, and as duck came on all each girl could do was cry out in pain, as well as for help. The Conners girl would later recall how the Douglas girl continued to cry out in pain nearly throughout the entire night, her voice finally going silent and her body limp just before dawn, for her the fight for survival was over.
It was the Uncle of the Conners girl who discovered the two girls and raced back to town for help. One story recalled how the parents of the Douglas girl was poor and how her body was brought back to town and buried in an unmarked grave in a cemetery along Mount Desert street which lies between two churches. For years she lay in that unmarked grave, until one day her brother returned to the village and purchased a headstone to mark his sisters grave.
There are those that say to this day she in one of a few ghosts in that tiny cemetery that make their presence known at duck or early dawn, when a haunting fog stretches out over the cold gravestones there.
Still others have said her young spirit still roams the narrow ledges of the precipice, and that as the fog has come creeping in hikers have heard a young girls voice ahead, or sensed some one coming up behind them, to turn and find no one there. And as strange as it may seem, the dead girls family lived in a house at Compass Harbor, a site others have written about of ghost sightings and strange sounds on foggy evenings.
PULLED TO HIS DEATH BY WATER LILIES
On July of 1896, one of the most strangest deaths to have occurred on Mount Desert island took place at Witch Hole Pond. Two boys, Jimmy Elkhorn and Guy Bunker had ventured out to the pond one day and decided to row out to the center of the pond in a home made rowboat Jimmy had build and kept by the shore of the pond. They rolled out to the center of the pond when Jimmy began to rock the small boat. The bunker kid did not like this at all, but dispute his protests Jimmy continued to rock the boat until it overturned. The Bunker kid clung to the boat, and begged the Elkhorn kid to stay with the boat with him, but Jimmy took off swimming toward shore. Now what makes this case so strange is the fact that not only was Jimmy a good swimmer, everyone who knew him said he was a great swimmer, yet as Jimmy got close to shore, he suddenly stopped swimming and began thrashing about, as if something in the pond had a hold of him. Jimmy finally sand below the water.
After a rescue party arrived and got the Bunker boy out of Witch Hole Pond, they went to the area where Jimmy was last seen and were able to retrieve his body from the pond. What they found shocked everyone involved, for Jimmy's legs were entangled in a mass of water Lillie stems which had prevented him from making it safely to shore, and it was the way Jimmy died that so shook the entire community. Jimmy earned spending money from that very pond, going out early in the mornings in his boat to pick water lilies which he would take to town and sell out front of the motels in the summertime. Jimmy died at age 15 in one of what is today one of the more beautiful areas of Acadia national Park. Some say if you stand on the banking of witch Hole Pond on a calm summers evening and watch the water, you will catch the sight of a disturbance on the pond, in the area where the lilies grow to this day, some say its just fish coming up to feed off passing bugs, but others swear its the spirit of Jimmy, still entangled in a place he loved.
MURDER AT OTTER CLIFF
Some say on a foggy evening, just around dusk, one can hear the lone blood curdling scream of a young bride plunging to her death from the eerie cliffs at Otter Cliff. One thing is certain, if such screams are heard there, it is for good reason, for a new bride meet with a horrific death there one evening - plunging 88 feet to the rocky shore below.
Dennis R. Larson, one might say, seemed on a run of bad luck when it came to wives, with his first wife meeting an untimely death by drowning in a creek, and a second wife soon leaving him. He placed an ad in a Maine newspaper in search of a third wife and 25 year old Kathy Frost answered his ad and soon married seven weeks after that. The day after she said "I do," Mr. Larson took out a $200,000 life insurance policy on her, though his new bride had no idea of the keen interest her new husband had just taken in her health.
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| MURDER AT OTTER CLIFF Acadia National Park |
The marriage was on the skids almost from day one and Kathy wanted out of it, but Mr. Larson talked her into taking a trip to Bar Harbor so they could work things out. She reluctantly agreed to go, but with the intend of telling him she wanted to end the marriage, while friends and family members pleaded with her not to go on the trip. Mr. Larson had his own reasons for the quickly planed trip to Maine, and once the couple arrived in Bar Harbor, Mr. Larson suggested they take a drive into nearby Acadia National Park. At Otter Cliff, the couple walked out to the high towering cliff where Mr. Larson pushed her off the edge to her death, her final scream echoing off the granite wall of the cliff.
At his trail, Mr. Larson admitted to having drown his first wife, also in order to collect the insurance policy and as it turned out, and as it turned out marriage was simply a business deal for Mr. Larson, and there's no telling how many young brides might of meet an untimely death at his hands had he not been convicted of murder.
THE NINE YEAR OLD GHOST THAT HAUNTS EAGLE LAKE
Ghosts come in many forms, the one that haunts the shores of Eagle lake takes on the form of a nine year old child, who vanished from sight on Christmas Day in 1909 while onlookers could only watch in horror.
The day had started out like any other Christmas Mornings, with nine year old Adren Peach in a hurry for him and his mother to start out from Southwest harbor and make the trip over to his Cousin's house in Bar Harbor, where the two families were to unwrap gifts. In a house on Forest Street in Bar Harbor, 12 year old Clarence Suminsby paced back and forth as he kept an eye on the street, anticipating the arrival of his cousin.. As the car pulled into the yard and gifts were carried inside, the two boys had but one thing on their minds, for each had repeatedly asked for the same gift, a pair of new ice skates. The two sisters, wanting to spend some time together, had the two boys open a gift, and to their elated surprise, both unwrapped a new pair of skates and immediately began to beg to go to the lake to try them out. The sisters agreed to let them go, the other gifts could wait to be unwrapped later that day.
The two boys headed for Eagle lake, with their brand new ice skates hung over their shoulders. Once at the lake they skated for a bit before noticing a group of other skaters on the far end of the lake. The two decided to head to the other end of the lake and join the others, with the nine year old skating down one side of the lake while the twelve year old skated down the other side of the lake. At one point as they neared the other group of skaters, Clarence began skating across the lake to join up with his cousin, as he got nearer there was a screams as first one, two, than three skaters fell through the ice. People on shore scrambled to try and rescue the skaters from the freezing waters of the lake as the nine year old continued in the direction of the horrific scene playing out before him, when the ice opened up below him, in a heartbeat he was gone, his cousin Clarance turning and racing for the safety of the nearby shore. The three that had first fallen through the ice were soon pulled to shore and the focus was now on helping young Adren Perch, yet the surface of the lake was eerily still. A rescue party arrived at the scene and hours later the body of the nine year old was recovered from 69 feet of water, as they pulled him from the frigid waters his tiny mittens were still frozen to his hands, and his brand new skates still laced to his feet.
THE DEVIL'S OVEN LIVES UP TO ITS REPUTATION
Anemone cave got its most recent name from the anemones, tiny sea life, which make the cave their home, but the cave has a dark past and was known as far back as the 1800's as The Devil's Oven. It is not the only place on Mount Desert Island so named, but it is the only sea cave that lives up to its name, for as others have found over the years the Devil's Oven below the cliffs at Schooner head can turn deadly in a heartbeat.
Books have been written and stories told of cries for help coming from the ancient sea cave, which the National Park Service claims was abandoned as a park attraction in order to protect the Anemone that live there, but truth be known, deaths by drowning and countless accidents and injuries from falls in the wet sea cave also played a key role in abandoning the cave. As one Ranger put it, "we were called to assist tourists at the cave too often who were either injured or becoming trapped by the rising tide."
So were the books and stories of cries for help and blood curdling screams heard coming from the cave over the years true? I set out to investigate if there was any such records of people becoming trapped in the Devil's Oven and meeting a horrific death at the hands of a brutal rising tide. At first I could not find any such proof, in part because the National park Service doesn't keep such records. Finally one evening, after pouring over countless newspapers, I came across one such tragedy, that of a local college student, Douglas Rose.
On an evening in 1993, Mr. rose and another college student used ropes to climb down to the mouth of Anemone Cave, not knowing at the time that only one would make it out alive. While the two were inside the cave a storm approached, causing the sea to become rough, and soon threatening waves began to crash against the rocks outside the cave as the water inside the cave began to rise alarmingly so, to the point where the two students knew they had to exit as quickly as possible, leaving their climbing gear behind a struggle between life and death unfolded. Exhausted and beaten by waves, the two students finally exited the cave, to be met by heavy downpour and thrashing winds and waves. One student made it to the rope they used to reach the cave by and began to climb up it toward the cliff above, stopping along the way to look back at the other student and encourage him to also climb up the rope, but Rose was too exhausted and his body soon sank below the surface of the sea. The following day a rescue team ascended upon the scene and the body of Douglas rose was found floating inside the cave.
Because no records were kept, we will never know how many others have met the same fate, or what the exact body count is for the Devil's Oven, but clearly Mr. rose was not the first, nor will he be the last to meet an untimely death in a place so names, "the Devil's Oven.
Good account of stories but reread before publishing and edit all the errors. It will help make for better reading!
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