A historical tour of the Ocean State’s spookiest sites, with photos included! Rhode Island’s ghostly heritage is as deep and profound as the history of the state itself. From the ghastly moaning bones of Mount Tom to the stately haunt of Judge Potter in a local library, Rhode Island’s apparitions have been causing fear for centuries. Follow M.E. Reilly-McGreen as she reveals the ghoulish stories of the state’s most haunted places. The author delves deep to unearth both little-known tales and those that have helped define the state’s supernatural history. From ghosts to monsters, this book is your guide to all things spooky in Rhode Island.

Block Island explores the evolution of the small, 7-by-3-mile island that lies between Point Judith, Rhode Island, and Montauk Point, New York. In 1637, Block Island, also known as "New Shoreham," was claimed by Massachusetts soldiers who took the land away from the Manisses Indians. When the island was sold to 16 proprietors in 1660, the history of Block Island as part of Rhode Island began. At any time of the year, Block Island has a special look and charm of its own. In addition to its beautiful sandy beaches and thundering surf, the island is plentiful with rolling hills, fertile valleys, and ponds. Within these pages, meet the early residents of the island and learn how this farming and fishing community first developed as a summer resort destination in the late 1800s. Summer scenes from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, including views of the steamers that arrived daily carrying thousands of passengers from New York, Connecticut, and other parts of Rhode Island, are also featured in this collection.

Two days after Christmas in 1738, a British merchant ship traveling from Rotterdam to Philadelphia grounded in a blizzard on the northern tip of Block Island, twelve miles off the Rhode Island coast. The ship carried emigrants from the Palatinate and its neighboring territories in what is now southwest Germany. The 105 passengers and crew on board-sick, frozen, and starving-were all that remained of the 340 men, women, and children who had left their homeland the previous spring. They now found themselves castaways, on the verge of death, and at the mercy of a community of strangers whose language they did not speak. Shortly after the wreck, rumors began to circulate that the passengers had been mistreated by the ship's crew and by some of the islanders. The stories persisted, transforming over time as stories do and, in less than a hundred years, two terrifying versions of the event had emerged. In one account, the crew murdered the captain, extorted money from the passengers by prolonging the voyage and withholding food, then abandoned ship. In the other, the islanders lured the ship ashore with a false signal light, then murdered and robbed all on board. Some claimed the ship was set ablaze to hide evidence of these crimes, their stories fueled by reports of a fiery ghost ship first seen drifting in Block Island Sound on the one-year anniversary of the wreck. These tales became known as the legend of the Palatine, the name given to the ship in later years, when its original name had been long forgotten. The flaming apparition was nicknamed the Palatine Light. The eerie phenomenon has been witnessed by hundreds of people over the centuries, and numerous scientific theories have been offered as to its origin. Its continued reappearances, along with the attention of some of nineteenth-century America's most notable writers-among them Richard Henry Dana Sr., John Greenleaf Whittier, Edward Everett Hale, and Thomas Wentworth Higginson-has helped keep the legend alive. This despite evidence that the vessel, whose actual name was the Princess Augusta, was never abandoned, lured ashore, or destroyed by fire. So how did the rumors begin? What really happened to the Princess Augusta and the passengers she carried on her final, fatal voyage? Through years of painstaking research, Jill Farinelli reconstructs the origins of one of New England's most chilling maritime mysteries.

Rhode Island, famous for beautiful harbors and lavish abodes, has restless ghosts that lurk in dark corners of mansions, universities, inns, swamps, and woods. Discover four famous vampires and view never-before-released photos inside the vampire crypt where Mercy Brown once lay. See an 1800s vampire-killing kit. Meet a Woonsocket woman with stigmata who took on the ailments of others through the laying of hands. Read the truth behind the state's creepiest legends--Fingernail Freddie and the Swamp Bride. Demonologist and Paranormal Investigator Katie Boyd seeks the truth behind Rhode Island's most famous legends and hauntings.

New EnglandMyths and Legends explores unusual phenomena, strange events, and mysteries in Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island. From vampires to an angel, a ghost rapper to a phantom ship, New EnglandMyths and Legends pulls back the curtain on some of the region’s most fascinating and compelling stories.

Ghosts of Newport plumbs the depths of Newport's history and reveals a host of chilling tales in which fact and folklore intertwine. Today's Newport attracts countless visitors from around the world; its streets are alive with art, culture, wealth and beauty. Yet the city harbors echoes of a dark and turbulent past, including a variety of haunted sites: the Jailhouse Inn, Astor's Beechwood, the White Horse Tavern--America's oldest tavern--and many more. These stories show a side of Newport that history books alone could never tell, and help you peer past the city's gilded façade to discover dark secrets sure to spook and surprise.