My mother moved, when she was 4, from one town to another in NH. She moved from a nice old Colonial to a frightfully haunted one that was built in the mid 1700s. I went to school with the kids who lived there. My mother and her brothers all lived there, pre-electricity. There were tombstones in the attic and the old, heavy artificial limbs in closets. The old fellow who had lived there and died there had spent his time slowly dying from diabetes and amputations. He also spent his time doing conjurings. Every family that lived there before and after (including the family I went to school with) had freak tragedies. My mother hated the place the entire time growing up and always felt it was haunted but never saw any ghosts but felt there was an evil spirit there. This was one of these HUGE rambling places with the barn attached through multiple outbuildings to the house.
One night in June in 1972, the barn caught fire and spread quickly to the house. My father and I were coming back on the highway in the evening and first we thought it was a red summer sunset and then realized it had to be a fire and it was that place. All that was left standing was the front wall of the house. A few weeks after the fire, my mother heard that the dozers were coming in to knock the whole thing down. She wanted to get the hydrangae bushes her mother planted at the front door years ago. So she and I went up. Beautiful summer evening. She put the front tires on the property and all I can say is, we were like on the movie set of the Exorcist. And I'm not exaggerating. She backed the car off into the road - beautiful summer night. She moved the front of the car back onto the property and our hair was standing straight up and the atmosphere outside was swirling in evil and we were back in the Exorcist. She suddenly said, "forget the plants."
Now, my mother was a real, old-time Yankee lady so that means incredibly determined. I was amazed (but incredibly grateful
) she gave up and didn't make me get out of the car! We talked about that incident for YEARS. That had granite steps as salvage before that was a thing to have and she said she wouldn't even have a pebble from that place after that incident.
I know live in a 1774 house she and my father bought. But when she bought it (it needed total restoration), she bought it from another old Yankee lady. I asked my mother if it was haunted and she said she asked Mrs. Holt if "the house was nice" (code for haunted) and she said Mrs. Holt assured her the house "was very nice." I've lived here for many years and while I've never felt a singular spirit per se, I've felt this is such a happy house. I've had two, total strangers come in and suddenly remark, "this is such a healing house." So who knows?