Your Travel Guide to Haunted Connecticut
It’s Halloween Season, so what could be more perfect than taking a trip to some of the most Haunted places in America!
Today we’re taking a tour of some of the creepiest Connecticut places, and taking a deep dive into as many stories as we can which feature. You’ll find legends of disembodied voices, cursed lands, ghostly sightings and strange apparitions, and many more mysteries to be had.
Have you been to any of the places on our list?
Let us know in the comments, and tell us about your otherworldly experiences.
We do not condone trespassing; please adhere to posted signage for your safety, and do not wander into private residences.
The Bruce Museum and Bruce Park in Greenwich
On the surface, this looks like an average art, history, and culture museum, but dig a little deeper and you’ll find there’s two spirits haunting from the great beyond! According to local lore, a local maid and a local servant fell in love. They courted on the grounds of Bruce Park and the former Bruce Mansion, with dreams of marriage not far off. Sadly, one day the man mysteriously, unexpectedly disappeared. It’s said that years later they must have been reunited in the spirit realm, and visitors report hearing the sweet sounds of a flute and humming of a lady in love. The two figures walk the grounds together for eternity. Across the way at Bruce Park, it is said that in the 1990s a group of boisterous teenagers encountered a terrifying specter of a woman with snakes on her head!
Dunnellen Hall on Round Hill Road in Greenwich
Erected in 1918 at the top of a hill which overlooks the 26-acre property, this Jacobean mansion has 28 rooms, a 52 foot indoor pool with winter garden, and some of the most picturesque views of the Long Island Sound. It sounds like the most luxurious, peaceful place to live, but it is frighteningly cursed with bad luck, misfortune, and then some. The building was commissioned by Daniel Grey Reid as a gift to his daughter, who lived happily there until the 1950s, but it all went downhill from there. It was sold several times over, and all the inhabitants met some form of misfortune while living there or shortly after the sale: losing their entire financial stability, losing a spouse to suicide or death, legal woes and misfortune, widowed and died alone, and then some! Please note, this is a private residence and trespassing is not encouraged. The property is currently for sale for a cool $43 million.
Built on land once used by Native Americans and Colonists as a pasture and farmland, later years saw it evolve into an inn and restaurant. Most notable about the Inn was an installation of a ship’s figurehead to the porch, originally mounted on the bow of the Lady Lancashire. Over the years, guests began to report strange occurrences including unexplained footsteps in the Bridal Room pacing all through the night. A woman saw a ghostly apparition dressed entirely in white floating through the Groom’s Room, and stopping to wait at the window as if awaiting her lover’s return. Some speculate the ghosts may be waiting for the return of passengers on the Lady Lancashire, which mysteriously sank at sea.
Palace Theater and Majestic Theater in Bridgeport
The Majestic Theater was once part of the complex where Poli Palace and the Savoy Hotel were located; it closed in the 1970s. Visitors of the Majestic report shadowy figures, electronic voice phenomena, and strange artifacts; it’s believed that it may have been built on a Native American burial ground. The Loews Poli Palace has reports of disembodied echoes, voices of a crowd, and shadowy figures wandering in and out of the auditorium.
Lake Compounce Amusement Park in Bristol
It’s the oldest continuously operating theme park in the US, but it has a long tragic history including accidents, death, and to no one’s surprise – hauntings! Some believe that Lake Compounce may even be cursed. Legends of the original landowner’s untimely demise include drowning in the lake while trying to cross it, killing himself after realizing the land wasn’t worth what he paid, and even murder by the tribal people for giving away their sacred grounds and desecrating them. Whether some form of divine retribution or cosmic grief, the park has had plenty of fatal mishaps over the years including workers killed in construction accidents, children drowning in the lake, a girl falling off a rollercoaster to her death, an employee being struck by a ride car, a boy drowning on the waterslide, a worker dying in a repair on the Boulder Dash ride, and most tragically a preschooler who was struck by a fallen tree branch. There’s no shortage of supernatural sightings such as disembodied voices, hauntingly strange music, inanimate objects independently moving, lights turning on and off, and strange apparitions seen by security at night after hours.
Yankee Pedlar Inn in Torrington
Although it is now closed, this haunted hotel has a lot of history and has inspired many local legends and stories over the years. In fact, it was also the site of filming and inspiration for the story of Ti West’s 2011 horror film, “The Innkeepers”. It’s rumored to be haunted by the spirit of one of its original owners, Alice Conley, who is tethered to Room 353 in which she died. Others have reported random voices, mysterious figures floating in and out of rooms and hallways, strange apparitions, the lobby rocking chair moving on its own, invisible figures getting on and off beds next to the guests, and even the ghost of a grey-haired man in a black suit (possibly Frank Conley) using the phone in the pub.
Other haunted sites of note in the area: Union Cemetery in Easton,Charles Island in New Haven, Gunntown Cemetery in New Haven, Sterling Opera House, Crypt at Center Church on the Green in New Haven, Dudleytown in Cornwall , 1754 Historic House Inn aka the Curtis House, Snedeker House in Southington, Bara-Hack in Pomfret, Gunntown Cemetery in Naugatuck, Remington Arms in Bridgeport
The Most Haunted Street in Connecticut:
Hidden mysteries in Connecticut:
Reinvestigating the Haunting in Connecticut:
Travel Guide by Ellen Avigliano
Twitter.com/imaginariumartz
www.imaginariumarts.com
