No Hope

I wrote the following story for horror magazine Rue Morgue a few years ago, but it never found life there. It's about a small, quirky town I used to visit in my teen years, mainly to buy punk albums from indie record shops, feed ducks or simply walk across the spider-riddled bridge into Lambertville, N.J., because I had nothing else better to do. I returned there not too long ago, and it just didn't fit me anymore. It's funny how time alters things.

The Most Haunted Town in America

The wraith of a maligned vice president mingles with slaughtered pigs

and other restless spirits in New Hope, Pa.

Within an hour's drive of Philadelphia, along the chocolaty seam known as the Delaware River, lies the once-sleepy Bucks County borough called New Hope. Dubbed "No Hope" by sour locals, New Hope is also known in some circles as the most haunted town in America.
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New Hope's rich history, quirkiness and artistic nobility have begun to butt heads with Wal-Mart-era consumerism. (For example, Starbucks has snatched up a prime corner in a shuttered bank-cum-fallout shelter.) While corporate tenants have driven out a few independent retailers and residents tiring of weekend bottlenecks, New Hope's longest-tenured inhabitants --- a diverse cast of graveyard spooks --- aren't going anywhere anytime soon.
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"This area is so rich in history," says Adele Gamble, proprietor of Ghost Tours, a local firm that conducts lantern-lit tours of New Hope's most famous haunts. "George Washington's troops endured so much hardship here; many of them froze to death. Plus, New Hope has always attracted actors and artists. You have all these tortured, sensitive souls in one concentrated area."
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The storied Logan Inn along New Hope's main drag sits at the town's supernatural epicenter. During America's Revolutionary War, Washington's troops used the inn's basement as a makeshift morgue and crematorium; Gamble says the cellar's spiritual energy is strong enough to raise her hackles. Visitors continue to report sightings of soldier spirits --- some headless --- guarding the inn, which went up in the 1720s. Unexplained phenomena have sent some guests unexpectedly packing in the middle of their stay, while some thrill-seekers overnight at the Logan thirsting for an otherworldly encounter.
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A ghost that leaves traces of tobacco smoke or the scent of lavender haunts at least one of the inn's 16 guestrooms, according to reports from past visitors. The inn also has a famous phantom: Aaron Burr, vice president to Thomas Jefferson in the early 1800s. In 1804, Burr absconded to New Hope and stayed at the Logan after murdering political rival Alexander Hamilton in a duel. What has been described as Burr's ghost sometimes appears in the halls of the inn or along a mule-tramped towpath that runs behind it.
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Gamble, who runs Ghost Tours apart from her full-time job, has been soaking in New Hope's spiritual energy for the better part of 25 years. One of her most memorable encounters occurred during her "initiation." The late Adi-Kent Thomas Jeffrey, an author and ghost expert who modeled her own tours after those in England, had been holding a seance one Halloween night. The location: a house formerly occupied by a late-19th century primitive artist, butcher and reformed carnie named Joseph Pickett.
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She recalls sitting by the window next to an antique hutch, away from the seance's other participants. An unseen force grabbed a fistful of her hair and yanked back her head. She screamed, "Something has me!" And something --- or someone --- definitely did. In the room with them hovered the apparition of a tall man with salt-and-pepper hair, a handlebar mustache, a white shirt and suspenders: Joseph Pickett's specter. She has had at least one other dust-up with Pickett in the time since.
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An unassuming multistory house near a bridge that overlooks the towpath has served Gamble as another reliable source of ghost sightings. During her tours she likes to recite the tale of a rock band that once tried to use the house as rehearsal space. But when the musicians plugged in their amplifiers, an ungodly squealing belched from the speakers; the amplifiers worked just fine everywhere else. The problem persisted, ultimately driving the band from the building. Gamble says the property had been used long ago as a slaughterhouse, and "little piggies" slain there must have channeled their cries through the band's equipment.
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She has plenty of other stories about that particular building, which housed a fencing academy in the late 1990s. One tale has to do with a girl visiting friends who lived in a converted apartment there. While sitting in a chair, the girl felt a cat's tongue rake her skin. But as she bent to pet the cat, she saw a ghostly piglet licking her hand instead.
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Other notable New Hope ghosts include a blond hitchhiker with crystal-blue eyes who was killed while thumbing for a ride late one night; a stately woman in a long, high-collared dress; sobbing children; and an impish phantasm that, according to Gamble, once pulled a man off a ladder. Despite the mischief, Gamble likens most ghosts --- at least the ones on her tours --- to Casper: harmless and well behaved.
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"I'm not afraid of them because I believe you attract what you are, and I won't let myself be affected by negative energy," she insists. "But I always ask permission from the ghosts. They were here before I was, and they'll be here when I'm gone."