A Magical Mystery Tour: Part III

 

Sensing this, my cohort, Joe Durwin, who has researched and written about history, folklore, and unexplained phenomena for more than a decade, offers a bit of trivia about October Mountain State Forest: “People say there are entities that live in the forest, evil spirits that bring out violence and bizarre behavior in people. So if the recording stops here…”

 

He glances at my recorder and chuckles. “Not funny!” I bark.

 

By now the fog is creeping up around the spindly trees (many still devastated from last December’s epic ice storm), making our journey more Sleepy Hollow-ish. I like that, it’s suspenseful.

 

Named by Herman Melville, October Mountain State Forest is the largest in the state. It’s also been called the Enchanted State Forest, Durwin says, “and it’s had a little bit of everything: it’s a hotbed of UFO sightings, there’ve been published Bigfoot sightings, and there’s supposedly the ghost of a young girl up in the cemetery where we’re going.”

 

Before being purchased by the state, the craggy terrain and (now) thick forest set between Lee, Becket, Washington, and Pittsfield was home to settlers. So cellar holes and caves (where Tories were thought to hide during the Revolutionary War) dot the landscape.

 

Stories concerning brutal murders in these parts include the notorious case of convicted murderer William Demagall, who hid out in these woods before being captured, just a few years ago.

 

“It has mystic appeal to the unbalanced mind,” Durwin says. I repeat the phrase out loud: mystic appeal to the unbalanced mind—it’s sort of poetic. And twisted. He tells me of a man spotted wandering these dirt roads…in a business suit. But in recalling the events, he says, witnesses were unable to conjure a memory of his face--as if mentally blocked by some mystic force. “It just wasn’t human.”

On our way to the Crossroads,” a dusty, four-way intersection next to a bleak, empty clearing, we see a figure (!) marching alongside the road. What timing! It turns out to be a long-haired hunter. (OK, the safety-orange hat was a dead-giveaway. Pun intended.)

 

“He’s got a gun!” I shout.

 

“And a face!” Durwin shouts back.

 

I give a swift palm-wave to the guy cradling a rifle as we pass by…just in case.

 

After climbing over a crumbling stone wall into a clearing, we see them: a collection of sad, blackened gravestones. Most have tipped over entirely; the ones still standing seem to be sinking slowly into the soft earth.

 

A plaque nailed to a tree details the inhabitants: the Pease family; the Wrights, and including numerous children, ages 5, 13, 24. We head over to look at the gravestones, and Durwin breaks out a Gauss meter, a favorite tool of paranormal hunters, which measures electromagnetic fluctuations in outdoor settings.

 

Nothing happens. We canvas the area and creep close to the ground, but no signal from the little grey device.

 

“Ghosts can’t be expected to hang around graves all the time,” Durwin offers. Seeing gravestones for multiple young children, however, gives me the heebie-jeebies.

 

Verdict: 16,5000 acres offer ample spots for freakish behavior. “But a lot of people think [October Mountain] is a magical place," Durwin posits. "Mysterious in a good way.”