Episode 64: An Investigation of Salem’s Ropes Mansion
At the end of the day, it’s all just energy, right?
Episode Transcript
I’d like to start us off with a bit second-hand ghost story. A true encounter with the paranormal that has haunted my little group of friends in recent weeks.
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Back at the start of March, my husband and I traveled to Boston to celebrate a friend’s 30th birthday. And while we were there, we took the opportunity to tour one of the most infamously haunted towns in all of America: Salem, Massachusetts.
Now as a seasoned paranormal researcher and investigator, this was obviously a very surreal experience for me. I basically spent that evening gliding through the streets of Salem, scoping out renowned haunts like the witch’s house, Rockefeller’s, and old town hall.
Suffice it to say, I was having a grand old time. Meanwhile, my friends were standing behind me feeling confused and a bit bewildered. Specifically, when we made our stop at the Ropes Mansion—the beautiful colonial-era home featured in the cult classic Halloween film, hocus pocus.
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Okay so full disclosure here, I had always been under the impression that the Ropes Mansion was inhabited by friendly spirits—the ghosts of the home's storied past if you will. Our tour guide even reaffirmed that impression while we were standing out on the front lawn.
And yet, One of my friends had been adamant that he had seen something—a shadow up in a second-floor window and that this shadow had been sinister by every definition of the word. Friendly spirits be damned.
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So that got me thinking, when it comes to the paranormal, who are we to say what’s good and what’s bad? Is it even open to interpretation, or are we kidding ourselves by thinking that we could differentiate between a negative entity and a positive one? I mean, at the end of the day, it’s all just energy, right?
Well, it’s hard to say for certain, even when you’ve just been galavanting through one of the most haunted towns in the country. Which is why I’ve been itching to investigate this haunt even further. And of course, this time, I’ll be bringing you along with me.
I’m Courtney Hayes, and you’re listening to haunts. Stay tuned…
Situated just a stone's throw away from Salem Harbor, the residence at 318 Essex Street is a true testament to colonial living. Dating back to the 1720s, the mansion itself was built as the private home of Samuel Barnard—a wealthy merchant from nearby Deerfield.
To be honest, it was sort of a behemoth, consisting of 2 1/2 stories complete with bay windows and a slate-shingled roof. It’s a marvel to look at even to this day. Although, like many of the other buildings scattered throughout Salem, its history is a bit grim.
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You see, even before Barnard had taken up residence on Essex Street, he had been a widower. Tragically, he had lost both his wife and his son while they were living back in Deerfield. Meaning that his move to Salem village had likely been made as a fresh start. Which is even more tragic, considering the pattern that seemed to follow Barnard in the years after.
During his time at the Ropes Mansion, Samuel Barnard would remarry again, again, and again. His second wife, Racheal passed away in 1743. Then his third wife, whom he married a short time after Racheal’s passing, died only ten years later.
At this point, poor Barnard had been widowed on three separate occasions. Which to me, would have surely felt like somewhat of a curse. But even still he decided to try his hand one more time, marrying his fourth and final wife, Catherine, who he then widowed in 1762.
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Okay, so four weddings against three funerals. I think it’s safe to say that the ropes mansion is already racking up quite a toll. And we haven’t even met its namesake yet—a wealthy yet unpopular Salem attorney who also found tragedy at the home on Essex Street.
It was 1768 when Nathanial Ropes purchased the house from a nephew of Samual Barnard. And as of today, the Ropes were the last family to have ever lived at the mansion.
That was actually a dying wish for Nathanial, at least according to our tour guide. He had been adamant that the Ropes mansion stay in the Ropes family—passing down through the generations until such a time that there was no one left. Then and only then could it be used for non-residential purposes.
Which is more or less exactly what happened, seeing as how the property now operates as a museum, garden, and of course ghost tour stop. So Nathaniel Ropes got his wish even in spite of his reputation.
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Now while we’re on the topic, I don’t want to make any snap judgments of Nathanial’s character. But it’s worth mentioning that at the time he had been a loyalist to the British Monarch. Which was a relatively unpopular stance in New England during the late 1760s. So in turn, Nathanial Ropes was widely disliked by his peers and neighbors there in Marblehead.
To make matters worse, Nathanial was a judge. Meaning that his hefty salary was paid by the crown and by proxy colonial tax dollars.
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It was messy. There’s no other way to say it. I mean, this was Nathanial’s livelihood and he had a family to provide for. So I guess I can see why he may have been hesitant to give up his salary as his neighbors were urging him to do. But that doesn’t change the fact that those very neighbors were beginning to feel slighted by Nathanial, his wealth, and the taxes they were paying to fund it.
So in March of 1774, a group of infuriated colonists stormed the Ropes mansion. They threw rocks, sticks, even mud at the home's beautiful bay windows, all the while demanding that Nathanial Ropes renounce his allegiance to the British crown.
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Okay, I think at this point, Nathanial may have been ready to give up the ghost. He may have felt somewhat haunted by his career decisions or even willing to admit that the home he loved so much had been cursed in his name. But before he even had the chance, Nathaniel Ropes died rather unexpectedly, only a day after this attack.
Back in the 1770s, Salem village was overrun with a smallpox epidemic. The likes of which caused a great deal of unrest amongst the citizens of Marblehead.
Of course, it had been this epidemic that claimed Nathanial Ropes on that spring morning in 1774. And his home hadn’t been the only building targeted by anxious townspeople. In fact, on one occasion, a mob had actually burned down the local smallpox hospital in protest of high costs of treatment.
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Suffice it to say, things in Salem village had been tense around the time of Nathanial’s death. And all the while the Ropes Mansion was left to basically absorb that tension. So I can’t help but wonder if that energy left its mark on the property—whether that be in the form of a curse or some other sort of negative effect.
I know, it’s a bold claim to make. And hey, I may be connecting things that aren’t actually connected. I mean, if the paranormal really is just energy, then it would be tough to say whether or not this energy was positive or negative.
But like I said, my friend was and still is very adamant that something felt off during our visit to this haunt. As we’ll see throughout the remainder of this episode, the Ropes Mansion was no stranger to death and tragedy in the years following Nathanial’s passing.
There is an old legend—or really sort of a rumor—that’s been made about the Ropes mansion over the years. So the story goes, roughly sixty years after Nathanial’s passing, his wife Abigail had somehow caught fire inside the mansion, ultimately burning to death inside its walls.
Now I’m sure you guys are probably wondering, how on earth did that happen? Was it a simple accident? Spontaneous human combustion or something even more sinister than that? And for that matter, do we even know if this story is true to begin with?
Well, what I can tell you is that a woman named Abigail did in fact catch fire in the ropes mansion after standing a bit too closely to the fireplace. And tragically, she did lose her life as a result. But Abigail hadn’t been Nathanial’s wife—she was actually his daughter—and what’s chilling is that this wasn’t the only fire to break out around this haunt.
In fact, dating as far back as 1891 to as recent as 2009, the Ropes Mansion has made quite a reputation for itself as being somewhat flammable. Multiple fires have been started within the building, seemingly without rhyme or reason. A fact that has led many to believe that the ghost of Abigail Ropes is to blame.
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It’s sad really, what they say about Abigail’s spirit. That’s why she’s more or less doomed to relive her final flaming moments from the other side. And that the fires that have plagued the Ropes mansion over the last several centuries are only evidence of that.
Now based on the history alone, I’d say that this claim does make a good bit of sense. Although, I will say that another member of our little Salem tour group, presented a different theory when we were debating the ins and outs of this haunt.
Why are we so sure that it’s Abigail? What if instead, there’s something darker setting the ropes mansion ablaze?
Okay so, I think it’s pretty obvious that this episode is all conjecture. I mean, I have no hard evidence to back the claim the Ropes mansion is cursed or otherwise haunted by some sort of negative energy. And it would certainly be unfair for me to assume that Abigail herself is a vengeful spirit hell-bent on turning the property into a fiery inferno.
Still, you have to admit, her story is quite shocking and the history of the home itself is rather macabre. This is why museum caretakers believe that the mansion is rife with paranormal activity and not just Abigail’s.
In fact, Rick and Georgette Stafford, the previous Ropes Mansion caretakers, believe that they once captured the image of Nathanial Ropes himself on film. The picture in question was taken during a recent insurance appraisal—not during an investigation or a tour as you might expect—but supposedly the image shows the apparition of a man sitting on the couch.
That said, I searched high and low for a copy of this photo during my research. However, I wasn’t able to find any evidence that it actually exists. Of course, that is not to say that this isn’t an interesting story or that the Stanfords are frauds, but I do think we should take this alleged photo with a grain of salt.
Now since I’ve brought up a few different personal theories about the Ropes Mansion throughout the course of this episode, I think it’s only right that we end this investigation per se by bringing some science back into the equation. So let’s circle back to the topic of energy when it comes to the paranormal.
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As we discussed back in episode 52, spikes of electromagnetic energy are sometimes indicative of paranormal activity—meaning that such activity can often be measured via EMF meters.
Now I quite literally went through a whole science lesson on this theory during that episode. So if you missed it make sure to go check it out when we’re done here. But for now, I’d like to expand a bit further on that idea.
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Let’s think back to our high school physics class when we first learned about positive and negative energy. Now full disclosure, I was never the physics whizz so I won’t even try to explain this to you now. But I will let the Rochester Museum and science center clue you in.
You see, at least according to a museum guide that they released covering useful concepts in energy interactions, positive energy results in positive outcomes. Picture a controlled fire that warms you up on a cold winter’s night.
On the flip side of that coin, negative energy would obviously equate to negative outcomes. Like an uncontrolled house fire, for example, in a beautiful colonial-era home.
I guess what I’m trying to say is that if all of this is true, if positive and negative energy coincide with positive and negative outcomes, then why couldn’t the same be said when discussing what’s good and what’s bad in the paranormal? I mean, let’s face it, it’s all just energy, right?
Credits
https://ghostcitytours.com/salem/haunted-places/ropes-mansion/
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ropes_Mansion
https://historicmassachusetts.org/first-period/
http://www.jeaniesgenealogy.com/2015/05/first-period-colonial-house.html?m=1
https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/salem-gazette/2009/09/10/ropes-fire-prompts-look-at/38566951007/
https://www.wickedlocal.com/story/salem-gazette/2009/09/10/ropes-fire-prompts-look-at/38566951007/
http://hauntedhouses.com/massachusetts/ropes-mansion/
https://www.rmsc.org/files/resource-library/energizeit/Energize_It_Useful_Concepts.pdf