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Window Into History
Oct 18, 2007
Many lake area tales
of spooky happenings
The crunch of leaves underfoot and slightly cooler days leads one to believe that October has arrived, finally. With October comes the thought of Halloween, and with Halloween comes an aura of spooks and mystery. Are there restless spirits floating about in the woods and meadows of our town? Should we believe in an unseen dimension? Although I’ve never encountered any myself, I’ve met a number of residents who claim to have had unexplainable encounters with visitors from the world beyond.
Lewisboro has its specters, and many of these spirits hang out in the Three Lakes area, but there is no need for alarm. Most are harmless, and many haven’t been seen or heard from in decades. Lakes, for all their serene beauty and peaceful shorelines, can be very dangerous places. Since the formation of the South Salem Fire Department in 1938, department member and former Lewisboro Police Chief Don Taylor, a native of Lake Waccabuc, remembers at least seven drownings in the three lakes. He said he was present at six of the victim recoveries and his dad, William Taylor, also a department member, was responsible for the seventh body recovery. That is a gruesome tale in itself.
One of the ghost tales recounted by area residents is probably related to a Lake Oscaleta drowning in 1937. Back then, the lakes were known far and wide as popular fishing spots, and boats could be rented at Merwin Dicken’s place for the day or the hour. Since the lakes are all connected by channels, a fisherman could rent his boat in Lake Waccabuc and fish on any of the three lakes.
One hot July day, a family came for an outing and while the father fished out on one of the lakes, the mother and son picnicked and played on the wooded shores of Lake Oscaleta. Tragedy struck! The youngster waded out too far on the unfamiliar shore and drowned. The father returned to a frantic mother and the search for the child’s body turned up nothing. Four decades later, in the early evening, especially in the autumn, the wailing of those parents can still be heard by residents on the southern shore of the lake. This is one of the ghost stories that seems to have a definite genesis.
Library ghost tales
The origin of other tales of the unexplained cannot be so neatly tied up. The tellers often wonder who their ghost is and why is it still wandering the earth’s pathways.
On Friday, Oct. 26, I shall be telling ghostly tales of the Three Lakes area at the South Salem Library at 7:30 p.m. All believers and nonbelievers are invited, especially if you have a tale to relate yourself, and not only of the lake district.
Although I’ll be concentrating on the north side of town, there will be a few other tales as well. Come and hear for yourselves. All ages are welcome, but these are not storybook ghosts like Casper. The stories are of real sightings with an attempt to put a historical perspective to the sighting.
Downtown South Salem also has its share of unexplained spirit sightings. There are so many for so small an area that I am tempted to believe that Lewisboro is alive with visitors from the other side; I just haven’t had the chance to meet people from the remaining hamlets who have had their own encounters.
Spring Street has its share of sightings, including the lady dressed in a long white apron that my teenaged daughter spotted crossing the road going from our house to a neighbor’s house directly across the street. Heather was certain the father driving her home from her babysitting job was going to run the woman over, but he never saw the lady in white and she disappeared, quite likely unharmed. We’ve never seen her again, either.
We’ll relate one last story to whet your appetite for the 26th. This was a story I heard last year during my ghost walk of downtown South Salem. A resident told of seeing a woman dressed in a shawl walking up her Main Street driveway toward the garage at the back of her house. The woman was either wearing the shawl draped about her shoulders or over her head. Each time she was seen, the woman was carrying what has been described as either a pail, or perhaps a bag, that appeared to be heavy. As she approached the garage, she disappeared. Residents of the house in question have put several potential names to this ghost, but will we ever know for sure who this ghostly bag lady is? But that’s the way it is with ghostly tales, and maybe we don’t really want to solve the mystery.
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