Oak Bluffs

Martha's Vineyard,

Massachusetts

Oak bluffs is a charming picturesque seaside community. It is 1 of the 3 "down island " towns. In the 1880's, it was referred to as Cottage City. Because of its popularity, the name was changed to Oak Bluffs in 1907. Originally, the Campground was situated in a grove of towering oak trees. Appreciating the beauty of the environment, the Methodists flocked to this tranquil area and set up tents. The grove became home to their many religious retreats. Shortly thereafter, the tents were replaced by many charming, elaborately decorated wooden cottages which still stand today delighting all who explore the winding paths and Victorian flavor of yesteryear. 

During the daylight hours, these cottages are a feast to the eyes with their shocking array of colors and bright overflowing windowboxes. The evening however, casts a totally different almost eerie feeling of mystery and anticipation. Winding paths are engulfed with shadowing trees and the soft glow of interior lights seem to entice passerbys to peek in for a glimpse of days gone by.The M.A.P.S. team was fortunate to experience first hand some of the ghostly happenings in one of these cottages. What began as a few days of fun in the sun on the Vineyard evolved into a series of unexplainable events. 

Upon arrival, we began organizing the kitchen which still housed a beautiful old soapstone sink. It was on our first day that members of the team noticed the disappearance of a spice bottle which had been placed on the shelf with other spices. Also, on more than one occasion, upon opening the cabinet door a box of chocolate chip cookies seemed to move to the front of the cabinet almost pressing against the door. We didn't think much about this although we did check for vibrations from the door being closed and came up with no good reason for this to occur. At this time, we dismissed this ...after all, we were on vacation. That evening, while watching television, four people witnessed the downstairs bedroom door open by itself. The following evening at a different time, the door opened once again.

This door had a thumb latch...not a door knob.The person who slept in that room revealed to us that in the middle of the night when he got up, someone had locked the deadbolt from the inside. (This happened on numerous nights.) The following morning in the kitchen, a bottle of Dawn dish liquid was seen by 2 people move from the windowsill to the soapstone sink. The window was open a crack, but there was no wind. None of the other bottles of lighter weight on the sill moved.

The door continued to open nightly at all different times. (8:30 p.m, 11:30 p.m, 1:00 a.m, and 3:00 a.m.) We tried everything we could to debunk this activity. Our EMF detectors showed nothing out of the ordinary, and our EVP sessions were not successful. The strange detail about the door latch was that when we pressed down to open the latch, it always made a click sound. When the door opened by itself, it was silent. Since this happened on a daily basis, we found ourselves taking shifts all night to witness it happening again.

One evening at 1:00 a.m, a switch at the top of the stairway started to crackle and the hall lights flickered on and off when it was turned on. This only happened once during our stay and we attributed it to old wiring. It was peculiar however, that this happened at the same time a shadow was seen in an upstairs bedroom. Towards the end of our stay, we witnessed another bottle move in the kitchen. The missing spice (Lawry's salt) was later found in the very back corner of the food cabinet as if it had been hidden from us. This is the same cabinet that we had previously emptied in search of the spice.

Psychic Medium Dawn Carr shed a little light on the situation. She felt the energy of a woman in the kitchen, a man, and a little boy who liked to play with the doors. We found it a bit strange, that the Dawn dish liquid had the same name as our Psychic Medium and that the missing Lawry's salt had the same name as one of our team members.(It was spelled differently.) Ms. Carr believed that the energies were trying to communicate with us. We traced the cottage as far back as the 1870's, but were unable to find anything to help us explain who was welcoming us to their haunted cottage!