Hauntings in Maine’s Midcoast

Local author relays tales of encounters

By Dagney C. Ernest

Carole Olivieri Schulte stands in front of her family’s cottage, Lone Maple, in Port Clyde. KELLY MICHAUD PHOTO

Lone Maple is an unassuming looking little cottage in Port Clyde with a wonderful view of the ocean. Peeling paint on the clapboards and soft floorboards on the porch give it an air of nothing more sinister than benign neglect. But there’s more to Lone Maple than meets the eye — unless you’re Carol Olivieri Schulte of Tenants Harbor, whose eye seems to take in more than one sphere of existence.

Schulte, a full-time author, has been featured in television programs because of her experiences with hauntings. The first was in 1976 when NBC came “In Search Of” Schulte’s experiences at Fernwood, another family cottage. The episode is part of the syndicated reruns of the Leonard Nimoy narrated show that runs on cable’s A&E Network.

      More recently, in October 1996, Schulte was featured in an episode of “TOPX: Haunted,” which was filmed by Varied Directions International and was one of eight reports on haunted houses around the United States.

      While the “In Search Of” episode focused on an experience Schulte had with an unknown specter, most of her encounters have been in the family. “The first was my grandfather,” Schulte said. “I was in Iowa when he died. When I got back, I saw him in a mirror, waving at me.”

      The experience didn’t really surprise her, she said. She said she thinks he was letting her know it was OK she missed the wake.

Chapter three of “Ghosts on the Coast of Maine,” tells the story of 13-year-old Sarah Whitesell who died on May 6, 1865 when a gust of wind knocked her off the top of Mt. Megunticook. She had picking flowers and enjoying a picnic with her family in the spot now known as Maiden’s Cliff. From the book: “Be careful, especially when the wind is blowing. It is the wind that blends with the spirit of Sarah and enfolds a person standing on top of the mountain. It bends the gentle grass backward and turns one’s head ever so slightly in the direction of the tall weather-beaten cross several feet away. It creates a chilling effect that might be heightened by the sight of a little girl hovering in the flowers with an angelic smile on her face.” KELLY MICHAUD PHOTO

      The incident that enticed “In Search Of” was not as pleasant, though Schulte has since gained some insight as to the identity of the somewhat menacing female entity she encountered.

      “All these little cottages were once owned by Forest and Lea Davis,” she said. The Davis’ granddaughter told Schulte her Fernwood ghost sounded like a woman named Hannah, who lived in the neighborhood in the early 1900s, always wore black and “wanted a child of her own so badly she scared the local children.”

      Some of Schulte’s familial hauntings have been appropriately nerve-wracking, but she maintains a matter-of-fact attitude. “I think people appear for two reasons: because they need help or to offer help.”

      The hauntings that were covered by the “TOPX: Haunted” program involved both, Schulte believes. She thinks her maternal grandmother needed help “getting grounded” at Lone Maple, and later intervened dramatically during a time of family crisis.

      Helen “Bat” Batastini Ward died at Lone Maple in September 1987. She’d been a feisty little lady who always seemed to know what everyone was up to, Schulte said.

     

In 1979 Jewell Stone owned Jewell’s Boutique on Main Street in Rockland. The shop used to be a funeral home. It is believed that a ghost named “George” haunted the Boutique and he moved items around in the shop. According to legend, George was on his way to serve in the Vietnam war when he was killed in a car accident in Hawaii and his body was sent home, to Rockland. KELLY MICHAUD PHOTO

“As a child, I remember her laughing and saying ‘I’m a witch!’ whenever we asked her how she knew so much.”

      It wasn’t long before the departed Bat started revisiting family members, Schulte said, who first saw her through the windows of Lone Maple, looking about 20 years younger than when she died and rocking contentedly in a rocking chair.

      The crew from “TOPX: Haunted” enacted manifestations that were more disconcerting. Schulte’s mother, Francesca Olivieri, played her own mother, Bat. Ivan Bly, a drama student of Schulte’s from St. George at the time, played the part of her son Robert, who was subjected to knocking on the door, tapping on the windows and a spinning soda bottle when he spent the night sleeping in Bat’s bed.

      After a series of similarly disruptive events, the children of Carol’s household took matters into their own hands by holding a seance.

      “My grandmother appeared in the corner by the door,” Schulte said. “We explained to her who everyone was and why we were staying at Lone Maple. We also told her she needed to move on.”

      The children’s idea seemed to do the trick, Schulte said. Though she still thinks her grandmother is “around,” especially when one of her daughters is visiting, things have settled down at Lone Maple. The small cottage, now owned by Schulte’s brother, Lawrence Olivieri, has been moved some 20 feet back from its namesake.

      Fernwood, the larger cottage that was set in front of Lone Maple, is another story — one that also was told in the “TOPX: Haunted” episode.

     

The tale of Taukolexis is told in Chapter 11 of “Ghosts on the Coast of Maine.” Taukolexis was a prisoner at Fort William Henry in Pemaquid in February 1696 and died a few months later. Other members of his tribe, The Tarrantines, removed his body and he was given a proper burial at Tappan Island. But he still visits the fort, “After the tourists have trampled, the picnickers have lunched, and the fort keeper has locked up for the night, the spirit of the captured Indian appears. A wisp of white light has been seen coming out the restored fort’s door...” KELLY MICHAUD PHOTO

“There was a lot of turmoil in the family during the summer of 1994: who would own what, who would live where,” Schulte remembered. One day that fall she got a call at the school where she worked as a librarian ed tech. By the time she reached the cottages, Fernwood was gone.

      “It was a fast, furious, angry fire that swallowed up everything,” Schulte said. “The debris was all twisted and deformed.” Looking through the ruins, she came upon a single, distinguishable artifact. It was a piece of a boot pipe, Schulte said. “And clearly legible in bas-relief letters was the word ‘witch’.”

      There’s no question in Schulte’s mind that her departed grandmother had something to do with the fire that destroyed Fernwood. “I think she got fed up with our wrangling.”

      Some of Bat’s initial visitations, years before the fire, comprise a chapter in “Ghosts on the Coast of Maine,” a book Schulte wrote in 1989 for a publisher in Iowa and which later was published by Down East Books of Camden (1996).

      The book currently is in its second edition. Each chapter is a ghost story and takes place in a coastal town — among those included are Rockland, Thomaston, Lincolnville, Rockport, Tenants Harbor and Port Clyde.

      Schulte said she decided to write the book for two reasons.

      “I had had experiences that were way out of the ordinary for me and there was also a ghost book publisher in Iowa, and I was working as a newspaper columnist at the time, so I decided to combine the two and wrote ‘Ghosts on the Coasts of Maine’.”

      Schulte spent the summer of 1988 researching and interviewing people along Maine’s coast, collecting their stories. The stories are based on fact, she explains in the book, but some names have been changed to protect the identities of those who actually experienced the happenings.

      The photographs with this piece are of places that Schulte writes about in her book. Read the excerpts of ghostly tales from the novel below each photograph.

      Schulte has just published another novel, “600 Crises or Growing Up Italian,” published by 1st Books Library. You can learn more about the book and read an excerpt from it online at www.1stbooks.com.