The Lizzie Borden House: Haunted places for your next vacation
Right now, as we’re all deep in social distancing and self-quarantine in order to slow the spread of COVID-19, you can’t help but dream of all the things that will be done once the restrictions have lifted and the world, somehow, gets back to normal again. If you want to go on a vacation, then there are many places to go and explore. If you love the spooky, well then, we have some recommendations for you.
From Lizzie Borden’s infamous house to Eastern State Penitentiary, here are some of the most haunted places in the United States for your next roadtrip.
Lizzie Borden House – Fall River, MA
Now if you’ve heard of a person allegedly murdering their parents, then you’ve probably heard of Lizzie Borden. It’s said that Borden killed her father and stepmother with an axe back in 1892. Borden was tried and acquitted for the cases, but the suspicion remained. In 1996, the house was opened as a bed and breakfast. So if you want to stay in the place where a gruesome double murder took place, then now’s the time.
According to Martha McGinn, who owns the Lizzie Borden House Bed & Breakfast, the room where Abby Borden, Lizzie’s stepmother, died is the “most requested” room of the house. There’s been stories of ghostly activity for years, such as Mr. Borden attacking those who try to steal spare change or something happening if you do the Lizzie Borden nursery rhyme.
You know the Lizzie Borden nursery rhyme, right? “Lizzie Borden took an axe and gave her father forty whacks. When she saw what she had done, she gave her mother forty-one.”
Salem, MA
Massachusetts is a pretty haunted state, all things considered. It really isn’t a trip to haunted Massachusetts without a stop in Salem, where in 1692 the infamous Salem Witch Trials occurred. There are ghost tours around the city, of course, and the truly brave can try a stroll through the cemeteries.
A few places that we can recommend around Salem to satiate your thirst for some hauntings are the Hawthorne Hotel, Turner’s Seafood (formerly the Salem Lyceum), Proctor’s Ledge, the Witch House, and the Joshua Ward House. If not, then Salem has a lot to offer and for you to explore. Try to avoid going in October as, well, it tends to get very crowded.
Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, Weston, WV
Asylums, due to their poor treatment of the patients within centuries and even decades past, tend to automatically conjure up images of the ghosts of mentally ill patients and cruel doctors who tormented them. There are plenty of haunted asylums to check out in the good ol’ US of A, but if you really want the creepiest, then go to the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum in Weston, West Virginia.
Originally designed by Richard Andrews in 1858, the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum started life off with the best of intentions. A clean and brightly lit space so that the 250 patients within its walls could rest and recover, giving it a healing environment. By the 1950s, things got…deplorable. 2,400 patients were crammed into the place, physically restrained, and treated inhumanely. It finally closed in 1994.
Visitors to the Asylum claim to see shadowy figures of patients long dead along with getting a general creepy feeling, being touched, and seeing things move by themselves.
The Shanghai Tunnels, Portland, OR
Portland is a city that thrives on being weird and quirky. If you’re hoping to see something a little scarier under the hipster veneer, then go check out the Shanghai Tunnels. In the early 19th century, Portland was an epicenter of an shanghaiing, a form of human trafficking.
Basically, unsuspected men would get soused by swindlers in local saloons and, in their inebriated state, be led down to the tunnels. They were drugged, held captive, and transported to the waterfront where they would be sent on ships to be unpaid laborers elsewhere. Some would make their way back home, others won’t, and the unluckiest would die in the tunnels. Those spirits, supposedly, still haunt them today.
