Ghosts of the Idlewild by Bill MacFarlane

 

It all started on a fall night in 1984. It was Charlie and Becky Mallar’s first Halloween owning the 1785 Inn. The restaurant crew decided that October 31^st was the best night to do a séance in room #13. To prime the pump, we each took a cocktail with us. Irish coffees, Margaritas and beer were the psychic choices of the day. We left Becky Mallar, “the Innkeeper” at the bar and made our way noisily through the narrow connecting hallways until we arrived at lucky #13. The Ouija board fit perfectly on a table once we removed the lamp and lace doily Becky had decorated the room with. We shut the lights and began fooling with the flashlights. Holding the light below my chin gave my head a floating look in the mirror. The laughing and joking had a nervous edge as the group tried to figure out what to do next.

“Ask a question!” Someone ordered.

“Has anyone ever been murdered in this house?”

“Not yet!” a man’s voice shouted as a scream burst into the small space.

“Hey, no screaming. You’ll wake the dead.”

“Who should we ask for?”

“Elijah Dinsmore.”

“Are you here Elijah?”

“Did you hear the story about Elijah’s wife?” I began. “His wife was a Willey.”

“What’s a Willey?”

“Her maiden name was Willey. Her family had a homestead in Crawford Notch. They were in bed for the night in their log cabin when they heard a sound like a train coming thru the valley. The problem was that there weren’t any trains in that area in the early 1800’s. The snows and rains of the winter and spring had caused a mudslide. The family was quickly roused and ran from the house into the night. They were all killed in the mudslide and yet the house survived. The mud came up to and on to the backside of the cabin but the house never collapsed under the weight of tons of mud and stone. If they had only stayed inside, they would have all lived instead of being buried alive. That’s where the saying that something gives you “the Willeys” comes from. It’s when you hear something and the hair on the back of your neck stands up in fear. That feeling is named after the Willeys.”

“Hoooooo!”

We horsed around with the Ouija board a while longer and when our cocktails ran low we decided to take the game back down to the bar for a re-load. We collected everything and straightened out the room and the bed, shutting off the light as we left.

As the troupe marched their way down the old stairs with the banister, Becky was letting a woman out the front door.

“You’ll never believe who was just here,” she said turning back towards the crew in the bar.

       “Who was that?” I asked

       She’s a Beebee. Her family owned the Inn in the 1960’s and this is the first time she’s been back in the building since she was a child.”

       “Wow! What did she come back for?”

       “She’s had these pictures of the Inn from the 1800’s. She took them with her when her family sold the Inn. After having them for the last 25 years, she decided that they belonged in the old house here, and so she brought them back tonight.” Becky finished.

       We scattered the black and white pictures amongst us, reading “The Idlewild,” written on the picture of the Inn with Cathedral and White Horse ledges clearly visible in the distance and a dirt road in front. We read C.R. Dinsmore  Prop. Intervale, N.H.  Aug. 1884 on another. Another had two children on a pony poising with a large family in front of the property. The Inn had storm shutters over the upper windows to protect it during winter storms. A horse and wagon had pulled up to the front and a hammock was visible on the porch. There were also a handful of postcards of the area, some with hand coloring added to the original black and white photos, as was the style of the day.

       “So you mean to tell me,” I started, “that while we were upstairs trying to communicate with the ghosts of the Idlewild, a former owner just happened to stop by on the same night and dropped off images of the place from the 1800’s?”

       “Her parents owned it, she had been a young child then. But yes.” continued Becky, “I guess that’s exactly what happened.”

       “Why’d she leave so quickly? Didn’t she want a tour of the place?”

“I offered to take her around but she said she didn’t want anything to do with this place. She thought the house was haunted. She had never been back in all those years and now that she had brought the photos back to their rightful home she wanted to leave. Thank you and good night.”

It gives you the Willey’s.