Is the Boston Athenaeum haunted? Nathaniel Hawthorne claimed he saw a spirit there.
Right in the heart of Boston sits one of the oldest independent libraries in the United States. Located at 10½ Beacon St., the Boston Athenaeum has hosted some of the country's greatest minds.
"It grew out of a group called the Boston Anthology Society. They wanted a space to share reading material, periodicals, newspapers and books," said Michelle LeBlanc, the director of education at the Boston Athenaeum.
"Louisa May Alcott, the author of 'Little Women' was a reader here," she added. "John Adams and John Quincy Adams were both members."
One of the library's famous visitors, author Nathaniel Hawthorne, etched himself into Athenaeum lore after recounting an otherworldly experience he had at the library.
"He describes going to a reading room," explains LeBlanc. "He would see this older gentleman, he described the reading room as being full of pipe smoke and older gentlemen nodding off reading the newspaper all day."
That older gentleman was the Reverend Doctor Thaddeus Mason Harris, a frequent visitor of the Athenaeum. Hawthorne described seeing the reverend every day, though they never spoke.
"[Hawthorne] went to a friend's house one evening in April of 1842. And his friend said, 'Did you hear the Reverend Thaddeus Mason Harris died today?' And he said, 'Well that's impossible, I saw him in the reading room today," LeBlanc said.
Hawthorne wrote about his encounters in the short story, "The Ghost of Doctor Harris."
"Had he been a living man I should have flattered myself that good Doctor Harris was, for some reason or other, interested in me and desirous of a personal acquaintance," Hawthorne wrote in the story.
The eerie account is detailed and specific. Still, not everyone is a believer.
"If the ghosts did show up, I'm not sure I would be all that frightened by them," says LeBlanc.
Apparitions or not, one salient point remains. The ghosts that haunt these walls are more communal than ominous.
"Hawthorne's story to me, yes it's a ghost story, and it has a creepy element to it, but in many ways it encapsulates this feeling where you are part of something that has been around for a long time."
