Boston 1920: Strange events at 20 Copp’s Hill Terrace have left minds ruined and families shattered. But how believable are such tales as strange figures and moving inanimate objects in our modern age? How readily should we disregard the influence of the otherworldly? After the recent real-life horrors of poison gas and industrialized slaughter, can we give credence to tales of odd visions and supernatural presences?
Investigating 20 Copp’s Hill will prove that we should not dismiss such tales too lightly...
Isadora always carries around a little notebook clad in purple velvet, and she records the main clues of their investigation.
Harry Jordan
Jordan’s office is on the 3rd floor of the Wigglesworth Building in Franklin Street
20 Copp’s Hill Terrace (“that street used to be known as Sheafe Street”) Evil presence!! Corbitt House
Tenants:
1918-1920 The Macarios: “The husband went crazy right here in this street, screaming and attacking passers-by. Luckily there was a cop near, and he managed to restrain him until more came, and believe me they needed five cops to get him in the paddy wagon. And then his poor wife lost her mind so recently. You could see she was under terrible strain, poor woman”
1917ish-1918 The Milligans: “They seemed like a perfectly normal healthy family, but they all got sick. They blamed the house, so they moved away. Stuff like that seems to be the pattern with that house. So yes, you could say its notorious” (News vendor, Dooley)
1909-1914 Mr. and Mrs. Jones fell prey to illness and sickness, almost as if the house itself were conspiring against them. Their children did not fare much better though all of them lived in the house for several years; in 1914, the oldest of the Jones children went mad and killed himself with a kitchen knife
1880s LeDeux family: both parents dead and their three children crippled for life
1835-1866 WALTER CORBITT!
18??-1835 Andrew Webber (sold the house to Corbitt)
ARTICLE FROM THE BOSTON GLOBE:
"What haunts the house on Copp’s Hill Terrace?"
Monday, October 28, 1918
Spoiler:
Something sinister seems to haunt a local Boston house.
Whatever it is has destroyed three families in the last 40 years.
The two-story house at 20 Copp’s Hill Terrace has been the site of fear, madness, death, and
possibly murder since before the turn of the century. In 1880, a family of French immigrants
by the name of LeDeux rented the property and moved in. What horrors happened to those
people that year will never be known save that a series of violent attacks of some kind left
both parents dead and their three children crippled for life.
The house stood vacant for almost 20 years but in 1909, another family moved in. From the
time they moved into the house, Mr. and Mrs. Jones fell prey to illness and sickness, almost as
if the house itself were conspiring against them. Their children did not fare much better though
all of them lived in the house for several years.
The terror reached a head when, in 1914, the oldest of the Jones children went mad and killed
himself with a kitchen knife. The Jones family moved out after that, heartbroken at their loss.
A third family rented the house in 1917 but left after less than a month when all of them became
ill at the same time.
Is the house haunted? Perhaps there is something wrong with the water or some disease still
lingers there from when it was built. In any case, anyone who dares live there now had better
be brave and strong for they take their lives into their own hands."
A note is attached which reads:
"Do NOT print - The editor says we will end up with a damn lawsuit on our hands" - Copyed
WALTER CORBITT (1799-1866)
Death & burial: he was to be buried in the basement of his house. The neighbors contested this will:
“There is no information about the outcome of the lawsuits, only that the executor of Corbitt’s will was a Reverend Michael Thomas, pastor of the Chapel of Contemplation & Church of Our Lord Granter of Secrets, located in Copp’s Hill.”
THE WEIRD CHURCH “the Chapel of Contemplation, located in Copp's Hill, was closed down in 1912”
“in January 1912 the Boston Police Department took action against the Chapel of Contemplation”
POLICE FILE on the Church:
Spoiler:
On top there are 3 affidavits which all contain the testimony of residents near the Chapel of Contemplation’s location, swearing that it was responsible for disappearance of 3 neighbourhood children. This is the information that led to the police raid of January 1912, and which resulted in a gun battle in which the chapel burned down. Three policemen and seventeen cultists died during the raid, with many more wounded.
The report is somewhat brief and is accompanied by autopsy reports on the cult members, which seem perfunctory and somewhat incomplete. Several key details are missing, and you are left wondering if the coroner had actually carried out autopsies.
54 chapel members were arrested, however all but 8 were released. Pastor Michael Thomas was sentenced to 40 years in state prison on 3 counts of second-degree murder. However he escaped in 1917 and is missing, although he is believed to have fled the state.
As Isadora and Norman read through the reports, they get the sense that senior police and legal officers, perhaps together with city councilmen, interfered in the investigation in order to keep the whole affair from public knowledge.
"I feel as if my soul would be torn out of my body," she gasped. "I am being drawn into a whirlpool. What is happening? What does it mean?" - The Secrets of Dr. Taverner
