Ghost of The Benton Homestead

WHILE THE Connecticut Vacation Guide, a directory of attractions published biennially by the Tourism Division of the Connecticut Department of Economic Development, has for some time recognized the Daniel Benton Homestead in Tolland as "a celebrated 'ghost' house," not everyone in the picturesque suburban community is happy with the "official" designation. Of course, almost everyone in town has heard stories about the mysterious apparitions and eerie events which have occurred there for years. But the more zealous guardians of the Homestead's historical decorum shun such "superstitious gossip," and roll their eyes heavenward when questions arise about a resident phantom. Still, they say, some very sober and reliable people have reported seeing and hearing things at the old manse which cannot be explained logically, and, well, maybe.... If ever an ancient house cried out for periodic visitations by shades from the past, it's the Benton Homestead. That is not to say that it looks like a haunted house, since the 1720 colonial cape, with its long ell in the rear, is clearly more early New England than late Charles Adaams. Rather, the unusual historical events that have taken place within the Homestead's ancient walls have been of the romantic sort which inspire legends, including a few of the supernatural variety. For example, because of its close proximity to the old Boston post road, the house was used in 1777 to quarter twenty-four Hessian officers, part of the large contingent of mercenaries who had surrendered to the Americans after the British defeat at Saratoga and were being marched across Connecticut toward Boston, for shipment back to Germany. The Hessian prisoners are said to have enjoyed their stay in the smooth, stone-floored basement rooms at the Benton Homestead. Some say that vestiges of their complimentary graffiti (now undecipherable) can still be seen, carved in the darkened ceiling beams of their temporary home. Also, tradition still holds that more than a few of the Hessians liked the Tolland area so much that they were not among those present when the rest of their comrades finally moved on to Boston. Even more conducive to legend-making than the story of the Hessian prisoners is the tragic tale of love and death which began to unfold at the Benton Homestead late in 1776. Of the three grandsons of Daniel Benton who served in the Revolutionary War, two died as a result of imprisonment, while the third, Elisha, was captured by the British and sent to one of their notorious prison ships, lying in New York harbor. There, like so many others, Elisha Benton contracted smallpox, probably as a result of his British captors' deliberately issuing clothing or bedding contaminated by the disease. Unlike most of his fellow sufferers, however, Elisha did not die on the plagued prison ship, since he became part of a general exchange of prisoners and was sent home to Tolland prior to his death. Now, before his enlistment in the Revolutionary Army, Elisha had fallen deeply in love with a young Tolland girl named Jemima Barrows. Jemima returned his affection and the two plighted their troth. But for some reason now lost to history-- perhaps because Jemima was almost twelve years younger than Elisha -- the Benton family vowed that the marriage would never take place. This caused a serious rift in the otherwise close-knit clan, according to the story. Indeed, it is probable that young Benton signed up for military service in the hope that his absence from home and the passage of time might heal the family breach and change their minds about his marrying Jemima. As might be expected under the circumstances, Elisha Benton's homecoming was greeted with mixed emotions by his family. As glad as they were to see him again, he was in a seriously weakened condition and wracked by a disease so contagious and frequently fatal that his mere presence became a terrifying threat to everyone around him. Since only those who had survived smallpox and had thus acquired immunity to the disease could safely care for a victim, the family faced a real dilemma, since none of them had ever had it. No doubt their relief was great when Jemima Barrows, the girl who had been faithful to Elisha through all the months of his absence and her ostracism, offered to nurse the critically-ill ex-soldier. So, Jemima was shut away with Elisha in the special "dying and borning room" next to the keeping room, to tend the needs of her dying sweetheart. Mercifully, her vigil lasted only a few weeks, for on January 21, 1777, Elisha Benton became, at the age of twenty-nine, the third of Daniel Benton's grandsons to die as a result of British incarceration. Since it could not be carried through the house for fear of contaminating the place, his body was removed through a window opening onto the back lawn. He was then buried on one side of the carriage drive at the west side of the Homestead and a plain stone marker was placed on his grave. Though she had spent only a few weeks with Elisha as he lay dying, that was time enough for his brave nurse to catch the dread disease which killed him. On February 28, 1777, only five weeks after her fiancee's death, smallpox claimed the life of Jemima Barrows. She was one month short of her eighteenth birthday. In recognition of her heroic assistance in their son's final days, the Benton family agreed to bury Jemima near her sweetheart, in the west yard of the Homestead. But since they had not been married, the bodies could not lie side by side, according to contemporary burial custom. So Jemima was interred only a few yards away from the resting place of her sweetheart -- but with the carriage road separating her grave from his. Thus have they been, apart in death as in life, to this day. It is not clear just how long stories about a supernatural presence in the Benton Homestead have circulated, but the tradition was certainly alive during the period when Florrie Bishop Bowering owned the house. A beloved personality in the early days of WTIC Radio, Miss Bowering purchased the property, following her retirement, from the estate of the last Benton to live in it, and devoted much money and effort to restoring the Homestead to its eighteenth century appearance. Here she lived with a maid and handyman for thirty-five years (1934-1969), entertaining lavishly and carefully protecting everything she had inherited from the past. Although there is no record of Miss Bowering's reactions to the odd occurrences and unusual noises which were said to have been common in the house during the Benton years, they say that on many occasions her maid witnessed the appearance of a young girl dressed as a bride, wandering through the house, crying. In fact, the sound of weeping was evidently heard so often that the maid became "almost accustomed to it." She assumed that the ghost was the restless spirit of Jemima Barrows, searching the house for the departed Elisha -- and grieving over his loss. On another, later occasion, an overnight guest in the house reported a similar experience: "I was asleep in the front bedroom when the sobbing started. It was after midnight when it roused me. I was immobile 'til it stopped." Many informants, particularly people who have served as guides in the Benton Homestead since it was given to the Tolland Historical Society in 1969 and subsequently opened to the public, have reported a variety of mysterious happenings in recent years. Several, for example, have experienced what they call "vibrations," unaccompanied by sounds or sightings of any kind. One of the docents from the Tolland Historical Society who had taken her dog with her to the Homestead to keep her company said, "I went into the summer kitchen with my dog, but she would not go into the dining room. I picked her up and carried her into the sitting room. She seemed to be all right until we got to the parlor. Then she again refused to move." Another woman, also a member of the Tolland Historical Society, insisted that she be permitted to go upstairs to the second floor of the Homestead, an area closed to the public and generally off-limits even to the volunteer hostesses. Since she refused to take "no" for an answer, the curious local historian was finally given permission to climb the very narrow stairs to the upper chamber. Reported a friend who was with her: "She pranced up the stairs, but within a very few minutes she crept down again, with the comment, 'There were vibrations up there. I never want to go there again.'" Many have reported hearing footsteps or other unexplainable noises in the house. For instance, a neighbor who was sleeping alone in the dining room was awakened by footsteps, but said that she "was not frightened." She got up, checked the house inside and out, but when she found nothing amiss, went back to bed. On another occasion, neighbors staying at the Homestead while their own house was being renovated were entertaining a guest, when they had a strange experience. "The fireplace in the living room was glowing," reported the informant, "and we were enjoying resting and talking about a great deal of nothing, when our visitor said, 'What is that?' We listened to footsteps coming from the east door down the hall. A little thump, light footsteps, then nothing. Our visitor left within fifteen minutes." The same informant also told of a snapping sound, like a branch being broken, coming from an unused fireplace. "We checked the flue and outside," he said, "but could find nothing. It was uncanny. Was it our good friend, the ghost? And he was our good friend. He did nothing to harm us, but he does keep us and all our friends verbally occupied." Recently, a Homestead hostess told about an incident that happened while she was showing a reporter from a local newspaper around the house and explaining the history of the place. When they reached the front bedroom, the reporter asked if the stones in the fireplace had come from the property. Before the guide could reply, they heard three loud knocks -- one, then a pause, then two more in rapid succession, repeated several times -- as though something were answering "yes" to the reporter's question. At the same time, the hostess' watch jumped ahead an hour and twenty minutes, something she did not realize until she got home and found that she had cut short her tour of duty that day. The reporter, however, had left even earlier! While most of the accounts of ghostly manifestations are connected in the minds of the story-tellers with Jemima Barrows, some traditions validate the notion that a male spirit -- either the ghost of Elisha Benton eternally seeking union with the sweetheart denied him in life or the shade of a Hessian soldier experiencing again a place where he had been happiest during his lifetime -- also haunts the Benton Homestead. For example, neighbors have on several occasions during violent thunderstorms seen the lights in the vacant house go on and off, heard voices raised as if in supplication and observed the distinct figure of a man in the uniform of a Revolutionary soldier come to the front door. There he stands for a moment, his hands stretched out before him in an apparent searching gesture. Another experience with a male apparition was reported by a woman who, with her husband, was an overnight guest in the Homestead. While their hosts slept in the second floor bedroom, the visiting couple was obliged to sleep in the living room. When the hosts came down to breakfast the next morning, their female guest told them this story of ghostly encounter: I awoke and saw a man's legs at the head of the sofa. A hand suddenly covered my mouth. I said to myself, 'Oh, you joker. You are trying to prove to us that there is a ghost in the house. I'll fix you. I'm not afraid. ' It began to get hard to breathe and I thought, joke or no joke, this is too much, and pushed the hand away. Then I spoke out loud, very loud: 'What are you up to?' With no sound, everything -- legs and hands -- vanished. I got real close to my husband, who was sound asleep, and felt a little better. This report seems to be the only one, incidentally, in which the ghost has appeared in any way threatening. There seems to be no explanation for it. Certainly, the informant had none. When Ed and Lorraine Warren, the psychic investigators, visited the Benton Homestead, they, too, were said to have encountered a male manifestation, a man dressed in colonial garb (not a military uniform) and surrounded by a blue light, who came to them in the dining room. It was the Warrens' feeling that this was the ghost of a glass blower from the European continent who had gone to Ohio and there committed suicide. The Warrens speculated that he might have been one of the Hessian soldiers once held prisoner in the Homestead who had stayed behind when his comrades-in-arms left for Boston, found his way west and there encountered insurmountable problems. His spirit had returned to the place where he had known happiness during his lifetime, they said, interpreting the aura of blue light as a positive sign. Of all the stories about strange sights and sounds reported over a long period of time by a variety of first-hand observers, perhaps the most bizarre of them all was told only a few years ago to the chief docent at the Benton Homestead by a well-known architectural artist and photographer. He and his sister, a writer, were collaborating on a professional assignment at the Homestead when they encountered difficulties: My sister and I went to the Benton Homestead to get some pictures for a project on which we were working. The sun was in the right place. Clouds were just perfect. Ideal August weather promised us perfect pictures. We started at the west lawn [where Elisha and Jemima are buried] with the Polaroid and aimed at the full side of the house. Click. Swish. The picture ejected. 'Oh, well,' I thought, 'something went wrong.' Next picture: click, swish -- no picture. Click, swish, for the next six pictures, with an odd feeling growing that something was wrong. But what? We decided to try the other camera. That had just been checked at the dealer's. Holding the camera, we found that it twisted in our hands and the light meter went wild. We still tried, and aimed at the west side of the house. The upper windows seemed to glow with an odd light. Although we were attacked with a wild sort of laughter, we decided to quit trying for the day. We went at a later day and got the pictures we wanted. Like the puzzled photographers, local historians have found that developing a clear picture of more than two centuries of life at the Benton Homestead is not always easy. Sometime, perhaps, they might just have to adjust their focus in order to admit a few wandering wraiths to the panorama. Such a "die and let live" attitude could exorcise those vagrant spirits forevermore. from Legendary Connecticut by David E. Philips / ISBN 1-880684-05-5 / $17.95

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