Is the Echo Lake Inn of Ludlow, Vermont haunted?
This article is courtesy of the Echo Lake Inn. Many thanks.
The Echo Lake Inn is a historic Inn in Ludlow, Vermont. Many guests (young and old) often ask if there are any spirits in the Inn. Rumors swirl and many a tall tale has been told regarding these mysterious and elusive beings.
They built the original Inn in 1799, to the rear of the existing Inn. It collapsed under a severe storm in the 1970s, having served as an antique shop in its declining years. The popularity of the original Inn, on the main stage-coach line, was instant and led to the construction of the existing Inn around 1840. Frank Josselyn built the Inn for a reported $500.00. They also reported it to be only one of six Inns in Vermont functioning today that was originally built as an inn.
The following is an account of his fascinating story.
My first awareness of this presence was on a Saturday night in January 1998. There were four young people having dinner at table 8 and, as I normally do, I went over to their table and asked them if they were enjoying their dinner. They said they were having a wonderful dinner, and it reminded them of the days when they were children years ago. Their dad owned the inn. It was fun to hear their intriguing stories, however, one story was different.
They told me that one day, years earlier, their grandmother came rushing down the stairs from the 3 floor yelling about a ghost, a spirit, a something that had knocked her off her ladder. She had been in a room on the 3rd floor replacing the wallpaper with a rich dark blue wallpaper when she displaced from her ladder by something. She thought, “well, maybe I just lost my balance”. A few moments later, the same thing happened and now she was a little nervous. When this happened a third time she ran out of the room terrified and headed down the stairs yelling “there’s a ghost in room 31 and it knocked me off my ladder”.
The kids were laughing as they told me this. One of them chimed in, “She’s so old, no wonder she fell off the ladder”, another said “she’d probably been drinking,” and they all laughed. Given their age at the time of this story, their grandmother was probably only in her early fifties; far too young to be falling off a ladder!
Their father finished the wall paper job. Grandma never went back into that room.
When I first saw this room, there was a beautiful little yellow chair in the corner. I always wondered why there would be a yellow chair in a dark blue room? Anyway, that’s part of a story for another day.
Perhaps the unknown spirit could have been one of the many famous guests who have stayed at the Echo Lake Inn?
Calvin Coolidge, Henry Ford, Harvey Samuel Firestone, William McKinley, Thomas Edison and Andrew Carnegie were just a few well-known people who had stayed at the Echo Lake Inn.
Thank you for reading this post, don't forget to subscribe to our email list for the latest news!
