I just finished reading a slim volume called "Ghosts That Still Walk – Real Ghosts of America” that’s marking its 85th anniversary. Wiscasset Public Library on High Street has a first edition in the archives room. The other day, Pam Dunning, the librarian, found it for me and was somewhat surprised at hearing I’d never read it. It was one of several books written by the late Marion Lowndes of Wiscasset, a great-granddaughter of Samuel Emerson Smith, Maine’s 10th governor.

When I knew her, Mrs. Lowndes resided in her family’s ancestral home across from the library on High Street. It’s the white, hip-roofed one with a chimney at each end known as the Lee-Payson-Smith House. Marion’s husband had been Lloyd Lowndes, although I’d never met him; Mr. Lowndes had passed away long before I’d moved to Wiscasset in the late 1970s.

I remember talking with Mrs. Lowndes on many occasions but in none of our conversations did she ever mention her literary work delving into the supernatural. I’ve since learned Marion’s mother, Susan Smith, had authored a number of books, too, although none that I’m aware of concerning ghosts. Among them was “Christmas Tree in the Woods,” an old-time favorite based on a Wiscasset family, the Sortwells, who gathered around a special Yule tree at Christmas to sing carols and exchange gifts. Fanny Chase mentions this in her book “Wiscasset in Pownalborough,” which by coincidence was also published in 1941, the same year as Mrs. Lowndes' collection of ghost stories.

“Ghosts That Still Walk – Real Ghosts of America” is just 147 pages in length; it contains 16 chapters. I’ve been told in the world of the occult, the number 16 serves as a bridge between the material and spiritual worlds. In her foreword titled, “The Night World," Mrs. Lowndes writes, “Some people sniff and say, ‘imagination’. But if it’s all imagination how does it happen that the same ghost is so often ‘imagined’ by people who have never seen each other and lived even hundreds of years apart? The old wives say people born on Sunday are likely to see ghosts,” she continues. “On the other hand, no one born on December 21st, St. Thomas Day, will ever see a ghost, because St. Thomas was the disciple who said, ‘I will not believe’, when others told him they had seen Jesus risen from the dead.” Pretty interesting, I think. From here she delves head-long into legendary ghost stories from New England and beyond.

One chapter, titled “The Haunted Schoolhouse," takes place in the 1870s in the coastal village of Newburyport, Massachusetts. Here, in a one-room school not far from the harbor the students and headmistress were tormented by a supernatural being. The mischief was blamed on the disturbed spirit of a young boy seeking revenge for having been cruelly punished by the schoolmaster. No one was able to solve the mystery, not even the famous Oliver Wendall Holmes, who later became a justice on the U.S. Supreme Court. Mrs. Lowndes likely based part of her account on a slim booklet printed by Loring publishers of Boston in 1873 that included a sketch of the haunted schoolhouse now just a memory.

Another chapter, “The Bell Witch,” tells of the peculiar seven-year haunting of the Bell family that happened in the early 1800s near the hamlet of Adams, Tennessee. For years, the Bells were tormented by all manner of weird, unexplained noises during the night – doors slamming, chains rattling, that sort of thing. Spookier still was when the family began hearing an unearthly woman’s voice singing hymns and quoting Bible scripture. As the story goes, the evil spirit, or Witch, was blamed for the death of old John Bell, the patriarch of the family. Stories of the haunted home attracted many curiosity-seekers, among them General Andrew Jackson, hero of the Battle of New Orleans and seventh president of the United States.

Mrs. Lowndes also shares unexplained events and ghostly sightings having taken place within the walls of her Wiscasset home. For instance, there was the introverted uncle who secluded himself in the home’s north wing with only his Irish setter for company. There were ghostly sightings, too, of an aged woman, a melancholy expression on her care-worn face who would appear in a rocking chair wearing “a little white cap on her head.” The old woman, Mrs. Lowndes explains, had once been the mistress of the house and a devoted mother to her five sons. But tragically, one by one each of those sons would die. The first and youngest drowned at sea. The next died in battle during the Civil War. Another fell victim to the bottle, while a fourth succumbed to illness. The final son mysteriously locked himself away in the mansion’s north wing. “Everything has failed me,” the poor mother moaned on her death bed, “except this house. If I can, I’ll come back.”

Copies of “Ghosts That Still Walk – Real Ghosts of America” are still available; in fact, I recently bought a first edition from an online bookseller to add to my own library. It’s well written and enjoyable to read. Before I forget, each chapter includes an original ghostly illustration by noted artist Warren Chappell. Along with creating hundreds of pictures for books, including “Moby Dick” and “Gulliver’s Travels,” Chappell also designed several typefaces. Marion Lowndes wrote something like five or six other books including “Monsoon Quarter: A Novel” published in 1953 that was reviewed by the New York Times.

For many years, Mrs. Lowndes was active in many community organizations including the Wiscasset Female Charitable Society and the town’s Beautification Committee. I remember her hosting the Wiscasset Female Charitable Society’s 175th anniversary at the Smith House. Her daughter Susan Lowndes Blagden, who continues to serve as moderator at Wiscasset town meetings, hosted the Female Charitable Society’s 200th anniversary held in 2005; that gathering, too, was at the Smith House.

 Phil Di Vece earned a B.A. in journalism studies from Colorado State University and an M.A. in journalism at the University of South Florida. He is the author of three Wiscasset books and is a frequent news contributor to the Boothbay Register/Wiscasset Newspaper. He resides in Wiscasset and can be contacted at news@wiscassetnewspaper.com