Saybrook Inn

Old Saybrook's waterfront is haunted by two ghosts: Lady Fenwick, an original 1645 English settler whose 225-year rest was disturbed when the railroad relocated her grave in 1870 (a night watchman documented locomotive bells ringing and books flying on their own in 1900), and a phantom bride of unknown identity who appears transparent in wedding photos at the Saybrook Point Inn.

On the night of January 23, 1900, night watchman Arthur Beebe was polishing metalwork on the locomotives inside the railroad engine house in Old Saybrook when the bells started ringing. All of them. Shortly after midnight, the tongues in half a dozen locomotive bells began striking on their own, accelerating rapidly until the engine house filled with a deafening clang. Then came the footsteps: a rhythmic hammering on the boiler jackets that Beebe described as "a ghostly clog dance."

In the station office nearby, agent Charles Beecher watched his account books lift off the desk and slam to the floor. They then rose back up and placed themselves on the desk again, as if tidying up after their own tantrum.

Beebe wasn't surprised. "They're the same old ghosts that have always made this place their headquarters," he told The Evening Times the next day.

He knew exactly who was responsible. Lady Fenwick.

Lady Alice Apsley Boteler Fenwick was one of Old Saybrook's original English settlers. She died in 1645 and was buried on a gentle rise called Tomb Hill, overlooking the Connecticut River. For 225 years, she rested there undisturbed. Then the railroad came.

In 1870, town citizens decided to relocate her remains to make way for the tracks. When George Chapman, Robert Chapman, and William Burrows opened her deep grave, they found a disintegrated casket and an intact skeleton, missing only the middle joint of one pinky finger. A lock of her hair was still present. They cut it into pieces and distributed them to the men in attendance. Historian George Sheldon later called the whole affair "an invasion committed by the heartless railroad."

The engine house was built directly on top of her original grave. The Saybrook Point Inn sits just yards away.

The inn, opened in 1989, has its own ghost. Wedding photographers have captured an extra figure in their images: a woman in a white bridal gown, transparent, standing among the guests. Nobody recognizes her. One visitor described seeing "a lady in white with a wedding gown, totally see-through" near the docks. Another guest at the inn reported feeling the bed sink beside them, followed by a shove on their back, though the room was empty.

Local legend says she was buried alive somewhere in the area, and a gate was placed around her grave to keep her from roaming. Her identity has never been established.

Two ghosts, then, at Saybrook Point. The phantom bride who crashes weddings and presses into beds. And Lady Fenwick, whose 225-year rest was interrupted by railroad workers who divvied up her hair like souvenirs. Given that treatment, the bells and flying books seem like a reasonable response.

The engine house is gone now. The inn still hosts weddings. And if a transparent woman in white appears in your reception photos, at least you'll have a story worth telling.