WALDECK ISLAND

Location: Locally called “Witch Island,” Waldeck Island is located in Barnstable Bay off Capeside, Massachusetts, about four miles west of Barnstable on Highway 6A.

Description: Waldeck Island is a small island covering 1500 square feet of thick forest outlined by a solitary dirt road and a few clearings. The only structures on the largely untamed island include a dilapidated church and the tourist center near the dock. A cemetery consisting of twelve tombstones is also located on the island.

Ghostly Manifestations: Witch Island is a popular tourist spot near Capeside, Massachusetts and a location both embroiled in paranormal happenings and a romantic legend that is just starting to be told about two lovers nearly separated by the social stigma of their time. While many of the men arrive with camera in hand hoping to catch a ghost on tape, the women who come hope the story of Mary Waldeck will inspire a sense of romanticism in their bored lovers.

“It gets spooky out here.” Wendy Dalrymple runs the Tourist Souvenir Shop on the island. “I mean you’re out here cut off from civilization away from a TV or the sounds of traffic with just a radio and transmitter to keep you connected to the outside world and you’re bound to see and hear things. No wonder people seem to think they see things.”

She elaborates a bit into the ghost stories for a few guests to the island.

“At night,” Dalrymple continues. “There’s usually no one out here, and conveniently that’s when strange things tend to happen. Boaters and people standing on the shore of the bay have reported seeing strange bright lights bobbing through the trees like people with flashlights, but only when I’m not here. I don’t think its trespassers because I’ve had to be out here at night and no one has ever reported my flashlight as a ghost. These have to be……. pretty bright lights to be seen the length of the bay to the island and even during the day some visitors have asked about other guests out here. I keep head records of who comes and goes so that if someone legitimately visits the island and gets lost, they’re not out here after the last boat goes. Yet, once in a while, some tourist talks about a strange girl or two wandering through the woods encouraging them to follow into the woods.”

Wendy Dalrymple is a lovely brunette member of the Capeside Historical Society. Her striking looks and dark hair obviously accentuates the idea of female spirits wandering the island. While she claims she does not believe in ghosts, she does give credence to the fact that something is a little off about the island.

“During the Sixties,” She reports. “There were a lot of rumors about people vanishing out here, but there’s no police records of anything like that actually happening. Teens reportedly did sneak out here during that time to fool around and use drugs and some stoner did drown on the swim back. His body was washed out to sea and found later washed ashore some seventy miles away. Today, some of the kids have this urban legend about government conspiracies kidnapping kids out here.” She rolls her eyes in disbelief.

“The bell of the church out here is supposedly heard being rung.” She continues. “But the bell was actually stolen by someone one in the Seventies wanting a souvenir, so I’m not sure what they’re hearing. It could be an echo from the church in town, I don’t know.”

The sounds of faraway screams and chants have also been heard in the vicinity of the cemetery. Dalrymple has heard someone calling her to come to the church, but no one is ever there. She reports she’s been on the path on her way to the dock and she heard the sound of leaves and brush crunching behind her, but no one’s there. At times, she admits to thinking someone’s near her or lurking around the souvenir hut, but there’s not a person in sight. The only other thing she never sees or experiences are the sound of birds.

“For some reason,” Dalrymple adds. “They don’t like to come near the island. I wonder if they know something I don’t.”

History: Fishermen from Boston founded Capeside, Massachusetts in 1687, but during the 1690s, thirteen girls were accused of witchcraft and exiled to the island. Theoretically, it is believed these girls were exiled from the tiny community because they were a bit more promiscuous than the normal church-going teenagers of the time. A church was built on the island to try and attract the girls to religion, but the girls actually turned the island to a place of prostitution as men visited them from the town for their attentions. An offended mob invaded the island and then horded the girls into the church as they burnt it down. The girls were given Christian burials afterward.

Considering the church on the island shows no sign of being burn, it must have been rebuilt. Capeside was instituted as a town in 1801.

In lieu of the legend of Mary Waldeck, the only girl from among those on the island to have been named, the island is usually identified as Waldeck Island, but locally it is almost always called Witch Island. The Capeside Historical Society registered the island as a historical site in the Fifties to bolster the town’s tourist industry. Unfortunately, much like the Bell Witch of Adams, Tennessee, amateur ghost-hunters and would-be documentary makers in the wake of the Blair Witch notoriety have deluged the island.

On November 10, 1999, four high school students, Dawson Leery, Josephine “Joey” Potter, Jennifer Lindley and Pacey Whitter, doing a serious investigation of the island’s legends actually discovered a new slant on the legend of the island concerning Mary Waldeck. They also filmed a few minutes of footage that seems to show a man and a woman standing on the dock in old-fashioned clothing as the students left the island.

Identity: Mary Waldeck was an orphan girl adopted by the Bennett family in 1963. Although raised as one of their children, she knew she was adopted and fell in love with the eldest son, William Bennett. When their parents found them in bed together, they dragged her out of the house and abandoned her on “Witch Island” and presumably sent William to live with his uncle’s family in Boston. Mary supposedly never indulged in the promiscuity being engaged in on the island. William, however, somehow got word of the attack on the island by the mob and joined them as he slipped on to the island and carefully spirited her off so they could be together. According to the story that Leery proposed, they got married and never returned to Capeside because of the incidents that had occurred there.

Comments: Dawson’s Creek, Episode, “Escape from Witch Island,” Topography based on Barnstable, Massachusetts on Cape Cod. Hauntings based loosely on the Bell Farm, Adams, Tennessee.