WEATHERBY ESTATE

Location: The Weatherby Estate is located south of Coeursville, Massachusetts, two miles north of Boston on Highway 1A.

Description: The Weatherby Estate is twelve acres of land bordered between the highway and Oak Creek nearby to the west. The private property consists of a main house three stories in size with numerous windows and a gabled balustrade top and pitched roof, the Kingston Family Cemetery and the deserted Kingston Mansion. Slightly smaller than the main house. The Kingston Mansion is a largely drafty edifice with open floors and a weak roof that is slowly degrading to the elements. Few of its windows are intact as the structure, which includes a castle-like turret, remains in a dilapidated state falling into disuse.

Ghostly Manifestations: The Weatherby Estate in Coeursville, Massachusetts belongs to one of the wealthiest families in town. The estate with its rolling hills and acres of sparse woods also plays host to one of the oldest structures in town next to Crabbe Manor. Since the Nineteenth century, several ghost stories have come from the old and historical estate that suggest that the family that lives there, who are among the founding families of the town, possibly share the land with their ancestors.

Before the present Weatherby House was built, their relatives, the Kingstons, lived in the much larger mansion on the estate, and moved out of it because it was just too big for the family. Others rumored it was because the huge imposing house with its long corridors, high ceilings and dark shadows was haunted by ghosts. Sudden shrieks would echo from its halls and strange people wandered in and out of eyeshot. Most of the stories come from the period of 1875 to 1938, the period when the structure was already starting to show its decline.

The most popular ghost seems to be that of Elias Kingston whose frightening visage in dark cloak and attire has been seen several times wandering from the house and down the path to the family cemetery where he is buried. Seemingly rising to inspect the old house, he was once reported as seen no more than eighteen times in the summer of 1931. Slowly strolling from the mausoleum, he has been seen wandering through the tombstones in the cemetery, sometimes even through those in his path as if they don’t really exist. He looks almost human to those who see him except for his glowing green face as he casually strolls up to the house, on to the front veranda and vanishes inside the entrance. Jeffrey and Robert Weatherby who lived on the estate in the 1930s once tried to capture their nocturnal visitor in October of 1933 by stringing up the front porch from end to end and nailing the front entrance shut. With a spyglass from their room in the main house, they watched for the ghost of Elias to return for two months, and then on October 18, Jeffrey tried to film the ghost as it walked through the wires and the door sealed against it.

Jeffrey’s nephew, Stuart, also believed in the ghosts and often reported bobbing balls of light floating in and out of view through the house’s shattered open windows on the top floor. Venturing to the house on few occasions, he related many of the ghost stories about the Kingston House to all of his nephews and nieces. He also claimed that when the ghosts got bored they entered the Weatherby House and could cause furniture to float and move around. He also said that one day while he was in the house alone and as he looked down from the third floor balcony, he looked down to the first floor and saw a strange man standing in the open. The figure then slowly arched its head up to him and grinned to him before vanishing into thin air! Others have seen this presence over the years including a deliveryman who arrived to drop off a package when no one was home. He noticed the strange man in dark attire, rapped and pounded at the door several times and then departed angrily when the strange man casually wandered behind a doorway and vanished.

Another recurring ghost in the Kingston Mansion is a ball of light that appears and disappears in a former second floor window. Sometimes seen as far as a mile away, it’s been described as a small lamp which switches itself on and off several times in one night, but the truth of the matter is that there is no furniture in the room anymore. In fact, water damage from over the years has eroded the floor right under the window and half the room s that there’s no way to fake such a light. Rumors passed down from old family members over the years claim the light is that of Sara Kingston returning to check on her room. Having died in 1830, she is just not content to have other people in her room. Friends and relatives who tried to sleep in there up to 1855 reported having their blankets pulled away and the sensation of someone jumping on the bed.

In an effort to honor Elias Kingston’s memory, Sharon Weatherby tried to find a portrait of him to hang in the main house in 1969, but one could not be found. She had to settle for one of his brother, Desmond Kingston. Placed in a prominent place in the main stairwell, the portrait has been often lit up by a strange light since it was initially hung. Several witnesses going up the stairs have reported looking it watching them as it tried to speak.

In 1969, Sharon invited four friends from high school to be her guests in the house for the Labor Day weekend. Accompanied by a large Great Dane, they were shown around the estate to look for its ghosts, and as they passed the Kingston House, the tallest member of the group just happened to stretch his head to peek into a window and saw a clothed skeleton sitting in a chair before the fireplace. Somehow sensing the presence, the Great Dane fled the property. Investigated later, it was revealed that there was no chair or skeleton in the room.

The dog was found by the local humane society cowering in a chicken coop in a neighboring farm.

History: The Kingstons and the Weatherbys were two of the founding families of Coeursville, Massachusetts in what was then a closed elite community dedicated to living in the idyllic surroundings. Elias Kingston built the family home between 1645 and 1648, but his granddaughter Sara Kingston married Joseph Weatherby and within one generation, the Kingston Property was absorbed into the Weatherby Estate. Kingston challenged Isaac Weatherby to a duel claiming that he had lost face in the community and that his family honor had been besmirched. In the duel by pistols that followed, Isaac Weatherby fired first and missed, but as he proudly accepted his fate, Elias Kingston’s flintlock exploded and drove its pellet deep into his head. He died three days later screaming in pain. Legends claim the blood on the bed sheets he died on never washed completely clean after his death and had to be burned.

The Kingston house, meanwhile, fell into a state of disrepair after the new house was built. The last known family member to live in it was Elizabeth Kingston and she never left the house during the years she was alive. When she died in 1958, she was found lying in bed clutching a rosary and Bible so tightly in her hands that she had to be buried with them.

Identity of Ghosts: Elias Kingston was born in Cheltenham, England and was brought to Boston by his father, Joshua Kingston, in 1638. A dark, brooding and personal figure, rumors persisted that he dabbled in the dark arts in his search for long life and that those papers detailing his practices were found in a trunk auctioned off to Ebenezer Crabbe several years after Elias’s death. He had three sons, Gabriel, Quentin and the youngest Jeremiah being the only one to marry. Gabriel had one child out of wedlock and died from a fall from an attic room. His screams reportedly echo to the present.

It was during the years after Elias’s death that Jeremiah’s sons and daughters first realized the house was haunted. Servants came and went and the new house was built on land previously set aside for a family plot. The decision was changed so that the new house would face the setting sun. It is thought that at least person had been buried there and forgotten about, but there are no records existing to confirm it.

Comments: Scooby Doo, Where Are You (Episode: “What the Hex is Going On?”) Hauntings based on the Carey Mansion, Newport, Rhode Island and the Rutledge Inn, Charleston, South Carolina and other cases.