The Haunting of Brockton Hospital

I found this little gem of a ghost story last spring while scouring local newspaper archives for Bridgewater Triangle area ghost stories. This one–the account of a ghost known as the “Shadowy Screecher of Brockton City Hospital”–had police, doctors, nurses, patients and watchmen on high alert on Halloween night of 1926. But to everyone’s disappointment, the ghost pulled a no show. The following article was published in The Boston Globe on November 1, 1926.  

Hospital Ghost Spurns Halloween
Fails to Perform for Brockton Watchers
Old Tunnel Beneath the Building May Solve MysteryBROCKTON, Oct 31–Halloween, the time of ghosts and goblins, queer noises and gibberings, passed without any manifestation from the “Shadowy Screecher” of Brockton City Hospital.

For a week “The Ghost” has made nightly visits to the hospital, and in the wee-hours of the morning patients, nurses and even members of Brockton police force were startled, and in some cases, frightened to hear lhigh-pitched, long drawn out screams. The screams sounded first near Ward A in the old part of the building and then in other sections, ending in a long drawn-out derisive wall from the distance.

But “The Ghost” has not been located. Apparently it is temperamental, for on the one night in the year, a night given over to fantastic and mystical apparitions, when “The Ghost” had a real right to perform, he did not show up from midnight to daylight. For the first time in a week since last Sunday, the hospital was free from disturbance of the nocturnal visitor,

Patients in A and Wales wards slept comfortably, but nurses, house officers and others kept alert for hours.

Shortly after 5 o’clock, when the nurses entered the wards to prepare the patients for the day, the patients seemed to be more disturbed by the absence of the ghost then when he had made his “call.”

Last February, the noises were first heard for about three nights and repeated again a week ago
Wednesday. During the height of the heavy rainstorm last Sunday night the patients and members of the night staff were startled by loud noises and a wailing high-pitched tone. The this tone was not too high for a man’s voice, however.

For several nights, a detail of police have guarded the hospital and conducted an investigation of the matter, but the officers did not “lay the ghost.”

One patient declared that from the window of his room he saw the ghost run away after a particularly loud screech was heard. Beneath the building there are several old tunnels that connect the various department buildings and it is possible for someone to enter them if he were familiar with the institution. Wile some of the screaming and wailing seems to come from beneath the building, most of it is from outside however.  Various suspects have been checked up and eliminated from the investigation.

Last night the police detail was not seen in the hospital, but a group of men and women kept vigil in Ward A. Two ex-patients, a house physician, four women nurses and a Boston reporter awaited “the ghost.” At 3 a.m. the ex-patients and the physicians left for bed, but the reporter’s vigil continued all through the early morning.

Constantly, the nurses assured him he was about to see the ghost, at that the ghost always appeared at just a certain time. At 5:30 o’clock the watchful waiting ended with no ghost.

Like this ghost story? Want another? Click here.