In Episode 367 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger investigate Camp Etna in Maine. This Spiritualist camp has been around since 1876. It’s a place for mediums and psychics to offer readings to the public, to commune with each other, and connect to spirits.
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CREDITS:
Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Voice Actor: Lisa Strykowski – You can see Lisa performing live as The Maid in Dracula at The Strand Theater in Dover, NH this month. Performances are the weekends of October 18th and 25th. For more information and tickets, visit thestranddover.com.
Theme Music by: John Judd
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The entrance to Camp Etna in Maine circa 1918.
Camp Etna in Maine, circa 1916.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[BIRDS/NATURE SOUNDS]
RAY: It’s getting late in the season for summer camp, Jeff. It’s technically fall now.
JEFF: That’s true, Ray. It IS Fall. The kids are all back in school. But this was never a camp for children. Not that children weren’t allowed here, they just aren’t the target market. And unlike its earliest years, this camp is open in other seasons too.
RAY: There’s an iron sign over the dirt road in front of us that reads Camp Etna. Which makes sense because we’re in the northeastern corner of Etna, Maine, right near Etna Pond.
JEFF: Camp Etna is historic, and the perfect place to visit in October.
RAY: Why October?
JEFF: Because Camp Etna is one of the oldest Spiritualist Camps in the nation. We’ve come here to try and talk to ghosts…
[INTRO]
JEFF: I’m Jeff Belanger
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Welcome to Episode 367 of the New England Legends podcast. We’re always on the hunt for ghosts, monsters, UFOs, true crime, and weird history.
JEFF: We are. And most of our story leads come from you! So please reach out to us anytime through our Web site, where you can find dates for my Story Tour, dates to see Ray’s band the Pub Kings, and links to everything else we do.
RAY: We’ll head off to Ghost Camp right after this word from our sponsor.
SPONSOR
JEFF: I want to say right up front that I would imagine our friends at Camp Etna might get offended at the term ghost camp.
RAY: Why’s that?
JEFF: Because they’ll prefer the word spirit.
RAY: Is there a difference between ghost and spirit?
JEFF: I’ve been known to use the words interchangeably, but for Spiritualists, a ghost might represent a kind of residual haunting. Like a movie that plays over and over again. The person WAS there, but isn’t there now. It’s something left behind. Or they may refer to a quote “ghost,” as something earth-bound that needs healing.
RAY: Okay.
JEFF: A spirit is an intelligent and interactive person just like us. A person who left their physical body behind. They can come and go as they please.
RAY: Got it. So a ghost might sound crude to a devout Spiritualist.
JEFF: Something like that. We mean no offense. We’re still learning.
RAY: That we are.
JEFF: All of this started… and I mean ALL of this. Not just this Spiritualist Camp, but all of Spiritualism, and really psychic readings, ghost hunters, paranormal television, and on and on…
RAY: That sounds big.
JEFF: Huge! So imagine if you will, a small farmhouse in Hydesville, New York—a small town about 30 miles east of Rochester. It’s March 31st, 1848, and you’re in the home of John Fox. He lives there with his wife and six children. That evening, two of his daughters, Maggie and Kate, heard a knock on the wall.
[KNOCK KNOCK KNOCK]
RAY: Okay, I’m picturing it.
JEFF: They suspected their house was haunted. And that those knocks were a spirit trying to communicate. They named the entity Mr. Splitfoot. They’d say, “Mr. Splitfoot, do as I do.” And then they’d knock out a pattern on the wall. And the disembodied knock would repeat the pattern. Pretty quickly they established their own code. For example, knock once for yes, twice for no. And so on.
RAY: If something could directly respond, that would make sense.
JEFF: By asking a bunch of questions, they figured out this spirit was a peddler who was murdered years earlier before the Fox family moved in. And his remains were buried on the property. The story goes that within a few days dozens of people came to the house to witness this miracle. And Spiritualism was born.
RAY: The Fox Sisters went on to become celebrities. They toured theaters offering public readings. They started a phenomenon. Some claim they were frauds. That they created the knocks by snapping their toes inside of boots to make the sound. There were plenty of skeptics back then too. At some point, the Fox Sisters said they were a hoax. Others claim they later recanted that confession because they were afraid of all the negative publicity.
JEFF: All true. But either way, a giant bolder was thrown into a still pond that day and we can still see the ripples rolling out. Spiritualism was born. Soon, others began to claim they could communicate with spirits. They also offered readings and public displays. I’m sure Spiritualism would have died out if not for the U.S. Civil War in the 1860s—just a little over a decade after the Fox Sisters first heard those knocks.
RAY: Why the Civil War?
JEFF: Because thousands of people were dying untimely deaths. Some soldiers went off to fight and their families never heard what happened to them. Were they captured? Killed? Did they wander off? People needed answers desperately. When their clergy couldn’t satisfy them, they turned to mediums.
RAY: I could see that. And I’m sure some of those mediums were ripping off grieving families.
JEFF: Some were. No doubt. But others were offering some incredible insight. And word spread. Some scientists got interested in studying and testing these mediums. Psychical research was born, which was the pre-curser to ghost hunting, then paranormal television, and so on.
RAY: Got it.
JEFF: And Spiritualist communities sprang up all over the place. Camp Etna here in Maine, was one of them. It was established in 1876 when a group of spiritualists gathered here by Etna Pond to commune with each other and with spirits. What started as tents, turned into small wooden structures, and eventually cottages. Pretty soon, they had a 27-acre plot of land. Camp Etna peaked in the early 1900s when there were 130 cottages. People came from all over the region to experience the vibe, and maybe get a message from a loved one on the other side. So let’s head back to the year 1910, and talk to ghosts.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: It’s August of 1910 here at Camp Etna in Maine. President Howard Taft is in the White House, “Has Anyone Seen Kelly” by Nora Bayes is the Number One song. It’s a prosperous time for the country. Here at Camp Etna, folks are lined up to meet and hear the camp’s most famous medium, Mary Scannell.
JEFF: Mary is 43 years old. She was born in West Mansfield, Massachusetts, and her mother died when she was only three years old. When Mary was 15 years old, she was living in Narragansett, Massachusetts. It was there she experienced her first vision while staying at a friend’s house. Mary had just gone to bed. Mary, what did you see?
MARY: I had retired, but still was wide awake. I became aware of a human form in the room, near the bed… There was something about it that differed from the persons I knew… and I screamed. When I later described the person I had seen, the family there said I described one of their relatives, who had died. This was a person I had never seen, nor even heard of.
JEFF: The owners of the house stirred. They had only ever heard of table-tipping as a means of spirit communication. So they held a séance. The table thumped and bumped and spelled out Mary’s mother’s name letter by letter. Then, the spirit of a Native American girl named Bright Eyes came through. Bright Eyes told those gathered in the séance that Mary was to remain in the house for three months and study mediumship.
MARY: Bright Eyes is my spirit guide. She’s been with me ever since.
RAY: For the next six years, Mary mostly gave private seances. She had her mediumship tested, too. During one public reading in New Bedford, Massachusetts, a skeptic scoffed at her and her so-called spirit guide. That’s when Bright Eyes spoke through Mary and told this skeptic. I know you. You took my picture. Then she gave details of how when he was out west, this man had photographed a small Indian girl. The skeptic was indeed out west with his camera years back. When he went home he went through his negatives and found the image of the young girl just as she said he would. He printed the image and gave it to Mary. The skeptic became a believer, and Mary now carries that picture in a locket around her neck.
JEFF: Mary Scannell has been touring New England for years and has built quite a following. One of her biggest admirers is Dr. Isaac Funk from the Funk and Wagnalls publishing company. He spent years corresponding with Mary and interviewing her in person. Three years ago he published a book called The Psychic Riddle, that featured many testimonials from various people who had readings by Mary. Here at Camp Etna, Mary is as famous as it gets. In fact, she’s the president of the camp and now considers this her home base.
RAY: And being famous means famous people seek out her readings. Mary is doing well financially. And when she’s here at Camp Etna, the crowds flow in to hear her speak.
[CROWD NOISE BUILDING]
RAY: Wow, there are thousands of people here today. Each of them hoping for some pearl of wisdom, or maybe even a message from a loved one.
JEFF: Mary doesn’t disappoint, either. Her message is simple: That life continues after bodily death. That we can take comfort that we can still communicate with those who have passed on, and one day we too will be able to send messages to those we’ve left behind. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
JEFF: Mary served as president of Camp Etna until her death in 1918. Camp Etna continued, though. In 1922 a massive fire destroyed more than half of the camp, but the Spiritualists pressed on. Camp Etna is still doing the work it’s done for almost a century and a half.
RAY: Given the signs out front, you can get a reading here almost anytime by appointment and they still hold services on Sundays. I wonder what that’s like?
JEFF: So I talked to my buddy. Reverend Tim Shaw who’s a Spiritualist minister and psychic medium based in western New York. Tim told me a Spiritualist service is a lot like a Christian or Unitarian church service. There’s music and songs, readings, fellowship, someone gives a talk or lecture, and then mediums will go around and offer messages. Tim explained at some of the Spiritualist churches and camps he’s spoken at he’s been asked to give three messages in the span of about 12 minutes. Often there are two other mediums at the same service doing the same thing. So the spirit may move Tim toward someone in the congregation. He’ll ask if he can give a message. If the person says okay, Tim passes along the message. There may be a follow up question or two, but this isn’t a sit-down reading. Just a message and then they move on.
RAY: I can imagine especially for those who get a meaningful message that it can be pretty validating for your faith. To hear something specific only you could know. That would be profound.
JEFF: It would be for sure!
RAY: When I sat through Catholic mass as a kid, we got songs and then a sermon for everyone. Maybe it resonated with you, maybe it didn’t. I can only imagine what it would have been like had the priest said, “Ray, your grandma wants you to stop giving your mom a hard time, each your green beans, and sit up straight at dinner.”
[OUTTRO]
JEFF: Wouldn’t that be something? And that brings us to After the Legend where we take a closer look at this week’s story and sometimes veer off course.
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We’d like to thank Lisa Strykowski for lending her voice acting talents this week. Thank you to our sponsors and our patreon patrons, and our theme music is by John Judd. Until next time remember… the bizarre is closer than you think.
