In Episode 404 Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger explore the ruins of Ashintully, a former mansion in the Berkshire Mountains in the town of Tyringham, Massachusetts. Built in 1910, Ashintully was a massive home built by Robb Tytus, a wealthy archeologist and explorer who may have brought a curse back from his exploration of tombs and palaces in Egypt. A string of misfortune struck his family, and the home was said to be haunted.
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Produced and hosted by: Jeff Belanger and Ray Auger
Edited by: Ray Auger
Guest Voice: Marv Anderson
Theme Music by: John Judd
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
*A note on the text: Please forgive punctuation, spelling, and grammar mistakes. Like us, the transcripts ain’t perfect.
[HIKING IN THE WOODS]
RAY: It’s a fine day to be hiking in the Berkshires of Western Massachusetts.
JEFF: It is, Ray! For sure. We’re in the bucolic town of Tyringham, looking for the ruins of a unique and cursed haunt.
RAY: Haunted AND cursed?
JEFF: That’s what they say.
RAY: We LOVE curses AND haunts.
JEFF: It’s two for one today.
RAY: We’re walking along an old road that’s mostly overgrown now. I can see the old stone work between the grass and weeds.
JEFF: And there’s our destination up ahead.
RAY: Wow! That IS spooky. I see four stone pillars along a wall. It looks like it used to be the front of a mansion, but the mansion is obviously long gone.
JEFF: Yeah, it’s all gone now. It has been for over half a century. But this was once a huge estate called Ashintully, and its centerpiece was a marble palace mansion built by Robb Tytus and his wife Grace. They fell in love with the Berkshires on their honeymoon, so they built their mansion here long ago. Though there were good times here, there were also a string of tragedies and the former haunted ruins. They say the Tytus Family was under the spell of an ancient Egyptian curse.
[INTRO]
JEFF: I’m Jeff Belanger, and welcome to Episode 404 of the New England Legends podcast.
RAY: And I’m Ray Auger. Thanks for joining us on our mission to chronicle every legend in New England one story at a time. So many of our story leads come from you, so please reach out to us anytime through our website with your tales of ghosts, monsters, UFOs, roadside oddities, and anything else that bumps in the night. Our website is also the place where you can see dates for Jeff’s story tour and to see my band the Pub Kings.
JEFF: We’ll explore these haunted and cursed ruins in Tyringham, Massachusetts, right after this word from our sponsor.
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RAY: As we hiked in here we saw a path that lead through an old stone wall. It looks like it used to be a gate to the property. The trail winds up to the top of the hill. The mansion used to have quite the view of the rolling hills of the Berkshire Mountains.
JEFF: It is a stunning view up here. These four large stone pillars stick out like some ancient Grecian ruins.
RAY: Tyringham is located just a bit southeast of Lenox, Massachusetts, and a little east of Stockbridge. Tyringham was incorporated in 1762, it was mainly sheep farms in those early years. Today the town boasts a population of 427 people according to the last census.
JEFF: Small town.
RAY: A very small town. Quiet. A lot of woods. Just the way people around here like it. The Appalachian Trail runs through Tyringham as well.
JEFF: If you’re going to live here, you have to love the woods. Fortunately Robb Tytus and his wife did.
RAY: Here’s a little more background on Tytus. He was born in North Carolina in 1876. He came from a wealthy family and was afforded all the finest things. He attended St. Mark’s School in Southboro, Massachusetts, then studied at Yale University. He had a passion for archeology and illustration. He fancied himself an explorer. In 1899, Tytus traveled all the way to Egypt where he joined archeologists Percy Newbury and Howard Carter in excavating tombs in Luxor. It was during these excavations that he helped uncover the palace of King Amenhotep III, who was the grandfather of King Tut.
JEFF: King Tut is arguably the most famous of the ancient Egyptian pharaohs, but wasn’t even close to the most influential or important. He only ruled for nine years. They called him the boy king because he died in the year 1323 BC at age 18 or 19, so he was a child for most of his reign. He’s the most famous today because his tomb was never raided or looted. In 1922 it was rediscovered and was intact, full of treasure, artwork, hieroglyphs, of course a sarcophagus with King Tutankhamun’s body inside, and one more thing…
RAY: What’s that?
JEFF: They say a curse was also waiting for those who dared to disturb the tombs and palaces of the pharaohs.
RAY: I’ve heard of some of those stories.
JEFF: Well, we’re going to dive into the specifics of this one. Let’s head back to the year 1911 and see Ashintully.
[TRANSITION]
[CONSTRUCTION SOUNDS]
RAY: It’s July of 1911 here in Tyringham, Massachusetts. Construction on a palace in the hills has been ongoing for the past year now. It’s coming together.
JEFF: It has. Robb Tytus married his wife Grace in New York City back in 1903. The couple honeymooned in the Berkshires and fell in love with the region. Back in 1903, Tytus also published a book related to work on excavating and studying Amenhotep III’s palace. Tytus was already wealthy, but now he’s becoming renowned as a scholar on Egyptian mummies. A topic the world can’t seem to get enough of these days.
RAY: That’s true. The world has had Egypt fever for the past couple of decades as more discoveries from that part of the world continue to make headlines.
[MEN YELLING IN THE BACKGROUND]
RAY: Hmmm. There seems to be some commotion over by the barn on the property. Let’s check it out.
[WALKING ON GRAVEL]
JEFF: Some men were working to clear out the barn this morning. Something has them spooked.
RAY: Yeah. They’re rattled. One of them is running to fetch the sheriff.
JEFF: Ray… look! There’s a body over there in the corner of the barn!
RAY: I see that. There’s a drape over the body. I don’t think we should touch it. We don’t need our fingerprints on the scene before the sheriff gets here.
JEFF: Good point. The sheriff is looking at the body in the corner. He wastes no time calling for the medical examiner, Dr. Wilcox, from the town of Lee.
RAY: So, I guess we wait for Dr. Wilcox.
RAY: After Dr. Wilcox examines the body in the barn, he’s unable to determine if there was any foul play. But… he does make one startling announcement. He tells the men gathered that this corpse is many hundreds if not thousands of years old.
JEFF: 3,000 years old to be precise… at least according to Robb Tytus. The corpse in question is an Egyptian mummy that will be displayed inside the new mansion once it’s finished.
RAY: Right, because nothing says home sweet home like a dead body on display.
JEFF: Rich people are different than us, Ray.
RAY: That’s true. It’s 1912 when construction of the mansion is completed. Tytus names this grand home Ashnitully, a Gaelic word that means “on the brow of the hill,” but Tyringham locals call it The Marble Palace.
JEFF: Both fit the description. This Georgian Mansion looks like a stately building that would fit right in down in Washington DC next to the White House or any other number of white marble buildings. It’s got 35 rooms, 15 fireplaces, and a library filled with thousands of books.
RAY: In addition to moving in the Egyptian mummy, Tytus also places art pieces from all over the world. The place truly is a palace.
JEFF: Meanwhile, Tytus ingrained himself in the Berkshires. He’s been active in the community and local politics. He was elected twice to the state legislature as a representative. He also served on the Tyringham school committee and the library board of trustees.
RAY: A pillar of the community.
JEFF: And rich and famous.
RAY: Sadly, Robb Tytus doesn’t get to enjoy his new mansion in the Berkshires for very long. It’s August of 1913 when Tytus succumbs to tuberculosis. He was 37 years old. He’s buried just up the hill from his mansion in a family plot.
JEFF: Though tuberculosis is the official cause of death, and we should point out there’s plenty of that going around… there are still some who suggest he died because of a curse unleashed while he was opening tombs and temples back in Egypt.
RAY: Some folks will be superstitious I guess. But as you said, tuberculosis has been a leading killer in this country for over a century.
JEFF: It’s 1915, and Grace Tytus is getting married again. This time to John Stewart McLennan, a Canadian senator and newspaper man. The two have a child together that same year, but get divorced a short while later.
RAY: Still, summers come and go in the Berkshires. Notable guests arrive for parties and even stay for a few weeks. Considering the death of Robb Tytus, and all of the old antiques and creepy stuff inside this mansion, it’s no wonder the place starts to get a haunted reputation. One of those notable houseguests is author and historian Henry Adams. Adams is the great grandson of President John Adams. The historian had a strange encounter in the bedroom where he was staying.
Henry Adams: I was startled one night to be awakened by someone speaking my name. Of a sudden, the painting which was on the wall at the foot of the bed glowed with life, and for a few minutes conversed with me. Then, as I gradually dozed off to sleep, the “magic” picture also remained silent. This occurred frequently during my summer stay at Ashintully.
RAY: The painting in question had been smuggled from Rome. Why it chose to talk to Adams all summer is unknown.
JEFF: It’s now the summer of 1928. Grace was playing tennis when she slipped and fell. What at first seemed like a minor accident soon led to a heart attack, and then a series of seizures. Grace passed on August 28th. She was 51.
RAY: Bad luck? A mishap? Or a continuation of the Egyptian curse on the family?
JEFF: Tough to know. They say when pallbearers tried to bring her casket up the hill to be buried next to her first husband, they struggled the whole journey for some mysterious reason.
RAY: Definitely strange.
JEFF: In October of 1933, the eldest Tytus daughter, Mildred was driving her car through Springfield, Massachusetts, on her way back to Ahintully, when her car swerved off the road. She hit two trees which launched her from the car. She passed away in the hospital a few days later. She was only 29 years old.
RAY: That’s three Tytus family members gone too soon. Suddenly, we’re giving even more attention to the Egyptian curse.
JEFF: Curses, bad luck, sometimes there isn’t much of a difference. And that brings us back to today.
[TRANSITION]
RAY: The final tragedy here at the estate occurred in 1952. The estate had been in the McLennan family, since Grace willed it to her son. In the spring of ‘52, someone was burning trash in the incinerator when winds carried some embers to the milk barn and caught the structure on fire. Soon, the nearby fields also caught on fire. Volunteer firefighters rushed to the scene to try and contain the blaze, but after hours of fighting the blaze, the fire jumped to the house and soon the entire building was engulfed. Water was running low, and there was little they could do but watch as the mansion burned down to a skeleton. Hundreds of acres of forest also burned.
JEFF: Back in 1977, 446 acres including the ruins of Ashintully were donated to create a reservation that still maintains the property, gardens, and trails today.
RAY: Ashintully today is an eerie set of ruins overlooking an incredible view of the Berkshires. You can see the foundation, some of the stone driveway and paths, and of course those four pillars that stick out into the skyline.
JEFF: There’s an air of sadness here. You can walk through the remains of what was clearly a playground for the rich, filled with artifacts and art, connecting us to far away places, times, people, and stories. Today the ruins aren’t just haunted… they’re haunting.
[OUTTRO]
RAY: That they are. And that takes us to After the Legend where we take a deeper dive into this week’s story and sometimes go off the rails.
JEFF: After the Legend is brought to you by our patreon patrons! This group is the best. Our patrons are our insiders who get early ad-free access to new episodes, they get our entire archive of shows, plus bonus episodes and content that no one else gets to hear. It’s just $3 bucks per month, but if there’s enough of you, it goes a long way with helping to pay our expenses. To sign up head to patreon.com/newenglandlegends.
To see some pictures of Ashintully both then and now, click on the link in our episode description, or go to our website and click on Episode 404.
Have you already subscribed to our podcast? Please do! Because it’s free and we’ll send you two episodes each week. Pretty soon we’re going to be phasing out From the Vault and replacing it with your personal stories of strange encounters in New England. So if you’ve got a story to share, please email us through our website. We love when you get involved.
We’d like to thank Marv Anderson for lending his voice acting talents this week, thank you to our sponsors, our patreon patrons, and our theme music is by John Judd.
Until next time remember… the bizarre is closer than you think.
This was my absolute fav episode so far!!!!! Loved learning about Ashintully!!