June 24, 2025 • 33 mins
Nestled beside the tracks in Ashland, Massachusetts, sits one of the most haunted pubs in New England—Stone’s Public House. Built in the 1830s by a railroad tycoon with a dark past, this tavern has seen it all: unexplained deaths, ghost sightings, secret basement chambers, and even rumored ties to the Underground Railroad.
In this episode, we uncover the eerie legacy of John Stone and the strange events that have plagued the inn for nearly two centuries. From spectral sightings in upstairs rooms to hidden symbols carved into the wood, the building seems to carry more than just memories—it carries something that refuses to leave.
So grab a pint, settle in, and remember: the spirits at Stone’s don’t just come in a glass.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Tonight we're grabbing a pint atone of Massachusetts most
haunted bars and restaurants. Stones Public House in Ashland
built Poseidon Railroad. This place has been allegedly
linked to murder, gruesome accidents, and maybe even the
Underground Railroad. Over it's nearly 200 years of
existence, Stones has seen some shit and it's absolutely
crawling ghost stories, many of which are backed by real
(00:21):
eyewitnesses. I'm Sean.
I'm Chris. And I'm Kathy.
And this is weirder after dark. Were you fans of Ghost Hunters?
(00:43):
Loved the ghost hunters back in the day.
Yeah, that's a great show. It was so good, right?
It was so good. It used to be one of my favorite
things. Now.
I was born in 1990s, so like when Ghost Hunters came out, I
think it was like 2003, something like that.
Yeah, I was like 1213 years old.So like, right up my fucking
alley, right? Some weird shit.
Have you recently gone back at all and watched any of the Ghost
Hunter episodes? Not recently, I have.
(01:06):
Yeah, Chris is like, why would I, you know, like, why would I
revisit? This Why do I want to do that?
Our daughter used to when she was younger.
She loved ghost hunters so. Yeah, she was five years old.
It was her favorite show. It was her favorite show, so we
used to watch it all the time. Which made me feel like a bad
parent but she really loved it. She really liked it.
She wasn't afraid of ghosts and stuff like that, so it's fine.
I just didn't want the school tolike call one day and say your
(01:27):
daughter really loves ghost hunting shows.
Do you think that's appropriate?She's in first grade.
I just for the first time I everfelt old.
I was doing the math in my head of like 2003's when I came out.
That was 22 years. Ago I.
Was Oh my God, I feel so old. Anyways, for for this episode,
stones, stones, public house, ghost hunters, They they went
(01:48):
there and they explored it. So for part of my research, I
got to relive my 13 year old experience of watching the show.
That's amazing. Yeah.
And I guess. Season was it?
Season 1, Episode 3. So it was the third one they've
ever made. And it was.
So it was like our podcast. It was so bad.
It was not good. They had my favorite part was
like they're like jump cuts or like the fuzzy screen used to
(02:09):
see on TV's back in the day whenthe reception was bad.
It was like jump over and like half the episode was just what
was it, Jason And. Actually, I think it was Stephen
Grant. Stephen Grant, yeah.
Stephen Grant in their car, justlike, driving around talking
about stuff. My favorite part about ghost
Hunters is when you see the two of them and they're like fixing
a toilet and then they get the phone call that like we've been
(02:30):
called in on the case it's. So good, it's so.
Fucking like they're the FBI or something.
We called in. Let's go.
All right, we'll be right there.But yeah, the episode today
we're doing on Stones Public House, I know that we all have
heard about this before. Yeah, because we've had some
shout outs about this place fromsome of our listeners.
Right, we have way back when we first started.
Our very first maybe gang member.
(02:52):
I think so. Yeah, I think so.
But we actually got a Instagram post after one of our first
episode or two talking about this place and man, she was
talking about what witches. And the Underground Railroad.
Underground Railroad. Yeah, Ghost, Ghost, her own
personal experiences. And I think that kind of set
this off for us being like, eventually this is an episode
(03:12):
we're doing, but apparently thisis one of the most haunted
places in all of Massachusetts. So I think we're in for a good
story here today. You guys ready for?
It I'm ready. I love a good ghost story.
Sean, let's go to the bar. It's Friday night.
Our story starts in 1832. At that point, Ashland, MA
didn't even exist yet. The land that Stone sits on was
(03:33):
part of a small village called Unionville.
Unionville was tucked along Sudbury River and about halfway
between Framingham and Hockington, Massachusetts.
It was a quiet patchwork of dusty roads, farmland, and water
mills. But the peace was about to be
shattered by a loud rumbling force.
The railroad. How could you not, right?
(03:56):
How could you not so at this? You could not.
But he did. But I did, and that's staying in
the edit. Enter at this point in time,
Captain Johnstone. Which, First off, what a fucking
name, Captain Johnstone. I feel like all the names from
back in the day were like bad ass names.
They were all so cool. So cool.
(04:17):
So Captain Johnstone was a respected local militia officer,
a businessman, and a landowner. In fact, Johnstone owned almost
all of the land that made-up Unionville, and he had an inside
scoop. The Boston and Worcester
Railroad was planning to build new tracks right through the
center of his land. How did he find out?
Turns out his son George was thesurveyor for the railroad
(04:40):
companies. Well, inside a baseball there.
Yeah, that's right. That's right.
He's got scoop. Where others might have seen
disruption, pollution, inconvenience, the tearing up of
this beautiful land, not Stone. Stone saw dolla signs.
So he did what any savvy opportunist would do.
He built A2 story brick in and Tavern right beside the tracks.
Over the decades, the place would go by many names, the
(05:03):
Railroad House, Johnstone's Inn,and eventually Stone's Public
House. For simplicity though, we'll be
calling it Stone's Public House throughout the rest of the
episode. No matter what the name it went
by at the time, though it quickly became the beating heart
of what would later become Ashland.
Travellers came and went, whiskey flowed, deals were
struck and weary passengers slept beneath its roof.
(05:25):
Johnstone, never one to shy awayfrom hard work, stay deeply
involved in the Stones public house operations.
In the first few years, he reportedly even lived right next
door to keep a close eye on things.
Yeah, that's micromanaging a little bit, huh?
That is a committed owner. I was.
Going to say that is a next level commitment.
He's just like, no, no, no, no, get off my lawn.
(05:47):
That's my lawn. See you.
Eventually, John began leasing the end to other businessman,
but even when he wasn't running the show, he remained a constant
presence until his death in 1858.
Throughout his life, Johnstone wasn't just a Tavern owner, He
was one of the founding members of Ashland's first Board of
Selectmen and a prominent figurein the town.
(06:07):
His early investments helped pave the way for Ashland's
incorporation in 1846. And he was the kind of man who
always knew what was going on intown, mostly because what
happened in town has happened athis place.
But there may have been more to John than money and municipal
power stones. Public House may have served a
far greater purpose than porn, whiskey and housing wary
(06:28):
travelers. Some believe it played a hidden
role in one of the most courageous and dangerous
networks in American history, the Underground Railroad.
There's no official record, of course.
There rarely is when survival depends on silence and keeping
things on the DL. But during the renovations that
happened to Stones Public House in 1970s, workers discovered
something strange. It walled off room in the
(06:50):
basement. Inside were several old wooden
cots, a water barrel and a smallhandmade ladder.
And even more curiously, there was a hidden hatch on the bottom
of the floor. Naturally, I wanted to know what
the fuck that hidden hatch was for.
Where does that? Go where does.
That go what's going on? Did it go deeper in the the
ground? Did they connect to a larger
networks of tunnels used to helpenslave people like escape
(07:11):
northward towards Canada? I research and I couldn't find
anything concrete that said whatthat hidden hatch was used for.
And that's frustrating for me because it feels like learning
more about that hatch could probably unlock something real
and something kind of like buried a cool history of this
place. There's only one way to.
Find out. I agree, Chris.
We got to go. We got to go and in fact, gang,
we're going to go this weekend. So watch out and be on the
(07:33):
lookout for an update in the next couple of episodes and
maybe we'll actually find out what this hatch leads to.
I wonder too, like not to be like a downer on the story
maybe? Is it like a root cellar?
I think that's a good question, right?
Like what is it? When I actually looked at video
of them discovering this, ghost hunters, for example, they
actually went in there and they did it.
It was literally completely walled off portion of the
basement. So there had to be some like
(07:55):
secret way to ultimately get into the corner where the beds
were. And in fact the wall.
It actually like cut the basement off like an extra, I
don't know, like 8 feet longer than I want to.
It was so you'd walk down there and you would think you're
getting to the end of the house,but you're actually 8 feet
short. So whatever they were doing,
they were clearly trying to hide, staying on the other side
(08:15):
of that wall. And I mean, how much records are
you going to find, though? Like it was a secret, right?
Like they didn't want to have a paper trail.
They didn't want people to know what was happening there.
So like. I don't think we'll ever get
concrete answers right to whether this was part of the
Underground Railroad, but I do think if that hatch leads to
something more, a network of tunnels, that's a clear cut sign
(08:35):
to me that that was some way to get people in and out fast.
That means something. Or if it's not an underground
set of tunnels, maybe it was just another place that if
people were coming in and checking out the area, you get
in there just to quiet the noises that you might be making,
right? Either way, I think it's so
cool. They could have used it during
Prohibition. You know, it's a bar.
The bar was shut down, but it's still sold alcohol out of that
(08:57):
room, you know? Very true, but what if I told
you that there was more evidencethat might lead it to being part
of the Underground Railroad? Would you be interested in that?
Let's go. Ashland is just a few miles from
Framingham, MA, which in 1800s was an abolitionist stronghold.
The town hosted anti slavery rallies and was home to Henry
(09:18):
Clark Wright, a radical feminist, fierce abolitionist
and close ally of William Lloyd Garrison, one of the fiercest
enemies of slavery the country has ever produced.
So when we start factoring in that that's just a couple miles
down the road that you have these people with loud voices
fighting against slavery, I think that's starts to all of a
sudden add some weights that this very well could have been a
(09:40):
part of the Underground Railroad.
This could have some rich history.
The owners politically connected, yes, you know, man
about town. He's.
On the board. Exactly.
That's not some romantic fantasy, I don't think.
And while there's no direct documentation, Stone's proximity
to the abolitionist hubs, it's secluded location in the timing
all aligned with known routes ofthe Underground Railroad.
(10:04):
And in many confirmed Underground Railroad locations
across New England, similar hidden rooms and hatches even
have been found. So to me, that's not just a
rumor. That's some good fucking New
England lore right there. That's what I think.
That seems like that's got a lotof stuff to like back that up.
Yeah, I agree, doesn't sound farfetched at all.
But Stones doesn't stop surprising us with just this
(10:25):
story. Even weirder, there might be
more than just history buried inthe basement of Stones Public
House. The story doesn't surface until
the 1980s, when a local hypnotist and paranormal
researcher named Ralph Bibbo began conducting sessions inside
of the inn. But during one of those
sessions, Bibbo hypnotized a participant as part of a basic
(10:45):
past life regression. But what emerged is going to be
anything but an ordinary night with a hypnotist.
Under hypnosis, the participant began to speak in a different
voice. 1 Bibbo said, wasn't their own.
The tone shifted. The words came unprompted.
Bill wasn't even asking these types of questions.
And through that voice, a story began to unfold.
(11:08):
A poker game, a man named Michael McPherson, A violent
confrontation, a blow to the head, and then a body hidden
underneath the floorboards at Stone's public house.
The voice named one of the men who were there at that card
game, and it was Johnstone himself, apparently Stone, and a
group of like 8 prominent local businessmen who were inside of
(11:31):
the place playing cards. And there was 1 newcomer to the
group, this McPherson fellow. And supposedly throughout the
whole entire game there were some looks going around.
Accusations began to fly that there was some cheating going on
and McPherson had $3000 bet on the table against Stone and
$3000 at the time was about like120 grand on the table.
(11:51):
McPherson won and that's when all of a sudden Johnstone called
the man out that he was cheating, called bullshit, and
apparently Stone, based off of this story, grabs something very
close and just smashes it against McPherson head.
But it gets even crazier than that.
So now there's seven men sittingaround the table watching this
man who just died right in the moment there.
What do the men do? They helped cover it up.
(12:12):
They helped cover it up. Yeah, they helped bring him to
the fuck I don't. Know why I got really excited?
Yeah. Like that?
That's a good ghost story, right?
Now, yeah, supposedly the men helped go to the basement,
helped ultimately shovel the hole that they buried this man
body in, and then they all just agreed to keep it secret.
And a word of it never supposedly spread after that.
I don't know that that is, I saythat a fucking ghost story.
(12:33):
Bebo believed this wasn't imagination.
It was communication from the afterlife, so much so that he
requested permission to excavatethe basement in search for
Mcpherson's remains. And guess what they found?
You're kidding me. Were.
They there nothing. They found nothing.
Yeah. No bones.
No. Moment.
No bricks disturbed, no physicalproof.
But that doesn't mean the story is going to stop here.
(12:55):
Because nothing was found, the ghost story continued to grow.
Many of the paranormal reports coming from the basement line up
eerily with what Bilbo described.
Ghost hunters, mediums, psychicssay there are male presences
inside the basement. Bartenders have reported bottles
and glasses flying off the shelves with no explanation.
(13:15):
Cold spots supposedly move and follow people.
Lights flicker without a cause. And the most compelling multiple
guests, completely unconnected to anything to do with this
place, have reported hearing cards shuffle.
Not just faintly, loudly. So like they're, they're like.
Shuffling a deck of cards. Yeah, it's like you can hear the
shuffling of a deck. It's almost, you know, proof.
Not proof, but proof that what Bilbo was saying was true,
(13:39):
right? You hear the cards shuffling and
you have these male presences and somebody might have gotten
killed during a card game. Yeah.
So is it true? Maybe, maybe not.
But if Mcpherson's John Stones and the other men's spirits are
who's trapped inside of the Stones public house, they're not
alone. Another story involves a young
girl, a Mary J Smith. On June 11th, 1863, ten year old
(14:03):
Mary was hit by a train just steps from the inn.
They rushed her inside a Stones public house trying to save her,
but she died on the floor beforehelp could arrive.
Her death was sudden and brutal.From that day forward, strange
things started happening. Guests and staff have seen a
young girl in a white dress roaming the 2nd floor, often
(14:23):
near the windows or disappearinginto old storage rooms just
giggling. Which is so fucking creepy so.
Creepy. I always feel like too, though,
like the ghosts of children. Those are always the creepiest
ghosts, yeah. I agree.
I agree. Something creepy about like
children ghosts. Just children, period.
Children in general are creepy. 25 children.
(14:44):
Debatable. In the attic and near the
kitchen, things get even weirder.
Tiny footsteps appearing on freshly cleaned floors.
Children's handprints found nearthe top of the tall mirror that
no child could possibly reach 1 Cook reportedly quit on spot
after watching a little girl walk straight through a kitchen
wall and vanish without a sound.Yeah, I'd be.
(15:05):
I'd be fucking out to your. Call.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yet the story gets stranger.
In the 1980s, more than 120 years after Mary's alleged
death, a waitress was cleaning out a dusty storage space above
the dining room when she discovered something unexpected.
A small crumpled white dress, child size and stained with
(15:26):
blood. I heard about this from our
listener, yeah. It's crazy.
It's so crazy. I don't know if this is in your
story or not, but in the the pubnow they have it.
Oh, just framed. OK, Just wait.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just wait.
Word spread fast. Locals began whispering that
this was the very dress Mary wore the day she died.
(15:48):
We don't know for sure if it's the real thing, no testing's
ever been done on it. But those who saw it and see it
swear that it is clearly fuckingold, is clearly stained in
blood, and it's like it was justup there waiting to be found.
But here's where it turns from creepy to chilling.
Soon after the dress was disturbed, the staff began
noticing an uptick in paranormalactivity.
(16:10):
And not the playful kind. The building's energy reportedly
turned aggressive, more intense,like something was angry.
And eventually the staff decided, I'm fucking done with
this. Let's put the dress back where
we fucking found it. Put it back.
And when they did, something shifted.
The building calmed down. The energy didn't vanish, but it
changed to less hostile, more watchful, kind of away, like
(16:31):
something still there, but it's at least not fucking with us
anymore. Today.
The dress still exists, Kathy. To your point, it's been
preserved and now hangs behind glass on the 2nd floor, a silent
reminder of life and death that left its mark on Stones public
House. That's a little.
Morbid. I mean, what do you do with it
if you're also scared to remove it because activity picks up,
right? What?
(16:51):
You do? Why do you display it?
It's a little macaw for me. And if you're leaning in to
yeah. I mean, I guess like, if you
could think about it like, so they found the dress and they
removed it, right? And then all the activity
started acting up. They brought the dress back and
then everything settled down. Kind of having it on display
(17:11):
acknowledges that this little girl existed.
Kind of honoring her memory in away.
Yeah, yeah, I could get behind that.
Kind of like maybe like they said they had like this feeling
like it was meant to be found. I mean that kind of like gives
validation to her, like she really existed.
Yeah, that feels less evil to me.
Yeah. I like that too.
I think we can all agree though it sounds almost unbelievable
this whole story right? Like, girl gets hit by train,
(17:34):
dies in plays, hauntings occur, we find their bloody dress, we
remove the dress, crazy shit happens.
We put the dress back, things calm down.
Seems crazy. Well, here's the part where
Legend turns into something morereal.
Genealogist Lisa Healy Miller tracked down Mary's actual death
certificate, and the certificateconfirmed that a 10 year old
(17:54):
girl named Mary J Smith died in Ashland on June 11th, 1863 as
the result of a railroad accident just outside of the
inn. So this story, it isn't just
town gossip. It isn't just a legend.
It is actually fucking plausible.
And maybe, just maybe, the occasional like phantom giggles
heard by this little girl. Maybe they really are Mary.
(18:17):
Because in this case, we've got more than just a ghost story.
We have a date, we have a name. We have an actual accident.
We have a blood stained fucking dress found in a hallway tucked
away in the fucking attic a century later.
I don't know, like this is one of the first stories when you
start piercing things together. That kind of freaks me out a
little bit. Yeah.
I. Don't know, it all adds up.
It does. It doesn't.
(18:38):
Normally when we tell ghost stories, they don't usually add
up. They don't.
Usually add up. Usually by the end of it, it's
like, well, this isn't really what happened.
Yeah, but there's more. I like this one.
Another chilling tale tied to Stone's public house centers on
a woman named Henrietta Smith. And no, there's no relation
between Mary and Henrietta. They're both names.
(18:58):
Just Benden Smith. Just another eerie layer of
coincidence to this place. But according to local lore, in
1887, Henrietta Smith vanished without a trace near the end.
Her disappearance was never solved, and no official records
even detail her fate. But the story doesn't just end
here. Most of the time we someone goes
(19:19):
missing, there's no no records and they're like what the fuck
happened? It ends.
Staff and patrons have reported sightings of a woman in
Victorian era clothing wanderingthe halls of Stones Public
House. She's often seen near the 2nd
floor windows gazing out as if waiting for someone or
something. Others have felt a sudden chill
or an unexplainable sense of sorrow when passed in certain
(19:40):
areas of the inn. Some believe these occurrences
are tied to Henrietta's unresolved fate.
Was she a traveler who never made it to her destination?
A local whose story was erased? We don't know, but something
about the upstairs window and people often seeing someone in
there makes you wonder if she's still waiting or something.
You know, it's interesting because this is a very transient
(20:01):
place, right? It's a train stop, essentially.
Yeah. So you get all kinds of people
in and out, and they disappear and all that energy.
I never thought of it like that,right?
Like, and maybe it's a stop for some people in the afterlife as
well, too. People coming and going.
It's like some interesting connection there, Chris.
I'm like also thinking too like you have like the Underground
Railroad. So like that has a lot of energy
that's going to be left behind, even from people that were there
(20:24):
that survived and moved on to the next.
Like your energy is just so hyped up because of the trauma
that you're going through. It has to leave some sort of a
like a footprint, right? And then like now you have like
this little girl and then you have, like you said, all these
people with their energies coming in and all different
walks of life, like maybe something was left behind and.
(20:45):
It is interesting. So we have all these ghost
stories. What I want to do is kind of go
back and talk a little bit more about the restaurant for a
second, OK? After Johnstone's death in 1858,
Stone's public house passed through several hands.
Ownership changed again and again until eventually the once
vibrant inn fell into disrepair.By the 1950s, it was no longer
even in operation. The lights dim, the door shut.
(21:07):
The place sat silent, that is, till 1976, when a man named
Leonard Tappy Fournier bought the crumbling property with one
mission to restore it to its former glory.
But as soon as the renovations began, things started to get
weird. Doors wouldn't stay bolted shut,
even if they were double checkedbefore closing up.
(21:28):
Tools would just randomly disappear and then reappear in
strange places. But then came the moment that
changed everything for Kathy. There was a Blizzard one
evening. After cleaning and locking up,
Kathy and his staff turned off the lights and headed home.
Since Kathy's car was in the shop, one of his employees
offered to drive him home that night.
They reached the car, which was piled with snow, wiped it all
(21:50):
down, and then both got into thevehicle.
They turned the windshield wipers on.
They again could see the end, but when Kathy glanced at the
end, every single light was turned on. 1st floor, 2nd floor,
but maybe most mysteriously, thethird floor.
Well, here's the kicker. The third floor didn't have
power. What?
(22:11):
An electrician had just disconnect the power to the
third floor several days earlierto prepare for renovations they
were going to start making to it.
And there was like no lights shining from anywhere else.
Nope. Kathy and his employee stared at
the glowing windows, speechless.Kathy wasn't much of a believer
in the paranormal, but as the strange instant is piled up, his
(22:32):
mind began to open. I would be making a phone call
to the electrician and be like, so did you really cut the power
up there? What's going on?
Yeah. What's happening?
Are you sure? I think you need to go in and go
check right now I. Mean in normal circumstances you
lost your pair of pliers when you're working on a job.
No big deal. Yep, you're in a haunted place
(22:53):
though. Those pair of pliers were taken
by a paranormal entity, right? And I watched umpteen videos of
this guy Cappy on YouTube. And like, he seems and strikes
me like a skeptic. And when he was telling these
stories, like, you could feel his fear, like coming through
decades later from when these incidents actually occurred, I
(23:14):
believed him. I just, he seemed it seemed
real. So now we have Cappy.
He's just experienced this crazyevent and his mind starting to
open up to be like, maybe, maybethe paranormal is real, right?
And after that, his staff started reporting figures they
saw, whispering voices, objects,moving, feelings they couldn't
explain. So Kathy did what any good
(23:35):
haunted inn owner would do. He invited in some psychics,
mediums and ghost hunters insidehis house and the building's
reputation. From there, it only continued to
grow. One of the best documented
investigations came from the NewEngland Ghost Project.
During a session in the dining room, they recorded an EVP, and
it was the voice of a man whispering.
Don't go down there. Oh.
(23:57):
Yeah. Ricky moments later, right after
that EVP came through, the equipment just stopped working.
That's a common thing that I hear a lot with ghosts on swear
the equipment just stops, cuts out or the battery strain even
though it's been. Like the spirits are like
sapping the energy from the equipment or so Yeah, manifest.
That's what I thought like, likemaybe it's the energy they need
(24:17):
it and they they use it so they can manifest and this drains all
the equipment. Yeah, and that wasn't the only
first hand account. A long time bartender, Michael
DI, told the Metro West Daily News in 2017 that he once
watched a stack of pint glasses explode in front of him.
No temperature shift, no vibration, no one else nearby.
(24:38):
Just explode. Another tale shared during the
2018 Ghost of Ashland walking tour came from a server who
claims she had heard her name whispered clear as day.
She turned around to find the dining room completely fucking
empty. Dude, we need to go.
She quit the next morning as Kathy's like, let's go.
(24:59):
Even a few of our Weirder After Dark listeners shared stories
about this place and I want to share some with you.
This is from North Ruberd 594. He shared the following story.
I went there 1 early afternoon after having some work done on
my house. I paid the contractor by check
and still had my checkbook in myback pocket.
When I sat down at the bar at what was then John Stones in, it
(25:21):
was just me and the bartender. We started talking about the
haunted happenings at the place and he said some of the staff
didn't like going down the basement by themselves.
He then told me one time when hefirst started working that he
was joking around that there were no such thing a ghost, and
immediately right after he said that, two wine glasses fell from
the rack over the bar and shattered.
(25:41):
After I finished my beer and went home, I realized my
checkbook was gone. I was frantic because there's
about 15 blank checks in there and the bank charges 20 bucks
for each stop-payment I put on them.
So I called Stones to see if it had fallen out at the bar.
They said they hadn't seen it, but that they'd keep an eye out.
The next morning, just as I was about to head to my bank, they
(26:02):
called and they said they found it, but they didn't find it in
the usual lost and found location.
It was in the kitchen, up on a shelf inside of the basket,
right between two wine glasses. What?
Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, but he didn't fall out of
his pocket into the kitchen in abasket on shelf.
Yeah. And two wine glasses.
The story about ghost not being real, 2 wine glasses shattered.
(26:24):
So it's like, oh, that's kind ofweird.
I could see a sketchy dishwasherfinding it on the floor and
being like I was thinking which is away for later.
That's what I was thinking. Or if you write some checks if
nobody claims it. I that's what I was going to
say. I feel like if I'm a sketchy
dishwasher and no, no claims, you're not sketchy.
But if there was a sketchy dishwasher, like right, like
you're putting that in your pocket and you're writing some
fucking checks, right? And you're going to like, go get
(26:45):
some fucking Applebee's later orsomething, you know, like, I
don't know. It's a bubble gum.
That way you would write checks for us Applebee.
I don't know. The only checks I've ever
written in my life in my landlord so.
And I like you, John. I'm not writing you fake checks,
he continued to say. I've eaten their sense, they
have great food. But I will never bring up ghost
anymore. I I don't blame you.
He thought this ghost was playing a prank on him or
(27:05):
something. Yeah, but maybe the biggest
question isn't about who's haunting the building.
It's why. Because if Stones Public House
really did shelter people fleeing slavery, if those
tunnels were used for freedom, not freight, then maybe these
aren't just ghost stories. Maybe they're echoes of of
trauma, of memory, of people whonever got closure.
(27:26):
And what does it mean when we'redrinking right on top of their
footsteps, as the ghost of them are hiding for their lives
downstairs? Stones is a building soaked in
memory, some joyful, some dark, and some still waiting to be
heard. But just when you think all the
stories have been told, that in throws one more curveball at us.
Which marks. What is a witch?
(27:48):
Mark Some people believe the upper rooms of stones contains
early colonial protective carvings known as Daisy wheels
or witch marks. These are ritual symbols, often
circles with radial lines carvedinto the wood to ward off evil
and protect the space. While Ashland was not a hot spot
during the Salem witch trials, it was deeply A Puritan town,
(28:11):
and nearby communities like Sudbury and Marlboro have their
own legacies of folk magic. According to the Massachusetts
Historical Commission, these marks, along with hex signs,
have been found in numerous 18thand 19th century homes
throughout Middlesex County. And it makes sense, I think, if
you're living in a place where the lines between natural and
(28:32):
supernatural feel a little weird.
Maybe you carve a symbol above the hearth or inside of the
ceiling, or just on your threshold, just in case you know
something weird is going on there.
A recent guest at Stone's publichouse even claimed to find a
pentagram at into the underside of the Table Lake, a story that
was actually shared on no other place than TikTok.
(28:53):
It's on TikTok, it's real. It has to be real, but you can
really go look this up. It's at New England haunts and
it would came out in October 2022.
And you can watch that video andsee like a quick video of it
flashing a pentagram caught intothe lake.
But to me, here's the kicker. If those marks were meant to
protect the place, what does it mean that people are still
(29:13):
seeing things today? Some paranormal researchers have
suggested something darker that these carvings aren't keeping
spirits out anymore. Oh, no, they're keeping them in.
They're keeping them in OH. That's awful.
Today, Stones Public House is fully functioning Tavern and
restaurants and they're not hiding from the ghost.
They've actually leaned into it.They host ghost dinners,
Halloween events, and even allowovernight investigations.
(29:36):
It's been featured on the most terrifying places in America,
the Travel Channel, Ghost Hunters as we talked about, and
pretty much any big blog or newsstation that's covered anything
haunted new. But here's the twist, it's not
just spooky gimmicks people raveabout the fucking food.
Apparently it's the place to be.The history is real, the food is
good. You got some ghosts, Let's walk
and go. So the next time you are in
(29:58):
Ashland, stop by. Why'd you go all Paisano?
Yeah, I. Don't know man, I'm just feeling
myself. So the next time you're in
Ashland, stop by, order a pint and maybe leave a chair open.
Because at stones you never really drink alone.
Because this place, it holds more than just echoes.
A poker game that may or may nothave ended in blood.
A young girl who's lost to a passing train, tunnels that
(30:21):
might have led to freedom, symbols carved into the wood to
keep something out. It's layered, like history and
folklore, all got drunk, swap secrets and never laughs.
And somehow, in the stillness, just maybe, Captain Johnstone is
still there, watching over it all, keeping the lights on in a
place that refuses to stay buried.
And that is my story. That was really good, yeah.
(30:42):
I wasn't. I didn't know how deep that
story went. All I and knows that listener
who called in and said it's haunted, Yeah.
And it fucking was. Who would have guessed?
Our listeners, the gang, they know their shit, yeah.
They know their haunted history.Yeah, they know their fucking
local legends. And we fucking love you.
We love. Yeah.
No, this is this is a good one. I am really excited to go there.
(31:05):
Yeah, me too. I.
Really want to I'm like sitting here looking and I'm like, what
time is it? Oh, it's only 640.
We. Could drive an hour, have
dinner, drive an hour home. Like by the time we get there
it'll only be like 740. They're open till 10.
Plenty of time. So much history.
I yeah, you know, the way she was describing me, I was singing
as like this little hole in the wall bar.
And it's like, OK, a bunch of local, local bar, but you don't
(31:28):
realize it went back to the 1700s and.
Yeah. So much history and I just love,
I love when we can actually get something.
I hate calling like a dead person's bloody dress tangible,
but like when you can have some type of tangible history that
goes with it that brings it to life.
Well, especially like confirminglike with the certificate.
Exactly. There's it adds so much depth to
(31:48):
these stories and really makes me go, I fucking see something.
Might see something we might. Be able to prove something yeah.
So I hope you all enjoy the story and gang, I hope you
enjoyed it too. We will make sure that we're
going to follow up because over the next couple of days we are
going to get ourselves down to Stones Public House and if we
don't see ghosts, we're going tohave a fucking good meal
apparently from these reviews, so.
Looking forward to it. Yeah, We'll start one of our
(32:10):
next episodes off with a little kind of debrief about what we
experienced there. Let's go ahead.
Let's wrap everything up again, as I said, and Instagram is
where you can find us. I'll go ahead.
I'm going to put some pictures and some images that are going
to support the story that I put together here.
So if you haven't, be sure to goahead and check that out.
And don't forget, not only are we looking for stories and tales
from Stones Public House, if you've had anything weird happen
(32:31):
to you, we want to hear about that.
Have you been haunted by a ghost?
Have you played a card game and murdered a person and buried
their body in your basement? We want to hear about.
It do we? Maybe not.
Allegedly. Allegedly alleged.
We want to hear about your stories and you can send your
weird and creepy stories to us at the gang at Weirder After
(32:52):
dark.com. And it's not just Instagram that
we're building communities. We're building them over on
Facebook as well as on Reddit. And you can again visit those at
Weirder After Dark. And don't forget, if you're
liking this shit, if you're fucking loving this shit, the
best thing you can do to help usout is to share this podcast
with someone you know and someone you love.
And remember, it always gets a little weirder after dark.
(33:12):
Bye. Thank you guys.
Tonight we're grabbing a pint atone of Massachusetts most
haunted bars and restaurants. Stones Public House in Ashland
built Poseidon Railroad. This place has been allegedly
linked to murder, gruesome accidents, and maybe even the
Underground Railroad. Over it's nearly 200 years of
existence, Stones has seen some shit and it's absolutely
crawling ghost stories, many of which are backed by real
(00:21):
eyewitnesses. I'm Sean.
I'm Chris. And I'm Kathy.
And this is weirder after dark. Were you fans of Ghost Hunters?
(00:43):
Loved the ghost hunters back in the day.
Yeah, that's a great show. It was so good, right?
It was so good. It used to be one of my favorite
things. Now.
I was born in 1990s, so like when Ghost Hunters came out, I
think it was like 2003, something like that.
Yeah, I was like 1213 years old.So like, right up my fucking
alley, right? Some weird shit.
Have you recently gone back at all and watched any of the Ghost
Hunter episodes? Not recently, I have.
(01:06):
Yeah, Chris is like, why would I, you know, like, why would I
revisit? This Why do I want to do that?
Our daughter used to when she was younger.
She loved ghost hunters so. Yeah, she was five years old.
It was her favorite show. It was her favorite show, so we
used to watch it all the time. Which made me feel like a bad
parent but she really loved it. She really liked it.
She wasn't afraid of ghosts and stuff like that, so it's fine.
I just didn't want the school tolike call one day and say your
(01:27):
daughter really loves ghost hunting shows.
Do you think that's appropriate?She's in first grade.
I just for the first time I everfelt old.
I was doing the math in my head of like 2003's when I came out.
That was 22 years. Ago I.
Was Oh my God, I feel so old. Anyways, for for this episode,
stones, stones, public house, ghost hunters, They they went
(01:48):
there and they explored it. So for part of my research, I
got to relive my 13 year old experience of watching the show.
That's amazing. Yeah.
And I guess. Season was it?
Season 1, Episode 3. So it was the third one they've
ever made. And it was.
So it was like our podcast. It was so bad.
It was not good. They had my favorite part was
like they're like jump cuts or like the fuzzy screen used to
(02:09):
see on TV's back in the day whenthe reception was bad.
It was like jump over and like half the episode was just what
was it, Jason And. Actually, I think it was Stephen
Grant. Stephen Grant, yeah.
Stephen Grant in their car, justlike, driving around talking
about stuff. My favorite part about ghost
Hunters is when you see the two of them and they're like fixing
a toilet and then they get the phone call that like we've been
(02:30):
called in on the case it's. So good, it's so.
Fucking like they're the FBI or something.
We called in. Let's go.
All right, we'll be right there.But yeah, the episode today
we're doing on Stones Public House, I know that we all have
heard about this before. Yeah, because we've had some
shout outs about this place fromsome of our listeners.
Right, we have way back when we first started.
Our very first maybe gang member.
(02:52):
I think so. Yeah, I think so.
But we actually got a Instagram post after one of our first
episode or two talking about this place and man, she was
talking about what witches. And the Underground Railroad.
Underground Railroad. Yeah, Ghost, Ghost, her own
personal experiences. And I think that kind of set
this off for us being like, eventually this is an episode
(03:12):
we're doing, but apparently thisis one of the most haunted
places in all of Massachusetts. So I think we're in for a good
story here today. You guys ready for?
It I'm ready. I love a good ghost story.
Sean, let's go to the bar. It's Friday night.
Our story starts in 1832. At that point, Ashland, MA
didn't even exist yet. The land that Stone sits on was
(03:33):
part of a small village called Unionville.
Unionville was tucked along Sudbury River and about halfway
between Framingham and Hockington, Massachusetts.
It was a quiet patchwork of dusty roads, farmland, and water
mills. But the peace was about to be
shattered by a loud rumbling force.
The railroad. How could you not, right?
(03:56):
How could you not so at this? You could not.
But he did. But I did, and that's staying in
the edit. Enter at this point in time,
Captain Johnstone. Which, First off, what a fucking
name, Captain Johnstone. I feel like all the names from
back in the day were like bad ass names.
They were all so cool. So cool.
(04:17):
So Captain Johnstone was a respected local militia officer,
a businessman, and a landowner. In fact, Johnstone owned almost
all of the land that made-up Unionville, and he had an inside
scoop. The Boston and Worcester
Railroad was planning to build new tracks right through the
center of his land. How did he find out?
Turns out his son George was thesurveyor for the railroad
(04:40):
companies. Well, inside a baseball there.
Yeah, that's right. That's right.
He's got scoop. Where others might have seen
disruption, pollution, inconvenience, the tearing up of
this beautiful land, not Stone. Stone saw dolla signs.
So he did what any savvy opportunist would do.
He built A2 story brick in and Tavern right beside the tracks.
Over the decades, the place would go by many names, the
(05:03):
Railroad House, Johnstone's Inn,and eventually Stone's Public
House. For simplicity though, we'll be
calling it Stone's Public House throughout the rest of the
episode. No matter what the name it went
by at the time, though it quickly became the beating heart
of what would later become Ashland.
Travellers came and went, whiskey flowed, deals were
struck and weary passengers slept beneath its roof.
(05:25):
Johnstone, never one to shy awayfrom hard work, stay deeply
involved in the Stones public house operations.
In the first few years, he reportedly even lived right next
door to keep a close eye on things.
Yeah, that's micromanaging a little bit, huh?
That is a committed owner. I was.
Going to say that is a next level commitment.
He's just like, no, no, no, no, get off my lawn.
(05:47):
That's my lawn. See you.
Eventually, John began leasing the end to other businessman,
but even when he wasn't running the show, he remained a constant
presence until his death in 1858.
Throughout his life, Johnstone wasn't just a Tavern owner, He
was one of the founding members of Ashland's first Board of
Selectmen and a prominent figurein the town.
(06:07):
His early investments helped pave the way for Ashland's
incorporation in 1846. And he was the kind of man who
always knew what was going on intown, mostly because what
happened in town has happened athis place.
But there may have been more to John than money and municipal
power stones. Public House may have served a
far greater purpose than porn, whiskey and housing wary
(06:28):
travelers. Some believe it played a hidden
role in one of the most courageous and dangerous
networks in American history, the Underground Railroad.
There's no official record, of course.
There rarely is when survival depends on silence and keeping
things on the DL. But during the renovations that
happened to Stones Public House in 1970s, workers discovered
something strange. It walled off room in the
(06:50):
basement. Inside were several old wooden
cots, a water barrel and a smallhandmade ladder.
And even more curiously, there was a hidden hatch on the bottom
of the floor. Naturally, I wanted to know what
the fuck that hidden hatch was for.
Where does that? Go where does.
That go what's going on? Did it go deeper in the the
ground? Did they connect to a larger
networks of tunnels used to helpenslave people like escape
(07:11):
northward towards Canada? I research and I couldn't find
anything concrete that said whatthat hidden hatch was used for.
And that's frustrating for me because it feels like learning
more about that hatch could probably unlock something real
and something kind of like buried a cool history of this
place. There's only one way to.
Find out. I agree, Chris.
We got to go. We got to go and in fact, gang,
we're going to go this weekend. So watch out and be on the
(07:33):
lookout for an update in the next couple of episodes and
maybe we'll actually find out what this hatch leads to.
I wonder too, like not to be like a downer on the story
maybe? Is it like a root cellar?
I think that's a good question, right?
Like what is it? When I actually looked at video
of them discovering this, ghost hunters, for example, they
actually went in there and they did it.
It was literally completely walled off portion of the
basement. So there had to be some like
(07:55):
secret way to ultimately get into the corner where the beds
were. And in fact the wall.
It actually like cut the basement off like an extra, I
don't know, like 8 feet longer than I want to.
It was so you'd walk down there and you would think you're
getting to the end of the house,but you're actually 8 feet
short. So whatever they were doing,
they were clearly trying to hide, staying on the other side
(08:15):
of that wall. And I mean, how much records are
you going to find, though? Like it was a secret, right?
Like they didn't want to have a paper trail.
They didn't want people to know what was happening there.
So like. I don't think we'll ever get
concrete answers right to whether this was part of the
Underground Railroad, but I do think if that hatch leads to
something more, a network of tunnels, that's a clear cut sign
(08:35):
to me that that was some way to get people in and out fast.
That means something. Or if it's not an underground
set of tunnels, maybe it was just another place that if
people were coming in and checking out the area, you get
in there just to quiet the noises that you might be making,
right? Either way, I think it's so
cool. They could have used it during
Prohibition. You know, it's a bar.
The bar was shut down, but it's still sold alcohol out of that
(08:57):
room, you know? Very true, but what if I told
you that there was more evidencethat might lead it to being part
of the Underground Railroad? Would you be interested in that?
Let's go. Ashland is just a few miles from
Framingham, MA, which in 1800s was an abolitionist stronghold.
The town hosted anti slavery rallies and was home to Henry
(09:18):
Clark Wright, a radical feminist, fierce abolitionist
and close ally of William Lloyd Garrison, one of the fiercest
enemies of slavery the country has ever produced.
So when we start factoring in that that's just a couple miles
down the road that you have these people with loud voices
fighting against slavery, I think that's starts to all of a
sudden add some weights that this very well could have been a
(09:40):
part of the Underground Railroad.
This could have some rich history.
The owners politically connected, yes, you know, man
about town. He's.
On the board. Exactly.
That's not some romantic fantasy, I don't think.
And while there's no direct documentation, Stone's proximity
to the abolitionist hubs, it's secluded location in the timing
all aligned with known routes ofthe Underground Railroad.
(10:04):
And in many confirmed Underground Railroad locations
across New England, similar hidden rooms and hatches even
have been found. So to me, that's not just a
rumor. That's some good fucking New
England lore right there. That's what I think.
That seems like that's got a lotof stuff to like back that up.
Yeah, I agree, doesn't sound farfetched at all.
But Stones doesn't stop surprising us with just this
(10:25):
story. Even weirder, there might be
more than just history buried inthe basement of Stones Public
House. The story doesn't surface until
the 1980s, when a local hypnotist and paranormal
researcher named Ralph Bibbo began conducting sessions inside
of the inn. But during one of those
sessions, Bibbo hypnotized a participant as part of a basic
(10:45):
past life regression. But what emerged is going to be
anything but an ordinary night with a hypnotist.
Under hypnosis, the participant began to speak in a different
voice. 1 Bibbo said, wasn't their own.
The tone shifted. The words came unprompted.
Bill wasn't even asking these types of questions.
And through that voice, a story began to unfold.
(11:08):
A poker game, a man named Michael McPherson, A violent
confrontation, a blow to the head, and then a body hidden
underneath the floorboards at Stone's public house.
The voice named one of the men who were there at that card
game, and it was Johnstone himself, apparently Stone, and a
group of like 8 prominent local businessmen who were inside of
(11:31):
the place playing cards. And there was 1 newcomer to the
group, this McPherson fellow. And supposedly throughout the
whole entire game there were some looks going around.
Accusations began to fly that there was some cheating going on
and McPherson had $3000 bet on the table against Stone and
$3000 at the time was about like120 grand on the table.
(11:51):
McPherson won and that's when all of a sudden Johnstone called
the man out that he was cheating, called bullshit, and
apparently Stone, based off of this story, grabs something very
close and just smashes it against McPherson head.
But it gets even crazier than that.
So now there's seven men sittingaround the table watching this
man who just died right in the moment there.
What do the men do? They helped cover it up.
(12:12):
They helped cover it up. Yeah, they helped bring him to
the fuck I don't. Know why I got really excited?
Yeah. Like that?
That's a good ghost story, right?
Now, yeah, supposedly the men helped go to the basement,
helped ultimately shovel the hole that they buried this man
body in, and then they all just agreed to keep it secret.
And a word of it never supposedly spread after that.
I don't know that that is, I saythat a fucking ghost story.
(12:33):
Bebo believed this wasn't imagination.
It was communication from the afterlife, so much so that he
requested permission to excavatethe basement in search for
Mcpherson's remains. And guess what they found?
You're kidding me. Were.
They there nothing. They found nothing.
Yeah. No bones.
No. Moment.
No bricks disturbed, no physicalproof.
But that doesn't mean the story is going to stop here.
(12:55):
Because nothing was found, the ghost story continued to grow.
Many of the paranormal reports coming from the basement line up
eerily with what Bilbo described.
Ghost hunters, mediums, psychicssay there are male presences
inside the basement. Bartenders have reported bottles
and glasses flying off the shelves with no explanation.
(13:15):
Cold spots supposedly move and follow people.
Lights flicker without a cause. And the most compelling multiple
guests, completely unconnected to anything to do with this
place, have reported hearing cards shuffle.
Not just faintly, loudly. So like they're, they're like.
Shuffling a deck of cards. Yeah, it's like you can hear the
shuffling of a deck. It's almost, you know, proof.
Not proof, but proof that what Bilbo was saying was true,
(13:39):
right? You hear the cards shuffling and
you have these male presences and somebody might have gotten
killed during a card game. Yeah.
So is it true? Maybe, maybe not.
But if Mcpherson's John Stones and the other men's spirits are
who's trapped inside of the Stones public house, they're not
alone. Another story involves a young
girl, a Mary J Smith. On June 11th, 1863, ten year old
(14:03):
Mary was hit by a train just steps from the inn.
They rushed her inside a Stones public house trying to save her,
but she died on the floor beforehelp could arrive.
Her death was sudden and brutal.From that day forward, strange
things started happening. Guests and staff have seen a
young girl in a white dress roaming the 2nd floor, often
(14:23):
near the windows or disappearinginto old storage rooms just
giggling. Which is so fucking creepy so.
Creepy. I always feel like too, though,
like the ghosts of children. Those are always the creepiest
ghosts, yeah. I agree.
I agree. Something creepy about like
children ghosts. Just children, period.
Children in general are creepy. 25 children.
(14:44):
Debatable. In the attic and near the
kitchen, things get even weirder.
Tiny footsteps appearing on freshly cleaned floors.
Children's handprints found nearthe top of the tall mirror that
no child could possibly reach 1 Cook reportedly quit on spot
after watching a little girl walk straight through a kitchen
wall and vanish without a sound.Yeah, I'd be.
(15:05):
I'd be fucking out to your. Call.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And yet the story gets stranger.
In the 1980s, more than 120 years after Mary's alleged
death, a waitress was cleaning out a dusty storage space above
the dining room when she discovered something unexpected.
A small crumpled white dress, child size and stained with
(15:26):
blood. I heard about this from our
listener, yeah. It's crazy.
It's so crazy. I don't know if this is in your
story or not, but in the the pubnow they have it.
Oh, just framed. OK, Just wait.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Just wait.
Word spread fast. Locals began whispering that
this was the very dress Mary wore the day she died.
(15:48):
We don't know for sure if it's the real thing, no testing's
ever been done on it. But those who saw it and see it
swear that it is clearly fuckingold, is clearly stained in
blood, and it's like it was justup there waiting to be found.
But here's where it turns from creepy to chilling.
Soon after the dress was disturbed, the staff began
noticing an uptick in paranormalactivity.
(16:10):
And not the playful kind. The building's energy reportedly
turned aggressive, more intense,like something was angry.
And eventually the staff decided, I'm fucking done with
this. Let's put the dress back where
we fucking found it. Put it back.
And when they did, something shifted.
The building calmed down. The energy didn't vanish, but it
changed to less hostile, more watchful, kind of away, like
(16:31):
something still there, but it's at least not fucking with us
anymore. Today.
The dress still exists, Kathy. To your point, it's been
preserved and now hangs behind glass on the 2nd floor, a silent
reminder of life and death that left its mark on Stones public
House. That's a little.
Morbid. I mean, what do you do with it
if you're also scared to remove it because activity picks up,
right? What?
(16:51):
You do? Why do you display it?
It's a little macaw for me. And if you're leaning in to
yeah. I mean, I guess like, if you
could think about it like, so they found the dress and they
removed it, right? And then all the activity
started acting up. They brought the dress back and
then everything settled down. Kind of having it on display
(17:11):
acknowledges that this little girl existed.
Kind of honoring her memory in away.
Yeah, yeah, I could get behind that.
Kind of like maybe like they said they had like this feeling
like it was meant to be found. I mean that kind of like gives
validation to her, like she really existed.
Yeah, that feels less evil to me.
Yeah. I like that too.
I think we can all agree though it sounds almost unbelievable
this whole story right? Like, girl gets hit by train,
(17:34):
dies in plays, hauntings occur, we find their bloody dress, we
remove the dress, crazy shit happens.
We put the dress back, things calm down.
Seems crazy. Well, here's the part where
Legend turns into something morereal.
Genealogist Lisa Healy Miller tracked down Mary's actual death
certificate, and the certificateconfirmed that a 10 year old
(17:54):
girl named Mary J Smith died in Ashland on June 11th, 1863 as
the result of a railroad accident just outside of the
inn. So this story, it isn't just
town gossip. It isn't just a legend.
It is actually fucking plausible.
And maybe, just maybe, the occasional like phantom giggles
heard by this little girl. Maybe they really are Mary.
(18:17):
Because in this case, we've got more than just a ghost story.
We have a date, we have a name. We have an actual accident.
We have a blood stained fucking dress found in a hallway tucked
away in the fucking attic a century later.
I don't know, like this is one of the first stories when you
start piercing things together. That kind of freaks me out a
little bit. Yeah.
I. Don't know, it all adds up.
It does. It doesn't.
(18:38):
Normally when we tell ghost stories, they don't usually add
up. They don't.
Usually add up. Usually by the end of it, it's
like, well, this isn't really what happened.
Yeah, but there's more. I like this one.
Another chilling tale tied to Stone's public house centers on
a woman named Henrietta Smith. And no, there's no relation
between Mary and Henrietta. They're both names.
(18:58):
Just Benden Smith. Just another eerie layer of
coincidence to this place. But according to local lore, in
1887, Henrietta Smith vanished without a trace near the end.
Her disappearance was never solved, and no official records
even detail her fate. But the story doesn't just end
here. Most of the time we someone goes
(19:19):
missing, there's no no records and they're like what the fuck
happened? It ends.
Staff and patrons have reported sightings of a woman in
Victorian era clothing wanderingthe halls of Stones Public
House. She's often seen near the 2nd
floor windows gazing out as if waiting for someone or
something. Others have felt a sudden chill
or an unexplainable sense of sorrow when passed in certain
(19:40):
areas of the inn. Some believe these occurrences
are tied to Henrietta's unresolved fate.
Was she a traveler who never made it to her destination?
A local whose story was erased? We don't know, but something
about the upstairs window and people often seeing someone in
there makes you wonder if she's still waiting or something.
You know, it's interesting because this is a very transient
(20:01):
place, right? It's a train stop, essentially.
Yeah. So you get all kinds of people
in and out, and they disappear and all that energy.
I never thought of it like that,right?
Like, and maybe it's a stop for some people in the afterlife as
well, too. People coming and going.
It's like some interesting connection there, Chris.
I'm like also thinking too like you have like the Underground
Railroad. So like that has a lot of energy
that's going to be left behind, even from people that were there
(20:24):
that survived and moved on to the next.
Like your energy is just so hyped up because of the trauma
that you're going through. It has to leave some sort of a
like a footprint, right? And then like now you have like
this little girl and then you have, like you said, all these
people with their energies coming in and all different
walks of life, like maybe something was left behind and.
(20:45):
It is interesting. So we have all these ghost
stories. What I want to do is kind of go
back and talk a little bit more about the restaurant for a
second, OK? After Johnstone's death in 1858,
Stone's public house passed through several hands.
Ownership changed again and again until eventually the once
vibrant inn fell into disrepair.By the 1950s, it was no longer
even in operation. The lights dim, the door shut.
(21:07):
The place sat silent, that is, till 1976, when a man named
Leonard Tappy Fournier bought the crumbling property with one
mission to restore it to its former glory.
But as soon as the renovations began, things started to get
weird. Doors wouldn't stay bolted shut,
even if they were double checkedbefore closing up.
(21:28):
Tools would just randomly disappear and then reappear in
strange places. But then came the moment that
changed everything for Kathy. There was a Blizzard one
evening. After cleaning and locking up,
Kathy and his staff turned off the lights and headed home.
Since Kathy's car was in the shop, one of his employees
offered to drive him home that night.
They reached the car, which was piled with snow, wiped it all
(21:50):
down, and then both got into thevehicle.
They turned the windshield wipers on.
They again could see the end, but when Kathy glanced at the
end, every single light was turned on. 1st floor, 2nd floor,
but maybe most mysteriously, thethird floor.
Well, here's the kicker. The third floor didn't have
power. What?
(22:11):
An electrician had just disconnect the power to the
third floor several days earlierto prepare for renovations they
were going to start making to it.
And there was like no lights shining from anywhere else.
Nope. Kathy and his employee stared at
the glowing windows, speechless.Kathy wasn't much of a believer
in the paranormal, but as the strange instant is piled up, his
(22:32):
mind began to open. I would be making a phone call
to the electrician and be like, so did you really cut the power
up there? What's going on?
Yeah. What's happening?
Are you sure? I think you need to go in and go
check right now I. Mean in normal circumstances you
lost your pair of pliers when you're working on a job.
No big deal. Yep, you're in a haunted place
(22:53):
though. Those pair of pliers were taken
by a paranormal entity, right? And I watched umpteen videos of
this guy Cappy on YouTube. And like, he seems and strikes
me like a skeptic. And when he was telling these
stories, like, you could feel his fear, like coming through
decades later from when these incidents actually occurred, I
(23:14):
believed him. I just, he seemed it seemed
real. So now we have Cappy.
He's just experienced this crazyevent and his mind starting to
open up to be like, maybe, maybethe paranormal is real, right?
And after that, his staff started reporting figures they
saw, whispering voices, objects,moving, feelings they couldn't
explain. So Kathy did what any good
(23:35):
haunted inn owner would do. He invited in some psychics,
mediums and ghost hunters insidehis house and the building's
reputation. From there, it only continued to
grow. One of the best documented
investigations came from the NewEngland Ghost Project.
During a session in the dining room, they recorded an EVP, and
it was the voice of a man whispering.
Don't go down there. Oh.
(23:57):
Yeah. Ricky moments later, right after
that EVP came through, the equipment just stopped working.
That's a common thing that I hear a lot with ghosts on swear
the equipment just stops, cuts out or the battery strain even
though it's been. Like the spirits are like
sapping the energy from the equipment or so Yeah, manifest.
That's what I thought like, likemaybe it's the energy they need
(24:17):
it and they they use it so they can manifest and this drains all
the equipment. Yeah, and that wasn't the only
first hand account. A long time bartender, Michael
DI, told the Metro West Daily News in 2017 that he once
watched a stack of pint glasses explode in front of him.
No temperature shift, no vibration, no one else nearby.
(24:38):
Just explode. Another tale shared during the
2018 Ghost of Ashland walking tour came from a server who
claims she had heard her name whispered clear as day.
She turned around to find the dining room completely fucking
empty. Dude, we need to go.
She quit the next morning as Kathy's like, let's go.
(24:59):
Even a few of our Weirder After Dark listeners shared stories
about this place and I want to share some with you.
This is from North Ruberd 594. He shared the following story.
I went there 1 early afternoon after having some work done on
my house. I paid the contractor by check
and still had my checkbook in myback pocket.
When I sat down at the bar at what was then John Stones in, it
(25:21):
was just me and the bartender. We started talking about the
haunted happenings at the place and he said some of the staff
didn't like going down the basement by themselves.
He then told me one time when hefirst started working that he
was joking around that there were no such thing a ghost, and
immediately right after he said that, two wine glasses fell from
the rack over the bar and shattered.
(25:41):
After I finished my beer and went home, I realized my
checkbook was gone. I was frantic because there's
about 15 blank checks in there and the bank charges 20 bucks
for each stop-payment I put on them.
So I called Stones to see if it had fallen out at the bar.
They said they hadn't seen it, but that they'd keep an eye out.
The next morning, just as I was about to head to my bank, they
(26:02):
called and they said they found it, but they didn't find it in
the usual lost and found location.
It was in the kitchen, up on a shelf inside of the basket,
right between two wine glasses. What?
Yeah, that's weird. Yeah, but he didn't fall out of
his pocket into the kitchen in abasket on shelf.
Yeah. And two wine glasses.
The story about ghost not being real, 2 wine glasses shattered.
(26:24):
So it's like, oh, that's kind ofweird.
I could see a sketchy dishwasherfinding it on the floor and
being like I was thinking which is away for later.
That's what I was thinking. Or if you write some checks if
nobody claims it. I that's what I was going to
say. I feel like if I'm a sketchy
dishwasher and no, no claims, you're not sketchy.
But if there was a sketchy dishwasher, like right, like
you're putting that in your pocket and you're writing some
fucking checks, right? And you're going to like, go get
(26:45):
some fucking Applebee's later orsomething, you know, like, I
don't know. It's a bubble gum.
That way you would write checks for us Applebee.
I don't know. The only checks I've ever
written in my life in my landlord so.
And I like you, John. I'm not writing you fake checks,
he continued to say. I've eaten their sense, they
have great food. But I will never bring up ghost
anymore. I I don't blame you.
He thought this ghost was playing a prank on him or
(27:05):
something. Yeah, but maybe the biggest
question isn't about who's haunting the building.
It's why. Because if Stones Public House
really did shelter people fleeing slavery, if those
tunnels were used for freedom, not freight, then maybe these
aren't just ghost stories. Maybe they're echoes of of
trauma, of memory, of people whonever got closure.
(27:26):
And what does it mean when we'redrinking right on top of their
footsteps, as the ghost of them are hiding for their lives
downstairs? Stones is a building soaked in
memory, some joyful, some dark, and some still waiting to be
heard. But just when you think all the
stories have been told, that in throws one more curveball at us.
Which marks. What is a witch?
(27:48):
Mark Some people believe the upper rooms of stones contains
early colonial protective carvings known as Daisy wheels
or witch marks. These are ritual symbols, often
circles with radial lines carvedinto the wood to ward off evil
and protect the space. While Ashland was not a hot spot
during the Salem witch trials, it was deeply A Puritan town,
(28:11):
and nearby communities like Sudbury and Marlboro have their
own legacies of folk magic. According to the Massachusetts
Historical Commission, these marks, along with hex signs,
have been found in numerous 18thand 19th century homes
throughout Middlesex County. And it makes sense, I think, if
you're living in a place where the lines between natural and
(28:32):
supernatural feel a little weird.
Maybe you carve a symbol above the hearth or inside of the
ceiling, or just on your threshold, just in case you know
something weird is going on there.
A recent guest at Stone's publichouse even claimed to find a
pentagram at into the underside of the Table Lake, a story that
was actually shared on no other place than TikTok.
(28:53):
It's on TikTok, it's real. It has to be real, but you can
really go look this up. It's at New England haunts and
it would came out in October 2022.
And you can watch that video andsee like a quick video of it
flashing a pentagram caught intothe lake.
But to me, here's the kicker. If those marks were meant to
protect the place, what does it mean that people are still
(29:13):
seeing things today? Some paranormal researchers have
suggested something darker that these carvings aren't keeping
spirits out anymore. Oh, no, they're keeping them in.
They're keeping them in OH. That's awful.
Today, Stones Public House is fully functioning Tavern and
restaurants and they're not hiding from the ghost.
They've actually leaned into it.They host ghost dinners,
Halloween events, and even allowovernight investigations.
(29:36):
It's been featured on the most terrifying places in America,
the Travel Channel, Ghost Hunters as we talked about, and
pretty much any big blog or newsstation that's covered anything
haunted new. But here's the twist, it's not
just spooky gimmicks people raveabout the fucking food.
Apparently it's the place to be.The history is real, the food is
good. You got some ghosts, Let's walk
and go. So the next time you are in
(29:58):
Ashland, stop by. Why'd you go all Paisano?
Yeah, I. Don't know man, I'm just feeling
myself. So the next time you're in
Ashland, stop by, order a pint and maybe leave a chair open.
Because at stones you never really drink alone.
Because this place, it holds more than just echoes.
A poker game that may or may nothave ended in blood.
A young girl who's lost to a passing train, tunnels that
(30:21):
might have led to freedom, symbols carved into the wood to
keep something out. It's layered, like history and
folklore, all got drunk, swap secrets and never laughs.
And somehow, in the stillness, just maybe, Captain Johnstone is
still there, watching over it all, keeping the lights on in a
place that refuses to stay buried.
And that is my story. That was really good, yeah.
(30:42):
I wasn't. I didn't know how deep that
story went. All I and knows that listener
who called in and said it's haunted, Yeah.
And it fucking was. Who would have guessed?
Our listeners, the gang, they know their shit, yeah.
They know their haunted history.Yeah, they know their fucking
local legends. And we fucking love you.
We love. Yeah.
No, this is this is a good one. I am really excited to go there.
(31:05):
Yeah, me too. I.
Really want to I'm like sitting here looking and I'm like, what
time is it? Oh, it's only 640.
We. Could drive an hour, have
dinner, drive an hour home. Like by the time we get there
it'll only be like 740. They're open till 10.
Plenty of time. So much history.
I yeah, you know, the way she was describing me, I was singing
as like this little hole in the wall bar.
And it's like, OK, a bunch of local, local bar, but you don't
(31:28):
realize it went back to the 1700s and.
Yeah. So much history and I just love,
I love when we can actually get something.
I hate calling like a dead person's bloody dress tangible,
but like when you can have some type of tangible history that
goes with it that brings it to life.
Well, especially like confirminglike with the certificate.
Exactly. There's it adds so much depth to
(31:48):
these stories and really makes me go, I fucking see something.
Might see something we might. Be able to prove something yeah.
So I hope you all enjoy the story and gang, I hope you
enjoyed it too. We will make sure that we're
going to follow up because over the next couple of days we are
going to get ourselves down to Stones Public House and if we
don't see ghosts, we're going tohave a fucking good meal
apparently from these reviews, so.
Looking forward to it. Yeah, We'll start one of our
(32:10):
next episodes off with a little kind of debrief about what we
experienced there. Let's go ahead.
Let's wrap everything up again, as I said, and Instagram is
where you can find us. I'll go ahead.
I'm going to put some pictures and some images that are going
to support the story that I put together here.
So if you haven't, be sure to goahead and check that out.
And don't forget, not only are we looking for stories and tales
from Stones Public House, if you've had anything weird happen
(32:31):
to you, we want to hear about that.
Have you been haunted by a ghost?
Have you played a card game and murdered a person and buried
their body in your basement? We want to hear about.
It do we? Maybe not.
Allegedly. Allegedly alleged.
We want to hear about your stories and you can send your
weird and creepy stories to us at the gang at Weirder After
(32:52):
dark.com. And it's not just Instagram that
we're building communities. We're building them over on
Facebook as well as on Reddit. And you can again visit those at
Weirder After Dark. And don't forget, if you're
liking this shit, if you're fucking loving this shit, the
best thing you can do to help usout is to share this podcast
with someone you know and someone you love.
And remember, it always gets a little weirder after dark.
(33:12):
Bye. Thank you guys.
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