July 22, 2025 • 34 mins
It was built as a place of peace—an escape into nature for the patients of a Victorian-era asylum. But today, the Brattleboro Retreat Tower is sealed shut, fenced off, and whispered about in the same breath as ghost stories and local tragedy. What happened inside? And why does this lonely tower on the hill continue to unsettle the town below? In this episode, we explore the real history, the legends, and the line between therapeutic architecture and something more chilling.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Tucked away in the Vermont woodsstands the Brattleboro Retreat
Tower, built by patients of a once revered asylum.
Over the years, there were fires, vanishings and stories
the hospital never wanted told. Some say the tower still echoes
with what was left behind. And what's buried nearby might
not be resting easy. I'm Kathy.
I'm Chris. I'm Sean.
(00:20):
And this is weirder after dark. So we finally met our way down
to Stone. It's a public house gang and a
(00:42):
little different than I think wethought it was going to go.
The way the lady was talking about it that sent us the
videos, I thought it was going to be like this hole on the
wall, like local dive bar. It was really upscale and really
freaking busy. It was fucking packed.
It was packed. There was a lot of people there
and a lot of people waiting on the the porch out front.
Yeah, yeah. I was surprised by that.
(01:02):
Next time get reservations apparently because we waited for
like an hour and a half. Table we did wait for an hour
and a half, but I thought the cool part about waiting an hour
and a half is like just listening to people who did have
reservations or that were ahead of us and like every single
person was talking about ghosts and Kathy, I think you went to
the bathroom one point. So just like Chris and I sitting
outside and also this like huge,like 6 foot 6 Jack guy walks by
(01:23):
and I just overhear him go. I'm kind of scared of the
ghosts. Chris go.
If he's scared, we can be scared.
Chris, it's OK now, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's. Scared I feel more mouth
feeling. But it was just so busy that
zero percent chance of us havingany type of experience
experiences. And we weren't able to have a
tour, which sucked. So we didn't get to see the
bloody dress, but we did get to eat some food and food was was
good. Decent, yeah.
(01:43):
But yeah, I feel like we got to go back, right?
Yeah, I think, I think so. Because like the waitress, she
was willing to talk to us. Oh yeah.
But she was just so busy. She had like 8 tables.
Yeah, she. Really just didn't, she didn't
have the time. And so, you know, we just asked
her and she just said, yeah, like, you know, she had an
experience. A couple of other waitresses had
an experience. We didn't really push her For
more information because, you know, they were really, really.
(02:06):
It was pop it off. Yeah, if we go on a Tuesday
afternoon, I bet you we could get a lot more information and
interview some people. But.
Or like, yeah, a call ahead, letthem know that we're coming
down, we're looking to do a tour.
I think I was just randomly winging it on a random day.
Going down might not have been. Yeah, and I think it was like a
Saturday too, wasn't it? So yeah.
Yeah, so gang, if you find yourself going to Stone Public
House and you're not a local, ifyou got a little bit of a drive,
(02:26):
like maybe try to plan it for a slower afternoon or something
about nature, call ahead. But I definitely want to get
back there because, like, I still have lingering questions.
Hey, I got to see that fucking dress.
Like is that bloody dress real? BI want to get into that
basement and I want to see what's inside of that hidden
room and where does that hatch to the floor go as it tunnels?
What is it so? Many questions.
I think the table that we were sitting at, I think that door
(02:47):
that had all those locks on it. Can I mention that door had
three locks? Yes.
Yeah, that was inside the building.
Why does a door inside the building have three separate
locks? You're.
Definitely trying to keep something.
I mean that that that scared me a little bit.
I got a little nervous about that part.
Yeah, I want to know what's downthere.
Yeah, me too. Well, we'll find our way back.
And if any of you have been in to the basement or seen the
bloody dress, get at us, let us know whether that's on Reddit,
(03:09):
Instagram, Facebook, send us a direct message.
And we don't hear about your experiences because we're a
little bummed that it didn't go the way we had it planned up.
But that's OK, because we got some new places to explore, new
stories to hear is our. We sure do.
In this story we are going back to 1834 in the Brattleboro
Retreat, though at the time it was known as the Vermont Asylum
for the Insane. It's it's on over 1000 acres of
(03:30):
rolling hills and dense forest with a river winding through the
property. Honestly, it's a gorgeous
setting. I mean, imagine Vermont in the
fall. You lookout your window.
You got bright, vibrant, colorful leaves, crisp mountain
air, picturesque views out your window.
While inside, you might be getting around to shock therapy
because it's an asylum during the 1800s.
Peaceful on the outside, a little unsettling on the inside.
(03:53):
So is this the Brattleboro retreat?
Yes, the Brattleboro Retreat is a facility today.
Yeah, because it's still open wide.
Still. We've gotten clients from the
Brattleboro retreat. I've heard great things.
Well, I mean they don't do shocktherapy now, but when the
facility was. Allegedly.
When the facility was first opened, it was the Vermont
Asylum for the Insane. They still do ETC treatments for
(04:16):
people in deep depression that no other treatment has worked
and it's actually got some good results.
Wow. Yeah, not as intense, but you
know what I was recently readingabout?
They now like sell devices that you put around your neck and
they give you electric shocks right around.
Your like dog collars. Kinda not.
Not really though. But it stimulates your Vargas
nerve. What is a Vargas nerve?
(04:37):
It's supposed to be like when you meditate or you do breathing
exercises, that's like humming. Or when you change your pace of
breathing, that's what's supposedly like getting
stimulated and that calms your nervous system down.
So they have devices now that you put in your neck that
they'll just sell stimulates. John, you know what else
stimulates the nerve? A sad breathing.
Breathing is hard, you know. Easy.
Shocking yourself? Can you give someone else the
(04:58):
remote? Yeah, probably.
You can probably figure that out.
But the smile on your face rightnow got me concerned.
Chris is going to wake up tomorrow.
All right. Well, the Vermont Asylum was
founded thanks to a $10,000 thatwas left in a will by a woman
named Anne Marsh. It officially opened its doors
in 1836. And Anne, She did this because
(05:19):
she witnessed a family member who suffered through some poor
treatment while trying to recover.
But because of that experience, it pushed her to imagine
something better, something rooted in compassion.
He envisioned a place shaped by Quaker values, where people in
need of mental health could receive what was called moral
treatment. I love that she's just like, we
can do better. It's just like.
I looked it up. What I found about Quaker
(05:42):
religion was that it was all about community and sort of like
helping each other. It was everybody contributed,
which is sort of what they go and do.
So she went ahead and she selected the board members and
left the money in her will to make this dream of hers come
true. This philosophy wasn't just hers
alone, though. It was inspired by the work of
William Tuke, a philanthropist in the late 1700s who saw mental
(06:03):
illness not as a moral failing, but as a medical condition, and
that shift in thinking was groundbreaking at the time, One
of the more progressive ideas they embraced was having
patients take on active roles inthe day-to-day life of the
facility. It was believed that tending to
the needs of others helped promote healing in both the
giver and the receiver, so patients were encouraged to
(06:23):
share responsibilities and support one another.
There's, there's definitely sometruth in that.
I mean having a sense of responsibility and purpose in
life the same time, it's very close to free labor.
Yeah, we, we, we got there in just a. 2nd and.
It's very fine in line to walk. Right.
You're paying to be here and you're going to make all the
beds. Yes, you know what I dream for
(06:43):
the days that $10,000 got you 1000 rolling acres.
I mean, I think eventually it grew to 1000 acres.
I don't think it quite started off as 1000 acres, but.
Still jealous? Started a whole facility.
Beautiful land in Vermont. So women they made and they
mended the clothing and the bedding.
(07:03):
Other patients worked in the gardens.
They grew food, repaired tools and staffed the mechanical
shops. In many ways, like you just
said, Chris, the facility was run by the patients themselves,
but it wasn't as a form of punishment.
They actually looked at it as part of their therapy.
But again, a very fine line thatthey had to walk and the mindset
was rare. For that time, most hospitals
(07:24):
treated mental illness and addiction with isolation
punishment, often in conditions that were cold, cruel and
inhumane. So even though the retreat still
used some controversial methods like the shock therapy, it was
considered progressive. In fact, it became one of the
most respected and sought after facilities in the country.
So on the surface, everything looked promising, but the place
wasn't without its shadows. Over time, the retreat ran into
(07:47):
problems both practical and somewhat stranger than you would
expect. Now I'm going to lean back on
Chris's episode in the BrunswickSprings.
If we remember, the hotel continuously caught fire.
Yeah, burnt down 6 times. Yeah, so sometimes we talked in
that episode, we talked about how sometimes the universe tries
to send you messages and it usesfire.
The same thing happened here. Apparently, the Brattleboro
(08:09):
retreat got few of those messages and ignored them
because over the span of just 39years, the asylum experienced at
least 6 fires. Everybody knew of everybody.
Nobody's worried about job security these days.
Become a firefighter in Vermont.You're good to go.
You're good for an entire career.
Some of the fires were well documented and others were
barely mentioned, but the first one that one to me when I was
(08:32):
reading welcome that one stood out.
So I found the details of this fire in the book called the
Vermont Asylum for the Insane, which I love and hate this book
because it's super boring to read.
It's it's boring. It's basically all of their
annuals for the 1st 50 years that the facility was up and
running. OK, but it there's a lot of
great little bits of informationand I found the details about
(08:54):
this fire in this book. So the fire December 1862, it
was reportedly started in the central building and spread into
The West Wing. The fire alarm was sounded
immediately. The horse drawn wagons rolled in
fast to fight the flames. And meanwhile, you know, staff
are they're working to evacuate the patients hurting them
towards the local church. Now keep in mind these people
were suffering from serious mental health issues and the
(09:17):
evacuation did not go as smoothly as the workers had
hoped because as they're evacuating the patients from the
burning building, you would think they would be running away
from the fire. Some of the patients were
actually running towards the fire.
Oh, wow. Yo, yeah.
I worked in a psychiatric hospital during a hurricane, and
(09:37):
I remember I was working on the floor and we were watching the
news because there was a hurricane coming.
And one of the doctors who had much more experience than I did
came out, turned on a movie and said it's going to be rainy and
windy, Stop watching the becauseit was just getting more
everybody more and more panicky.Yeah.
And. Everybody's getting riled up.
So the reports originally say that only one patient was lost
(09:57):
and a few others had wandered off but were presumed as being
recovered. That was actually the wording
that they used. Presumed and so they not sure.
Hold on. Just hold on to that because
later in the report, it actuallysays PS all about 5 patients
returned. We heard from two of them and
the one that we thought was deadmay not be actually dead.
(10:17):
We're really not sure. So our best guess that there's
four possibly missing may be dead, but honestly, we really
can't say for sure. What?
And that's literally written in their report.
That's that's their official report.
I mean. PS That's not how.
PS. Is supposed to be there.
There is APS and then pretty much yes.
It says that five returned. They don't know where two of
them are. Oh my God.
Three of them. Four or five, it's it's not bad.
(10:40):
Yeah, also. PS's are supposed to be like
love you, PS thinking of you. Wish you were here.
Yeah, no, like 4 to 5 people might be dead.
Like what the hell? Or they might be just wandering
the woods of Vermont somewhere. Oh my God that's insane.
All I I just googled the Brunswick spring fires.
Those all happened in the 1860s too.
So now I'm thinking like, is there just like a pyro doing
(11:02):
insurance fraud burning buildings like LinkedIn?
Like, oh, I don't know, that's strange.
How far are the 2 from each other?
Brunswick and. Brunswick's near Lebanon I
think, right? Yeah.
So further up north, yeah, it's like mid north of Vermont.
That's how are you. He's got a lot.
He can cover that ground. Yeah, yeah.
Get me on horseback. I can cover a lot of grounds.
So you know what else causes asylum fires, right guys?
(11:24):
What's that? Candles.
But not the candles. Ghost, Poppy, Chris.
Not those ones. Kathy brought a candle as a prop
today. I.
Actually found this company while doing research for the
story and the company is called Ghost Poppy.
They have a whole line called haunted house.
Every candle is named after obviously a haunted location and
(11:46):
the sense that they used to create the candles is inspired
by particular location. So doing the research I got the
Rattleboro Retreat Tower candle and I didn't know that they
could do multi layered scents inside candles.
The top layer is a black walnut Maple fir which is burning and
I've been burning it ever since I got it.
(12:07):
Yeah, it's amazing. The Maple.
I want pancakes. The middle layer is a nutmeg,
cinnamon, ozone and the base is a caramel, vanilla, Laurel
leaves and I'm so excited to just burn this.
I actually went in and bought more candles.
And I'm a big candle guy too. And as the resident vegan here
of the show, I just want to say you can feel good about burning
these. They're 100% soy animal cruelty
free and part of that haunted line.
(12:28):
And I was kind of scoping it outand I actually found a forlorn
candle from our recent episode. So of course, you know, I pulled
the trigger on that. And when you're talking about
multi layered scents, Kathy, this one starts with Earl Grey
tea, Musk and beeswax. Once you've burned halfway
through that, it turns into a bergamot and lime and then ends
on the last third as cucumber and amber.
So I cannot wait to get my handson these.
(12:48):
Yeah, and they have other lines they don't just specifically
focus on like haunted locations.The one that I bought for myself
was out of their stone collection, and I got the
turquoise, which is supposed to help calm and invite artistic
flow and things like that. And when you get the candle, you
actually end up getting a littlegemstone from the.
Oh, that's nice. So yeah, so it's kind of cool.
So if you like candles, gang, and you want to explore a small
(13:09):
company brought together by two individuals named Sean and
Carla, find yourselves right over to ghostpoppy.com.
Throw in a quick little order ofa candle.
And if you do, just leave a little note there on your
checkout that says weirder afterdark so they know that we
brought you there. We're not getting promoted.
No money in on this, but just something that we all like, we
enjoy. And we thought you might too.
Yeah. We thought that if we pushed it
(13:29):
enough, maybe they would make a weirder after dark candle.
I would love a fucking weirder after.
Dark I would love. I would love.
That it could smell like Sean's living room.
Or Boone Island. Or Boone Island.
Sean's living room. What would that smell like?
Chris, can you can you go on thedetail?
Back to the story, because we'restill in the middle of a couple
of fires that happened. So we're going to we're going to
bring it back to the Bridal Barber Retreat Tower.
(13:50):
Again, not ghost, Poppy fires. But not ghost poppy fires.
No, they are actually responsible and they give proper
instructions on how to burn yourcandle about.
Yeah, back at the retreat they saw even more fires.
There was one in 1877 that started in the Staples and
spread to the carriage house, the straw barn, the wagon shed,
and the brand new boiler house. That one didn't involve any
patients, just a bunch of lost structures and supplies.
(14:12):
Then there were two lightning strikes that caused fires, one
in 1893 and one in 1897 and thenafter that two more in 1900 and
1901. The causes?
A lot of fires. Yeah.
And the causes of the last two, they're just like, yeah, we
just, we had some fires and we're just so used to it by now.
I don't know. Everything in the late 1800s,
mid 1800s is just a. Fucking fireball.
(14:33):
Burnt down all the way. Chicago Fire.
Salem, MA burnt down in the 1800s.
Oh, it's insane. So many fires in the middle of
all of the chaos that they have going on there.
With all these fires happening, someone at the hospital decided
that it was a great idea and a great time to build a tower,
because nothing says healing environment like dragging up
(14:55):
huge stones up a hillside. As part of the hospital's belief
in shared purpose and therapeutic work, they had
patients build this tower themselves.
It was considered a community project, something to give them
pride, structure, and a sense ofaccomplishment.
But let's be clear, this is madeof massive boulders, and the
only way to get them to the sitewas to haul them up a winding
(15:17):
switch back trail about a half amile long to the top of the
hill, which was nearly a mile away from the hospital.
And honestly, this entire experience sounds miserable.
Who thought it was a good idea to let's have our patients who
are struggling with mental health build a 60 foot tall
stone tower a mile and a half away from the main facility?
I mean, yeah, the idea is right.You know, sense of community,
(15:42):
sense of pride. You're building something, You
have purpose. But that sounds just like manual
labor. That's not.
Yeah. So while the tower was intended
to be a peaceful retreat, somewhere patients could go to
reflect, find solitude, maybe reconnect with nature, Didn't
know we serve that purpose. There are long standing claims
that some patients use the towerto take their own lives.
Now, I went digging for some proof and I really did.
(16:04):
I tried to find something and I couldn't find any official
reports confirming that anyone actually left from the top of
the tower. But let's not forget who we're
dealing with. This is the same institution
that gave us a fire report that ended with maybe they're dead,
maybe they're not, I don't know.So I don't know how much we
really want to trust what they're saying.
I'm so glad you called that Alexin my hand.
(16:25):
I'm like, bro, they don't even know where.
Four to five people. Are so exactly.
Exactly. Come on.
So even if it did happen, I mean, do we really think the
hospital would admit it? Probably not a suicide from the
very structure that was supposedto symbolize healing and hope.
That kind of thing doesn't fit the narrative of community labor
and moral treatment. It complicates the feel good
story that they're trying to tell in institutions like this
(16:47):
were big on image. Report 1891 Built a really cool
tower. PS Five people died.
Maybe. Maybe.
Allegedly. So this place just had a lot of
strange things going on. There was 6 fires in 39 years.
It just to me that seems like a lot like at what point do you
(17:07):
start kind of chalking this up is like this is just bad luck.
I don't know. Or maybe there's just some weird
energy that this place is pulling in.
And I get the idea of creating apeaceful structure, something
beautiful for patients to retreat to.
But a tower, 60 foot tall, stonetower up, a switch back trail
built by people in treatment. It seems crazy.
It's right. It's a bold idea, yeah.
(17:28):
You want to build a therapeutic garden.
Sure. Yeah, You know what?
You're really depressed. You have a suicidal ideation
once you go to the top of the tower and contemplate life for a
while. Yeah, I mean, maybe if they put
a bench by the river. I love that.
Who doesn't like to just sit quietly and watch the river flow
by? But yeah, to build a tower 60
feet tall seems a little. I like him, like much, you know,
(17:49):
Asia, They're like, let's build a sand pit with some rocks, get
some rake, rake the sand, and over there like we're building
the fucking tower. America goes up, we go up, we go
bait. Yeah.
So now there's some other weird random shit that happened here,
like this one story in 1913. A woman named Mrs. BE Lutsinger
is out for a walk, just casuallystrolling through the woods near
the tower when she what she described as a tame deer.
(18:13):
It's in Vermont. You're in the woods.
I don't. Checks out.
I think that's so weird right now.
I. Want to go pet a deer?
Yeah, but it gets weird because she decides to follow it because
that's. What you Now that's weird.
When you see you follow it. I'm so so she follows the deer,
leads her up the path, and as she gets up to the top of the
path towards the tower, just as she's about to get there, it
(18:33):
vanishes, disappears. Naturally, she has no
explanation. So what do you think she does?
She goes back the next day, she walks the same path.
Sure enough, there's the deer, shows up in the exact same spot,
leads her down along the path and vanishes right before
reaching the tower. I found a few sources that say
the story actually ran in the local paper.
Why it's the 18? Hundreds and there's.
(18:56):
Follows deer into woods twice. Well, that's.
The other headline? That's the other thing.
I couldn't find who this woman was.
Yeah. So I don't know if she lives in
the town or if she was a patientthere.
Again, we know their record keeping's not so great.
But the article that I found that is constantly referred to
is actually just said newspaper clipping, which I have, and it
(19:17):
will be on Instagram. It's just like kind of like an
ad that references the area for like, picturesque postcards and
things like that. So it doesn't really talk about
this woman seeing the deer, but every story that I hear says
that it's in the news. But is she a patient?
Because was I really a deer? Yeah, I don't.
Know our our grandmother says she sees things inside of that
(19:38):
all the time so you know when you're old you're a little blind
your hearing's going a little bit Love you, Nana.
What? What's happening?
Yeah, what's? Happening.
Nobody knows. Nobody knows.
But on a side note though, right?
So while I'm searching for this article I also found another
article that was for help wantedand it read a reliable girl
wanted to attend to the insane no experience needed that two
(20:00):
philosophy shown on Instagram. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's all that this is still the hiring practice.
Chris, is that how you hire people for?
You're willing to work? Holy shit.
No experience needed, you know, right?
It just kind of ties all in. I do want to say and and we're
talking about stories from the 1800s over the last 20 years in
(20:20):
this field, I've worked with clients and I'm not going to
benefit from this at all that have gone to the Barbara retreat
and they do a fantastic job. They they've got a really good
name. And this is not coming from
their business development people.
This is coming from clients I'veworked with.
Yes, it is. I do mention later on in the
story that the facility is stillup and running and obviously the
facility philosophy has changed.Yes, OK.
Since the 1800s. So we're making.
(20:43):
Jokes right now about it, but. So it's more now PSI love you
not PS4 to 5. Yeah, yeah.
It's, it's more like PS we are actually here to help and we
want to help heal you and love it work with you.
Yeah, OK, So about 10 years after the deer incident in May
of 1923, the Brattleboro retreatmade headlines again, this time
something much more serious. A man named Carl Dodge, the lead
(21:07):
cellist for the New York Metropolitan Opera House, had
been staying at the facility at Lawton Hall, seeking help for
what was described at the time as a nervous breakdown.
Carl had first been admitted in the beginning of May, brought in
by his wife and their two children.
After about two weeks of treatment, he briefly returned
home to New York, but just days later he was back at the
retreat. On May 30th, Carl didn't show up
(21:27):
for breakfast. Staff went to check on him and
that's when they found the note.It was addressed to his wife and
in it Carl said he intended to end his life.
His brother William traveled in from Boston and when he arrived,
Doctor Hollis Ripley met with him privately and the news
broke. Soon after, a description of
Carl was shared with the police and search teams and a full
search of the grounds began. Tragically, on June 1st, Carl
(21:48):
was found at the base of the tower, just a mile and 1/2 from
the place where he was hoping would heal him.
He was discovered laying flat onthe ground, a gun by his side,
in a single gunshot wound to theright temple.
This is the only report that is provable of a suicide at the
tower. You went into a psych ward and
he brought a gun with them. He was there for two weeks.
He went home. He was brought back because he
(22:09):
was still showing signs of despair.
This was the 1800s. The 1800s OK, yeah, it was, but.
I know now everything searched anything that could be used to
harm yourself or others just. Take away it was 1923. 1923,
yeah, OK, Yeah, the rules have been updated since yeah.
So sad though. And it really is.
Super sad. And here's this guy, he's a very
(22:30):
talented cellist. And yeah, stress and pressure,
he couldn't handle what he was his own anxiety and stress.
And I ended up taking his own life, leaving a child and his
wife alone. If you're struggling out there,
you know. Call 211 in the state of New
Hampshire and they will help youfind help.
Yeah, I think that's good to know and we'll we'll put a link.
Why are you always doing sad ones?
(22:52):
You always make me sad when you.I'm going to transition into
another story at the the Retreat.
So even after Carl's death, the tower remained open.
People could still hike up, explore, and hang out on the top
like nothing had even happened. A group of boys, or maybe young
men, depending on where which version of the story you hear
they had been spotting, running through the town in the nearby
woods, shooting off guns like itwas their own personal wild,
(23:15):
Wild West. Literally just shooting guns.
Eventually they made their way up to the top of the Rattleboro
Retreat Tower, and from the highperch they started firing off
shots, just being little shits, just shooting their guns just
out into the woods and they accidentally shot a dog in the
leg. It was really sad.
There's. No accident.
You're on a tower and a dog got shot.
(23:36):
There's no. Accident there?
Well, the dog belonged to one ofthe owners who lived at the
retreat, and then once that happened, the retreat door got
locked and it has been locked ever since.
So the guy committing suicide wasn't a good reason to close
it, but the owner's dog getting shot was?
Yeah, all. Right.
Honestly, fuck people. Like what the fuck?
(23:56):
But I mean, I guess the guy who shot himself, like Carl, he shot
himself. He didn't go to the top of the
tower. I think there's an argument.
Found outside the tower. And I think it's an argument to
me they would have been like, hey, the tower had nothing to do
with that. If he was in that state and had
that play and he was going to doit, it was.
Probably going to happen. He did bring the gun back to the
retreat with him from New York. Yeah.
(24:17):
So when he went back, he knew hewas going to, Yeah.
Where these fucking hooligans you just like, oh, I get up here
man, I got I can see so far and shoot animals.
Fuck you for shooting animals. Yeah, they're little shits.
Yeah, fuck them. Yeah.
Even after everything that happened, and even in recent
years, people still claim that when they explore the trails and
woods around the tower, they hear the cries of patients
(24:39):
carried in on the wind. Some say they've seen figures of
a man falling from the top of the tower.
He plummets towards the ground and just before he hits, he
vanishes into thin air. No one knows who this man is,
but maybe the cemetery that sitsjust steps away from the tower.
Maybe that holds a clue. As I search for images and
stories of the retreat cemetery,one thing stood out to me.
(25:00):
It was the size. For a facility that had been
around since the 1800's, the cemetery feels really small.
Headstones are weathered and worn, some are toppled, some are
still standing. But the number of visible graves
doesn't seem to match the history.
And that's why I tend to believethe following stories.
It's also important to remember that back in the 1800s, if you
(25:20):
went into a facility and something happened to you and
they couldn't get your family members, maybe you didn't have
anybody listed as an emergency contact.
If they took that information, basically they would just bury
in their plot. It's reported that some of these
grave sites have tombstones thatare marked as unknown and that
there are multiple bodies buriedin one plot.
(25:42):
Yeah, but this is a private hospital where people are paying
top dollar to have their family members, which makes it even
it's. Privateer now, but at the end of
this book here that I mentioned earlier, the annuals for the 1st
50 years, there's actually talk about how they were working with
the state king on state patients.
And so it ends and it doesn't give me a conclusion on whether
(26:05):
it transitioned to state and then maybe back.
But it did end up having to change the name because the
Vermont State Hospital was created.
And so at some point in history,that's when the name got changed
from the Vermont Asylum for the Insane to the Brattle Borrower
Retreat. OK, yeah, because the police
were arrest somebody, they have no contacts, no real family,
they don't do a lot of work to figure out where they belong and
(26:28):
they end up in a psych hospital and never get out.
So yeah, that would make a lot of sense with a state-run
facility in the 1800s. And even not being a state-run,
in this book they mentioned how in the first year a patient was
admitted, and at the end of thisbook, that same patient was
still there. So he'd been.
There for 40 years, 50 years. This is their first 50 years.
(26:51):
And so he went in and he just never left.
With everything that happened onthese grounds, from unexpected
fires and tragic deaths to rumors of mass graves, is it
really hard to believe that maybe a few spirits might still
be lingering? Maybe they're looking
foreclosure, or maybe they're just looking for someone to
remember that they existed? There's really only one way to
find out. The trail is open to the public,
and you can still hike up to thetower.
(27:11):
But like we talked about earlier, remember, Brattleboro
Retreat is still an active mental health facility.
There are still patients living on site and attending programs.
So if you go, be respectful of the space of the grounds and the
people who never got to leave. Back in the 1960s, there was a
big push to move people out of institutional living and back
(27:32):
into the community. But yeah, before that there was
if you went to a psych hospital,there's a good chance you're
never leaving that that was going to be your life for the
rest of your life, and you were going to die there.
So the small amount of graves that that concerns me.
Yeah, goes back to like that, that first fire.
That's why that that story really kind of jumped out of me
because they're obviously not doing very good record keeping
(27:54):
back then. And I mean, who knows what they
were really ended up doing with the remains.
I feel like it's really hard to like to weigh more rural.
Like people probably just go into the woods and you never see
them again either, right? Like, imagine how much that
happens. Someone breaks out, like, yeah,
how much effort are you putting in to go and find them, right?
Like. And it's the 1800s.
I mean, standards today are obviously way different than
(28:15):
back. Then these, yeah, this would be
a locked facility with security.And back then it was just, well,
there's 1000 miles of wilderness, so you're not going
to leave. Right, and it was an ad in a
newspaper saying girl wanted to tend to the insane.
No experience needed. No experience needed.
No experience. Needed.
So I mean, that was the quality of care that they were getting.
(28:37):
Exactly right. So like if you're that girl that
gets hired and then also like Chris gets lost in the woods and
takes off, like how much effort you do you care?
You're just like. Yeah, it's like, yeah, I got a
job. Yeah.
And am I saying anything? Yeah.
Am I gonna be the one that's gonna go?
And then I end up. I'm in trouble.
If I need a job like, probably not coming forward.
And in rural Vermont at that time, there's probably not a lot
(28:57):
of jobs, right? Yeah.
So yeah, stuff. The hiring requirements haven't
gotten too, too much better. Dang, Dang, so wow.
Walking away from the story, Kathy, what's your gut say is
this is haunted? Do you think that those stories
are real? I don't know if the story of the
person falling and vanishing is real.
I'm always skeptical of stuff like that.
(29:18):
But I definitely think that whenyou have that much activity,
that many people, we all leave, I think like traces of energy
and some sort of footprint behind, especially when emotions
and feelings are so heightened. I would have to say that I think
there's probably something, whether it's shadows falling
(29:39):
from the top of a tower or people wandering through the
woods, I don't know. But I would imagine that if you
went there, you're going to feelsomething, maybe a little off, I
would think. I really am sketched out
moderately by the idea of, like,walking through the woods and
just seeing a falling body from a tower.
Like we had this in the Bridgewater Triangle episode 2
(30:00):
on suicide Cliff, right, Of people just seeing someone jump
off a Cliff and then you just, you can't see anything.
Yeah. Like that.
I feel like would traumatize me if I saw that and believed it
was real. Like, oh, I don't know.
That just, like, gives him the heebie jeebies.
Freaks me out. Yeah, I don't know what your
beliefs are in the paranormal. I mean, you guys have talked
about them, but if emotional energy gets leftover, well, this
(30:21):
is a very emotional place. There's a lot of difficult
feelings being dealt with. I am partial to the theory of
myself that the afterlife ghostsin general are a lot of like
energy trapped and just replaying itself.
And I don't know can be sold on the idea that if ghosts are
real, that they're like sentientand can think and are like
(30:41):
interacting with those. I I'm apartment to believe that
and that tells me that if that ghost is real and people are
seeing things jump off that thatprobably was a real moment and
that energy stuck replaying itself.
Just the idea that families could drop somebody off at this
hospital with the best of intentions and 50 years later
they're still there. Like there's no progress,
(31:01):
there's no change that they're not getting better.
Yeah, well, I mean, I think too like when I was reading through
the Vermont Asylum for the Asaneand I was going through kind of
just skimming because it is a very dry read.
They did talk about, you know, they would have X amount of
patients leave and but they weren't like super high numbers
for what I'm imagining how many patients they're receiving.
(31:24):
It's. Our understanding of how to
treat mental illness back then, it was very, very limited.
So the best we could do was house them as comfortably as
possible. And yeah, it sounds like that's
the job that they took on. Does sound like for the time,
despite their record keeping, they had good intentions because
they were all about trying to heal them and and treat them
(31:45):
with compassion and not rememberlike the Kennedy episode.
Yeah, just the cruelty. She was a wealthy person that
was much later in the timeline of history.
They did the best they could, I think, at the time.
But yeah, it's kind of all my stories end up deep I.
Don't know. Yeah, another sad story by
Kathy. Thank you, Kathy.
All right. Well, Kath, thanks so much for
(32:05):
sharing this story. And we forgot to mention off the
Rib gang. This was a another request of a
story from one of our listeners,the gang.
This actually came from Jeff. He sent us a message about our
Dover Demon episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He was throwing out some rough ideas about, like, what could
have brought the Dover Demon. He was telling us that, like,
there are mineral mines around the area and that minerals
(32:26):
potentially are known to help creatures or spiritual realms
manifest and was throwing some ideas out in that e-mail.
He actually recommended us Brattleboro Tower.
Jeff, just want to give you a quick shout out.
Thank you so much for sending out the recommendation.
We appreciate it. And.
Keep the recommendations coming.Yeah, and I hope he liked it.
I hope I didn't did the story justice for.
Him. I'm sure you did.
I'm sure you did. It was a really cool episode.
(32:47):
And with that gang, if you haven't visited us yet, know
that we are out there and we arebuilding some communities.
So go ahead and visit us on Reddit where Kathy will be
posting some images about her episode to go ahead and support
that. We'll also be posting those
images onto Reddit, one of our other communities we're
building. And then lastly, you can also
find us on Facebook and again, all those three places at
(33:08):
Weirder After Dark. So if you are looking to
interact with us or other listeners that are enjoying
these episodes just like you, besure to go and do that.
Also, we are always on the lookout for your stories.
So have you gone through some family records and found APS?
Four or five people went missing.
We're not sure if they're dead. Have you gone through your
family records and find out that, hey, our family grave
(33:30):
might be a mass grave? We want to hear those stories.
So if you have them, go ahead and send them to us and you can
send those stories or any other weird stories about New England
to the gang at weirderafterdark.com.
And lastly, if you are loving this shit, if you are absolutely
fucking enjoying this shit, the best thing you can do to help us
out is to leave a five star review and a comment wherever
(33:51):
you're listening to this episodeor visit our friends over at
ghostpoppy.com. And with that, remember it
always gets a little weirder after dark.
Bye. Thank you guys.
Tucked away in the Vermont woodsstands the Brattleboro Retreat
Tower, built by patients of a once revered asylum.
Over the years, there were fires, vanishings and stories
the hospital never wanted told. Some say the tower still echoes
with what was left behind. And what's buried nearby might
not be resting easy. I'm Kathy.
I'm Chris. I'm Sean.
(00:20):
And this is weirder after dark. So we finally met our way down
to Stone. It's a public house gang and a
(00:42):
little different than I think wethought it was going to go.
The way the lady was talking about it that sent us the
videos, I thought it was going to be like this hole on the
wall, like local dive bar. It was really upscale and really
freaking busy. It was fucking packed.
It was packed. There was a lot of people there
and a lot of people waiting on the the porch out front.
Yeah, yeah. I was surprised by that.
(01:02):
Next time get reservations apparently because we waited for
like an hour and a half. Table we did wait for an hour
and a half, but I thought the cool part about waiting an hour
and a half is like just listening to people who did have
reservations or that were ahead of us and like every single
person was talking about ghosts and Kathy, I think you went to
the bathroom one point. So just like Chris and I sitting
outside and also this like huge,like 6 foot 6 Jack guy walks by
(01:23):
and I just overhear him go. I'm kind of scared of the
ghosts. Chris go.
If he's scared, we can be scared.
Chris, it's OK now, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's. Scared I feel more mouth
feeling. But it was just so busy that
zero percent chance of us havingany type of experience
experiences. And we weren't able to have a
tour, which sucked. So we didn't get to see the
bloody dress, but we did get to eat some food and food was was
good. Decent, yeah.
(01:43):
But yeah, I feel like we got to go back, right?
Yeah, I think, I think so. Because like the waitress, she
was willing to talk to us. Oh yeah.
But she was just so busy. She had like 8 tables.
Yeah, she. Really just didn't, she didn't
have the time. And so, you know, we just asked
her and she just said, yeah, like, you know, she had an
experience. A couple of other waitresses had
an experience. We didn't really push her For
more information because, you know, they were really, really.
(02:06):
It was pop it off. Yeah, if we go on a Tuesday
afternoon, I bet you we could get a lot more information and
interview some people. But.
Or like, yeah, a call ahead, letthem know that we're coming
down, we're looking to do a tour.
I think I was just randomly winging it on a random day.
Going down might not have been. Yeah, and I think it was like a
Saturday too, wasn't it? So yeah.
Yeah, so gang, if you find yourself going to Stone Public
House and you're not a local, ifyou got a little bit of a drive,
(02:26):
like maybe try to plan it for a slower afternoon or something
about nature, call ahead. But I definitely want to get
back there because, like, I still have lingering questions.
Hey, I got to see that fucking dress.
Like is that bloody dress real? BI want to get into that
basement and I want to see what's inside of that hidden
room and where does that hatch to the floor go as it tunnels?
What is it so? Many questions.
I think the table that we were sitting at, I think that door
(02:47):
that had all those locks on it. Can I mention that door had
three locks? Yes.
Yeah, that was inside the building.
Why does a door inside the building have three separate
locks? You're.
Definitely trying to keep something.
I mean that that that scared me a little bit.
I got a little nervous about that part.
Yeah, I want to know what's downthere.
Yeah, me too. Well, we'll find our way back.
And if any of you have been in to the basement or seen the
bloody dress, get at us, let us know whether that's on Reddit,
(03:09):
Instagram, Facebook, send us a direct message.
And we don't hear about your experiences because we're a
little bummed that it didn't go the way we had it planned up.
But that's OK, because we got some new places to explore, new
stories to hear is our. We sure do.
In this story we are going back to 1834 in the Brattleboro
Retreat, though at the time it was known as the Vermont Asylum
for the Insane. It's it's on over 1000 acres of
(03:30):
rolling hills and dense forest with a river winding through the
property. Honestly, it's a gorgeous
setting. I mean, imagine Vermont in the
fall. You lookout your window.
You got bright, vibrant, colorful leaves, crisp mountain
air, picturesque views out your window.
While inside, you might be getting around to shock therapy
because it's an asylum during the 1800s.
Peaceful on the outside, a little unsettling on the inside.
(03:53):
So is this the Brattleboro retreat?
Yes, the Brattleboro Retreat is a facility today.
Yeah, because it's still open wide.
Still. We've gotten clients from the
Brattleboro retreat. I've heard great things.
Well, I mean they don't do shocktherapy now, but when the
facility was. Allegedly.
When the facility was first opened, it was the Vermont
Asylum for the Insane. They still do ETC treatments for
(04:16):
people in deep depression that no other treatment has worked
and it's actually got some good results.
Wow. Yeah, not as intense, but you
know what I was recently readingabout?
They now like sell devices that you put around your neck and
they give you electric shocks right around.
Your like dog collars. Kinda not.
Not really though. But it stimulates your Vargas
nerve. What is a Vargas nerve?
(04:37):
It's supposed to be like when you meditate or you do breathing
exercises, that's like humming. Or when you change your pace of
breathing, that's what's supposedly like getting
stimulated and that calms your nervous system down.
So they have devices now that you put in your neck that
they'll just sell stimulates. John, you know what else
stimulates the nerve? A sad breathing.
Breathing is hard, you know. Easy.
Shocking yourself? Can you give someone else the
(04:58):
remote? Yeah, probably.
You can probably figure that out.
But the smile on your face rightnow got me concerned.
Chris is going to wake up tomorrow.
All right. Well, the Vermont Asylum was
founded thanks to a $10,000 thatwas left in a will by a woman
named Anne Marsh. It officially opened its doors
in 1836. And Anne, She did this because
(05:19):
she witnessed a family member who suffered through some poor
treatment while trying to recover.
But because of that experience, it pushed her to imagine
something better, something rooted in compassion.
He envisioned a place shaped by Quaker values, where people in
need of mental health could receive what was called moral
treatment. I love that she's just like, we
can do better. It's just like.
I looked it up. What I found about Quaker
(05:42):
religion was that it was all about community and sort of like
helping each other. It was everybody contributed,
which is sort of what they go and do.
So she went ahead and she selected the board members and
left the money in her will to make this dream of hers come
true. This philosophy wasn't just hers
alone, though. It was inspired by the work of
William Tuke, a philanthropist in the late 1700s who saw mental
(06:03):
illness not as a moral failing, but as a medical condition, and
that shift in thinking was groundbreaking at the time, One
of the more progressive ideas they embraced was having
patients take on active roles inthe day-to-day life of the
facility. It was believed that tending to
the needs of others helped promote healing in both the
giver and the receiver, so patients were encouraged to
(06:23):
share responsibilities and support one another.
There's, there's definitely sometruth in that.
I mean having a sense of responsibility and purpose in
life the same time, it's very close to free labor.
Yeah, we, we, we got there in just a. 2nd and.
It's very fine in line to walk. Right.
You're paying to be here and you're going to make all the
beds. Yes, you know what I dream for
(06:43):
the days that $10,000 got you 1000 rolling acres.
I mean, I think eventually it grew to 1000 acres.
I don't think it quite started off as 1000 acres, but.
Still jealous? Started a whole facility.
Beautiful land in Vermont. So women they made and they
mended the clothing and the bedding.
(07:03):
Other patients worked in the gardens.
They grew food, repaired tools and staffed the mechanical
shops. In many ways, like you just
said, Chris, the facility was run by the patients themselves,
but it wasn't as a form of punishment.
They actually looked at it as part of their therapy.
But again, a very fine line thatthey had to walk and the mindset
was rare. For that time, most hospitals
(07:24):
treated mental illness and addiction with isolation
punishment, often in conditions that were cold, cruel and
inhumane. So even though the retreat still
used some controversial methods like the shock therapy, it was
considered progressive. In fact, it became one of the
most respected and sought after facilities in the country.
So on the surface, everything looked promising, but the place
wasn't without its shadows. Over time, the retreat ran into
(07:47):
problems both practical and somewhat stranger than you would
expect. Now I'm going to lean back on
Chris's episode in the BrunswickSprings.
If we remember, the hotel continuously caught fire.
Yeah, burnt down 6 times. Yeah, so sometimes we talked in
that episode, we talked about how sometimes the universe tries
to send you messages and it usesfire.
The same thing happened here. Apparently, the Brattleboro
(08:09):
retreat got few of those messages and ignored them
because over the span of just 39years, the asylum experienced at
least 6 fires. Everybody knew of everybody.
Nobody's worried about job security these days.
Become a firefighter in Vermont.You're good to go.
You're good for an entire career.
Some of the fires were well documented and others were
barely mentioned, but the first one that one to me when I was
(08:32):
reading welcome that one stood out.
So I found the details of this fire in the book called the
Vermont Asylum for the Insane, which I love and hate this book
because it's super boring to read.
It's it's boring. It's basically all of their
annuals for the 1st 50 years that the facility was up and
running. OK, but it there's a lot of
great little bits of informationand I found the details about
(08:54):
this fire in this book. So the fire December 1862, it
was reportedly started in the central building and spread into
The West Wing. The fire alarm was sounded
immediately. The horse drawn wagons rolled in
fast to fight the flames. And meanwhile, you know, staff
are they're working to evacuate the patients hurting them
towards the local church. Now keep in mind these people
were suffering from serious mental health issues and the
(09:17):
evacuation did not go as smoothly as the workers had
hoped because as they're evacuating the patients from the
burning building, you would think they would be running away
from the fire. Some of the patients were
actually running towards the fire.
Oh, wow. Yo, yeah.
I worked in a psychiatric hospital during a hurricane, and
(09:37):
I remember I was working on the floor and we were watching the
news because there was a hurricane coming.
And one of the doctors who had much more experience than I did
came out, turned on a movie and said it's going to be rainy and
windy, Stop watching the becauseit was just getting more
everybody more and more panicky.Yeah.
And. Everybody's getting riled up.
So the reports originally say that only one patient was lost
(09:57):
and a few others had wandered off but were presumed as being
recovered. That was actually the wording
that they used. Presumed and so they not sure.
Hold on. Just hold on to that because
later in the report, it actuallysays PS all about 5 patients
returned. We heard from two of them and
the one that we thought was deadmay not be actually dead.
(10:17):
We're really not sure. So our best guess that there's
four possibly missing may be dead, but honestly, we really
can't say for sure. What?
And that's literally written in their report.
That's that's their official report.
I mean. PS That's not how.
PS. Is supposed to be there.
There is APS and then pretty much yes.
It says that five returned. They don't know where two of
them are. Oh my God.
Three of them. Four or five, it's it's not bad.
(10:40):
Yeah, also. PS's are supposed to be like
love you, PS thinking of you. Wish you were here.
Yeah, no, like 4 to 5 people might be dead.
Like what the hell? Or they might be just wandering
the woods of Vermont somewhere. Oh my God that's insane.
All I I just googled the Brunswick spring fires.
Those all happened in the 1860s too.
So now I'm thinking like, is there just like a pyro doing
(11:02):
insurance fraud burning buildings like LinkedIn?
Like, oh, I don't know, that's strange.
How far are the 2 from each other?
Brunswick and. Brunswick's near Lebanon I
think, right? Yeah.
So further up north, yeah, it's like mid north of Vermont.
That's how are you. He's got a lot.
He can cover that ground. Yeah, yeah.
Get me on horseback. I can cover a lot of grounds.
So you know what else causes asylum fires, right guys?
(11:24):
What's that? Candles.
But not the candles. Ghost, Poppy, Chris.
Not those ones. Kathy brought a candle as a prop
today. I.
Actually found this company while doing research for the
story and the company is called Ghost Poppy.
They have a whole line called haunted house.
Every candle is named after obviously a haunted location and
(11:46):
the sense that they used to create the candles is inspired
by particular location. So doing the research I got the
Rattleboro Retreat Tower candle and I didn't know that they
could do multi layered scents inside candles.
The top layer is a black walnut Maple fir which is burning and
I've been burning it ever since I got it.
(12:07):
Yeah, it's amazing. The Maple.
I want pancakes. The middle layer is a nutmeg,
cinnamon, ozone and the base is a caramel, vanilla, Laurel
leaves and I'm so excited to just burn this.
I actually went in and bought more candles.
And I'm a big candle guy too. And as the resident vegan here
of the show, I just want to say you can feel good about burning
these. They're 100% soy animal cruelty
free and part of that haunted line.
(12:28):
And I was kind of scoping it outand I actually found a forlorn
candle from our recent episode. So of course, you know, I pulled
the trigger on that. And when you're talking about
multi layered scents, Kathy, this one starts with Earl Grey
tea, Musk and beeswax. Once you've burned halfway
through that, it turns into a bergamot and lime and then ends
on the last third as cucumber and amber.
So I cannot wait to get my handson these.
(12:48):
Yeah, and they have other lines they don't just specifically
focus on like haunted locations.The one that I bought for myself
was out of their stone collection, and I got the
turquoise, which is supposed to help calm and invite artistic
flow and things like that. And when you get the candle, you
actually end up getting a littlegemstone from the.
Oh, that's nice. So yeah, so it's kind of cool.
So if you like candles, gang, and you want to explore a small
(13:09):
company brought together by two individuals named Sean and
Carla, find yourselves right over to ghostpoppy.com.
Throw in a quick little order ofa candle.
And if you do, just leave a little note there on your
checkout that says weirder afterdark so they know that we
brought you there. We're not getting promoted.
No money in on this, but just something that we all like, we
enjoy. And we thought you might too.
Yeah. We thought that if we pushed it
(13:29):
enough, maybe they would make a weirder after dark candle.
I would love a fucking weirder after.
Dark I would love. I would love.
That it could smell like Sean's living room.
Or Boone Island. Or Boone Island.
Sean's living room. What would that smell like?
Chris, can you can you go on thedetail?
Back to the story, because we'restill in the middle of a couple
of fires that happened. So we're going to we're going to
bring it back to the Bridal Barber Retreat Tower.
(13:50):
Again, not ghost, Poppy fires. But not ghost poppy fires.
No, they are actually responsible and they give proper
instructions on how to burn yourcandle about.
Yeah, back at the retreat they saw even more fires.
There was one in 1877 that started in the Staples and
spread to the carriage house, the straw barn, the wagon shed,
and the brand new boiler house. That one didn't involve any
patients, just a bunch of lost structures and supplies.
(14:12):
Then there were two lightning strikes that caused fires, one
in 1893 and one in 1897 and thenafter that two more in 1900 and
1901. The causes?
A lot of fires. Yeah.
And the causes of the last two, they're just like, yeah, we
just, we had some fires and we're just so used to it by now.
I don't know. Everything in the late 1800s,
mid 1800s is just a. Fucking fireball.
(14:33):
Burnt down all the way. Chicago Fire.
Salem, MA burnt down in the 1800s.
Oh, it's insane. So many fires in the middle of
all of the chaos that they have going on there.
With all these fires happening, someone at the hospital decided
that it was a great idea and a great time to build a tower,
because nothing says healing environment like dragging up
(14:55):
huge stones up a hillside. As part of the hospital's belief
in shared purpose and therapeutic work, they had
patients build this tower themselves.
It was considered a community project, something to give them
pride, structure, and a sense ofaccomplishment.
But let's be clear, this is madeof massive boulders, and the
only way to get them to the sitewas to haul them up a winding
(15:17):
switch back trail about a half amile long to the top of the
hill, which was nearly a mile away from the hospital.
And honestly, this entire experience sounds miserable.
Who thought it was a good idea to let's have our patients who
are struggling with mental health build a 60 foot tall
stone tower a mile and a half away from the main facility?
I mean, yeah, the idea is right.You know, sense of community,
(15:42):
sense of pride. You're building something, You
have purpose. But that sounds just like manual
labor. That's not.
Yeah. So while the tower was intended
to be a peaceful retreat, somewhere patients could go to
reflect, find solitude, maybe reconnect with nature, Didn't
know we serve that purpose. There are long standing claims
that some patients use the towerto take their own lives.
Now, I went digging for some proof and I really did.
(16:04):
I tried to find something and I couldn't find any official
reports confirming that anyone actually left from the top of
the tower. But let's not forget who we're
dealing with. This is the same institution
that gave us a fire report that ended with maybe they're dead,
maybe they're not, I don't know.So I don't know how much we
really want to trust what they're saying.
I'm so glad you called that Alexin my hand.
(16:25):
I'm like, bro, they don't even know where.
Four to five people. Are so exactly.
Exactly. Come on.
So even if it did happen, I mean, do we really think the
hospital would admit it? Probably not a suicide from the
very structure that was supposedto symbolize healing and hope.
That kind of thing doesn't fit the narrative of community labor
and moral treatment. It complicates the feel good
story that they're trying to tell in institutions like this
(16:47):
were big on image. Report 1891 Built a really cool
tower. PS Five people died.
Maybe. Maybe.
Allegedly. So this place just had a lot of
strange things going on. There was 6 fires in 39 years.
It just to me that seems like a lot like at what point do you
(17:07):
start kind of chalking this up is like this is just bad luck.
I don't know. Or maybe there's just some weird
energy that this place is pulling in.
And I get the idea of creating apeaceful structure, something
beautiful for patients to retreat to.
But a tower, 60 foot tall, stonetower up, a switch back trail
built by people in treatment. It seems crazy.
It's right. It's a bold idea, yeah.
(17:28):
You want to build a therapeutic garden.
Sure. Yeah, You know what?
You're really depressed. You have a suicidal ideation
once you go to the top of the tower and contemplate life for a
while. Yeah, I mean, maybe if they put
a bench by the river. I love that.
Who doesn't like to just sit quietly and watch the river flow
by? But yeah, to build a tower 60
feet tall seems a little. I like him, like much, you know,
(17:49):
Asia, They're like, let's build a sand pit with some rocks, get
some rake, rake the sand, and over there like we're building
the fucking tower. America goes up, we go up, we go
bait. Yeah.
So now there's some other weird random shit that happened here,
like this one story in 1913. A woman named Mrs. BE Lutsinger
is out for a walk, just casuallystrolling through the woods near
the tower when she what she described as a tame deer.
(18:13):
It's in Vermont. You're in the woods.
I don't. Checks out.
I think that's so weird right now.
I. Want to go pet a deer?
Yeah, but it gets weird because she decides to follow it because
that's. What you Now that's weird.
When you see you follow it. I'm so so she follows the deer,
leads her up the path, and as she gets up to the top of the
path towards the tower, just as she's about to get there, it
(18:33):
vanishes, disappears. Naturally, she has no
explanation. So what do you think she does?
She goes back the next day, she walks the same path.
Sure enough, there's the deer, shows up in the exact same spot,
leads her down along the path and vanishes right before
reaching the tower. I found a few sources that say
the story actually ran in the local paper.
Why it's the 18? Hundreds and there's.
(18:56):
Follows deer into woods twice. Well, that's.
The other headline? That's the other thing.
I couldn't find who this woman was.
Yeah. So I don't know if she lives in
the town or if she was a patientthere.
Again, we know their record keeping's not so great.
But the article that I found that is constantly referred to
is actually just said newspaper clipping, which I have, and it
(19:17):
will be on Instagram. It's just like kind of like an
ad that references the area for like, picturesque postcards and
things like that. So it doesn't really talk about
this woman seeing the deer, but every story that I hear says
that it's in the news. But is she a patient?
Because was I really a deer? Yeah, I don't.
Know our our grandmother says she sees things inside of that
(19:38):
all the time so you know when you're old you're a little blind
your hearing's going a little bit Love you, Nana.
What? What's happening?
Yeah, what's? Happening.
Nobody knows. Nobody knows.
But on a side note though, right?
So while I'm searching for this article I also found another
article that was for help wantedand it read a reliable girl
wanted to attend to the insane no experience needed that two
(20:00):
philosophy shown on Instagram. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's all that this is still the hiring practice.
Chris, is that how you hire people for?
You're willing to work? Holy shit.
No experience needed, you know, right?
It just kind of ties all in. I do want to say and and we're
talking about stories from the 1800s over the last 20 years in
(20:20):
this field, I've worked with clients and I'm not going to
benefit from this at all that have gone to the Barbara retreat
and they do a fantastic job. They they've got a really good
name. And this is not coming from
their business development people.
This is coming from clients I'veworked with.
Yes, it is. I do mention later on in the
story that the facility is stillup and running and obviously the
facility philosophy has changed.Yes, OK.
Since the 1800s. So we're making.
(20:43):
Jokes right now about it, but. So it's more now PSI love you
not PS4 to 5. Yeah, yeah.
It's, it's more like PS we are actually here to help and we
want to help heal you and love it work with you.
Yeah, OK, So about 10 years after the deer incident in May
of 1923, the Brattleboro retreatmade headlines again, this time
something much more serious. A man named Carl Dodge, the lead
(21:07):
cellist for the New York Metropolitan Opera House, had
been staying at the facility at Lawton Hall, seeking help for
what was described at the time as a nervous breakdown.
Carl had first been admitted in the beginning of May, brought in
by his wife and their two children.
After about two weeks of treatment, he briefly returned
home to New York, but just days later he was back at the
retreat. On May 30th, Carl didn't show up
(21:27):
for breakfast. Staff went to check on him and
that's when they found the note.It was addressed to his wife and
in it Carl said he intended to end his life.
His brother William traveled in from Boston and when he arrived,
Doctor Hollis Ripley met with him privately and the news
broke. Soon after, a description of
Carl was shared with the police and search teams and a full
search of the grounds began. Tragically, on June 1st, Carl
(21:48):
was found at the base of the tower, just a mile and 1/2 from
the place where he was hoping would heal him.
He was discovered laying flat onthe ground, a gun by his side,
in a single gunshot wound to theright temple.
This is the only report that is provable of a suicide at the
tower. You went into a psych ward and
he brought a gun with them. He was there for two weeks.
He went home. He was brought back because he
(22:09):
was still showing signs of despair.
This was the 1800s. The 1800s OK, yeah, it was, but.
I know now everything searched anything that could be used to
harm yourself or others just. Take away it was 1923. 1923,
yeah, OK, Yeah, the rules have been updated since yeah.
So sad though. And it really is.
Super sad. And here's this guy, he's a very
(22:30):
talented cellist. And yeah, stress and pressure,
he couldn't handle what he was his own anxiety and stress.
And I ended up taking his own life, leaving a child and his
wife alone. If you're struggling out there,
you know. Call 211 in the state of New
Hampshire and they will help youfind help.
Yeah, I think that's good to know and we'll we'll put a link.
Why are you always doing sad ones?
(22:52):
You always make me sad when you.I'm going to transition into
another story at the the Retreat.
So even after Carl's death, the tower remained open.
People could still hike up, explore, and hang out on the top
like nothing had even happened. A group of boys, or maybe young
men, depending on where which version of the story you hear
they had been spotting, running through the town in the nearby
woods, shooting off guns like itwas their own personal wild,
(23:15):
Wild West. Literally just shooting guns.
Eventually they made their way up to the top of the Rattleboro
Retreat Tower, and from the highperch they started firing off
shots, just being little shits, just shooting their guns just
out into the woods and they accidentally shot a dog in the
leg. It was really sad.
There's. No accident.
You're on a tower and a dog got shot.
(23:36):
There's no. Accident there?
Well, the dog belonged to one ofthe owners who lived at the
retreat, and then once that happened, the retreat door got
locked and it has been locked ever since.
So the guy committing suicide wasn't a good reason to close
it, but the owner's dog getting shot was?
Yeah, all. Right.
Honestly, fuck people. Like what the fuck?
(23:56):
But I mean, I guess the guy who shot himself, like Carl, he shot
himself. He didn't go to the top of the
tower. I think there's an argument.
Found outside the tower. And I think it's an argument to
me they would have been like, hey, the tower had nothing to do
with that. If he was in that state and had
that play and he was going to doit, it was.
Probably going to happen. He did bring the gun back to the
retreat with him from New York. Yeah.
(24:17):
So when he went back, he knew hewas going to, Yeah.
Where these fucking hooligans you just like, oh, I get up here
man, I got I can see so far and shoot animals.
Fuck you for shooting animals. Yeah, they're little shits.
Yeah, fuck them. Yeah.
Even after everything that happened, and even in recent
years, people still claim that when they explore the trails and
woods around the tower, they hear the cries of patients
(24:39):
carried in on the wind. Some say they've seen figures of
a man falling from the top of the tower.
He plummets towards the ground and just before he hits, he
vanishes into thin air. No one knows who this man is,
but maybe the cemetery that sitsjust steps away from the tower.
Maybe that holds a clue. As I search for images and
stories of the retreat cemetery,one thing stood out to me.
(25:00):
It was the size. For a facility that had been
around since the 1800's, the cemetery feels really small.
Headstones are weathered and worn, some are toppled, some are
still standing. But the number of visible graves
doesn't seem to match the history.
And that's why I tend to believethe following stories.
It's also important to remember that back in the 1800s, if you
(25:20):
went into a facility and something happened to you and
they couldn't get your family members, maybe you didn't have
anybody listed as an emergency contact.
If they took that information, basically they would just bury
in their plot. It's reported that some of these
grave sites have tombstones thatare marked as unknown and that
there are multiple bodies buriedin one plot.
(25:42):
Yeah, but this is a private hospital where people are paying
top dollar to have their family members, which makes it even
it's. Privateer now, but at the end of
this book here that I mentioned earlier, the annuals for the 1st
50 years, there's actually talk about how they were working with
the state king on state patients.
And so it ends and it doesn't give me a conclusion on whether
(26:05):
it transitioned to state and then maybe back.
But it did end up having to change the name because the
Vermont State Hospital was created.
And so at some point in history,that's when the name got changed
from the Vermont Asylum for the Insane to the Brattle Borrower
Retreat. OK, yeah, because the police
were arrest somebody, they have no contacts, no real family,
they don't do a lot of work to figure out where they belong and
(26:28):
they end up in a psych hospital and never get out.
So yeah, that would make a lot of sense with a state-run
facility in the 1800s. And even not being a state-run,
in this book they mentioned how in the first year a patient was
admitted, and at the end of thisbook, that same patient was
still there. So he'd been.
There for 40 years, 50 years. This is their first 50 years.
(26:51):
And so he went in and he just never left.
With everything that happened onthese grounds, from unexpected
fires and tragic deaths to rumors of mass graves, is it
really hard to believe that maybe a few spirits might still
be lingering? Maybe they're looking
foreclosure, or maybe they're just looking for someone to
remember that they existed? There's really only one way to
find out. The trail is open to the public,
and you can still hike up to thetower.
(27:11):
But like we talked about earlier, remember, Brattleboro
Retreat is still an active mental health facility.
There are still patients living on site and attending programs.
So if you go, be respectful of the space of the grounds and the
people who never got to leave. Back in the 1960s, there was a
big push to move people out of institutional living and back
(27:32):
into the community. But yeah, before that there was
if you went to a psych hospital,there's a good chance you're
never leaving that that was going to be your life for the
rest of your life, and you were going to die there.
So the small amount of graves that that concerns me.
Yeah, goes back to like that, that first fire.
That's why that that story really kind of jumped out of me
because they're obviously not doing very good record keeping
(27:54):
back then. And I mean, who knows what they
were really ended up doing with the remains.
I feel like it's really hard to like to weigh more rural.
Like people probably just go into the woods and you never see
them again either, right? Like, imagine how much that
happens. Someone breaks out, like, yeah,
how much effort are you putting in to go and find them, right?
Like. And it's the 1800s.
I mean, standards today are obviously way different than
(28:15):
back. Then these, yeah, this would be
a locked facility with security.And back then it was just, well,
there's 1000 miles of wilderness, so you're not going
to leave. Right, and it was an ad in a
newspaper saying girl wanted to tend to the insane.
No experience needed. No experience needed.
No experience. Needed.
So I mean, that was the quality of care that they were getting.
(28:37):
Exactly right. So like if you're that girl that
gets hired and then also like Chris gets lost in the woods and
takes off, like how much effort you do you care?
You're just like. Yeah, it's like, yeah, I got a
job. Yeah.
And am I saying anything? Yeah.
Am I gonna be the one that's gonna go?
And then I end up. I'm in trouble.
If I need a job like, probably not coming forward.
And in rural Vermont at that time, there's probably not a lot
(28:57):
of jobs, right? Yeah.
So yeah, stuff. The hiring requirements haven't
gotten too, too much better. Dang, Dang, so wow.
Walking away from the story, Kathy, what's your gut say is
this is haunted? Do you think that those stories
are real? I don't know if the story of the
person falling and vanishing is real.
I'm always skeptical of stuff like that.
(29:18):
But I definitely think that whenyou have that much activity,
that many people, we all leave, I think like traces of energy
and some sort of footprint behind, especially when emotions
and feelings are so heightened. I would have to say that I think
there's probably something, whether it's shadows falling
(29:39):
from the top of a tower or people wandering through the
woods, I don't know. But I would imagine that if you
went there, you're going to feelsomething, maybe a little off, I
would think. I really am sketched out
moderately by the idea of, like,walking through the woods and
just seeing a falling body from a tower.
Like we had this in the Bridgewater Triangle episode 2
(30:00):
on suicide Cliff, right, Of people just seeing someone jump
off a Cliff and then you just, you can't see anything.
Yeah. Like that.
I feel like would traumatize me if I saw that and believed it
was real. Like, oh, I don't know.
That just, like, gives him the heebie jeebies.
Freaks me out. Yeah, I don't know what your
beliefs are in the paranormal. I mean, you guys have talked
about them, but if emotional energy gets leftover, well, this
(30:21):
is a very emotional place. There's a lot of difficult
feelings being dealt with. I am partial to the theory of
myself that the afterlife ghostsin general are a lot of like
energy trapped and just replaying itself.
And I don't know can be sold on the idea that if ghosts are
real, that they're like sentientand can think and are like
(30:41):
interacting with those. I I'm apartment to believe that
and that tells me that if that ghost is real and people are
seeing things jump off that thatprobably was a real moment and
that energy stuck replaying itself.
Just the idea that families could drop somebody off at this
hospital with the best of intentions and 50 years later
they're still there. Like there's no progress,
(31:01):
there's no change that they're not getting better.
Yeah, well, I mean, I think too like when I was reading through
the Vermont Asylum for the Asaneand I was going through kind of
just skimming because it is a very dry read.
They did talk about, you know, they would have X amount of
patients leave and but they weren't like super high numbers
for what I'm imagining how many patients they're receiving.
(31:24):
It's. Our understanding of how to
treat mental illness back then, it was very, very limited.
So the best we could do was house them as comfortably as
possible. And yeah, it sounds like that's
the job that they took on. Does sound like for the time,
despite their record keeping, they had good intentions because
they were all about trying to heal them and and treat them
(31:45):
with compassion and not rememberlike the Kennedy episode.
Yeah, just the cruelty. She was a wealthy person that
was much later in the timeline of history.
They did the best they could, I think, at the time.
But yeah, it's kind of all my stories end up deep I.
Don't know. Yeah, another sad story by
Kathy. Thank you, Kathy.
All right. Well, Kath, thanks so much for
(32:05):
sharing this story. And we forgot to mention off the
Rib gang. This was a another request of a
story from one of our listeners,the gang.
This actually came from Jeff. He sent us a message about our
Dover Demon episode. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He was throwing out some rough ideas about, like, what could
have brought the Dover Demon. He was telling us that, like,
there are mineral mines around the area and that minerals
(32:26):
potentially are known to help creatures or spiritual realms
manifest and was throwing some ideas out in that e-mail.
He actually recommended us Brattleboro Tower.
Jeff, just want to give you a quick shout out.
Thank you so much for sending out the recommendation.
We appreciate it. And.
Keep the recommendations coming.Yeah, and I hope he liked it.
I hope I didn't did the story justice for.
Him. I'm sure you did.
I'm sure you did. It was a really cool episode.
(32:47):
And with that gang, if you haven't visited us yet, know
that we are out there and we arebuilding some communities.
So go ahead and visit us on Reddit where Kathy will be
posting some images about her episode to go ahead and support
that. We'll also be posting those
images onto Reddit, one of our other communities we're
building. And then lastly, you can also
find us on Facebook and again, all those three places at
(33:08):
Weirder After Dark. So if you are looking to
interact with us or other listeners that are enjoying
these episodes just like you, besure to go and do that.
Also, we are always on the lookout for your stories.
So have you gone through some family records and found APS?
Four or five people went missing.
We're not sure if they're dead. Have you gone through your
family records and find out that, hey, our family grave
(33:30):
might be a mass grave? We want to hear those stories.
So if you have them, go ahead and send them to us and you can
send those stories or any other weird stories about New England
to the gang at weirderafterdark.com.
And lastly, if you are loving this shit, if you are absolutely
fucking enjoying this shit, the best thing you can do to help us
out is to leave a five star review and a comment wherever
(33:51):
you're listening to this episodeor visit our friends over at
ghostpoppy.com. And with that, remember it
always gets a little weirder after dark.
Bye. Thank you guys.
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