HAUNTED SANDWICH, MA

The Dillingham House was built in the 1650’s by one of Sandwich’s founding fathers, Edward Dillingham. In the family until 1926, Edward’s great grandson Branch Dillingham had owned it in the early 1800’s with his wife and nine children.

His reasons now lost to history, Branch committed suicide in 1813 leaving his wife and children behind. If that wasn’t bad enough, only weeks later his wife inexplicably died as well, forcing the children to fend for themselves alone in their empty house.

The proceeding conditions of the children’s lives are hazy but we do know that most lived into adulthood, however difficult that feat might have been for them. In any case, this family left their mark on this house and perhaps even continues to do so.

After the property fell out of the Dillingham family’s hands, it became a rundown boarding house during the 1930’s and 40’s, jokingly referred to as “The Ritz.” After that period, it was abandoned for many years, yet neighbors couldn’t help but notice the strange occurrences happening there.

In the 1970’s individuals reported having seen strange lights moving around the rooms within the house, despite the fact it was vacant. A police report from 1979 listed mysterious happenings such as doors unlocking on their own, the sound of small feet pattering across the floor and motion detectors being set off without explanation. A woman claimed to have seen the “glimpse of a stern-looking man dressed in Victorian attire” in one of the windows. The police reports explicitly notes that this activity typically seemed to spike around Halloween…

In more recent years, the house had been a bed and breakfast.  The owner at the time claimed to have smelled the odor of “gamey” meat pervading the house while it was under renovation.  Some of his guests sweared to have seen children run across the halls, their small footsteps echoing behind them.

One guest woke up to the sight of a little girl at the end of their bed watching her, and many others heard nearby footsteps when they were alone in their rooms.  The owners, like the earlier police reports, agreed that the activity seemed to peak around Halloween.

* Listing information and/or photos were researched on the Internet and provided by a third-party, article or property owner's website and is deemed accurate, but not guaranteed, to the best of our knowledge.