Here is a wonderful and spooky story just in time for the Halloween season. This story has appeared in several publications over the centuries including Haunted Rhode Island. It is a known fact that the early New Englander folk were very superstitious. The supernatural played an important role in their lives, and anything out of the ordinary would be construed as a sinister and foreboding foretelling.
If you happen to be passing through the little hamlet of Hope Village in Scituate, Rhode Island, you might cross over the Jackson Bridge. This small cement span runs over the Pawtuxet River. It is at that point you could observe a most terrifying spectacle; a black coffin with lit candles on it floating down the river.
Many years ago, a local gentleman passing over the bridge witnessed an eerie apparition about the time the midnight bell tolled in the village. At first, he saw a faint glow coming toward him on the water. As the light drew closer, his eyes widened, and his body froze in terror. Bobbing and weaving with the river’s flow was a black coffin with two lit candles glowing ominously on it. He quickly gained his composure and hastily fled the bridge. Rushing to the nearest home, he summoned the family back to the eerie scene to see for themselves what his own eyes had witnessed. By the time he and the skeptic clan reached the bridge, the apparition was gone. The slightly annoyed family returned to their home while the perplexed and unsettled gentleman went cautiously on his way.
One month later two other people crossing the same bridge saw a weird glow floating toward them. It was the same strange black coffin making its way down the river with the candles lit upon it, swaying to and fro in the swift current. They ran to the riverbank and began throwing rocks at the entity. They knocked the flames out from the candles, but the coffin continued downstream until it vanished silently into the dark of the moonless night.
The ghostly coffin was witnessed several more times over the years by those who traveled on foot over the bridge. With the advent of the automobile, no one paid much attention to the river, as they did to the road in front of them. This did not stop the ghostly coffin from making its ethereal rounds. The eerie apparition is still seen today by those crossing the bridge on foot or holding vigil in hopes of seeing the spectral casket making its way under the bridge. It usually makes its appearance around the witching hour of midnight. The origin and destination of the creepy vision remains a complete mystery, as no one has ever seen where it begins or ends its journey.
No one has ever wanted to follow the coffin to its destination. It is best not to know from where it came or where it is going. Some legends and mysteries are often best left unsolved, for that kind are the best, as they become perennial tales for telling by the dim light of a campfire or by the heart of an old creaky home.
Happy Halloween
Jackson Bridge is located on Route 115 just off Route 116 South at the Coventry, Scituate, Cranston, and West Warwick borders.
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