Robert Oakes photo courtesy the author

A ‘spirited’ journey through history with ‘Ghosts of the Berkshires’ author Robert Oakes

The rich history of the Berkshires — spanning more than two centuries — includes spine-tingling tales from almost every town in the county.

LENOX — Author Robert Oakes has a penchant for chilling tales of the Berkshire Hills. He also holds the firm belief that, as individuals, we are urged along toward things we were meant to encounter. That said, he did not arrive in Berkshire County — or, more specifically, at The Mount — with ghosts in mind. In fact, he wasn’t even aware of the prevalence of supernatural activity at Edith Wharton’s former home when he began giving daytime tours many years ago. Then he took one of the site’s ghost tours, and got hooked.

“This is where I want to be,” he realized, acknowledging both the myriad stories and the fluctuating atmosphere at the Kemble Street property depending on the time of day. “I was really drawn in by it all,” Oakes told The Edge in a recent phone interview.

In November, after a decade spent giving ghost tours at The Mount, the self-proclaimed “ghost tour guide” released a book, “Ghosts of the Berkshires.” In it, Oakes leads readers on a spirited journey through history in a series of tales that span the ages, “through the years of revolutionary fervor and industrial enterprise,” from the Mohicans to the Gilded Age.

Before it became a haven for arts and culture, the Berkshires was a rugged, sparsely populated frontier. The rich history of this region — spanning more than two centuries — includes spine-tingling tales from almost every town in the county. Oakes culled many of them for his book, which touches on myriad metaphysicals, including “The Undead Hessian of Egremont,” “Highwood’s Ghost at Tanglewood,” and “The Ghostly Guest in 301: The Red Lion Inn” — each of which will inspire readers to “peer into the shadows beyond the beam of [their] flashlight.” Of course, Oakes is not the first to have been inspired by the supernatural happenings here; residents and visitors alike have felt the fear and awe of these hills throughout history.

Herman Melville was reputed to have looked due north, from his study at Arrowhead, and spied the shape of a great white whale in the pinnacle of Mount Greylock. “There is something about mountains that inspires the imagination,” Oakes says in his book. “Towering high above the surrounding landscape, mountains lift up our eyes, our thoughts and our spirits, and they give us a reason to dream.”

One year following the 1851 publication of “Moby-Dick,” Joseph E.A. Smith (known as Godfrey Greylock), wrote in his book “Taghconic: or, Letters and Legends About Our Summer Home:” “Some of the openings in the woods almost persuade one that the days of fairy gambols are not yet past [and] … in these … very fresh rings of fresh green grass … the elfin revels must still be nightly held.” And, of course, modern readers know that J.K. Rowling revealed Mt. Greylock, the tallest peak in Massachusetts, as the location of Ilvermorny School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. In short, it is easy to imagine supernatural creatures in our midst, always and everywhere.

Spooky photo of Wharton’s former home courtesy The Mount

Oakes calls Greylock a “dark and moody mountain.” In, “The Old Coot of Mount Greylock,” he recounts the spirit of a Civil War veteran who is said to haunt the woods near the intersection of the Bellows Pipe and Thunderbolt Trails. You’ll have to check out his book to read the full story.

But why all the fuss about ghosts? Oakes has his theories. “A lot of it has to do with a [universal] curiosity about what happens after death,” he explained, in a nod to the vast, unanswerable question on the minds of many mortals: Where are we headed? For Oakes, the ghost story speaks to this question — a topic the rational mind doesn’t really have a hold on. “[Ghost stories] help us to engage with some of those mysteries,” he said. Plus, people simply love stories.

Today, leading ghost tours at The Mount is Oakes’ main gig. “Something got ahold of me and drew me up here,” he said, noting not only his belief in synchronicity, but also the appeal of following one’s imagination and intuition, things that have always interested him as an artist, a writer, and a person. “We get a different type of experience when we follow our instincts,” he explained, noting “on the ghost tour [at The Mount], we encourage people to become immersed in the mystery … [and] what speaks to them.” Which, coincidentally, aligns with what Wharton herself had to say about ghosts and ghost stories.

As a young child, Wharton got quite sick with typhoid; she was almost fully healed when, after reading a ghost story, she suffered a relapse. “From then on, she had this feeling of anxiety that something ominous was dogging her footsteps … a dark menace,” Oakes said. To Wharton’s sensitive, imaginative mind, that a story was able to affect her physically was staggering; it took her a long time to recover, and she later admits to burning books if they had ghost stories in them.

Image via amazon.com

Ironically, Wharton ultimately channelled her phobia into a series of ghost stories. “She allowed herself to venture into those spaces that interested her, a creative opportunity to tackle that fear,” Oakes explained. In fact, she considers the question “Do you believe in ghosts?” a pointless one in the posthumously published preface to “Ghosts” (1937). She clarifies that, while she is not a “ghost see-er,” she can sense “invisible currents of being in certain places and at certain hours.” Then, she delivers an intriguing paradox: “No, I don’t believe in ghosts; but I am afraid of them.” Writing, it seems, was her way of conquering this fear rather than succumbing to it.

“Ghost stories are quite helpful in accessing the imagination,” Oakes said. Interestingly, few of his tales are rooted in cliche locales such as graveyards (although he touches briefly on the graveyard at Church on the Hill in Lenox and the West Branch Road cemetery on October Mountain). Instead, he draws inspiration from the “resonance of lives lived, and the feelings felt” in places across the Berkshires. The Shakers, for instance, were rooted in spirituality. “Their tradition involved communion with the spirits, the angels, the dead … as part of their religious practices,” he said.

So, are the locations Oakes writes about haunted? He’s not so sure. Instead, he “find[s], in many of these places, there is just something present — something to feel — [and] these stories help us to name it.”

Oakes invites readers to use his book — available at The Bookstore in Lenox, The Bookloft in Great Barrington, and online — as a guide. A lot of the locales he includes are outdoors and easy to access while remaining socially distant. “Get out there and experience these places and see what you feel,” he challenges. And, if you’re not in the Berkshires at present but wish you were, this book is for you, too. “I’ve heard from people, who may not even live here anymore, [that the book evokes] pride of place,” Oakes said, noting that many have heard the stories he tells before, perhaps from a grandparent. “[These stories] give them a sense of home, of history, of memory.”