By London Patterson
The Historic Beverly Lantern Tours is an annual series of tours led by long-time volunteer and contributor to the Beverly Heritage Center, Karl Mulac. As per tradition, the Lantern Tours were scheduled for four nights, across two weeks in October, and took visitors through the Beverly Historical District as they listened to tales of crime, tragedy, and mystery from the last three centuries, the way lit by kerosene lanterns and the occasional sprinkle of humor. The weather held for all four of the evenings this year, but I won’t deny that the first night I attended was much colder than anticipated. Thankfully, I was wearing no less than three layers of fabric due to the historical clothing that the other AmeriCorps, BHC staff, volunteers, and I had donned to help create ambience, so I was feeling quite toasty.
While my role in these tours involved far less speaking than other members’, I did (somewhat accidently) contribute a certain element of terror to some of the attendees’ experience by rushing from the back of the group of visitors to the front in order to assist with traffic. As it turns out, taking a hasty jaunt past a crowd of people while wearing dark, 19th century clothing, and holding a lit oil lamp will startle many in said crowd. Hopefully this was a welcomed surprise, given that these tours are intended to be rather macabre.
Balancing credible historical interpretation with telling engaging and entertaining stories can be a challenge, especially when it comes to the Halloween season, where dramatization and the supernatural are prevalent themes. As one of the volunteer interpreters, David Clark, who played the Sheriff in the 1841 County Jail put it: “people are coming here looking for a ghost story.” So while the stories shared on the Lantern Tours are based on real reports and stories from the town of Beverly (meaning that someone, at some point in time, wrote it down), the evidence to support their factuality can vary widely, potentially blurring the line between fact and fiction.
This being said, an undeniable result of these Lantern Tours is the interest it sparks in attendees. An engaging story can, and does, go a long way towards capturing people’s imaginations and curiosity, something that the Beverly Heritage Center seeks to support and foster with our museum, tours, and programs throughout the year. So if ghost stories aren’t your thing, there are plenty of other opportunities to explore the history of Beverly and Randolph County at the BHC. And if they are, I highly recommend coming to the Lantern Tours next year!
