Ghosts of the SouthCoast by Tim Weisberg Page A

time with far more evil intentions. Soon, they were kidnapping children and burning down homes, and in some cases killing the Wampanoag people. Maushop tried to have his five sons kill all the Pukwudgies, but the little demons overpowered each of them. Finally, Maushop tried to do the job himself, but they led him into the waters of Assawompset Pond and attacked him with their poison arrows.
    One version of the myth suggests they killed Maushop, while another says that he grew despondent over the death of his sons and simply gave up the fight. Either way, it signaled the end of Maushop in Wampanoag lore, but it was only the beginning of the legend of the Pukwudgie. They arestill reported today—mostly in the Freetown State Forest, discussed later in this chapter—and Balzano actively documents Pukwudgie sightings on his website and in his books.
    While the spirit seen haunting Assawompset Pond is more likely Metacom or John Sassamon, it could also be the final resting place of the great Maushop. Only the Pukwudgies know for sure.
Lakeville Hospital
    Just down the road from Assawompset Pond is the site of the former Lakeville Hospital, which originally opened as the Lakeville State Sanatorium in 1910 to treat those infected with tuberculosis.
    Unlike the physically imposing insane asylums in Danvers and Taunton that were designed by Thomas Kirkbride, the Lakeville “San” was designed by John A. Fox to feature open-air verandas, as fresh air exposure was thought to alleviate the symptoms of TB and create a more homelike atmosphere.

    Lakeville Hospital will soon be demolished, but don’t expect its ghosts to go easily.
    Still, abuse of patients did occur with frequency, including blasting cold water in the faces of patients in body casts or shoving their faces in their food. As TB waned in the second half of the twentieth century, the San was renamed Lakeville Hospital and turned to more general care before eventually becoming a long-term care facility until it closed for good in 1991.
    Since then, the buildings have stood abandoned but guarded. Unlike other former hospitals and asylums that have become a haven for paranormal investigators and legend trippers alike, Lakeville has round-the-clock security to ward off those who attempt to trespass.
    After it closed, the town sold the property for commercial development, and there were plans to demolish it in 2003. However, it still stands as of this writing, another example of how the ghosts might just be standing in the way of progress.
    Many people who have walked by the hospital have reported hearing screams coming from the inside—but even creepier are the reports of the laughter of children. There was a children’s ward in the old sanatorium, and the front building that was erected in the 1960s had a children’s wing on the third floor. There are also rumors that some of the children who perished from tuberculosis in the early part of the twentieth century were buried in unmarked graves somewhere on the property, but a project manager for the site found no records of any burials in state documentation.
    One paranormal investigator who has had the opportunity to investigate haunts all over the country told me Lakeville Hospital still remains his holy grail. His mother worked there before it closed, and she told him that even then, the staff would whisper about the ghostly children on the third floor who would throw open doors and bang on the windows, as if they were trying to escape.
Royal Wampanoag Cemetery
    As pointed out on the website HauntedLakeville.com , the town of Lakeville has nearly one cemetery per square mile of land—twenty-eight in all. While many of them are family plots from the early days in the town’s history, there is only one that can claim to be truly royal.
    The Royal Wampanoag Cemetery sits on an isolated stretch of Route 105 on the shores of Little Quitticas Pond. In all, there are only a little more than