Post by Graveyardbride on Jul 23, 2014 9:21:47 GMT -5
On Canton’s Antique Row, Ghosts and Other Concerns
CANTON, Conn. – Near the town green, the contrast between The Junk Shop and The Blue House a few doors away is striking. Both sell antiques and vintage furnishings, but The Junk Shop, owned and run by Eric Hathaway, has the feel of a chaotic workshop and is open to noise from Route 44. The Blue House, owned and operated by Eric’s wife, Kimberly Hathaway (above), is quiet, orderly, filled with linens and lace, artwork and clothing. Oh, and The Blue House is haunted.
Mrs. Hathaway saw it first-hand soon after she bought the 1806 house on Route 44, long a store, and opened her shop three years ago. Her husband had long been in business at his shop, and Kimberly was previously the Connecticut director of the National Kidney Foundation. She had a hassock with some gloves on it. “For the first week, every time I went into that room they were on the floor.” That would be a scary sight after opening in the morning when there was no cat or anything else that would cause the gloves to fall. Then one day, she saved some antique dolls from the trash and placed them on a tiny chair in the corner of a front room. She found those on the floor as well – and there’s no way they could have fallen.
Previous owners of the space, who had a bookstore and new age shop called the Blue Moon, conducted a séance on the prmises and discovered a family of four had been killed in a fire upstairs. The town’s fire records were lost in a fire, so no one has checked to see if there actually was a fire. But perhaps these are the people who are haunting the place. “I was totally spooked,” Mrs. Hathaway admitted.
A producer of the TV show Ghost Hunters came in and said he felt it, too, she said, but that show only reports on haunted residences.
Anyway, she hasn’t observed any ghostly activity lately and is working on another concern – finding a way for several neighboring businesses, between her shop and The Junk Shop, to cooperate on rear parking and create cut-throughs for cars. This is an issue for many merchants in Canton even if they have enough parking. They want customers to be able to easily park in one place and walk around the area. “Like Old Avon Village,” she said. It’s a big undertaking though, as the design needs of one business don’t always match the others, and everyone has to work together.
Kimberly Hathaway always gets a chuckle when her women customers come in looking for something and she sends them to The Junk Shop and they make some snide remark, not knowing the marriage connection.
Source: Dan Haar, The Courant, July 22, 2014.
