Brattleboro Retreat Tower - Haunted Asylum lookout in the Vermont Woods.

Brattleboro Retreat Tower

Since I arrived in New England I have been fascinated by a structure that caught my attention while I was looking for interesting sites to see. The structure I was curious about is called the “Brattleboro Retreat Tower” and it is located in Brattleboro, Vermont. The town of Brattleboro is about an hour drive north of where I live in Belchertown, Massachusetts so one Sunday afternoon I took a drive up to that place to check it out. On approach to Brattleboro I crossed the Connecticut River on a large green bow type steel bridge and then rounded a large frozen pond where people were fishing through holes out on the ice.  I made my way into the town and around the city park and then descended a hill and passed by some epic old Victorian looking structures on a campus, the entrance of which was marked by a decorative metal arch with a lamp hanging from it and the top of the arch read “Brattleboro Retreat”. The Brattleboro Retreat – which is an Asylum for the insane and mentally disabled, was founded in 1834 by way of a $10,000 gift from a wealthy citizen. By 1836 there were 48 patients but by 1886 there were over 450 patients living at the facility. This facility remains in operation to this day and a large number of its structures are listed in the National Register of Historic Places. I wanted to stop and look around but my GPS told me I needed to drive up Cedar Street and look for a parking place to reach the tower because I would have to walk from there. I noticed a signboard that read “Retreat Trails” so I parked in the margin of the road, grabbed my backpack and headed out on the trails. There is a good network of trails here through beautiful old growth woods of Evergreen and Birch but as I walked along through the woods I had a peculiar un settling feeling that is hard to describe. I was following the “Tower Road” trail as the Retreat Tower was my main objective. The Tower Road trail follows an ancient path that is only distinguishable as a former roadway by the rip rap – stabilizing rocks on the downhill side of a roadway, and ancient cut and fill. I noticed several side trails that broke off from the main such as the “ledge trail” and the “cemetery” trail which I would follow later. The ledge trail in particular seemed spooky even in the daylight.

Old Tower access road is now a trail to the Tower. 

 Although not well defined due to neglect and lack of use, these trails are obvious and easy to follow – if not somewhat ghostly in and of themselves. Turns out these trails were established in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s so that patients at the Asylum could go on “outings” and have their existence enriched by a walk with nature. Old dead leaves of many an autumn were piled in the path, bright green mosses decorated the rocks and fallen logs and old snow drifts clung to the shadowy places and in places covered the path. The New England woods stand blankly stark in winter as you can visually penetrate the woods in depth due to the lack of foliage and notice things that otherwise would be unseen when all the leaves are on the trees. It was while I was looking deep into the woods that I caught my first glimpse of the Retreat Tower. It appeared suddenly as if a ghost, revealing itself through the trees. The Retreat Tower is a fine, solid built and beautiful structure constructed in the style of a medieval castle battlement which resembles the “Rook” on the chess board. The history of the tower and its construction, while well intentioned, is not a happy tale. In 1887 some doctors at the Asylum believed that hard physical labor could help patients regain their mental stability. While work is good for the soul, spirit and mind, it must have been intense, back breaking labor to erect this tower, constructed of smoothed, rounded and shaped granite blocks at the top of a steep wooded hill. Another reason for constructing the tower was to provide the patients of the Asylum a beautiful view of the sprawling 600-acre Brattleboro Retreat Asylum campus, Connecticut River valley and mountains beyond. Unfortunately, the tower was closed shortly after it opened due to what several sources claim – large numbers of patients committing suicide by throwing themselves off the tower onto the cliffs and woods below. Again, standing at the base of the tower with my hand against the smooth granite wall on the edge of a small cliff, I had a strange feeling that I can only describe as sadness, emptiness and loss. It was however amazing to me, the skilled stone work and craftsman that were required to erect this epic monument on the brow of this wooded hill. The tower itself is made of dark colored granite boulders of various size, with large chunks of white quartz, smoothed and pieced together just so. The deviations from this pattern in the construction are the fine white granite blocks that make of the cap teeth of the tower, making it visible from a distance and the same white granite blocks ring the ancient iron doors. The tower has been closed for over 100 years and access is only allowed a few times a year when the Retreat opens it up for people to climb. This tower is supposedly, one of the most haunted places in all of Vermont and some people have reported seeing a figure cast itself off the top of the tower and then disappearing before it hits the cliffs below. After admiring the tower for a spell, I descended the mountain via the “Tower Climb” trail which is a much steeper footpath that ascends the hill to the tower from the cemetery. On the way down, I noticed some old moss covered, cut stone steps that no doubt were also constructed by the patients, the iron railing of which had a mature tree growing up and around it. This trail led me past a mysterious large carriage house type building that looks like it has been abandoned to the woods for many years. I then arrived at the Brattleboro Retreat Cemetery. I was overcome by another strange melancholy feeling as I walked past the graves. It is best described as an ever-repeating scream that echos into the cold empty woods that no one will ever hear, acknowledge or answer. Heart hurt, forgotten and abandonment are other emotions that came to mind. Some of the headstones are standing, others are knocked over but the keepers have done their best to preserve these by enclosing them with wooden frames. Some of the inscriptions are legible, some are worn off, forever forgotten seemingly until an interested party discovered an old book in one of the storage buildings at the Brattleboro Retreat entitled “The old burying ground”.  In this book are the logged names of 700 souls who died while at the Retreat and were subsequently interred. What is striking and tragic is the fact that there are maybe 100 headstones in the cemetery which leads one to believe there may be hundreds of bodies lying in un marked graves here – gone, and truly forgotten. As I stood among the graves I looked up at the hill through the thick woods and noticed that the white cap top of the Retreat Tower was visible, just barely, staring down on the old burial ground. I wondered for a moment if those who fell from the top of the tower to their death were buried in this ground. I was then filled with sadness because suicide is so tragic, empty, hopeless and final. One of the deceased interred here who was a patient at the Asylum, wrote her own epitaph and it sums up the spirit of the place:

"The eye of him that hath seen me shall
come no more.

Why hast thou set in
me a mark against thee so that I am a
burden to myself?

And why dost thee not
pardon my transgression and take away
mine iniquity?

 For now shall I sleep in the
dust and thou shalt seek me in the
morning, but I shall not be."

                                Sarah Culy - Died DEC 17, 1854

Tower as seen from the top of the "Tower Climb" trail. 

The Brattleboro Retreat has strived to reclaim and tend to these forgotten graves as of lately and a large beautiful stone at the lower entrance to the cemetery has the following words inscribed upon it:

BRATTLEBORO RETREAT CEMETERY

ASYLUM CEMETERY 1842-1901

I shall be telling this with a sigh

somewhere ages and ages hence

Two roads diverged in a wood, And I

I took the one less traveled by

And that has made all the difference

                                          ROBERT FROST

Dedicated to the Men and Women who found peace, tenderness and caring in their time of need.

As I left the cemetery and returned to my vehicle via the lower cemetery trail, the last rays of the day’s sunlight broke through the icy clouds and cast long shadows through the white birch across the old scattered leaves and patches of snow. It was quite beautiful and I thought to myself, I hope those who were so afflicted were able, if only for a moment, to experience the peace, tranquility and beauty of the New England woods in Winter............The following are pictures from my visit. 

Start of the Ledge Trail. 

Brattleboro Retreat Tower. 

I wanted to go it but the Tower has been closed and locked for over 100 years. 

On approach - Brattleboro Retreat Tower.

Good network of trails. I imagine the patients toiling to deliver construction supplies through the woods up the mountain to the Tower site. 

Tower is built into the very brow of a small cliff - precariously even. If there is an earthquake of significance, I doubt if the tower would survive. 

Detail of beautiful granite and quartz stones of the Tower. 

The Tower is 65 feet tall. 

Tower surface detail.

The beautiful vista the Tower was supposed to provide was likely the last scene many who committed suicide from its lofty perch ever saw. 

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Forest Litter - Retreat Trails. 

Ancient Tower Climb Trail.  

Hard work to create these stone stairs. 

Creepy abandoned structure along the Cemetery Trail. 

Cemetery Gate: Come on in. 

Retreat Tower is barely visible directly above the center headstone on the top edge of the trees. 

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And that they may find peace...........JD Jessop