Guests, meet ghosts: Inside Colonial Inn’s haunted hallways

For some guests, Acton’s Colonial Inn offers a look into history. For others, that history might just be looking right back at them.

That’s because, according to legend, the hotel is haunted by the ghosts of its storied past. 

Cristina Mosquera, who has worked at the inn for 11 years and now manages the banquet department, said the hotel’s undead are no strangers to her. 

The Colonial Inn’s haunted history has earned it a dose of fame among fans of the paranormal — and a turn on the TV show “Ghost Hunters.” 

Between leaf peepers and ghoul chasers, the hotel is busy in October. But Mosquera was happy to talk about her experiences as she prepped for the lunch crowd, sharing the eerie tale of a time when she first started working there and saw a woman in a long, navy blue dress. 

“I was like, ‘Who’s here this early, sitting in the dark?’” she said. When she asked her co-worker, they said no one was there. 

It wasn’t the only ghost she would run into. Later, she would see a small girl with curly hair and a cream-colored gown — and then spot the same child again years later. 

The hotel is famous for its role in the American Revolution as a storehouse for guns. When the British came to seize the weapons, minute men met them at the North Bridge, where the “shot heard round the world” was fired. 

Rooms 24 and 27

What’s now the Liberty Room restaurant served as a makeshift infirmary. Room 24 was an operating room, and Room 27 a morgue. The hotel embraces its macabre history, handing out an information sheet to guests as they check in.

Carol Fitzgerald, the accounting manager, has her office next to Room 24 and a short walk up creaking, ornate stairs from Room 27. 

Even as a self-described skeptic when it comes to suggestions of the supernatural, she says she has reason to believe some soldiers who were treated there never left.

She told the story of a 5-inch-thick three-ring binder she keeps on top of her filing cabinet. 

“It was safely up there, tucked all the way back,” Fitzgerald said. But as she wrapped up a phone call, the binder flew off the cabinet, knocking her computer from her desk. 

Another time, Fitzgerald said, she lost an earring — only to find it two weeks later in a safe to which only she has access. 

“It was placed right in the middle, in the open,” Fitzgerald said. “I would have seen it if it’d been there before.” 

General Manager James Kluge, a horror movie buff, says he hasn’t seen anything supernatural on the property. It may be due to his recent transfer to the position, as he has only been at the hotel for a few weeks, or he is naturally immune to encounters with those from the beyond. 

“I haven’t seen anything across all of our hotels, even though they are all pretty historic,” he said, referring to the two other lodgings owned by Michael Harrington — The Hawthorne Hotel in Salem and the Publick House Historic Inn in Sturbridge. 

His story wasn’t the norm. 

Asked if he ever experiences anything, bartender Subas Khadka replied, “All the time.” 

“I’ll go downstairs to restart the wine or beer [pump]. You’ll hear them — whispers, voices, someone calling your name,” he said. 

Server Kim Scribner says she experienced more than a whisper. 

While she and a co-worker were cleaning up for the day, a cabinet flew open and a small paper cup — much too light to push open the cabinet door — fell out. 

“We both looked at each other like, ‘Did you just see that?’” she said. “There was no reason for it. It just happened.” 

Haunts become habit

Kathy Green, a restaurant manager, recounted a time when she brought her granddaughter to the hotel. They were in the kitchen, making drinks for the family, when the girl complained that someone kept touching her. 

Green recognized it as behavior she’d heard about as coming from one of the hotel’s named ghosts, Tommy. 

“I told her about Tommy and said, ‘You have to tell him you’ll play later, and he will stop,’” Green said. 

The girl did, and the touching ceased. 

“Now [my granddaughter] wants to come back and stay a night to play with Tommy,” she said. “We already are making our plans.”