Gliding Jailhouse Ghost (Rhode Island)

I was 17 when I worked as a housekeeper at the Jailhouse Inn in Newport, RI.

Yes. It really was the jailhouse in Newport from 1772 until 1986. Previously, the old jail stood on that same spot since 1680. Coincidentally enough, my great grandfather (many generations back) was the Newport jailkeeper in the mid 1600s, when the jail was likely in a private home at a different location.

At the time, I was open to paranormal activity but was more interested in partying and being a teenager. I worked with a woman named Susie, who seemed to always want to talk down to me, likely because I was an idiot teenager stuck in my stuff. I still remember the way she talked to me, with her I'm better than you tone. In my time as a young housekeeper in Newport, I did tend to find that the majority of front desk people had similar attitudes towards housekeeping.

Nonetheless, I showed up to work and did my job. Some of the best tips I ever got came from the Jailhouse.

The Jailhouse Inn in the late 90s was a cool place. There were cast iron bars everywhere; at the front desk, on some of the guest room windows, as the dining room doors. Some of the rooms had huge wall art about famous gangsters and signs that made you wonder if they were original equipment. Some of the bars were, but most of the decor was new, for show and keeping up the vibe. There was a laundry shoot that dropped laundry from the second floor to the basement which was a godsend because hefting linens up and down those back stairs was daunting. Listening to the laundry fall in a swoosh and thud to the bottom was also daunting.

The kitchen/ laundry room was in the basement, where we washed, dried, sorted and folded all of the inn's linens, and then carried it back up to each floor as needed. There was no elevator. It was most certainly a workout.

It is important that I describe the kitchen room to you so you can understand how I saw what I saw that day.

If you were standing in the doorway, you would have counter directly to your right at hip height, stretching straight away from you, then turning in an L shape to the left about 10 feet in. On the end of the short end of the L shape was a dishwasher and a fridge and next to that was the door to the laundry room.

If you were standing in the kitchen doorway, directly to your left was a giant table where linens were folded and stacked.

So, in short, to get to the laundry room, from the doorway, you would walk a semi narrow space between the counter on your right and the table on your left, turn left with the counter and then the fridge on your right and the table still on your left, then hook a sharp right just past the fridge to go into the laundry room. If you hooked a left around the table, you would be at the laundry shoot door.

The laundry room was a small room, with barely enough room for two people to stand in together. There were two washers and dryers and laundry and related whatnot everywhere. It was tight quarters, for sure.

On this particular day, I was standing just inside the laundry room doorway, folding laundry out of the dryer. From where I stood, I could see the doorway to the kitchen, but couldn't see the area at the elbow of the L shape counter, or the area in front of the dishwasher.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a woman walk through the doorway and down the space between the counter and the table. She wore a white shirt and a long black skirt and I assumed it was Susie, the front desk lady, as white tops and black bottoms was our uniform. I mostly ignored her for a few seconds, waiting for her to round the fridge and stop at the laundry room door. She never did, which I thought odd, so I leaned into the kitchen and popped my head around the fridge to see what she was doing.

To my shock, horror and surprise, there was nobody there. I was completely alone. Or was I?

My skin crawled and I got the heebie-jeebies. I shrieked and bolted out of the kitchen and up to the front desk, where Susie sat filing her nails or whatever she was doing. She turned to look at me with such disdain that I quickly swallowed the words "I saw a ghost!" and sank back into the back stairwell to catch my breath and recenter myself.

I think I clocked out shortly after that. My next day back at work, I slowly made my way down the stairs to the basement, my eyes fixed on the kitchen doorway, waiting for something - anything, my heart clenched in my throat. Nothing else ever happened.

To date, this happened 23 years ago, and I still remember this moment so sharply - so vividly that I still shudder a bit to recall it. I remember the way she glided in, sailing past the doorway, standing straight and tall. She made no sound, no gesture - only grace. Of course, I am not scared now, but back then, it initially terrified me.

I don't know who she was or when, but she will always have the distinction of being my gliding jailhouse ghost.