The oldest bookstore in America, the Moravian Book Shop in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, has been continuously running for over 270 years. There are some solid arguments that it’s actually the longest running bookstore in all of the world (Sullivan, 2016). Of course, a place like this would pick up a few ghosts over the centuries. There are at least two spirits haunting this bookstore—if you believe the stories, of course.
Today’s blog post is a little shorter, because I’ve been doing NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), and I’m writing an entire book in just thirty days. I don’t have many words to spare! I picked this story to dissect because there isn’t much evidence supporting or refuting the claims of the people who’ve seen strange things in this bookshop. But it still makes for a fascinating story…
The bookstore was born in 1745, when Samuel Powell, the keeper of the Bethlehem Inn, decided to import and distribute books. It turned out to be profitable, and he mostly sold books with a religious slant to the locals. Over the years, the bookstore has suffered several times, nearly going bankrupt more than once, but now it’s thriving. A bookshop this old is likely to have secrets, but there are no easy-to-find stories of deaths occurring in or around the shop. But 270 years is a long time, so it’s very likely that someone–or multiple someones–died on the premises during this period.
A few years back, the Moravian Book Shop’s manager saw a ghost. At first, he thought it was a shoplifter, racing from one room to the next. It was a woman in white, and the manager was convinced that she was about to steal something. The manager turned to the other staff, but no one had seen a thing (“Moravian Book Shop”, n.d.). The manager was the only person who had seen this mysterious woman, and there haven’t been any other sightings of her. At least, if there have they haven’t been documented online.
The second story is found scattered on supernatural websites across the internet, which makes it more sensationalized, but does this make it more believable? One night, Jane Clugson, a woman who’d worked with the store for thirty years, was closing up shop. She saw a man in a dark cloak standing in the hallway. Once he had her attention, he turned and entered the kitchen. She and another staff member approached the kitchen cautiously, not sure if they would find an intruder or a ghost. What they did find was that a burner on the stove was left on. They believe that the ghost had led them there to warn them of the danger, so they could prevent a fire. Some say this was a helpful ghost, but if this story is true, then wasn’t he just protecting his home?
In addition to these two ghost stories, there are also some sources online that say that staff and customers have felt strange sensations in other areas of the book store, and sometimes other people have seen strange things. However, the sources are all vague, without details that can be corroborated or evaluated. One source said that staff have a “feeling of being watched” when in the basement, but this can’t even be verified as coming from the staff themselves. It might be entirely fabricated.
Nevertheless, there are claims of two different ghosts inhabiting the Moravian Book Shop. It’s safe to say that these two ghosts are not one and the same. A woman in a white dress and a man wearing a dark cloak are polar opposites. As mentioned earlier, there are many articles about the anecdote of the dubbed “Kitchen ghost”, but only one source telling the story of the woman in the white dress. Does this validate or discredit either story? The woman who saw the dark shadow who warned her of the impending fire had worked there for thirty years. We don’t know what type of person she is, but if she was the type to concoct elaborate stories, wouldn’t she have more to tell? Wouldn’t she have seen something else during her thirty year stint at this location? I’m inclined to believe the story of the “kitchen ghost” for this reason. Although, the Moravian Book Shop sells tickets to “Historic Haunts of Downtown Bethlehem Ghost Tours”, which are walking historical tours where you learn about the history of an area as well as the ghosts that inhabit it. The walking tour goes to a variety of places, including the book shop. The article in the Guardian indicated that the bookstore doesn’t sell just books. Because of the current state of the economy, they also sell other brick a brack and items that improve their profit margins. Among these things include Stars of Bethlehem, which they sell around Christmastime. Does it stand to reason that they may have dreamed up this ghost story to increase profits? Less is often more, especially with writing, and if they’d had their ghosts do something more drastic, it would be far less believable. The ghost stories are also fairly recent. If the building were haunted, wouldn’t there be older stories, from decades ago? Is it a coincidence that these newer ghost stories all seem to come at a time when ghost walks have been made popular and profitable?
Bookstores sell stories, typically in the form of bound books, but in this case, they might just be selling a story whispered over a flickering candle to a hushed crowd gathered at a historical ghost tour.
References
Moravian Book Shop. (n.d.). Retrieved November 19, 2017, from http://www.hauntedplaces.org/item/moravian-book-shop/
Sullivan, G. L. (2016, February 25). Visiting the oldest bookstore in America – and its resident ghost. The Guardian. Retrieved from http://www.theguardian.com/books/2016/feb/25/oldest-bookstore-in-america-and-resident-ghost-moravian-book-shop-pennsylvania
Image of Moravian Book Shop by sarahtarno and licensed by CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
“First night of ghost tours in downtown Bethlehem beginning at Moravian Book Shop” by Lehigh Valley, PA is licensed by CC BY 2.0.
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