Belchertown State School (Belchertown, MA)

[starsfall]

Hey guys, this is less of an "unsolved mystery" and more of a haunted hotspot that I'm not sure if many on here have heard of, though I'm sure @Castle-Yankee54 may have, also being a New Englander. It has a pretty dark history, known for mistreating it's patients and leaving them in horrible conditions. It opened in 1922, and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in.. I think 1994 or 1995. An author, Benjamin Ricci, whose son lived at the "school" wrote a book about the school for the mentally defective. I won't delve into it's history as much, I'll attach a link for those of you more interested in it's background, I wanted moreso to share my experience(s) of visiting the grounds. For the last few years, there's been re-development plans, and a few of the buildings have been completely demolished. Because of a fire erupting in one of the buildings, the police (who are stationed literally on the same grounds) patrol there a lot more recently.

It's very close to where I live, so of course I had to convince a close friend of mine to brave into it with me. We went in with flashlights, and encountered another group of about five people our first trip. We found a gymnasium, where there was a giant gap that had to be jumped on the second floor to keep moving, and my friend fell and hit his head, and although he was completely fine, I went down to help him and we got lost from the group we had met, and they continued without us. We continued to search this building and found a bunch of sleeping bags in the basement of this building with empty food cans and water bottles, all which looked recently messed with, so we came to the conclusion hermits must stay here, which is really risky with the security precautions here.

We left that building and continued to another where we found an incinerator. One that could fit bodies, but it was in the middle of a room with two restrooms on each side. I got a creepy vibe in this building so we left.. on the way to the next building we got to, was a bunch of cornfields and tall foilage. Of course this was insanely creepy but I did not want to back out now, and we saw flashlights on the biggest building in the back, so we continued. All of the doors were bolted shut, recently from the looks of it, so we found a pretty small crevice that went to a maintenance/boiler room, and entered through the basement. This is the building with our most valid experience. We got to the second floor, ascending to the roof, and one of the giant, metal doors on the floor below us SLAMMED shut. The group we were with were already on the roof waiting for us, so it was pretty terrifying. Once on the roof, we could see the entire grounds, and it was genuinely a beautiful sight at night.

Our last stop(s) were the groundkeeper(s) houses, which I think there was four of. They were pretty normal houses, complete with wallpapers with Western wallpaper, ponies and cowboys included. The staircase to the basements were all knocked out, intentionally, it seemed, but we jumped down and climbed our way back up. We didn't find anything quite interesting, but it was definitely an interesting trip.

We tried to go back a few months ago, but the police patrol a lot more often now with the fire incident. We watched another car try to sneak in, and a police cruiser automatically set their sirens off from the woods off to the side and pulled them over, so we left.

Anyways, here's one article about the place for those of you interested:

Belchertown State School, a Horrific Home for the "Feeble-Minded"

 

[CasualBystander]

We left that building and continued to another where we found an incinerator. One that could fit bodies, but it was in the middle of a room with two restrooms on each side.

Umm. That's unusual. I wasn't aware people got out of the incinerator to use the "facility" when they were half baked.

What was the theory behind this arrangement?

 

[starsfall]

Umm. That's unusual. I wasn't aware people got out of the incinerator to use the "facility" when they were half baked.

What was the theory behind this arrangement?

It was pretty large, and had two or three layers that had doors that opened with metal slabs inside. Someone in the group threw out the idea that maybe it was used to create large amounts of food at once, and that's the theory I liked to believe

The thing is, it didn't look like a kitchen or anything of the sort. The room had tiled flooring and walls, and was perfectly symmetrical with just that spot in the middle and the two restrooms on either side.

 

[Castle-Yankee54]

Once I checked out how the buildings look I was going to suggest not going in them.....but then I see I'm a bit late with that. That is simply because they look very unstable and unsafe to enter.

I worked at a number of similar facilities in Connecticut and they do get a bit creepy this time of year as the sun is setting. The only place that "creeped me out" was a large cemetery with hundreds of graves with just numbers.....its the only old cemetery I've not been able to enter.

 

[starsfall]

Once I checked out how the buildings look I was going to suggest not going in them.....but then I see I'm a bit late with that. That is simply because they look very unstable and unsafe to enter.

I worked at a number of similar facilities in Connecticut and they do get a bit creepy this time of year as the sun is setting. The only place that "creeped me out" was a large cemetery with hundreds of graves with just numbers.....its the only old cemetery I've not been able to enter.

They do, and are, unstable. Some of the structures were much more secure than other buildings, and this is what caused my friend to fall from the second floor in the gymnasium to the ground level, he had stepped on a part of the wooden ledge where the rest of us had jumped to and it bent and he slipped and had nothing to grab onto. Much of the interiors were stable though, and what looked too unstable, I made sure to avoid. For the most part.

Yeah, in the fall and winter around sunset places like that just give off a completely different creep-vibe. The cemetery you mention and how the graves were just numbers.. just hearing that in itself creeps me out a bit.

What facilities in Connecticut were they, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[Castle-Yankee54]

What facilities in Connecticut were they, if you don't mind me asking?

The facilities were similar to the Belchertown "school". They had insane, people with tuberculosis, and what were considered as "feeble minded" at the time. Most were closed or being closed in the early 1990s when I was there doing environmental work.

 

[starsfall]

I am considering going back here soon before the next snowfall to get some pictures to post on here to give you guys a better idea of what some of the buildings and the ground look like... the ones I could find online didn't really do any justice.

First I'm going to look into the signs that are/were posted up and take into consideration the police and how serious they've been taking this area lately.. I know the intrusions have gone down substantially, there's a site about urban explorers and when I look at it for the Belchertown State School someone did state they got escorted off the grounds at the beginning of this year, but I've been there around that period of time too.

I'll post whatever I capture on the thread when I do end up going