School Spirit Islesboro chilled by late-night glimpses of ghostly Mrs. Atterbury

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The very things that make islands romantic in summer can make them downright spooky in the winter.

This is especially true on Islesboro, off Lincolnville.

The isolation from the mainland is more pronounced when winter winds whip up the chop on Penobscot Bay, and the island more lonely after the snow and frigid air have driven the bicyclists from the roads and the rich and glamorous guests back to milder climes.

Many of the island’s mansions are buttoned up tight, looking forlorn with their gardens chopped down and their windows boarded up.

But maybe the spookiest place on the island is a former mansion that bustles with children. The former Rock Ledge “cottage,” which has been converted to the Islesboro Central School, is haunted by its original owner, many island residents believe.

The mansion was built in 1926 by Anna Robins Atterbury. According to Earl Shettleworth’s book, “The Summer Cottages of Islesboro,” Rock Ledge was the last major cottage built before the Depression. The two-story stone house sits high on a ridge, with views of Gilkey Harbor and Grindle Point Lighthouse.

It is Atterbury’s ghost who haunts the school, many believe.

“Everybody knew she was there,” said Rachel Rolerson-Smith, a 1972 graduate of the school and an island resident. “Everyone was aware of it – especially at night.”

At the school, which houses 97 students from kindergarten through grade 12 in a cozy atmosphere, no one is shy to admit encounters with Mrs. Atterbury, as she is known to staff and students. In the middle of a busy school day, with students spilling out of classrooms and down what had been the mansion’s grand central staircase, it’s hard to imagine anything ghostly about the place.

But night is another story.

School Superintendent Denis Howard, a no-nonsense administrator with two decades of experience, saw Mrs. Atterbury last year.

“And I’m not one who believes in ghosts,” he added.

It was after a school board meeting, Howard recalled, and he had returned to his office in the basement. Walking down a corridor, he turned off a light and suddenly had the sense that someone was behind him – a common theme in Atterbury sightings. Howard turned to see a woman standing there one moment, “and then she was gone.”

The figure was dressed as his grandmother might have dressed, he said, with “kind of a long dress with a white apron.”

Bonnie Mowery-Oldham, who has taught reading for 12 years at the school, has been cataloging information on Atterbury sightings. Many who have seen her describe the long white dress, she said.

While those who have seen her are shocked and momentarily frightened, Atterbury is not described as a threatening presence, she said. Sightings seem to be confined to between 8:30 and 10:30 p.m., Mowery-Oldham said.

She and others speculate that Atterbury’s ghost is re-enacting a last check of the house before retiring for the night, or perhaps searching for an intruder, or maybe a servant who has not heeded a call.

Atterbury married twice, outliving both her husbands.

After Atterbury’s death in 1939, the mansion was sold. The new owner donated the house to the town in 1952, when it was converted into a school.

Many others who have not seen Atterbury’s form believe they have felt her presence.

Several have felt cold air sweep down the central staircase, as if a window were open in winter. Footsteps have been heard in the attic.

And the school’s computer room, which was once Atterbury’s bedroom, has been at the center of some hair-raising stories.

Ginny Drew, now a teaching assistant, first worked as a janitor cleaning the school at night.

“You don’t feel as though you’re alone,” she said. Drew has felt the cold breezes when no windows are open, and once heard a screeching noise, like something metallic being dragged down the hallway.

“I think I left early that night,” she said.

But what tops her list is the night that bars of light – receding and advancing – came from under the crack of the computer room door. She called her co-worker over, saying, “You’ve got to see this.”

The two unlocked the door to find all the lights and computers turned off.

Sue Bolduc, who has taught for 13 years at the school, once heard a sound like chairs stacked on desktops being knocked to the floor. Unlocking the door, everything was as it should have been, she said.

Bolduc, who directs the school’s drama productions, remembers working on a set late one night in the new wing of the school, which includes the gym. Another woman decided to drive home to get a needed tool, leaving Bolduc alone.

The silence was broken, she remembers, by the sound of a basketball bouncing across the gym floor. Bolduc said she summoned her courage and, armed with a drill gun, stepped out into the gym to see the ball slowly bouncing toward the stage.

The school was locked and no one else was in the building, she said.

Another night, Bolduc and her then-college-aged daughter walked from the main building to the stage area, turning on lights as they went. Once inside the drama room, Bolduc was summoned to the gym by her daughter.

“Mom,” she said, “you might want to see this.”

Bolduc and her daughter retraced their steps to find every light had been turned off. The only other person in the school, working at a computer, had never left her chair.

Receptionist Jane Pendleton remembers working late in the evening and feeling she was being watched from an adjacent doorway. She finally learned to close the door.

Charlie Reuwer took a teaching job at the school this year. While readying her classroom this summer, she spent two nights sleeping in the teachers lounge.

She was awakened by a cold blast of air, which she assumed was an open refrigerator, but upon inspection was not. She also was kept up by a light from a room across the hall – except that when she went to turn it off, there was no light on.

“She’s very active,” Reuwer said of Mrs. Atterbury, to whom she attributes the clattering sounds she heard both nights. “She wants you to know she’s there.”

With a master’s degree in science, Reuwer said her knowledge bolsters her belief in the ghost. Humans are unable to see infrared light or gamma rays, she noted, so it is possible that they can’t see apparitions.

Principal Jon Kerr, who taught science for a dozen years at the school, has had several encounters, including once seeing a silhouette of a woman, which promptly disappeared.

He, too, once slept in his classroom for a night, and found the school “a pretty noisy place.”

Like most of the staff, Kerr thinks Atterbury is a benign presence.

“I think she’s very happy [the former mansion] is a school,” he said.