The Haunted Quechee Inn at Marshland Farm: Jane Porter's Ghost

The Quechee Inn at Marshland Farm is a white Federal farmhouse with a cluster of barns on the road into Quechee village, about a mile and a half from Quechee Gorge. It has been an inn since 1975, with roughly two dozen rooms and suites in the old house and its wings, plus a restaurant and tavern that open every evening.

It is also one of the most talked-about haunted inns in the Upper Valley. Most of the stories center on Jane Porter, who lived here with her husband John in the 1800s and died in the house in 1900. Staff have described clocks flying off walls, remotes that move on their own and a very polite conversation with a woman in a long dress. Here is what has been reported, the history behind it and how to plan a stay.

The ghosts of the Quechee Inn

Jane Porter, the lady in the long dress

Jane Porter and her husband John owned the farm in the second half of the 1800s. Jane outlived John and died in the house in 1900, and she is the ghost most often reported here.

The best story was told to The Dartmouth student newspaper in 2007. A waitress arriving early one morning, around 7 a.m., spoke with a woman in a long, old-fashioned dress, assuming she was a guest in costume. Later she saw a portrait hanging in the dining room and recognized the woman she had been talking to: it was Jane Porter. Other accounts say Jane can be heard whistling in the dining room.

Flying clocks and wandering remotes

Staff interviewed in 2007 had their own stories. A front desk manager said a round clock flew off the wall at about 8 p.m., and the nail it had hung on was still in place. A maintenance worker said that during his first year at the inn, he and a housekeeper watched a television remote move from the TV to the bed.

At the time the inn kept a booklet of experiences recorded by guests and staff. It noted, with some pride, that no guest had ever left because of the events and only one employee had ever quit.

John Porter and the footsteps

Guests most often report sound rather than sightings: footsteps and noises in rooms that are known to be empty, usually in the old part of the house and its narrow hallways. Many people attribute these to John Porter, who was a well-known local businessman and state legislator in his lifetime.

Patrick Marsh, the prankster

A third presence, named in local lore as Patrick Marsh, gets the blame for mischief with guests’ luggage, which is said to be moved or rearranged while its owners are out. Nobody has found a historical Patrick Marsh in the house’s records, and the builders of the house were Joseph and Daniel Marsh, so treat the name as part of the legend.

The most haunted rooms and places to look

• The dining room: Where Jane Porter’s portrait hangs and where she is said to whistle.
• Rooms in the original farmhouse: The 1793 house, where footsteps in empty rooms are most often reported.
• The narrow hallways: Staff point to the old halls as the busiest part of the inn after dark.
• The Lt. Governors Suite: One of three suites, named for Joseph Marsh, Vermont’s first lieutenant governor, who built the house. No ghost is tied to it, but it is the room most connected to the house’s history.

History of The Quechee Inn at Marshland Farm

Joseph Marsh built the house in 1793. He was one of the early settlers of Hartford, led a militia regiment in the Revolutionary War, served on the committee that drafted the 1777 constitution of the Vermont Republic and became Vermont’s first lieutenant governor, serving under Governor Thomas Chittenden.

The house is a two and a half story Federal farmhouse with a Georgian center hall plan, and it keeps many of its original finishes and hardware. In the 1800s it passed to John Porter, a prominent local businessman and politician who served in the state legislature and sat on the boards of several area banks. He and his wife Jane lived here for decades, and Jane died in the house in 1900.

The farm had a close call in 1959, when the Army Corps of Engineers condemned the property for the North Hartland Dam flood control project. Rather than lose it, the owners moved or raised the house and remaining outbuildings above the required high water line, and some smaller buildings were buried under fill.

The farm opened as the Quechee Inn in 1975. In 1998 it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places as the Joseph and Daniel Marsh House, along with three barns, a wagon shed and hen house, and a cow barn from the 1870s.

Tips for a haunted stay

• Book a room in the original 1793 farmhouse rather than a newer wing if you want the oldest part of the house.
• Have dinner in the dining room and find Jane Porter’s portrait.
• Walk to Quechee Gorge, about a mile and a half away, in daylight.
• Ask staff whether anything has happened lately; the inn has a long tradition of collecting guests’ stories.
• Fall foliage and Quechee’s wedding season fill the inn early; book well ahead for October.
• Stay a second night at the Equinox in Manchester, about 90 minutes south.

More haunted hotels nearby

• The Equinox, Manchester: Mary Todd Lincoln and Room 329
• Haunted hotels in Vermont: Including the Inn at Clearwater Pond, a few minutes away
• Mount Washington Hotel, New Hampshire: Princess Carolyn and Room 314
• Green Mountain Inn, Stowe: Boots Berry and Room 302
• Haunted hotels in Vermont

Sources

Facts on this page are checked against the hotel’s own website, historic records and news coverage. Ghost stories are reported as guests, staff and local historians tell them. Read how we rate haunted hotels.

• The Dartmouth: Flying objects, restless spirits: the tales of old inns (2007)
• Wikipedia: Joseph and Daniel Marsh House
• The Quechee Inn at Marshland Farm: official site
• The Quechee Inn: Rooms and suites
• Only In Your State: Stay overnight in the allegedly haunted Quechee Inn

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