Polly Dole–John Updike House

Massachusetts · United States · House

Three figures share the house: a woman in white upstairs, a Revolutionary soldier on the stairs, and a girl in a Victorian dress.

The Polly Dole House on East Street went up around 1687 and was extended in stages; in the twentieth century the novelist John Updike lived here. It carries the most crowded ghost story in Ipswich. Residents and guests have described three distinct figures: a woman in white moving through the upstairs rooms, a man in Revolutionary-era uniform seen on the staircase, and a girl in a Victorian dress who appears lower in the house. None of them is said to do anything but pass by. The accounts were gathered by Ipswich's local historians and are repeated by several successive owners, which is unusual — most house ghosts in the town belong to a single family.

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Where is Polly Dole–John Updike House located?

Polly Dole–John Updike House is in Massachusetts, United States.

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Accounts are drawn from local folklore and visitor reports.