Scary Tales and Spirits of Sag Harbor at Whaling Museum | Sag Harbor Express | Michelle Trauring
If there is one thing Annette Hinkle knows how to do, it’s tell a good story.
Combine that talent with a miniature version of her Spirits of Sag Harbor walking tour, and a perfectly average summer night three years ago turned particularly eerie, putting her friends noticeably on edge as they sat down on the steps of the Old Whalers Church to take a breather.
Unable to help herself, Ms. Hinkle launched into a scary tale about what had happened there. And just as she finished, the front door knob rattled and slowly turned, and turned back again.
Without hesitation, the group was up and running away screaming—all except Ms. Hinkle and her friend, Ken Dorph.
“We’re sitting there howling with laughter,” she recalled during a recent telephone interview. “It was just hilarious.”
Mr. Dorph—“who is a total skeptic, but the first one to sign up for a ghost tour,” she said—wasn’t having it. He shook the door, shouting, “Hello? Is anyone there?” as Ms. Hinkle’s daughter, Sophie, wailed, “Don’t touch the door!”
“At this point, no one’s answering,” Ms. Hinkle said. “It’s 10 o’clock on a Saturday night at the Old Whalers Church, you know? Who’s around?”
Determined, he walked around the side of the building. And there he found a man smoking a cigarette.