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| Photo: Courtesy of Scott Shumas |
In early March of this year, I was scrolling through my streaming services and stumbled across a documentary by Matt Benton & Joe Vitale, "The Harrisville Haunting." I had seen another short film "A Sleepless Unrest" on the same subject not long before, and perhaps I will write a review and run down on that one in the future, but for today we are going to take a look at this particular documentary that was filmed at the old farmhouse on Round Top Road.
First off, I have to state that after I had watched the film, I was left very confused about the filmmaker's stance on Bathsheba Sherman all together. You see, on one hand it appeared in the beginning of the film that they wanted to clear her name, which I was happy to see. They interviewed both Carl Johnson and Kenny Biddle who both explained that none of the accusations made against Bathsheba in recent years had any basis in fact, and no record historically of ever having occurred. At first it appeared that this film was trying to clear her name, but then they allowed someone who has been one of the biggest causes of all of the false stories concerning Bathsheba to spread even more false stories about her. Andrea Perron was filmed on a web cam video at the end of the film literally trying to claim that she communicated with Bathsheba and once again painted her out to be a negative spirit, stating that this entity was was even "mimicking" her own voice.
As I told Andrea Perron directly in an email back in 2016, after she had emailed me on my website attempting to deny the false information that she had published in her book :
"No one can without a doubt blame all the supernatural activity that you or your family experienced on Bathsheba, it isn’t right nor is it fair. History proves that Bathsheba did not live or die there on that property, which is supported by documented evidence. To give any “entity” an identity and attach to them the name or stories of people who were once actual living human beings and then sully them in death is so very wrong."
When someone spins a yarn, for whatever intent or purpose they choose to, it can and will spin out of control. With that will come the addition of more false details until eventually it takes on a life of its own.
Instead of owning up to her mistakes and admitting that she never did any prior research before making such claims in her book, Ms. Perron has and continues to dig a deeper hole of untruths that she cannot now seem to pull herself out of.
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| NOT BATHSHEBA!! |
As I mentioned above, Andrea Perron's little web-cam session towards the end of the film was just another attempt for her to attach Bathsheba Sherman's name to that house, and unfairly so.
We know by way of actual documented facts that Bathsheba had no attachment to that property at any time in her life, so there would be no reason for her to be haunting that house.
Also, Mrs. Arnold never killed herself on the property as Andrea tries to insinuate when she brings up the story of her mother seeing a woman with a bent neck, and trying to claim that it was Mrs. Arnold. In fact, no one committed suicide in that house.
There are also other factors that the film leaves out which I would consider the most important part -- the actual history!
The film doesn't go into the history of the home at all, which is sort of expected if you are going to do a documentary on an allegedly haunted house. You would want to find out who lived there before, and the actual history of the home to try to find out why or what is causing the phenomena taking place on the property, but the film doesn't delve into any of the history, nor any of its former residents except for the Perrons.
I am sorry, but this house's family history goes back to the late 1680's, with the structure itself having been built between 1725-1736. There are numerous family units that have lived there, some of which included the same family bloodline that inhabited the home for nine generations.
Out of all of the former residents or owners of the home, the only ones that were really given any mention in the documentary were the Perron's, and then the Heinzen's, who had only purchased the home from Norma Sutcliffe for $439,000 on June 21, 2019 and quickly sold the property for $1.5 million on May 26, 2022, making over a million dollars profit.
As usual, it appears that the house's background beyond the Perron family didn't interest anyone enough to share the facts. The truth is that Bathsheba Sherman had no affiliation to the house in any way whatsoever so there was no reason for Andrea to continue to bring her up in the documentary. I really wish people would stop pushing the false narratives.
Also, just so everyone out there knows, there is no record that anyone named Mr. McKeachern ever lived or worked in that area of Rhode Island. In fact, there is no record of a person with that name in that area at all, meaning he more than likely never existed and is a made up person to put the blame on for their historical errors.
Again, there were no suicides, no drownings in the basement well or on the grounds of the property, nor were there any murders on the property.
There was no mention of a CROOKED NECK LADY prior to the Perron's living in the home--- that was clearly inspired by Shirley Jackson's 1959 novel, "The Haunting of Hill House." In fact, in a tabloid magazine article back in the late 1970s-possibly early 1980's written by Tony Spera, he claimed that Caroline Perron (whom he used the name Carol Barron to describe her) was seeing a "headless ghost," not a woman with a broken neck. It was the same house and definitely Caroline in the photos of the article. It appears that the story keeps changing over the years.
With all the build up on the haunted aspect in the beginning of the film, the meat of the documentary went into the actual paranormal investigation, which was very anti-climactic in my opinion. The claims of books falling off shelves, a hot wheel truck of some sort rolling off of a rounded pillow cushion onto the floor and doors shutting by themselves, although are considered "paranormal" by all means, they are not what I would call "next level."
I am not doubting that something is in that house, especially after there have been hundreds of people investigating in that small space in the last 3 years, inviting spirits into the home that probably were not there to begin with.
I get that they wanted to show the world their investigation of the house, but what did they really prove? They didn't identify who or what is there, only that they claimed to have had experiences there, just as other investigators who have been there. Still, the film was lacking core ingredients to get down to the marrow of the issue here, the who and the why of it all.
More questions that should have been asked in the documentary were these:
- Why had the allegations of haunting on the property never been mentioned before, but only during the brief time the Perron's lived there?
- The home never had a reputation for being haunted prior to or after the Perron's lived there. Why do you think that is?
- Did you know that the tall tales surrounding the house only began shortly after the Perron's bought the house, right after Mr. Kenyon died?
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