On many nights, the corridors of the S.S. John W. Brown are dark. Oil and steam gargle in a network of pipes emitting a faint moan that pierces Kris Lindberg’s room below deck. A piece of plywood pounds on the ship’s metal hull. It sounds as if people are walking on the boat.
He’s supposed to be alone.
Lindberg heard a couple of people died onboard decades ago. He thinks the 25,000-square-foot ship might be haunted.
Now he’s making sure it is.
For the past few months, Lindberg and his crewmates have transformed parts of the 1940s-era vessel into a “ghost ship.” They’ve lugged skeletons, coffins and 3-foot spiders up the boarding steps. They’ve draped black cloth over the ship’s bulky machinery to create a narrow path filled with vermin and worms. They’ve planned spots where the crew will sneak up on unsuspecting visitors.
“We’ve gotten a bunch of weird looks from the crew on other ships,” Lindberg cackled under the whir of a Jacob’s ladder.
The haunted ship, which opened this month for the first time, was Lindberg’s brainchild to help the volunteer crew financially sustain itself. The ship, which is docked in a stretch of the Patapsco River by the city, generates about $400,000 in expenses annually from maintenance, travel and dock rent, Lindberg said. Events like history tours and the haunted house help cover those costs.
The Halloween attraction marks one of the more eclectic spots in the S.S. Brown’s 82-year history. The vessel was a cheap, early-1940s rush job that fulfilled President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s mission to create thousands of “liberty ships” to transport cargo and troops to Europe during World War II. The ships were never meant for battle, but the S.S. Brown’s cannons took down at least one enemy plane in southern France in August 1944.
The ocean liner has since lived many lives. It was a floating maritime school in New York for aspiring merchant mariners in the mid- to late 1900s. Now, it’s a seasonal haunted house and a museum ship that its volunteer crew of mostly retirees takes on occasional voyages up and down the East Coast.
In a dark corridor of bunk beds Friday evening, James Clements, a zombie and the ship’s medical officer, waved a finger he said he bit off a ship mate, pointed to a Baltimore Banner reporter and wailed, “You look like dessert.”
“It’s not the scariest thing in the world,” Lindberg conceded.
People looking for psychological thrills could turn to the litany of Maryland haunted houses designed for that, he said. Instead, this lighthearted event was meant to attract a younger crowd. He hopes the event can turn them into history buffs who will join the crew of retirees on ship museum tours.
Another night weeks before, a medium boarded the ship for the haunted house tour and pulled out a set of divining rods. She wanted to talk to a ghost. “I can tell that there is at least one spirit with us right now because they are holding these rods very steadily,” she said. If the rods crossed, that signaled agreement from the phantoms, she explained.
“Are you a spirit that likes to stay on the ship?” she asked.
The rods crossed.
“I feel like there are several spirits around me. ... Are there more than five spirits around me?”
The rods crossed.
“I feel like most of you have worked on that ship. Is that correct?”
The rods crossed.
Tickets for the ghost ship range from $30 to $40. The event ends Nov. 2.
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