True Experiences with Ghosts

Edited by Martin Ebon

The editor gathered several ghost stories that he believed were true, unexplainable events.
One of the stories concerns Ocean Born Mary. According to the story and to information I found online, Ocean Born Mary was a real person. Her parents were traveling to America by boat when the boat was intercepted by a pirate. He planned to pillage the boat and kill all aboard, when he heard a newborn baby crying. Going to investigate, he found the captain's wife and her tiny baby, who was born on board the boat. He was charmed and promised to spare everyone is the new mother would name her baby Mary, after the pirate's wife. She agreed and the pirate left the boat. He later returned with a bolt of expensive green  silk cloth which he gave to baby Mary to made into a wedding gown when she grew up and married.
All this part of the story of Ocean Born Mary are true to that point. But then the author of the story, Louis Roy, starts making stuff up. He bought a house in the town where Mary spent her old age which he then claimed was haunted by her and by the pirate who befriended her. He claimed the house was built by the pirate and that Mary moved into it to be his companion and housekeeper. He claimed the pirate died and was buried there along with his pirate treasure. He further claimed many people had seen or experienced many uncanny and eerie things on the property and in the house, which he also claimed was filled with Mary's original furniture.
But there is a site online, by the local historical society, that totally debunks all of Roy's claims. The house was built by one of Mary's sons, not by a pirate. Mary never lived in the house, she lived in a nearby house with one of her other sons and, at the time, she was quite elderly, in her seventies. Her furniture was never in the house, since she never lived there. The pirate also never lived there and was never part of Mary's life beyond that first encounter. Roy made all the haunting nonsense up and charged people admission to the house and property. The details can be found at Henniker Historical Society website: http://www.hennikerhistory.org/obmary.htm.
Since this story was so thoroughly and easily debunked. it casts doubt on the veracity of the other stories in the book. I am inclined to believe it is all a bunch of made up nonsense. The one proven false story taints all the other stories, I am sorry to say.
But besides all that, it just wasn't a very interesting book. It cloaks itself in scientific & scholarly terms but, although the editor might have intended it to add weight to the book, it merely makes it dull.