Beyond the Grave

By Charles Anthony Merchant Childes

Growing up, I often visited older family members with my mother. I remember well, the sharing of tales and stories of the old days about our family on Monteith Island. This book is a compilation of those stories as I recall them, though they may have even changed as they were passed down and intertwined with a little fiction, a little nonfiction as well as many of my paranormal experiences. Many names in this collection of paranormal and spiritual encounters have been changed to protect the privacy of my living relatives and friends. Though geographical locations have not been changed. Many of these accounts were revealed in detailed dreams. I will leave it up to you to determine what is real and what is imaginary. To all who read this book, I say, let your imagination run wild.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Jun 13, 2023
• ISBN: 9798889600206

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Beyond the Grave

Charles Anthony Merchant Childes

Copyright © 2023 Charles Anthony Merchant Childes

All rights reserved

First Edition

PAGE PUBLISHING

Conneaut Lake, PA

First originally published by Page Publishing 2023

ISBN 979-8-88960-028-2 (hc)

ISBN 979-8-88960-020-6 (digital)

Printed in the United States of America

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

The Gift

Anthony Merchant Childes

The Touch

The Early Settlers of Monteith Island

Winter 1790

Spring 1791

Summer 1791

Autumn 1791

The Little Schoolhouse

Jimmy Recalls Washday

James Edward Childs

The Mysterious Black Oyster

Cousin Abbie Monteith

The Golden Violin

Aunt Ella and Grampy Childes

The Dove at the Window

The Rocking Chair

Mother and Son Revealed

Spiritual Awakenings

Mother's Mysterious Phone Call

Back to Deer Isle and the Ghost at Fish Creek

The Woman Who Picked Roses

Paranormal Visitations

Is There a Doctor in the House?

The Piano

The Haunted Chair

The Piano String: An Astral Travel Event

An Astral Travel Event

The London Pub

The Man in the Shadows

The Man with the Lantern

The Coins

My Friend Gary Raymond

Two Old Spirits Become One

Spirit Confirmation

About the Author

Acknowledgments

This book is a compilation of family stories as I recall them, many revealed in detailed dreams. They may have been changed as they were passed down, intertwined with a little fiction, a little non-fiction as well as many of my paranormal experiences. The names have been changed to protect the privacy of my living relatives and friends, though the geography has not.

Growing up, I often visited older family members with my mother, Lucy Priscilla Childes. I remember well, the sharing of tales and stories of the old days about our family on Monteith Island. My family loved their island and the many interesting things that happened. Some lost to history and others that were never shared. There is even an odd song called, Over on Monteith Island. I can just imagine them singing it at the old-barn dances after having their fill of white-lightening moonshine that my great-great-grandfather distilled in a well-hidden place (or so he thought) on Childes hill. The words to this song are best not repeated here as they are very bold and off-color. I am not sure that anyone left living, besides myself, knows the words. But they amuse me. I learned the words from my great-grandfather's cousin living in Deer Isle, Maine.

I dedicate this book with love and affection to a man whom I never met in person but have met in spirit. My great-grandfather, Anthony Merchant Childes, a man of many talents, including being a fantastic pianist and fiddle player. I inherited my ability to play the ivories as well as his violin, which is one of my most-prized possessions.

This book's journey started with a collection of stories but has been lovingly crafted by myself and two others who deserve mention. Rick Andrews, you have been on the island with me, including helping to place the headstone for Anthony Merchant Childes. You have given your advice freely throughout this process and introduced me to Julie Walke. Julie, you have spun your pearls into a narrative that only an experienced editor can do. Finally, to the reader, I will leave it up to you to determine what is real and what is imaginary. To all who read this book, I say, let your imagination run wild.

Blessed be,

Charles A. M. Childes

Chapter 1

The Gift

My name is Charles Anthony Merchant Childes. I am in my eighth spiritual cycle and known as an old soul. I am a direct descendant of Samuel Wardwell who was the last male to be persecuted at the Salem witch trials. He was hung by the neck until dead on September 22, 1692, at the age of forty-nine years old being accused of wizardry as his only crime. What was considered to be wizardry at that time was no more than those in power who misunderstood the gift. Here is where my story starts.

Samuel was originally from Andover, Massachusetts. His grand-daughter Meribah Wardwell married Major William Eaton on November 20, 1742, in York, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Together, they bore nine children. In 1779, one of their sons William Eaton Jr. married Hannah Haskell on Deer Isle, a remote Island off the coast. Hannah gave birth to ten children on Deer Isle. I am a descendant of their second son, Jeremiah Hobbs Eaton, born on February 3, 1789. Jeremiah's great-granddaughter Mina Mae Eaton is my grandmother. At eighteen, Mina married Charles Willard Childes of Monteith Island, Maine, on April 11, 1907, in Stonington, Maine.

I was born Charles Hanson Small on an early Saturday morning in the seacoast village of Camden, Maine, with my birth the heritage and legacy of Samuel Wardwell filtered through my maternal bloodline. Like my mother and her eldest sister Ella, I, too, was born with the gifts of discernment and knowledge. These are but two of the many gifts passed on to me through spirit—spirit and the gift—being one in the same. Many are born with the gift but instead of rising to the surface, it lies forever dormant within.

As a small boy, I had very intense dreams and visions. There were visitors in the night and some in the day that only I could see. Mother and I had a spiritual connection, one that I would only come to learn more about and appreciate after her passing. I remember telling Mother about my encounters and dreams.

She sat me down and said, "Charles, not everyone sees what you see. I used to see many things when I was a little girl, like you do now. Always remember, do not tell everyone what you see and hear. Not everyone has the gift. Do not cast your pearls before swine. Wise words of advice that have stayed with me throughout my life. I have only shared my paranormal experiences with a select few. Until now, as my spirit guide has told me, Now is the time to share."

I remember Mother and Aunt Ella always knew things before they happened, for instance, expecting visitors before they arrived, awaiting phone calls before the phone rang, and expecting letters on the day they would arrive in the postbox.

You could not surprise or put anything over dear Aunt Ella. She was a wise old soul. She was born with a caul over her face. In the psychic world, it is more often regarded as a veil. And a baby born with a veil is a sign of psychic abilities, good luck or a special destiny. Through some research done by various psychics as well as medical professionals, veils or cauls are most often found on female infants. Their psychic gifts include being able to see the past, the future, and the things we cannot see. They have different eyes, and their way of thinking is typically more open than most. Their dreams are different from the average individual. What they dream is yet to come. Most who are born with a veil do not realize this ability until they are much older when they can distinguish between a common dream and a premonition. Not all premonitions are accurate accounts of what happened or what will happen but are simply pieces to a larger puzzle which must be openly formed in the mind.

I was not born with a veil over my face, but I, too, have many of these same gifts. Nonetheless, my birth was a bit unusual, and the way I got my first name Charles is very interesting. And, because of the gift, I chose to change my paternal surname to my maternal surname of Childes later in life. There are times that I am clairvoyant or clear-seeing; meaning a person who is sensitive to things beyond the natural range of perception. I am also an empath which can be disturbing at times as it's the ability to feel what others are feeling. In my situation, I feel other's emotions or sicknesses. It can be thought of as a gift, but sometimes it feels like a curse.

Our journey here is an ever-changing spiritual walk. Always learning from one moment to the next, one dream to the next, one year to the next, one decade to the next, and one century to beyond. So it shall ever be blessings and peace to all on your individual journeys. Blessed be. I hope that this book may be an avenue to opening the pathway for those who possess the gift but have yet to unlock it.

I have been fascinated with genealogy since fourteen. Every time we visited elderly relatives over on the island, I made mental notes, wrote them down, and created a family tree. When I turned eighteen and had a driver's license, I often traveled to the island. Eventually, I joined the historical society and have been a member for forty-six years—researching in the archives, merging my notes, and visiting cemeteries all in search of my ancestors and relatives who had passed.

Like scattered pieces of a puzzle, I was finally getting somewhere, and it all began to come together. I had worked back through thirty-two generations. It was like an obsession to learn more and more. It was when my research eventually took me to the famous Salem witch trials, Massachusetts, that the name of Samuel Wardwell matched with a man on my chart, that things started to become clear. Back then, Deer Isle was still in the commonwealth of Massachusetts. Samuel's granddaughter Meribah and her husband William were among the first White people who settled there, among already-established families of Native Americans.

As Samuel Wardwell was one of my great-great-great-grandfathers, I began to study him in-depth. I read everything possible about him. I even bought copies of the minutes of the trial. Many of his spirit gifts were the same harmless gifts of spirit that I experience. My great-great-aunt Matilda was a spirit medium and a clairvoyant. I remember Mother telling me about Aunt Matilda and the memories of her visits to Rockport from Belfast in a horse-drawn carriage. Mother's great-uncle Jeremiah (Jerry) was also spirit sensitive. So there it is, this gift had been passed on down from one generation to the next. Sadly, there were ancestors who never knew that they had the gift. As my mother always said, Those were the ones that wore spiritual blinders.

Anthony Merchant Childes

Like I said, I had been working on my genealogy, especially of the maternal side of my family. That meant earnestly researching cemeteries for gravesites and dates but could never find my great-grandfather Anthony Merchant Childes's grave. I found my great-grandmother's grave on Deer Isle but could not find where Anthony's body was