There are countless weird things on the side of the road in our beloved Poconos. The mountains cover an area of Pennsylvania across the river from the Delaware Water Gap. Growing up, they were a magical place where my family would spend time every winter. We even dipped our toes in (pun intended?) on their summertime offerings, which extended to water parks and other outdoor attractions to a lesser extent. But the Pocono Mountains during the Christmas season are unbeatable.
I do not remember the first time that I saw the Candle Shoppe. As a kid, I'm not sure there would have been anything terribly remarkable about the building, besides it being another charming piece of the whole that made up the region. But as an adult, and one who frequently drove through the area, it was hard to now miss the literal giant monkey skull that jutted out of the back of the building, only slightly hidden at the bottom of the dipping parking lot. Now what in the hell is that about?
A few years ago, my family had somewhat of a family reunion in the Poconos. I use "reunion" loosely, as we all saw plenty of one another routinely back then. But this was an opportunity to get all of us in the same place at the same time for a long weekend. We had rented out what could only be described as a vacation compound, through either Airbnb or VRBO or one of any of those types of sites. There were many bedrooms and smaller shared rooms for all of us and the "little cousins." In hindsight, I don't recall how exactly those accommodations went, what with angsty teenagers and young, loud boys milling about, but we had made it work and it was never uncomfortable. By the end of the day, we were all probably too tired to be claustrophobic. It was the summertime and our daily activities revolved around activities like visiting Bushkill Falls or hiking lesser-known trails. We would cap that all off with the use of a giant indoor swimming pool. Like I said, the rental was pretty freaking sweet.
But between our trips to the forests and hiking trails, we made time, of course, to visit Pocono mom and pop shops that caught our eye. The Candle Shoppe of the Poconos became a must-see when I spotted the aforementioned skull on our drive up. The clash between an old fashioned cottage covered in seasonal decor and what was akin to a Halloween-time haunt wedged underneath was too much for me to ignore. I convinced my family to make a stop when we were returning from one of the trail days. There's a good picture of about fourteen of us posing in front of the skull somewhere.
The building itself is lovely. There are multiple floors covered top-to-bottom in their offerings. If you adore candles and the like as I do, you'll fall in love. I remember coming to the realization that, yeah, obviously this was a house in a former life, when I had entered one room that was tiled and featured a gigantic clawfoot bathtub. It was obvious in hindsight, but the smattering of merchandise kind of hid the fact, I suppose. Blame it on barely avoiding heat stroke that day.
But that still didn't reconcile the "haunt entrance" that drew me to the location in the first place. When we had approached from the parking lot, the doors on that side of the building were locked and the signage read something along the line of it being the "offseason," so naturally I had to ask the cashier as we were checking out.
As if it was obvious, she said that that was for the "haunted tour." I blinked and gestured her to go on. Damn straight I was interested. She motioned towards a small TV monitor in the foyer area that was playing looped clips from Animal Planet, a relatively small production of a show that covered locations overlapping between the topics of "animals" and "haunted locations." Somehow, I had never thought of the genre and assumed that it was made after I had ever lived in a house that had cable. Nonetheless, the Candle Shoppe of the Poconos had been featured on the show.
In my mind, I immediately made the connection to how other places that I had fallen in love with had been then made (even more) famous on shows like this, whether it was on SyFy or the Discovery Channel, etc. I was a kid when I first heard about the Eastern State Penitentiary from my childhood favorite, Ghost Hunters. At some point, I'll get around to checking out this animal-centric paranormal program.
I persisted with the cashier, but the store was getting busy and I couldn't really connect the dots. She said something about the doctor who lived here a long time ago and "monkey experiments." Excuse me? Even further, how the hell did that extend to hauntings? Can monkeys make ghosts? Before letting that thought spiral into an existential crisis, I thanked her for her time, promised I'd come back when they were running the tour, and met my family back outside to take that iconic picture. But now, I had a white whale to follow.
Numerous subsequent visits followed. As much as we loved the Poconos, it's not as if I wouldn't be there every few months, to begin with. Later that year, Vinnie and I spent a weekend filming hours of driving shots and b-roll for the ending of the Monolith and every time, I'd make sure to stop in to the Candle Shoppe, both to stock up on my favorite scents and hazard a visit to "the basement." And every time, my luck failed me. The tour didn't run during the winter as, at the time, they couldn't get the heating or plumbing to cooperate with the intense cold. Another visit, we just missed the last tour of the week (by a day). On yet another trip, we had made it just in time for the shop to close entirely for the evening.
I was beginning to think I'd never get to see the supernatural monkeys and wouldn't that be a damn shame.
But luck, time, and persistence eventually paid off. If whimsy is a bit, well I'm sure committed to it, and after spending a weekend at a wonderful, if tacky, themed resort, my girlfriend and I realized that the Candle Shoppe was literally just up the road, and we needed to roll those ghost monkey dice one more time. Even if we failed we wouldn't leave empty handed, as it was the holiday season and we needed gifts for our family. I don't think I ever left the Shoppe without dropping $100. It's a terrible vice, you see. I thought, let's try, why not.
It all finally came to fruition.
We had a plan to do our usual browsing, but as we didn't see any obvious signage that the tours weren't operating, and we had the inklings of manic enthusiasm coursing through us at the consideration that this may finally be it, we immediately asked the cashier if the tours were running today. She said yes, they're just about finished one that started an hour earlier and we can go when they get back.
It was kind of amusing thinking of them "getting back" when they were only about twenty feet away from us through grout-work and plumbing, but we happily waited. To my surprise, a couple and the host came from upstairs a few minutes later, and the cashier waved the man over. We were introduced to Pocono Joe, a man in a winter coat and a costume doctor's jacket. He was very pleasant and asked if we were there for a tour. When we excitedly responded yes, we told us to meet him downstairs in a minute. We walked outside and quietly shrieked at each other that we finally made it. It's the little things, I suppose... I'm really not that hard to entertain.
We waited outside the giant monkey skull facade and a few moments later, the door unlatched and we huddled into the dark basement of the Candle Shoppe. Set against typical Halloween haunt decor (because they do run tours in-season) and actual medical equipment from the early 1900's, Pocono Joe took us through the history of the house and its previous owner, Dr. William Redwood Fisher.
I had recorded our conversation and tour with Pocono Joe and took the following notes from the transcript.
Dr. William Redwood Fisher's medical career was inspired by a tragedy in his childhood. In 1844 when he was four years old, his father died of yellow fever, carried by mosquitos. This experience was traumatizing and left an impact that would lead to him attending Columbia University and earned both his college and medical degrees. He spent time running hospitals in New York and New Jersey and eventually moved to Pennsylvania and built his house (which would become the Candle Shoppe of the Poconos) in 1897. He had planned on using the location as his center of medical research.
Long after he had passed, the basement laboratory and nature of the property remained hidden. He installed walls to cover his equipment and monkey cages before he died in 1926. When the current owners bought the house in 2007, they discovered the hidden workshop when trying to drain the basement of stagnant water. But in doing so, she found bones, test tubes, and medical specimens preserved in jars. The police investigated the site and determined that they were legitimate medical specimens used in the doctor's research in the 1800s.
Dr. Fisher specialized in creating vaccines for smallpox and yellow fever. In order to continue doing this, he maintained a laboratory that could house at least 100 monkeys at a time (hence the monkey skull imagery).
He kept chimpanzees and spider monkeys, the latter coming about as he learned how to fine-tune his "assembly line" vaccine process. The basement still contained various pieces of medical equipment, including a centrifuge for spinning blood, various chemicals, and a whiskey still that the doctor used to make his own rubbing alcohol.
His process of working with the monkeys involved extracting spinal fluid for the vaccines. He created a specialized sharp stone that held a meat cleaver to decapitate the almost quickly and efficiently. It sounds macabre and bizarre, but the doctor apparently did his best to make it as humane as possible, and only performed this act when the monkey was either asleep or heavily sedated. When compared against other medical scientists of the day, he seemed almost altruistic in his efforts. He did care for these important animals.
As he worked in the basement, his family (wife and three children) lived in the house above. Sadly, his seven year old son drowned in the creek behind the house. The doctor continued to work through this tragedy and continued his medical work. It was a horrible event, but Dr. Fisher continued to work towards medical breakthroughs and providing for his family. In a bizarre blending of worlds, at some point two spider monkeys escaped the lab and were adopted by the family as pets. It's rumored that they brought them to school sometimes and even that they may have been buried with the family plots in the nearby cemetery.
The daughter, Esther, was the last family member to reside in the house and lived there until 1973.
Moving towards the paranormal, the property is noted as being "paranormally active" and has been featured on several television series as mentioned before. Visitors and staff have reported seeing orbs on security cameras and encountering what they believe to be the ghost of the drowned young boy in the upstairs bathroom, near the original clawfoot tub. Pocono Joe himself even claims that he was physically pushed down the stairs into the attic by an unseen force. And finally, of course, some have claimed to see the doctor himself walking around the property.
It was quite the story and an enjoyable tour. It culminated with us going back up through the Shoppe and into the attic, where we saw how it may have been furnished and actually used as living space back in the day. Some old custom furniture still bears the doctor's initials, carved in by his own hand.
Fortunately, it appears as if these tours have taken on a consistent schedule regardless of the season. I believe there is a tour that provides more of a "haunt" experience, but that is only during the Halloween season. All the more reason for us to return again at some point.
Pocono Joe was a hoot and the staff of the Candle Shoppe are always helpful and easy to talk to. It's impossible to not find a candle or other scented gift that you will fall in love with. As with all of these adventures, our visit to the Shoppe serves as a constant reminder to take travel at your own pace and when you see something on the side of the road that makes you say, "what the hell?" always listen to that feeling and allow yourself to take that second look.
Some stories are stranger than fiction, and some hauntings will beat out a haunt, any day of the week.
Additional links:
The Candle Shoppe of the Poconos
