The Conjuring House: Rhode Island’s Real Nightmare and the Hollywood Horror It Inspired

Welcome back to Northeast Legends and Stories, where we dive deep into the rich tapestry of the Northeast’s past, uncovering tales that have shaped its history and captured imaginations across generations. Today we’re pulling up to a quiet farmhouse in Harrisville, Rhode Island, that looks like it stepped out of a colonial painting—clapboard siding, stone chimney, rolling fields—but has become one of the most infamous haunted houses in America. This is the Conjuring House, the Old Arnold Estate, the place that gave us the 2013 blockbuster The Conjuring and launched a franchise that’s terrified millions. But behind the jump scares and demonic nuns lies a real story of a family pushed to the brink by something they couldn’t explain, investigators who made it their mission, and a property with a history that goes back almost 300 years, soaked in tragedy, rumors, and questions that still linger. We’ll unpack the real history of the house, from its colonial roots to the infamous Bathsheba Sherman saga; the bone-chilling hauntings that drove one family to the edge; how Ed and Lorraine Warren’s investigation turned it into a paranormal landmark; the way James Wan’s film transformed it into cinematic gold while taking serious liberties; the stark differences between the movie’s fiction and the Perrons’ lived terror; skeptical explanations that try to ground it all in psychology, environmental factors, and creaky floorboards; the wild recent developments that have kept the house in the headlines, from foreclosure drama to canceled auctions and ongoing legal battles; and how this Rhode Island nightmare fits into the broader web of New England hauntings, from Lizzie Borden’s bloody Fall River home to Mercy Brown’s vampire grave in Exeter, the shadowy S.K. Pierce Mansion in Gardner, and even the vampire panic that gripped the region in the 1800s. Buckle up—this one’s got layers of dread, and we’re peeling them back slow, like lifting the lid on a dusty attic trunk you really shouldn’t open.

Let’s start at the very beginning, with the house itself, because to understand the hauntings, you need to feel the weight of its history pressing down like those low Rhode Island ceilings. The Old Arnold Estate sits on about 8.5 acres along Round Top Road in the village of Harrisville, Burrillville, Rhode Island—a rural pocket where the air smells like hay and woodsmoke even today, and the nearest big city, Providence, feels a world away. Built in 1736 by the Richardson family as a sturdy farmhouse to withstand New England’s harsh seasons, it’s a classic post-and-beam colonial: ten rooms spread over two stories and a full basement, wide-plank pine floors worn smooth by centuries of footsteps, multiple fireplaces with massive stone hearths that once warmed families through brutal winters, low beamed ceilings that make tall people stoop and create those perfect shadows for things to hide in, hand-hewn beams exposed like the bones of the building, and that unmistakable creak of old wood settling (or not settling) that can sound like whispers if you’re listening too hard.

The land was part of a larger farm granted to the Arnold family in the early 1700s through colonial land deeds, and it stayed in that lineage for eight generations, over 200 years of births, deaths, weddings, funerals, and the everyday hardships of rural life. That kind of continuity is rare in New England, where farms often changed hands with every bad harvest, epidemic, or economic shift, and it’s part of what gives the place its palpable weight—generations born, lived, worked the land, and died under that roof, leaving behind more than just echoes in the floorboards.But the history isn’t all idyllic hayrides, apple cider, and harvest moons. Like so many old New England farms, the Arnold Estate has its share of tragedy baked into the soil, the kind that fuels ghost stories for centuries and makes locals cross themselves when driving past at night. Records, cemetery stones, and local lore mention several deaths on the property over the years: a young child drowning in the nearby brook in the early 1800s while fetching water, a farmhand crushed or impaled in a pitchfork accident during haying season in the mid-19th century, an elderly widow who hanged herself in the barn after losing her husband to tuberculosis and the farm to debt, a rumored murder-suicide between forbidden lovers in the 1840s that left bloodstains on the parlor floorboards that servants swore never fully washed out no matter how hard they scrubbed. There’s even talk of a Native American burial ground disturbed when the original foundation was dug, though that’s harder to verify.

The most infamous name tied to the land, though, is Bathsheba Sherman, who lived on an adjacent farm in the mid-1800s and has become the central villain in both the legend and the film. Born Bathsheba Thayer in 1812 in nearby Thompson, Connecticut, she married Judson Sherman in 1844 and moved to the Harrisville area, where they farmed and raised four children. Three died in infancy from illnesses rampant in rural 19th-century life—diphtheria, scarlet fever, whooping cough—things that ravaged families without mercy. When the fourth child, infant Herbert, was found dead in 1849 with a large sewing needle embedded in its skull, the whispers turned vicious. Neighbors accused Bathsheba of witchcraft, claiming she sacrificed the baby to Satan in exchange for eternal youth or beauty, or to curse the land. She was supposedly shunned by the tight-knit community, became reclusive, and died in 1885 at age 73, her obituary noting a “paralysis of the spine” or stroke that left her body rigid. Local legend claimed her corpse turned to stone upon death—a classic folk sign of demonic possession—and her grave in Harrisville’s historic cemetery was vandalized for generations, chipped away by souvenir hunters until the town replaced it multiple times.Whether Bathsheba was truly evil or just a grieving mother slandered by Victorian-era gossip, superstition, and outright misogyny is hotly debated even today. Historical records show no trial, no formal accusation of murder or witchcraft; she died of natural causes and was buried in consecrated ground. But the Perrons and the Warrens later claimed her spirit was the primary malevolent force in the house, a hateful entity that targeted mothers and children with particular viciousness, perhaps out of jealousy for the family life she lost or rage at the accusations that dogged her in life. It’s a narrative that fits neatly into New England’s long, ugly history of witch hysteria, echoing the Salem trials just a state away in 1692, where 20 people were executed on spectral evidence and neighborly grudges, or the later Connecticut witch panics that saw women hanged or burned based on rumors alone.

Fast-forward to December 1970. Roger and Carolyn Perron, a young couple from Cumberland, Rhode Island, with their five daughters—Andrea (12), Nancy (10), Christine (9), Cindy (8), and April (5)—bought the house for $75,000, a steal even then, chasing the American dream of space and quiet after years in cramped apartments while Roger worked long hours as a truck driver. Carolyn was a homemaker with a warm laugh and a love for gardening; they saw the 200-acre farm (much larger at the time, later subdivided) as paradise: a barn for the kids to explore, a brook for summer swims, room for a big vegetable garden and maybe some chickens. At first it was idyllic: unpacking boxes while the girls ran through the fields, baking bread in the big kitchen, falling asleep to the sound of crickets. But within weeks the strange things started small, the way they always do in these stories—like a broom sweeping by itself in the pantry when no one was there, or doors slamming shut on perfectly still days. Carolyn noticed piles of dirt appearing in freshly mopped rooms, as if swept from some invisible source. The girls heard footsteps pacing in empty upstairs hallways, saw fleeting shadows or orbs of light floating down the stairs like curious fireflies drifting through the house. Cold spots would sweep through rooms without warning, dropping the temperature 20 or 30 degrees in seconds, breath visible in July.Then it escalated, turning their dream home into a pressure cooker of fear that built over months and years. Beds shook violently at night, as if an earthquake hit only one room while the rest of the house stayed still. Invisible hands tugged blankets off sleeping children, sometimes lifting them a foot or two off the mattress before dropping them back. Whispers turned to guttural growls or screams echoing through the walls: “Get out!” or “Mine!” or names of family members called from empty rooms. Carolyn, the most psychically sensitive, developed mysterious bruises shaped like handprints or finger marks on her arms, thighs, and back, felt sharp pinches and slaps from unseen assailants, and smelled sudden waves of rotting flesh that made her gag. Objects flew across rooms—a chair tipping over with force, a picture frame launching from the wall and shattering, books tumbling from shelves in perfect order. The youngest, April, befriended a spirit she called “Oliver,” a friendly little boy in a gray suit who played with her toys and sat on her bed telling stories, but other entities were darker—one that smelled like decaying meat and targeted Carolyn with particular hatred, another that appeared as a woman with a broken neck hanging in the hallway, her head lolling at an impossible angle, eyes bulging. Roger, a practical skeptic who spent long days on the road driving trucks, dismissed it at first as “old house noises” or “girls’ imaginations,” but even he came around after seeing apparitions himself: a dark, hooded figure lurking in the basement near the old well, or a woman in Victorian dress gliding through the parlor before dissolving into shadow.

The family tried everything to make sense of it or make it stop. They held family meetings to discuss the “guests,” burned sage in every room, invited local priests for blessings (one reportedly fled after feeling hands on his throat), used Ouija boards in the attic (a move they later regretted bitterly, believing it opened doors that should have stayed shut and invited worse things in), and consulted mediums who came with candles and crucifixes. Nothing helped for long. The activity peaked in terrifying waves, sometimes quiet for weeks or months, lulling them into hope, then exploding into poltergeist-level chaos that left the house feeling like a battlefield. Carolyn, the primary target, suffered severe migraines, nightmares where entities choked her, and episodes she described as partial possessions—speaking in deep voices not her own, her body contorting unnaturally, knowledge of things she couldn’t possibly know. The girls were terrified to sleep alone; Cindy once hid in a woodbox in the shed to escape a voice calling her name from inside the chimney. For ten long years they endured it, too poor to sell (the house needed extensive repairs they couldn’t afford, and who would buy a known haunted property?), too stubborn to admit defeat to whatever was there, and too frightened to leave the children unprotected. They finally sold in June 1980 for a modest sum and fled to Georgia, seeking a fresh start, but the memories—and for some, the sensitivity—followed them for life.Enter Ed and Lorraine Warren sometime in 1973 or 1974 (accounts vary slightly on the exact year).

The famous demonologist couple from Monroe, Connecticut—Ed a self-taught exorcist, WWII Navy veteran, and lecturer with a flair for the dramatic; Lorraine a clairvoyant who claimed psychic gifts since childhood and could “sense” spirits—were called in by Carolyn after a local medium suggested the activity was demonic oppression beyond her abilities to handle. The Warrens arrived with their usual kit: tape recorders, 35mm cameras, crucifixes, holy water, and a team of assistants. They spent several nights at the house, sleeping in shifts, documenting phenomena with meticulous notes. They conducted lengthy interviews with each family member, set up motion detectors in hallways, and performed a full séance in the basement near the old stone well that became the stuff of legend. During the séance, Carolyn allegedly began speaking in tongues, her voice dropping several octaves, her body levitating several inches off the chair before being thrown across the room by an invisible force that left her bruised and dazed. The Warrens concluded the house was infested with multiple spirits: some human ghosts like the little boy or the hanging woman, victims of past tragedies trapped by unresolved pain or attachment to the land, but dominated by Bathsheba’s malevolent presence, whom they labeled an inhuman entity (not a human ghost, but a demon masquerading as Bathsheba) that hated Carolyn for being a devoted mother and homemaker, attacking her with particular viciousness out of envy or malice. They recommended a full Roman Catholic exorcism of the house and family, but Roger, furious and terrified for his wife’s safety during the ritual (which could provoke worse backlash), kicked the Warrens out mid-investigation, banning them from returning.The Warrens kept the case files anyway, labeling it one of their most severe and dangerous, and it became a staple of their lecture circuit in the 1970s and 1980s, where they’d play audio recordings of growls and whispers, show Polaroids of unexplained orbs and shadows, and recount the séance gone wrong to packed auditoriums.

That could have been the end of the public story—a private nightmare for one family, a dramatic but closed case for the Warrens. But in the 2000s, as the Perron daughters grew into adults, the eldest, Andrea, began writing House of Darkness House of Light, a three-volume memoir published between 2011 and 2014 that detailed the decade in exhaustive, chilling, day-by-day detail, from the subtle beginnings to the family’s emotional toll and the lingering trauma. The books caught the eye of Hollywood producers, leading directly to James Wan’s 2013 film The Conjuring.The movie, starring Vera Farmiga and Patrick Wilson as the Warrens, Lili Taylor and Ron Livingston as Carolyn and Roger Perron, opens with the iconic “Based on a true story” card and then unleashes a barrage of jump scares, possessions, demonic birds smashing windows, hidden cellars full of cursed artifacts, and a climactic exorcism performed by Ed Warren himself. It grossed $319 million on a $20 million budget, launching one of the most successful horror universes ever: Annabelle (2014), The Conjuring 2 (2016) revisiting the Enfield Poltergeist, The Nun (2018), Annabelle Comes Home (2019), The Conjuring: The Devil Made Me Do It (2021) based on the Arne Johnson “devil made me do it” murder trial, and more, with total franchise earnings topping $2 billion.

Wan’s masterful direction—long, unbroken tracking shots through the house’s dark hallways, building unbearable tension with silence and shadows before the inevitable boom—made it a modern horror classic that critics and audiences alike praised for reviving the genre. But the film took serious liberties with the truth, and unpacking those differences is key to understanding why the real story feels even creepier in some ways. The movie condenses the Perrons’ 10-year ordeal into a frantic few weeks for dramatic pacing, turning a slow-burn psychological siege into high-octane supernatural action. The real family had five daughters; the film gives them three girls and two boys to heighten certain scares and create symmetry. Bathsheba is portrayed as a full-blown Satan-worshipping witch who hanged herself from a tree on the property and placed a curse on all future inhabitants; in reality, she lived on a neighboring farm, died of natural causes at 73 (possibly a stroke that paralyzed her), and was never formally accused of witchcraft—her “curse” and tree-hanging are almost certainly invented for the screen.

The movie introduces the Annabelle doll (from an entirely separate Warren case in Connecticut involving a possessed Raggedy Ann doll) as a major plot device, along with a clapping game where ghosts play hide-and-seek with the children—events that never happened in the Perron account. The hauntings in the film are visual and explosive: birds suiciding into windows, full-body possessions with levitation and vomiting, a hidden witch’s cellar full of cursed objects. The real Perrons described more insidious, psychological terror: whispers that knew family secrets, bruises appearing overnight, the constant feeling of being watched, smells of rot, and a draining emotional exhaustion that wore them down over years.The Warrens’ role is massively amplified for heroism—the movie makes them the saviors who perform a dramatic exorcism and banish the demon. In reality, their investigation was brief (a few visits), ended abruptly when Roger expelled them fearing the séance had made things worse, and never included an exorcism (Ed wasn’t ordained and the Church didn’t authorize one). Andrea Perron has publicly said the film captured the “essence” of their experience but exaggerated events for entertainment, while skeptics like investigator Joe Nickell dismiss it as “Warrens’ self-promotion dressed as horror.”

James Wan has admitted blending multiple Warren cases for narrative flow, but the “true story” marketing has blurred lines so thoroughly that fans often treat the film as documentary, leading to trespassers and harassment at the real location.The house’s legacy today is a tangled mix of tourism, controversy, ongoing mystery, and very recent drama that’s kept it in the headlines as of late 2025. After the Perrons sold in 1980, it passed through several owners who reported varying degrees of activity: footsteps when alone, doors opening and closing, voices calling names from empty rooms, cold spots that moved like living things. In 2019 Boston real estate developer Jacqueline Nuñez bought it for around $440,000 through her company Bale Fire LLC, renaming it “The Conjuring House” and turning it into a full-blown paranormal attraction: guided tours, overnight stays ($125–$800 per person depending on the package), ghost hunts with equipment, livestream investigations, even classes on mediumship and demonology. It boomed post-pandemic, drawing thousands of visitors yearly for the thrill of sleeping in the “most haunted room” or sitting in the basement séance spot.But by 2024–2025, troubles mounted. Nuñez faced accusations of erratic behavior, unpaid employee wages, and disputes with the town of Burrillville, which revoked the property’s entertainment license in late 2024 citing noise complaints, insurance issues, and overcrowding. The house closed to the public. Financial woes followed: defaulted mortgage payments, unpaid taxes. In September 2025 a foreclosure auction was scheduled for Halloween—perfectly spooky timing—drawing massive media attention and bids from paranormal enthusiasts, including comedian Matt Rife and YouTuber Elton Castee (who already own the Warrens’ occult museum). But on October 8, 2025, the auction was abruptly canceled after Needham Bank sold the underlying mortgage to an undisclosed buyer (rumors swirled around Rife/Castee or associates).

In December 2025 a lawsuit emerged from Nuñez’s sister claiming the sale was invalid due to Nuñez’s mental competency issues amid reported psychiatric commitments. As of December 20, 2025, ownership remains in legal limbo, the house closed, foreclosure process potentially restarting under the new lender. The drama has only fueled interest, with paranormal podcasters speculating the activity itself is fighting to keep the house “alive.”Skeptics, meanwhile, offer natural causes that don’t require demons. The house is old—creaking beams from thermal expansion and settling on unstable soil, drafts whistling through gaps in the original hand-cut joinery, poor insulation letting cold spots form unpredictably. Radon gas seeping from the granite-rich foundation can cause hallucinations, headaches, and nausea. Carbon monoxide leaks from faulty wood stoves or oil heaters (common in rural 1970s homes) are notorious for inducing visions, paranoia, and illness—many “haunted” houses have been “exorcised” by simply fixing the furnace. Sleep paralysis in a stressed, sleep-deprived family (Roger’s long absences, financial strain, five kids in a big old house) can explain bedside apparitions and feelings of presence. Mass hysteria amplified by suggestion—once one person reports a cold spot, everyone starts noticing drafts. Infrasound from the nearby brook or wind through the chimney vibrating at low frequencies that induce unease and hallucinations. Even the power of belief: the Perrons knew local ghost stories before moving in, and the Warrens’ dramatic presence could have heightened perceptions.To really appreciate the Conjuring House, though, you have to see how it fits into New England’s haunted landscape, a region where history and horror are old bedfellows, where every old mill town and fishing village has its share of shadows.Take the Lizzie Borden House in Fall River, Massachusetts, just a short drive across the border. Built in 1845, it’s infamous for the 1892 ax murders of Andrew and Abby Borden, allegedly by their daughter Lizzie (acquitted in a sensational trial but forever suspected in the public eye).

Guests at the now B&B report footsteps pacing the stairs at the exact time of the murders, doors slamming without cause, the ghost of Abby Borden appearing in her bedroom where she took 19 brutal blows to the head. Cold spots in the parlor, laughter echoing from empty rooms. Like the Conjuring House, it’s tied to violent family death and draws crowds for overnights and tours, with EVPs and shadows caught regularly. Both show how New England homes absorb tragedy like sponges, turning domestic spaces into stages for unrest.Then there’s Mercy Brown’s grave in Exeter, Rhode Island—practically the Conjuring’s backyard in the same state. In 1892, amid a tuberculosis outbreak that wiped out families, locals exhumed 19-year-old Mercy Brown (dead two months) believing she was a vampire rising to feed on her surviving brother. Her body appeared fresh, heart full of blood; they burned it on a rock and fed the ashes to the sick boy (who died anyway). Visitors to Chestnut Hill Cemetery report cold gusts even in summer, whispers near her simple chest tomb, lights flickering on cameras. It’s quieter than the Conjuring House but shares that blend of 19th-century desperation, folklore, and fear of the undead that gripped rural New England from Maine to Connecticut, with dozens of documented vampire exhumations.

Up in Gardner, Massachusetts, the S.K. Pierce Mansion, built in 1875 by furniture magnate Sylvester Kennan Pierce, rivals the Conjuring for sheer intensity. A massive Victorian with 26 rooms, intricate woodwork, and a tower, it’s seen multiple tragedies: a prostitute strangled in the Red Room, a child drowning in the basement cistern, fires, brothel scandals, suicides, and overdoses during its time as a boarding house. Owners and investigators report apparitions of a drowned boy pulling at legs in the basement, a strangled woman on the third floor with bruises around her neck, children’s laughter in empty nurseries, objects moving violently. Like the Arnold Estate, it’s open for public investigations, with EVPs screaming names, shadows on thermal cameras, and a reputation for aggressive activity that leaves scratches. Both houses highlight New England’s Victorian-era darkness, where rapid industrialization, high mortality, and spiritualism boomed amid grief.And don’t forget the broader Rhode Island weirdness that makes the Conjuring House feel right at home: the White Lady of Pawtuxet who haunts the riverbanks searching for her lost child, or the vampire lore that spilled into nearby Connecticut’s Jewett City graves in the 1850s, where bodies were staked through the heart. Or zoom out to the Bridgewater Triangle in southeastern Massachusetts, a 200-square-mile hotspot of UFOs, Bigfoot sightings, thunderbird reports, and poltergeist activity in old farmhouses similar to the Perrons’, where families describe doors banging, voices from walls, and shadowy figures in colonial dress. These stories show the Conjuring House isn’t an isolated freak occurrence; it’s part of a regional pattern where old homes, tragic histories, geographic isolation, and a cultural love for the supernatural create self-perpetuating legends that refuse to die.In the end, the Conjuring House endures as a cultural phenomenon that keeps evolving.

The franchise has grossed over $2 billion worldwide. Fans make pilgrimages to Harrisville, though the house remains private and access limited amid the ongoing legal turmoil. It’s inspired countless books, podcasts, YouTube channels dissecting the case files, even academic papers on belief systems, media influence, and the psychology of haunting narratives. In Rhode Island lore, it sits alongside Mercy Brown’s vampire stake and the spectral White Lady of Pawtuxet, proof the Ocean State, for all its beaches and mansions, has its share of deep shadows.So is the Conjuring House truly infested with demons, or just a perfect storm of history, psychology, environmental hazards, and suggestion amplified by fame and fortune? The Perrons, now in their 60s and 70s, still believe it was real, with Andrea speaking publicly about the trauma. The Warrens went to their graves convinced. Visitors, when the house was open, swore they felt watched or touched. Me? I think the scariest part isn’t the ghosts—it’s how easily fear takes root in an old house, in a family under invisible pressure, in a story too compelling not to tell and retell until it becomes larger than life. If this one has you checking under the bed or avoiding old farmhouses, share with a friend, and maybe stream The Conjuring… with every light in the house on. See you next time, somewhere deep in the weird, wonderful Northeast.