Turner's Great Wheel

By

Alan F. Rumrill

Published in the Keene Sentinel Dec. 27 - 28, 2025

More than 160 years ago in the town of chesterfield there was a house that many residents believed was haunted.  There was a large spinning wheel, also known as a great wheel, in the attic of the house.  According to the local tale, the spinning wheel could be heard turning night after night.  The story of the wheel squeaking deep in the night in the uninhabited attic spread throughout the neighborhood.

The home was occupied by a Mr. Turner who may have been a member of the well-known Turner family of mill owners in the neighboring town of Winchester.  It was reported, without any proof, that Mr. Turner's elderly mother had died from lack of proper care.  Some people in the neighborhood believe that her unhappy ghost visited the attic each night where she sat spinning at the old great wheel as she had done during her lifetime.

There were other residents, however, who were suspicious of the story of the haunted attic. They decided to visit the dark space late at night to solve the mystery of the squeaking wheel.  When they entered the attic, they were shocked to find...a rot running on the top of the great wheel!

Upon further examination they determined that some rats that were in the house were jumping upon the big wheel and causing it to spin around and around by running on top of it. 

The mystery of the haunted house of Chesterfield had been solved.  According to the tale, the house was simply inhabited by a few acrobatic rats who had developed their own rat exercise wheel more than a century before the first commercial rat wheel was patented.

The details of the story of the haunted attic were immortalized by Chesterfield's "Bard of Streeter Hill," Stephen Streeter Jr.  Mr. Streeter was well-known for his songs and poems that preserved details of the town's history, including his poem entitled "Turner's Great Wheel".