Abigail Arnold died in 1869 at the age of 93 — and she has allegedly haunted “The Conjuring” House in Rhode Island ever since.
The Conjuring HouseAbigail Arnold has allegedly haunted the Conjuring House since her death in 1869.
The Conjuring is one of the most popular horror franchises ever created. But while the films have terrified audiences for the better part of a decade now, the true horror comes from the fact that The Conjuring movies are based on true events. Today, fans can even visit the so-called “Conjuring House” that inspired the first movie — and, possibly, speak with its resident ghost, Abigail Arnold.
Abigail Arnold is just one of several spirits said to haunt the Burrillville, Rhode Island farmhouse, though her role there is up for debate. Described by the house’s current owners as a protective presence who alerts visitors to the presence of evil spirits, Abigail allegedly used to kiss the Perron children goodnight when they were living in the Conjuring House in the 1970s.
However, according to Andrea Perron, the eldest daughter of the Perron family, Abigail was responsible for much of the terror her family experienced while they were living there.
Just who was Abigail Arnold? And why does her spirit allegedly haunt the Conjuring House to this day?
The Legend Of Abigail Arnold
In The Conjuring, the name Abigail Arnold never really comes up. The film instead focuses on the evil spirit of a woman named Bathsheba Sherman, who, according to the movie’s story, was accused of witchcraft in her lifetime, murdered her infant child, and then hanged herself from a tree on the property.
The Conjuring House’s official website, however, does make mention of Abigail Arnold. It states that she was the daughter of Martha Hopkins and Sylvanus Cook. In 1795, at the age of 19, she married John Arnold, a farmer and the Conjuring House’s owner at the time.
The Conjuring House / FacebookThe Conjuring House in Rhode Island, where the Perron family claimed to have been tormented by a demonic presence.
Together, the couple allegedly had a staggering 14 children in 22 years, raising them in the house throughout the 19th century. Abigail apparently lived to be 93 years old. But according to the Conjuring House website, her spirit never left the farmhouse.
The website also claims that Abigail will often warn guests to “get out” if a “malevolent spirit” is near, and asks that visitors treat her former home “with respect.”
However, there are several inconsistencies in Abigail Arnold’s story.
Historical Inconsistencies In The Story
In 1971, the Perron family moved into the Conjuring House. While living there, the Perron children claimed that a ghostly lady who smelled like flowers and fruit came into their rooms at night to tuck them in and kiss them.
Years later, the eldest daughter Andrea Perron suggested that this woman may have been the ghost of “Mrs. John Arnold,” or Abigail Arnold. In Perron’s 2011 book on the alleged hauntings, House of Darkness House of Light,, she writes:
“Only one thing is known for certain; far more than a century ago Mrs. John Arnold decided to claim her life at the age of ninety-three and was discovered, cold and gray, as stiff as the wood from which she was found dangling in the rafters of a barn.”
But as Kenny Biddle wrote for the Skeptical Inquirer in 2019, historical records indicate that while a “Mrs. John Arnold” was indeed discovered after hanging herself in 1866, she was actually only 50 years old.
The Conjuring House / FacebookThe old Arnold Estate, where the real Conjuring story took place.
As detailed on the Conjuring House website, there was another woman, Abigail Cook Arnold, who died three years later at the age of 93 in the Burrillville, Rhode Island area. However, her cause of death was simply listed as “old age.”
Biddle suggests that the Mrs. John Arnold who hanged herself was more likely a woman named Susan Arnold, whose husband, John Arnold, had found her “suspended from a wardrobe hook with a very small cord” in 1866, according to her obituary.
The issue with Perron’s story is that it seems to combine the lives of Susan Arnold and Abigail Cook Arnold, with the suggestion that Abigail Arnold’s spirit haunted the Conjuring House because she took her own life in the barn. However, Susan Arnold — the woman who actually died by suicide — lived on a completely different property several miles away.
So, given that no Abigail Arnold ever died by suicide while living at the Conjuring House, the only “Mrs. Arnold” that could be haunting the estate would be the 93-year-old Abigail who died of old age on the farm in 1869.
Is Abigail Arnold A Malevolent Or Benevolent Presence?
To add to the confusion, there seem to be inconsistencies in how Andrea Perron has depicted Abigail Arnold over the years.
In the first two volumes of her book, Perron seems to believe that Bathsheba Sherman was the malevolent spirit tormenting her family, painting her as a hateful and bitter witch who, as mistress of the house, felt threatened by the Perrons’ mother Carolyn.
Meanwhile, Andrea Perron describes the spirit of Mrs. Arnold as a “presence of comfort and caring” who “never meant to frighten or disturb” and “a protective influence in an otherwise scary place.”
New Line CinemaBathsheba Sherman as portrayed in The Conjuring.
In her book, Perron also claimed that Bathsheba Sherman “was an Arnold and she’d lived on the Arnold Estate.” However, records indicate that Sherman had actually been born to Ephraim Thayer and Hannah Taft, meaning she was not an Arnold. In fact, she had never lived on the Arnold estate at all. She grew up on the Thayer estate, and later moved to the Sherman estate after marrying Judson Sherman.
Furthermore, there is no evidence that she was ever a witch, nor that she ever murdered a child.
By 2014, when Perron published her third volume on the hauntings, she seemed to have shifted her stance, suggesting that paranormal investigator Lorraine Warren had incorrectly named Bathsheba Sherman as her family’s tormentor after supposedly hearing the name “Bathsheba” in a psychic vision while investigating the Perrons’ case.
In a 2021 Global News interview, Perron said that Lorraine Warren and the The Conjuring films gave Bathsheba Sherman “a really bad rap” and unfairly blamed her for the alleged “evil” happenings in the house.
In reality, Perron said, “the entity haunting and taunting my mother had a broken neck and was likely Mrs. Arnold, found hanging in the barn in 1797 at the age of 93.”
PictureLux / The Hollywood Archive / Alamy Stock Photo(Back row left to right) The Perron sisters Cindy, Nancy, April, Christine, and Andrea with the actors who portrayed them in The Conjuring.
The problem with this, of course, is that there reportedly was no Mrs. John Arnold found hanging in the barn in 1797.
There certainly was an Abigail Arnold who lived in Rhode Island between the 18th and 19th centuries. But is her restless spirit still drifting through the Conjuring House? For now, that remains a mystery.
After reading about Abigail Arnold and the real Conjuring story, read about the real Annabelle doll that inspired the “Conjuring” movies. Then, discover 11 real-life ghost stories that’ll give you nightmares.
