PORTSMOUTH — This Halloween, beware the ghosts of the American Revolution that an author says still haunt parts of Portsmouth and Middletown.

The spirits of Major General Richard Prescott of the British Army and his lover remain behind at the Overing House on Prescott Farm, while 60 German Hessian mercenaries have been spotted marching along West Main Road near where they fought for the British and were then buried in an unmarked mass grave. This is according to Daniel W. Barefoot, who wrote “Spirits of ‘76: Ghost Stories of the American Revolution,” published by John F. Blair, Publisher. A chapter, albeit a small chapter, is dedicated to hauntings in Rhode Island.

Mr. Barefoot said these finding come from “extensive collection of old newspaper clippings, books, and other printed materials related to America’s haunted history.”

General Prescott commanded the occupying force of British troops on Aquidneck Island. Of the two houses he commandeered, one was the Overing House at Prescott Farm, which sits on the border of Portsmouth and Middletown on West Main Road. While he was with his lover at the house on a July night in 1777, Major William Barton (who retired as colonel) of the American Army raided the house and captured General Prescott “in his bedroom literally with his pants down,” Mr. Barefoot writes.

Mr. Barefoot said in an interview that General Prescott “was mercilessly lampooned and heavily criticized by the British press for his embarrassing misadventure in Rhode Island. He survived the war, and upon his return to Great Britain, was promoted to lieutenant general on November 26, 1782.”

General Prescott died of unknown causes six years after his return to his home country at the age of 63, Mr. Barefoot said. As for the general’s lover, Mr. Barefoot said the identity of the woman or when and how she died remains unclear. (Research by April Cummings claims that General Prescott was with his aide-de-camp at the time of both of their captures, while another much later account says General Prescott may have been having an affair with Henry John Overing’s wife, Mary.)

Since most hauntings are said to be caused by tragic deaths, Mr. Barefoot offered up his thoughts on why General Prescott chose to haunt Prescott Farm.

“I suspect that his ghost lingers at the site of his capture because the place represents perhaps the most ‘tragic’ day in his military career of 32 years,” he said.

Mr. Barefoot claims in his book that there is “ample evidence” these ghosts roam Prescott Farm, and refers to what he says is a notable sighting in the 1920s by Kittymouse Cook, who owned the Overing House at the time.

Prescott Farm is now owned by the Newport Restoration Foundation (NRF), which rents the Overing House to a retired couple. Although the NRF has been at Prescott Farm since 1970, no one there has even heard of this ghost tale.

Hessians on the march

Hessian soldiers in full dress uniform have been seen marching westerly along West Main Road, “a phantom legion of five dozen,” Mr. Barefoot writes.

More than one in four of the 30,000 German mercenaries died during the Revolutionary War, he said, and some still haunt an area where many of them died or were left for dead in the Battle of Rhode Island on Aug. 29, 1778. Legend has it that a mass gravesite, called Hessian Hole, may be near the Carnegie Abbey Golf Club or the hills below Lehigh Overlook, but no one knows the precise location because it was unmarked.

Mr. Barefoot could not find a record of the last sighting of the Hessians. But in his book he notes that witnesses claim that the soldiers march to the west.

“Maybe they are seeking their final place of rest in the hours after sunset,” Mr. Barefoot writes. “But maybe they are intent on continuing their fight against the Continental Army of 1778.”

Haunts around Newport

Newport has its share of ghosts that haunt Colonial-era houses. And at night, their spirits take over the streets with raucous parties and spectral bonfires.

At Admiral Farragut Inn on Clarke Street, Mr. Barefoot claims that a French soldier still roams the halls of the inn, built in 1702 and co-opted to quarter French soldiers during the war. An American soldier and shipbuilder, William Vernon, may have remained behind at the Vernon House, headquarters for the Comte de Rochambeau, now a private residence also on Clarke Street. Mr. Barefoot alludes that it may have been William Vernon who was seen during a dinner party in the late twentieth century. He writes, “the hostess noticed an elderly man dressed in a blue uniform of the Revolutionary War walk in the door and up the stairs to the second floor, acting as if he owned the place. The strange man was not on the guest list, nor was he ever found during a subsequent search.”

Newport was occupied by rabble-rousing British soldiers from 1776 until 1779, drinking heavily and stealing what they wish to make “roaring fires” around which they partied throughout the night. But Mr. Barefoot says their ghosts still rule the streets at night. “Numerous people have reported hearing loud British voices and seeing the light of glowing fires from adjacent streets, only to find everything dark and quiet when they turn the corner,” Mr. Barefoot writes.

Jamestown’s phantom menace

While strolling through Fort Wetherill, one should be on guard for “a phantom black dog that has menaced the place since the fight for independence,” according to Mr. Barefoot.

This “terrifying, enormous black dog” with “glowing red eyes” so horrified the British soldiers that had captured the fort from the Americans that the troops “could no longer keep their sanity in the presence of the dreaded animal.” Mr. Barefoot says that a black dog symbolized death to the British soldiers.

Mr. Barefoot says that people still see the phantom dog and have heard it barking and howling. “More than one person has been terrified to see the black menace, its eyes glaring and fangs showing, pass directly through the walls” of the fort, Mr. Barefoot writes.