This book is dedicated to Brent, Jack and Reagan.  I wish us a lifetime of campfires and stories together at Shore Elms.

About the Author

Author of Whispers on Skaneateles Lake

Finn Sheedy is a young storyteller with a big imagination and a love for spooky

campfire tales, mysterious lake legends, and adventure. At just 4 years old, Finn

began creating stories inspired by the deep waters, old cottages, hidden trails, and

ghostly whispers of Skaneateles Lake.

When he’s not dreaming up haunted legends, Finn loves Matchbox cars, exploring

outside, and asking big questions about history, ships, ghosts, and hidden treasures.

His favorite stories are the ones that make people pull their blankets a little tighter and

wonder what might be waiting just beyond the trees… or beneath the lake.

Whispers on Skaneateles Lake is Finn’s first collection of spooky tales, created with

the help of ChatGPT and inspired by the real history and legends of Upstate New

York.

Finn hopes these stories become favorite campfire reads for families for many years

to come.

Written by Finn Sheedy, age 4

with the help of ChatGPT

Chapter 1: The Fire at Ten Mile Point 

The lake keeps its secrets. 

And some of them do not stay submerged. 

Decades ago, a camp stood on Ten Mile Point along Skaneateles Lake. It belonged to the Nichols family, who came from New York City for quiet summers, fresh air, and nights so still you could hear the water touch the shore. 

The family fell in love with the site, building many cabins including one for the help, one for the boys they fondly called the male room and a main house that contained a large space for gatherings.   The family spent many summers at this property and longed for long summer

nights in the off season of camp fires and time spent together. Until the night everything changed, July 16,  A hired hand, ensuring Mrs. Nichols would wake to hot water, lit the heater. Oil leaked. No one noticed until it was too late..

The fire did not begin with a roar. It began with a smell. Then a flicker. Then heat slipped through the cottage walls before anyone understood what was happening. 

By the time someone saw the flames, they were already climbing. Too fast. Too bright. Too hot. 

And Mrs. Nichols was still inside.

After that, people stopped telling the story all the way through. They spoke in pieces. A fire. A loss. A silence

that stayed over the property long after the ashes were gone. The family immediately stopped using the camp.   Tried to sell the property, but no one was buying.

Years passed. The land changed hands through a donation. Buildings were repaired and renamed. It became Lourdes Camp. 

But people say the past never left. 

On some nights, the air turns warm for no reason. Not summer warm. Fire warm. A heat that seems to rise from the ground itself. 

Then comes the smell. Smoke. Old smoke. Burned wood. Burned fabric. Burned something worse. 

One counselor followed that smell into the trees after

dark. She said she saw a glow flickering between the trunks, right where the old cottage once stood. She thought someone had started a fire and hurried toward it. 

But as she got closer, the glow vanished.

There were no flames. No lantern. No building at all. 

Only the smell. And then the sound of a door opening slowly behind her. She turned. There was nothing there. 

Nothing left that should have had a door. 

Now people know: if you smell smoke at Lourdes Camp and there is no fire, do not follow it. 

Because some fires on Skaneateles Lake never went out.

Chapter 2: Shore Elms

The house looks beautiful by day. 

Cedar Shake. Beautiful trim. A large porch overlooking the lake. The kind of place that seems made for summer dinners and quiet mornings. 

At night, it changes. 

Lights turn on in empty rooms.  Slow moving footsteps cross the upper floor and stairs when no one is awake. Doors that were locked stand slightly open by morning. 

People try to explain it. Settling wood. Old wiring. Wind off the lake. Then they stay there after dark and stop trying to explain it. 

One couple sat outside one night looking across the

water with the  house behind them. The lake was still enough to reflect every window perfectly. 

That was when the woman noticed there were more lights in the reflection than in the real house. 

She counted twice. 

The reflection still showed one extra glowing window upstairs. 

Then she saw someone standing in it. 

A dark figure, perfectly still. 

She turned toward the house. 

The upstairs room was black. Empty. 

She looked back at the water. 

The figure was no longer in the window. 

It was lower now. 

On the dock in the reflection looked like the shadow of a Bishop with a staff. 

She spun around so fast her chair tipped over. 

The dock was empty.

They left immediately, not even stopping to turn the inside lights off or gather their belongings.

Now people say the worst thing you can do at Shore Elms is look too long at the lake after dark. 

Because sometimes the reflection shows you what the house is hiding. And sometimes it shows you what has already stepped outside.

Chapter 3: The Boat That Returns Empty 

A boat drifts away at night. 

No one inside. No wind. No sound. 

In the morning, it is back. 

Tied neatly to the dock as if it had never left. 

But something is always wrong. 

The rope is tied in a knot no one in the family uses. The floorboards are wet even on dry nights. Sometimes there is mud in the bottom, though no one can say where it came from. 

At first, people blamed the current. Then kids. Then a loose cleat. Until someone saw it happen. 

One neighbor, awake long after midnight, watched the

boat ease away from the dock on water flat as glass. It did not jerk or spin. It moved slowly and steadily, as if pulled by invisible hands. 

There was no one rowing. 

He kept watching until the boat reached the black center of the lake. Then he heard singing. 

Soft. Low. Almost gentle. 

Not from the shore. Not from the boat. 

From beneath it. 

He said the sound followed the boat until it turned and began making its way back on its own. 

By morning, it was tied neatly at the dock. 

He never told anyone the whole story until years later. 

Even then, he would not go near the water after dark.

People still check their knots before bed. 

But if the boat wants to leave, it leaves. 

And if it comes back empty, no one asks what rode underneath it in the dark.

Chapter 4: The Lantern Man 

During the 1800s a family with a surname of Irish owned many acres on West Lake Road. The land was multi-generational legacy land until it ended with the untimely passing of Jedediah Irish when he was 44 years old. 

It is said that he still walks the road at night with a lantern in his hand.  No one ever sees his face. 

Only the light, swinging slowly as he moves between the trees and the stone walls, never hurrying, never turning around. 

People say that if you spot him from your car or from the shoulder of the road, the smartest thing to do is keep going. 

But someone always thinks they can catch up. 

They pull over. They call out. They follow the light into the dark. 

At first it seems easy. The lantern stays just ahead, bright enough to see, close enough to follow. 

Then the road changes. 

It gets narrower. Trees press in. The houses disappear. The air turns colder. The lantern keeps moving. 

No matter how quickly you walk, you never get any closer. 

One man followed that light off the roadside and toward the shore through 1860 West Lake Road. He said he only meant to go a little farther, just enough to see who was carrying it.

Then the lantern stopped. 

He took one more step. 

And the light went out.

Not dimmed. Not faded. 

Gone. 

The darkness that replaced it was so complete he could not see his own hands. He stood there listening, hoping to hear footsteps ahead of him.

Instead, he heard them behind him. 

Slow. Careful. Coming closer. 

He ran and did not stop until he reached the road. 

When he looked back, the lantern was glowing again

between the trees, exactly where it had been when he first saw it.

Still waiting for someone else to follow.

Is it Jedediah’s deeply rooted connection to the land that has him keeping a watchful eye or is it something far more sinister that he is looking for….someone…. or…. something?

Chapter 5: The Sherwood Inn 

 On the main street in Skaneateles, across from where the water lies unnaturally still at night, stands the old and elegant Sherwood Inn.

By day, it looks like something out of a postcard—picturesque porches framed by windows,  tidy gardens, the gentle lapping of water against the docks. But the locals know better. They don’t linger there after midnight.

⸻

It started with a winter job.

You had taken a weekend shift at the Sherwood Inn—

quiet season, they said. Easy money. Most of the rooms were empty, and the few guests kept to themselves. The kind of place where the hallways echo even when no one is speaking.

Your first night, the front desk manager gave you one warning:

“Don’t go down to the lower dining room after 2 a.m. If you hear anything… it’s just the pipes.”

He smiled when he said it. But it wasn’t a joke.

⸻

At 2:13 a.m., you heard the piano.

Soft at first. Slow. Deliberate.

You checked the reservation list—no events, no guests