On the night before Halloween, Oyster Bay's Main Street belongs to the ghosts. Raynham Hall Museum's annual Halloween Ghost Walk and Dance Party steps off Friday, October 30, from 6 to 8:30 p.m., and the museum is inviting residents to come in costume, bring children and dogs alike, and carry lanterns and noisemakers for a ghost parade through the hamlet.

The route ends at the bandstand

The parade gathers at Oyster Bay High School at 150 East Main Street, moves west to the Audrey Avenue Extension, and finishes with a dance party at the Derby-Hall bandstand in Townsend Park. The museum notes one change from past years: the night ends at the bandstand itself, not the parking lot.

At the park there is a DJ, with food and drink for purchase from a vendor list that reads like a tour of the hamlet: Gimme Burger, Oyster Bay Brewing, Outlaw Street Eats, Penelope Bean and Co. Coffee and The Toy Box. The museum runs the parade with the Life Enrichment Center at Oyster Bay, the Town of Oyster Bay, the Oyster Bay Main Street Association and the Oyster Bay Chamber of Commerce.

The museum's oversized ghost puppets travel the route on volunteer shoulders, and it is recruiting more carriers this year: anyone willing to carry something heavier than an apparition can write to [email protected].

A seance-adjacent nightcap at the spy house

Later the same evening, from 7:30 to 9 p.m., the museum itself hosts Tarot and Tales: A Night with the Spirits, with Spiritualist healer Samantha Lynn DiFronzo and museum guide and educator Mary Kenny. Guests move through the house hearing the stories that linger in it, then each receives a personal five-minute tarot card reading, with light refreshments served. Tickets are $75 and space is limited.

The house the ghosts would come home to

Raynham Hall, at 20 West Main Street, was the home of the Townsend family, whose son Robert was a member of the Culper Spy Ring, the espionage network that fed intelligence to George Washington during the Revolutionary War. The museum keeps period rooms with original Townsend furnishings and displays original correspondence between members of the ring.

Outside Halloween week, the house is open year round: guided tours run Wednesday, Friday and Sunday at 1 and 3 p.m., and self-guided augmented reality tours run Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. Admission is $12 for adults and $8 for students and seniors, with free entry for children under 12, active service members and first responders.

If you go

The Ghost Walk and Dance Party is Friday, October 30, 6 to 8:30 p.m., starting at Oyster Bay High School, 150 East Main Street. Tarot and Tales follows at the museum from 7:30 to 9 p.m., with tickets through raynhamhallmuseum.org.

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