The Punchbowl Ghost
The Punchbowl Ghost
September 28, 1908 - the house owned by the Boyd family is located on the corner of ‘Auwaiolimu and Lusitana Streets. Renting the house is the Pecarick family and they’re having problems.
Imagine combing your hair and the mirror flips over. Imagine holding a stick of kindling and having it slapped out of your hand. Imagine out of thin air, rocks coming through your house and embedding themselves in the side of your oven. Imagine these things happening and you have no control over them.
Thirteen-year-old Esperanza Gonsalves worked as a servant for the Pecarick family. It began to seem as if the strange activity was centered around this girl. Soon, ghost hunters, priests, and detectives began to arrive. At one point, around 200 people gathered around the home to see what might happen.
Young Esperanza swears she had nothing to do with the activity in the house. Eventually, the Boyds suggested that the family move out. The Pecaricks said that the house itself was haunted before they arrived and the girl was innocent. Either way, the family moved and nothing more was heard of the haunted Punchbowl house.
In the quiet Punchbowl neighborhood, people whispered of ghosts and poltergeists, linking the home to a deeper layer of Hawaiian hauntings. What unfolded there has secured its place among the most unnerving haunted places in Honolulu.
This is the kind of tale that defines supernatural Honolulu, where the living and the dead share space in subtle but powerful ways. These eerie events are part of the broader web of supernatural Hawaii, where even peaceful streets can hide unsettling truths. On our Honolulu ghost tours, we explore stories like this—true accounts of fear, mystery, and the unexplained.