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Alabama Hauntings—County by County Part VII

One of my goals with this blog is to provide coverage of ghost stories and haunted places in a comprehensive manner. Perhaps one of the best ways to accomplish this is to examine ghost stories county by county, though so far, researching in this manner has been difficult. In my 2015 book, Southern Spirit Guide’s Haunted Alabama, I wanted to include at least one location for every county, though a lack of adequate information and valid sources prevented me from reaching that goal. In the end, my book was published covering only 58 out of 67 counties.

Further research has uncovered information for a few more counties and on Halloween of 2017, Kelly Kazek published an article on AL.com covering the best-known ghost story for every county. Thanks to her excellent research, I’ve almost been able to achieve my goal for the state.

For a further look at Alabama ghosts, please see my Alabama Directory.

See part I (Autauga-Cherokee Counties) here.
See part II (Chilton-Covington Counties) here.
See part III (Crenshaw-Franklin Counties) here.
See part IV (Geneva-Lawrence Counties) here.
See part V (Lee-Monroe Counties) here.
See part VI (Montgomery-Sumter Counties) here.
See part VII (Talladega-Winston Counties) here.

Talladega County

Talladega Superspeedway
3366 Speedway Boulevard
Lincoln

Curses figure into many Southern legends, especially in places that are legendary themselves, places like Nashville’s Ryman Auditorium, the home of country music. So, it’s no surprise that the largest and perhaps the most important race track in the NASCAR circuit is home to legends of a curse and other strange activity.

Opening in 1969 as the Alabama International Motor Speedway, the track was anointed with its current name in 1989. Despite initial questions about the safety of the track, the speedway has been used successfully for more than four decades.

Aerial view of the Talladega Superspeedway, 2007, by AuburnPilot. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Stories reveal that the spit of land where the track now sits was cursed. Many tales lay the blame for that curse on the Muscogee Creek people who were forced from this area in the 1830s. These tales are usually the result of romantic, overactive imaginations of white settlers.

Nonetheless, there have been some deaths here starting in 1973 when driver Larry Smith was killed after his car hit the outside concrete wall. Besides a handful of other drivers who have lost their lives here, several freakish accidents have claimed a few more lives. Several drivers on the course have reported hearing voices while racing. Stories of the “Talladega Jinx” became so common that in 2009 the president of NASCAR brought in a Muscogee Creek medicine man to “restore balance to the land.” There is no word if that has worked.

Sources

  • Crider, Beverly. Legends and Lore of Birmingham and Central Alabama. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2014.
  • Estes, Cary. “Talladega Superspeedway.” Encyclopedia of Alabama. 28 October 2008.
  • Hinton, Ed. “They’re hearing voices at Talladega.” com. 22 April 2009.

Tallapoosa County

Tallassee Community Library
99 Freeman Avenue
Tallassee

In a 2008 Tallassee Tribune article, the librarian of the Tallassee Community Library, calls them her “ghostly patrons.” She continues, “When I get here every morning between 7:30 and 8 a.m. and open the door, for about the rst ve seconds, I hear music, laughter, and children.” During times when she is alone in the building, she will hear movement and the peculiar sound of pages being turned coming from one corner. And she is not the only one to have this experience, other employees and patrons have their own stories.

When this unassuming small-town library was featured on an episode of the Biography Channel show My Ghost Story the librarian described how she will often be re-shelving books only to have a force push back against the book. She mentions that at times, entire shelves of books will be found to have been turned around when she opens the library in the morning. The activity eventually got to the point where the librarian asked a paranormal investigation team to look into what may be going on here. Enter David Higdon, an investigator with the Tuscaloosa Paranormal Research Society and co-author (with Brett J. Talley) of two books on the ghosts of Tuscaloosa and the Black Belt.

The first time Higdon entered the children’s section of the library, he recalls that he felt that, “something just ain’t right in this room.” Later asking for a sign of a presence he heard two loud, distinct knocks, knocks that he found to be very disturbing. After asking for another sign, the investigators were met with a loud crash as the grating over the replace came crashing down. The startled investigators quickly left the room.

The group also investigated the basement of the library, where the librarian reported she heard growls as well as the voices of a group of people in conversation. It was here that a startling EVP was captured; after the spirit was asked for a name, a response was recorded saying, “You may address me as Sergeant Fuller.” From this, investigators believe that at least one of the spirits may be a soldier who died at the field hospital located near here during the Civil War. The children that are heard throughout the building may date to the building’s original use as a clubhouse for local children. As well as the living, the library continues to be patronized by spectral children and soldiers.

Sources

  • Higdon, David and Brett J. Talley. Haunted Alabama Black Belt. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2013.
  • My Ghost Story, Episode 3.3. Biography Channel. 29 October 2011.
  • “Paranormal group visits local library.” Tallassee Tribune. 11 April 2011.

Tuscaloosa County

Little Roundhouse
Campus of the University of Alabama
Tuscaloosa

On April 4, 1865, as much of the rest of the university was blazing under orders from Union General John T, Croxton, this small sentry house—the only actual military building on campus—received little damage. This crenelated Gothic Revival building was constructed in 1860 as the university moved to a military system in hopes of restoring order and discipline. The octagonal building provided shelter for students as they endured guard duty.

Tradition holds that though most students had left campus to help defend the Confederate cause, two eager students remained to “kill Yankees.” As the campus was burning, a Union soldier stumbled upon one of the remaining students asking if there was whiskey on campus.

Little Round House, 2010, by Carol M. Highsmith. Courtesy of the George F. Landregger Collection of Alabama Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America. Courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

He was directed to the guardhouse where his companion lay in wait to ambush the thirsty soldiers. By the end of the night, several Union troops lay dead in the Little Round House. While this is a marvelous story, there does not appear to be any truth behind it.

The legend continues that if one puts their ear to the door of the Little Round House, one can hear the sounds of the thirsty Yankees still searching for their whiskey.

Sources

  • Center, Clark E. “University of Alabama (UA).” Encyclopedia of Alabama. 12 September 2009.
  • Crider, Beverly. “Crimson Hauntings: The Ghosts of UA.” com. 10 May 2012.
  • Floyd, W. Warner & Janice P. Hand. National Register of Historic Place Nomination Form for the Gorgas-Manly Historic District. 2 June 1971.
  • Higdon, David and Brett J. Talley. Haunted Tuscaloosa. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2012.
  • “Question of Shape: Little Round House, A.” Dialog (UA faculty newsletter). 9 November 2009.
  • Windham, Kathryn Tucker. Jeffrey’s Latest 13: More Alabama Ghosts. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama Press, 1982.

Walker County

Franklin Ferry Bridge
Franklin Ferry Road over the Black Warrior River
Adger

This bridge over the Black Warrior River plays host to the spirit of an angry motorist who supposedly throws sticks and stones at eighteen-wheelers as they pass over the bridge. An article in the Birmingham News mentions this as a legend told among truckers passing through the region. Perhaps this is a spectral case of road rage?

Sources

  • MacDonald, Ginny. “Boootiful Alabama: Don’t let night catch you driving alone.” Birmingham News. 31 October 2002.

Washington County

St. Stephens Historical Park
2056 Jim Long Road
St. Stephens

Occupying a bluff above the Tombigbee River, settlement here precedes the creation of the state of Alabama. In the years following the American Revolution, Spain built a fort atop this bluff, naming it Fort San Esteban. Their stay, however, was temporary, and they lost the fort in the 1795 Treaty of San Lorenzo, which redrew the boundary lines. In 1799, the fort was occupied by American forces. The establishment of a trading post for trade with local Native Americans attracted frontiersmen to the area and St. Stephens began to grow as a town.

With the creation of the state of Mississippi in 1817, the rapidly growing town of St. Stephens was named as the territorial capital of the Alabama territory. When the territorial government created the state of Alabama in 1819, political wrangling led to Cahaba being named as state capital. St. Stephens’ importance diminished by the capital move, the town slowly withered over the next few decades. By the Civil War, the original town had mostly vanished with the establishment of a new town of St. Stephens several miles away.

An article in a 1928 edition of the Birmingham News relates a legend about St. Stephens. According to the legend, St. Stephens, at its height, was an “ungodly place,” lacking a house of worship. An itinerant preacher wanting to hold religious services asked if he could use a local saloon to that purpose. His suggestion was met with ridicule and the preacher was ordered out of town. As he was forced out he cursed the town with disaster and ruin.

Stories of the prosperous town destroyed after being cursed by a holy man exist throughout Southern folklore. Some sources on this story argue that the holy man in the St. Stephens story is none other than famed Methodist preacher Lorenzo Dow. It is known that Dow passed through the area during St. Stephens’ most prosperous era. While nothing remains of the old St. Stephens above ground, in accordance with the curse, archaeological excavation has slowly begun to uncover the foundations and cellars of this most historic town.

Sources

  • Higdon, David & Brett Talley. Haunted Alabama Black Belt. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2013.
  • Lewis, Herbert J. “Old St. Stephens.” Encyclopedia of Alabama. 4 September 2008.
  • Stockham, Richard J. “The Misunderstood Lorenzo Dow.” Alabama Review. January 1963.

Wilcox County

GainesRidge Dinner Club
933 AL-10
Camden

The owner of the GainesRidge Dinner Club does not describe her paranormal experience as a “ghost story” but rather as a “ghost truth.” While in the restaurant one evening preparing for the next day with the cook, the owner went upstairs to retrieve a pot. While upstairs, she heard a voice calling her to come quickly downstairs. The owner raced down the stairs and found the cook in the kitchen calmly preparing food. The cook looked up and said that she had not called the owner, nor did she know who did. After a fruitless search for someone else in the restaurant, the owner and the cook fled the restaurant.

One of the oldest structures in the area, this house is believed to have been built in the 1820s. After the house was opened as a restaurant in 1985, the owners and staff have reported a variety of paranormal manifestations including the spectral crying of an infant and the shade of a tall bearded man. Author Beverly Crider relates in her Legends and Lore of Birmingham and Central Alabama that a very young relative she took to dinner here saw a spectral dog and later a little boy, neither of which were seen by the adults present.

Sources

  • Alabama Ghost Trail. “Gaines Ridge.” YouTube. 6 July 2009.
  • “Brief History of GainesRidge.” GainesRidge Dinner Club. Accessed 7 June 2015.
  • Crider, Beverly. Legends and Lore of Birmingham and Central Alabama. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2014.

Winston County

AL-5
Between Nauvoo, Lynn, and Natural Bridge

The stretch of Alabama Highway 5 between Nauvoo, Lynn, and Natural Bridge is said to be haunted by the spirit of a young woman who met her death here. According to Barbara Duffey’s 1996 book, Angels and Apparitions, the young woman was killed along this section of highway in 1990. She and her boyfriend were driving a Buick when they began arguing and pulled off the road. After the boyfriend had assaulted his girlfriend, she fled towards the truck stop across the road. As she crossed the road, she was struck by an eighteen-wheeler. Since then, her desperate spirit has been encountered by motorists driving here after dark.

In her book, Trucker Ghost Stories, Annie Wilder includes a story from a Hamilton, Alabama resident. The version of this tale he relates specifies that the young woman was a high school student who had been attending her school’s prom. After a fight with her boyfriend, she asked that he put her out on the side of the road saying she would walk home. While walking down the side of the busy highway, she was hit and killed by a tractor-trailer. He continues, saying that the spirit will climb up on the step of trucks passing through and stare at the driver. This local relates an experience he had while traveling down this stretch of road one evening. He felt the sensation of a spirit’s presence, but he wouldn’t turn his head to see if anything was there.

Sources

  • Duffey, Barbara. Angels and Apparitions: True Ghost Stories from the South. Eatonton, GA: Elysian Publishing, 1996.
  • Wilder, Annie. Trucker Ghost Stories. NYC: TOR, 2012.
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Alabama Hauntings—County by County Part VI

One of my goals with this blog is to provide coverage of ghost stories and haunted places in a comprehensive manner. Perhaps one of the best ways to accomplish this is to examine ghost stories county by county, though so far, researching in this manner has been difficult. In my 2015 book, Southern Spirit Guide’s Haunted Alabama, I wanted to include at least one location for every county, though a lack of adequate information and valid sources prevented me from reaching that goal. In the end, my book was published covering only 58 out of 67 counties.

Further research has uncovered information for a few more counties and on Halloween of 2017, Kelly Kazek published an article on AL.com covering the best-known ghost story for every county. Thanks to her excellent research, I’ve almost been able to achieve my goal for the state.

For a further look at Alabama ghosts, please see my Alabama Directory.

See part I (Autauga-Cherokee Counties) here.
See part II (Chilton-Covington Counties) here.
See part III (Crenshaw-Franklin Counties) here.
See part IV (Geneva-Lawrence Counties) here.
See part V (Lee-Monroe Counties) here.
See part VI (Montgomery-Sumter Counties) here.
See part VII (Talladega-Winston Counties) here.

Montgomery County

Pratt Hall
Campus of Huntingdon College
Montgomery

Huntingdon College’s most famous spirit may have followed the college as it moved to Montgomery from Tuskegee. In the school’s original dormitories, the upper floors, known as “Sky Alley,” were supposed to have been haunted by a Red Lady. After the school’s move to its new campus and the construction of Julia A. Pratt Residence Hall in 1912, the Red Lady may have taken up residence on the third floor.

Students still tell the legend of the Red Lady. A young woman arrived at the school from New York. Very much out of place in this Southern school, the woman remained aloof and was shunned by the other students. Depressed, she committed suicide in her room. In life, this young woman had always favored red, and her lonely spirit is still seen drifting the corridors of Pratt Hall in her favorite color.

Sources

  • Enzwiler, Susan & Trina Brinkley. National Register of Historic Places Nomination form for Huntingdon College. August 1999.
  • Sellers, Shawn. Montgomery: A City Haunted by History. Shawn Sellers 2013.
  • Serafin, Faith. Haunted Montgomery, Alabama. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2013.
  • Windham, Kathryn Tucker and Margaret Gillis Figh. 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama, 1969.

Morgan County

Old State Bank
925 Bank Street
Decatur

In 2015 a friend of author Jessica Penot was driving through downtown Decatur with her young daughter. As they passed the Old State Bank, the child asked, “Mommy, why was that lady in the black dress murdered?” The mother immediately asked her daughter what she meant, to which the child replied, “Can we quit talking about this now?” The mother did a bit of research and discovered that there are two female spirits associated with the old bank, one who is weeping and one in a black dress.

Old State Bank, 2010, by Chris Pruitt. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Literally in “high cotton,” the Bank of the State of Alabama built this structure as a branch in 1833. Nearly a decade later, when the state legislature discovered corruption they refused to renew the bank’s charter, and the bank was shuttered. The building was requisitioned as a hospital during the Civil War as the city passed between control of Confederate and Union forces. At the end of the war, Decatur lay in ruins except for a few buildings including this one.

The identity of the two mysterious female entities is unknown, however. Perhaps they are the lady loves of soldiers who breathed their last here or maybe they are nurses who tended to the wounded. These spirits have been seen by visitors and staff alike, and investigations have uncovered evidence of their presence.

Sources

  • Floyd, W. Warner. National Register of Historic Places Nomination form for State Bank Building, Decatur Branch. 15 June 1971.
  • Langella, Dale. Haunted Alabama Battlefields. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2013.
  • Penot, Jessica. “The little girl who saw a ghost.” Ghost Stories and Haunted Places Blog. 28 April 2015.

Perry County

Marion Military Institute
1101 Washington Street
Marion

As the oldest military junior college in the country, Marion Military Institute traces its roots to the opening of Howard College in 1842. A Baptist institution, Howard College opened its doors as a school for boys. During the Civil War, when military training became necessary, the school added a military department. In 1863, the college’s chapel and Lovelace Hall were commandeered for use as a Confederate hospital. Operating as the Breckinridge Military Hospital, the military’s sick and wounded filled these school buildings for two years. The dead were buried behind the school’s chapel.

Howard College moved to Birmingham in 1887 and evolved into Samford University, and the Marion Military Institute was established on the legends-filled campus. Students have reported supernatural activity throughout the campus, though sources provide little detail.

Sources

  • Higdon, David and Brett J. Talley. Haunted Alabama Black Belt. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2013.
  • “History.” Marion Military Institute. Accessed 5 July 2015.
  • Perry County Heritage Book Committee. The Heritage of Perry County, Alabama. Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 1999.

Pickens County

Pickens County Courthouse
1 Courthouse Square
Carrollton

The north side of the late 19th century courthouse bears an arrow pointing towards the garret window at the top of the structure. This arrow points towards the ghostly window pane that is literally at the heart of Pickens County history and legend.

Twelve years after the first courthouse was burned during the Civil War, the second courthouse erupted in flames in 1877. Rumors spread that the courthouse was set alight by a freed slave, Henry Wells, who lived nearby. He was arrested, and a mob gathered on the courthouse lawn to mete out “justice.” Incarcerated in the attic of the building, Wells peered down on the mob screaming his innocence.

Pickens County Courthouse, 1998, by Calvin Beale for the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

A storm erupted, and a bolt of lightning struck nearby as Henry Wells was hung for his supposed crime, though proclaiming his innocence until the very end. Citizens passing the courthouse the next morning were shocked to see Wells’ visage etched into the pane of the window from which he had peered down on the mob. Frequent washing of the window has not been able to scrub the mysterious image.

As with many legends, there is a mix of fact and fiction at work here. While the image in the window pane is undeniable, the history is confused. Apparently, a lynch mob did gather on the courthouse lawn once, but for a murderer named Nathaniel Pierce. The mob succeeded in lynching Mr. Pierce. Henry Wells was arrested for the arson of the second courthouse, though he was not put to death by a mob. There are also questions as to the actual existence of the windows, which may have been added to the façade sometime after the deaths of both Pierce and Wells.

Sources

  • Higdon, David and Brett J. Talley. Haunted Alabama Black Belt. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2013.
  • Pearce, Jamie Roush. Historic Haunts of the South. Jamie Roush Pearce, 2013.
  • Windham, Kathryn Tucker and Margaret Gillis Figh. 13 Alabama Ghosts and Jeffrey. Tuscaloosa, AL: University of Alabama, 1969.

Pike County

Pace and Shackelford Halls
Campus of Troy University
Troy

Built in 1947 and 1930, respectively, these two residence halls have both been the scene of poltergeist activity. The activity in Shackelford Hall is explained as the product of a young female student’s suicide. Depressed over her fiancée’s death in a war, “Sally Shack,” as tradition identifies her, hanged herself in this building. Rumors state that two female students living here entered their dorm room to find two pens levitating. The incident led the young ladies to vacate their room the following day.

Pace Hall, 2017, by Kreeder13. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

In the 1990s, a few students in one of these dorms decided to play with a Ouija board in an attempt to contact the spirit in Pace Hall. The group succeeded in contacting something after which the terrified girls witnessed “a paper clip tapping on their window from the outside, and things moving around the room.” As a result, the university had the room cleansed to settle the activity, though students continue to encounter activity throughout the buildings.

Sources

  • Brown, Alan. The Haunting of Alabama. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2017.
  • Ferrell, Mary. “Ghost stories on campus.” Tropolitan (Troy University). 30 October 2014.

Randolph County

McCosh Mill
McCosh Mill Road
Rock Mills

Though the location is a bit remote, the ruins of this mill have become a popular place for picnicking families and teenagers searching for a thrill. Located on the banks of Wehadkee Creek, this mill possibly dates to the early 1870s when it was constructed by James Eichelburger McCosh, grandson of local industrialist Jacob Eichelburger who built the cotton mills in Rock Mills. The mill, which ground corn into meal and wheat into our, operated until 1958. It was purchased by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in 1970 as part of the building of West Point Lake. According to the National Register of Historic Places nomination form, the mill remained standing until vandals set it ablaze. The stone foundation and the mill race are the only remaining features at this site.

The ruins of McCosh Mill, 2015. Photo by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

This mill figures into lore on both sides of the state line, and there are many stories and much misinformation. A friend of mine, Celeste, and her husband Randy lived near the ruins until recently. The couple would often venture down to the site after dark to enjoy the quiet, and it is here that they have had a few experiences. Randy rode his four-wheeler down to the ru- ins one evening alone, and while he was there felt that something climbed onto the back of the vehicle with him. Fearing what was behind him, he started back home and never looked back. The unsettling feeling did not leave him until the next day.

A photographer and friend of Celeste’s took her children down to Wehadkee Creek to enjoy the water. As they played, the woman took video and photographs. At one point in the video, a woman appears near the children for a split second. After seeing the vid- eo, the startled mother looked over the photographs and saw the same woman in a few of the photographs seemingly watching from the treeline.

The ruins of the mill are located at the end of McCosh Mill Road which begins in Troup County, Georgia and eventually turns into a dirt road. Continue down this road to reach the mill; though proceed with caution as the road is heavily rutted and damaged from recent logging in the area. The site cannot be reached from Alabama.

Sources

  • Floyd, W. Warner & Ellen Mertins. National Register of Historic Places Nomination form for the McCosh Grist Mill. 27 May 1976.
  • Interview with Celeste P., LaGrange, GA. 23 July 2015.
  • Randolph County Heritage Book Committee. Heritage of Randolph County, Alabama. Clanton, AL: Heritage Publishing Consultants, 2000.

Russell County

Elite Café
1501 Fifth Avenue
Phenix City

The Elite Cafe with its infamous parking lot where Albert Patterson was shot. He died near where the historic marker now stands. By Lewis O. Powell IV, all rights reserved.

On the evening of June 18, 1954, as state attorney general nominee Albert Patterson walked to his car parked in the parking lot between the Coulter Building and the Elite Café (pronounced ee-light), he was shot three times. He was able to crawl towards the Coulter Building where he died on the sidewalk. The assailant was never apprehended, though he was most likely associated with the organized crime and the rampant corruption in Phenix City that Patterson had been fighting to destroy.

In the early 20th century, Phenix City had a reputation as the wickedest city in America. Fueled by the influx of soldiers to Columbus, Georgia’s Fort Benning, across the Chattahoochee River from Phenix City, the city had become a haven for prostitution, gambling, alcohol, and other forms of vice. Patterson, a successful lawyer and politician, campaigned on cleaning up the city. Sadly, it took Patterson’s death to spur these changes.

Higdon & Talley report that a gentleman in an old-fashioned suit has been seen in the parking lot and on the sidewalk around the Elite Café and the Coulter Building. Perhaps Patterson is still minding Phenix City hoping it will not return to its sinful ways.

Sources

  • Grady, Alan. “Albert L. Patterson.” Encyclopedia of Alabama. 24 July 2007.
  • Higdon, David and Brett J. Talley. Haunted Alabama Black Belt. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2013.
 

St. Clair County

St. Clair County remains the bane in my side. Despite all the searching, both online and in published sources, I cannot find an adequately sourced haunting within the county. Kelly Kazek describes the Flatwoods Community as “a settlement of freed slaves during Reconstruction” that “was later burned.” Nothing online or in the county heritage book provides information on this community. I have finally come across a haunting from this county! Please see my article on the roadside grave of William Gibson outside Springville.

Shelby County

Old Shelby County Courthouse
1854 Old Courthouse Circle
Columbiana

The oldest remaining courthouse in the state, the Old Shelby County Courthouse has seen a myriad of uses in its long existence. Constructed as a courthouse in 1854, miraculously, this building escaped being burned by Union raiders during the Civil War. The building was used by the county until 1908 when a new courthouse was built nearby. The building was put to use as a hotel and later a boarding house until around 1934 when the public library opened on the second floor. It now serves as a county museum.

Old Shelby County Courthouse, 2016. By Lewis O. Powell IV, all rights reserved.

A spirit reportedly dwells among the artifacts displayed within the old building. In a room on the second floor, the blinds are regularly adjusted by unseen hands. The same room often gives staff members a creepy feeling, and author Alan Brown reports that some workers in the building at night did see a spectral figure in this room. An investigation conducted in 2002 did not turn up any evidence of spiritual activity, though the investigators did have some strange personal experiences.

Sources

  • Brown, Alan. Haunted Birmingham. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2009.
  • Floyd, W. Warner. Nation Register of Historic Places Nomination Form for Columbiana City Hall. 19 July 1974.
  • Reed, Martin J. “Shelby County’s 1854 Old Courthouse in Columbiana gets new address, improvements.” com. 31 January 2013.
  • “Shelby County ghosts busted.” Shelby County Reporter. 24 July 2002.
 

Sumter County

Alamuchee-Bellamy Covered Bridge
Campus of the University of West Alabama
Livingston

The oldest remaining of Alabama’s covered bridges; the Alamuchee-Bellamy Covered Bridge may harbor the spirit of an outlaw. The bridge was originally constructed to span the Sucarnoochee River but was moved to the nearby Alamuchee Creek after its replacement by a concrete bridge. It served automobile traffic there until 1958. The Sumter County Historical Society acquired the bridge in 1971, restored it, and moved the bridge to the campus of the University of West Alabama.

Alamuchee-Bellamy Covered Bridge, 2007, by Mld74. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

The bridge figures into the story of notorious Sumter County Sheri Stephen S. Renfroe. Sometimes known as the “Outlaw Sheriff Renfroe’s notoriety comes from his involvement in murders, leadership in the local Ku Klux Klan, excessive drinking, and embezzlement while in office. Renfroe eventually fled the county, but when he returned he was apprehended by a mob of locals and was lynched either near or on this bridge. A dark shade seen pacing the length of the bridge is believed to be the Outlaw Sheriff Author Alan Brown, a professor at the university who has penned many books on Southern ghosts, stated in a 1994 article that he doesn’t believe the bridge to be haunted.

Sources

  • Alamuchee-Bellamy Covered Bridge. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 16 May 2015.
  • “Bridge harbors legend: Serenity of covered bridge belies dark legend.” Mobile Register. 1 November 2004.
Posted on

A houseguest evermore—Mississippi

Dunleith
84 Homochitto Street
Natchez, Mississippi

A Haunted Southern Book of Days–December 2

This article is a part of an occasional blog series highlighting Southern hauntings or high strangeness associated with specific days. For a complete listing, see “A Haunted Southern Book of Days.”

Benjamin Franklin proclaimed that both fish and visitors smell after three days. So, what if the guest has yet to vacate the house after more than 150 years? The answer at Dunleith is that the guest enters legend and remains to occasionally disturb visitors, guests, and staff members.

Crowning a low hill rising above Homochitto Street, Dunleith takes the form of an ancient Greek temple with columns completely surrounding the main house and providing an exquisite view from any direction. The current house was built after the original house—a late-18th century structure—burned in 1855 after being struck by lightning.

Job Routh built the first home and named the estate Routhlands. After his death, the estate passed to Routh’s daughter, Mary, who married a wealthy, local banker, Charles G. Dahlgren, before they moved into the house. Dahlgren had the current structure built to replace the original house. In 1858, three months after the couple moved into the new home, Mary passed away and, in accordance with his wife’s wishes, Dahlgren sold the house dividing the proceeds among their children. After the 1859 purchase, the new owner renamed the estate Dunleith.

The exact identity of the spectral houseguest is unknown, and she is only known as Miss Percy. Folklorist Kathryn Tucker Windham included Miss Percy’s legend in her 1974 book, 13 Mississippi Ghosts and Jeffrey, and suggests that she was a relative of Mary Routh Dahlgren. This is a possibility. Mary Malvina Routh was born in 1813 and married Thomas Percy Ellis at the age of 15. She had two children by the handsome and educated Mr. Ellis, but he passed ten years after their marriage.

Dunleith, by Carol M. Highsmith. Courtesy of the Carol M. Highsmith Archive, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.

Among the graves in the Routh family cemetery near the Dunleith property—where Thomas Percy Ellis rests—and within the Natchez City Cemetery—where Mary Dahlgren and her second husband rest—there are no graves bearing the surname Percy, though there are a few that use the name Percy. Therefore, it is possible Miss Percy may have been related to Mrs. Dahlgren from her first marriage, though her exact identity remains unknown.

The legend, as it is commonly recounted, describes Miss Percy as a young woman who ran afoul of the social mores of the time by falling in love. In a time of strict marital customs, Miss Percy began an affair with a dashing Frenchman. Some suggest he was an aristocrat who was part of the entourage of Louis Philippe, the French king who spent time in Natchez on his grand tour of the South before attaining the throne. After saying farewell to her lover, Miss Percy traveled to France, unaccompanied, to be reunited with him. She spent time as a member of the French court and lived a life of luxury, though the man eventually declined to marry the young woman from Mississippi. Socially ruined, she returned to Natchez as a lonely spinster to live out her days with relatives at Dunleith, where she would play her harp for hours each day still dreaming of her lover in France.

While some legends of this type tend to enjoy vague descriptions of activity that “is said” to occur, this activity has witnesses. An article in a 1983 edition of the Hattiesburg American records the stories from a cook, Ella Mae Green, who worked in the house. In fact, Ms. Green states that she almost did not take the job because of the ghost, but Dunleith’s owner convinced her to stay.

Ms. Green provides a visual description of Miss Percy, “she usually came in bones [I presume this means she had a skeletal appearance], but the third time she was wearing a long white gown.” She continued, “you can’t see her face—like smoke around it. She doesn’t talk, just watches, but you can tell she’s unhappy. She died with an unhappy heart.” The cook emphasizes later that the spirit’s face is obscured, saying, “You can’t see her face, but it looks like she has eyes.” According to Ms. Green, the wraith usually stays on the third floor where she can remain undisturbed, but she makes occasional appearances throughout the house including playing her harp in the parlor and making the sound of breaking glass.

While Dunleith’s most famous houseguest continues to roam the main house, she is not the only spectral guest on the estate. Since the mid-1970s, the estate has opened its doors to guests as an inn and the Gothic Revival carriage house has been transformed into a fine dining establishment, The Castle Restaurant and Pub. Staff of the restaurant have had encounters with three spirits in this building including a shadowy man, a woman, and an African-American laborer. While stories of these three spectral guests may be more modern, their stories have been lost in the shroud of time and legend, and none will ever outshine the everlasting, harp-playing, spectral houseguest reigning over the main house evermore.

Sources

  • Brooking, Ann. “Ghost of Dunleith died of an unhappy heart.” Hattiesburg American. 19 October 1983.
  • Dunleith. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 18 March 2018.
  • Goeldner, Paul. National Register of Historic Places Nomination form for Dunleith. Listed 14 September 1972.
  • Kane, Harnett Thomas. Natchez on the Mississippi. Originally published in 1947. Republished as an eBook by Pickle Partners Publishing, 2016.
  • Pascoe, Jill. Mississippi’s Haunted Mansions. Gilbert, AZ: Irongate Press, 2012.
  • Windham, Kathryn Tucker. 13 Mississippi Ghosts and Jeffrey. Tuscaloosa, AL: U. of Alabama Press, 1974.
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From a dumpster fire to a Husk—Savannah

12 West Oglethorpe Avenue
Savannah, Georgia

In 2006, a ghost tour guide told a reporter from the Houston Chronicle that this one address in Savannah has seen “more conversions than Billy Graham,” a reference to the nationally known evangelist. Of course, these were conversions to one of Savannah’s true religions: belief in the paranormal. According to this tour guide, this site has played host to a panoply of tragedies and, as a result, now hosts paranormal activity.

During this particular tour, guests were allowed to step up to the front door of this forlorn house and take photographs in hopes of capturing evidence of the home’s ghosts. Reportedly, some guests experienced battery drain with their cameras and even motorized wheelchairs. Others were shocked at what appeared in their photos.

This particular site—within Savannah’s massive historic district—has seen a tremendous evolution since the city’s founding in 1733. As noted by a monument in the median of West Oglethorpe within sight of the house, this property was initially the city’s first Jewish cemetery. A burial spot for the local Jewish community was later established some distance away, though, the graves were left at this site, which evolved into a residential area.

12 West Oglethorpe Savannah Husk Restaurant
Husk in October of 2019. Photo by Lewis O. Powell IV, all rights reserved.

The house at 12 West Oglethorpe is an unassuming Georgian home with an elegant circular porch. Among the numerous homes in Georgia’s oldest city, the house is not as old as some of its neighbors, dating only to around 1898. Built as a home, the structure’s modest history includes the building’s use as an Elks Lodge and later, a performing arts school, until the building was abandoned in 1985.

During the time that the house sat boarded up, ghost stories began to circulate and the home became a fixture on many ghost tours. Here, guides would relate the sad tale of Dr. Brown, a physician who occupied the house in 1876, during the last of the yellow fever epidemics to strike the city. Patients visiting the house brought the illness into the home and one by one, the doctor’s family died after succumbing. Grief stricken, the good doctor sealed himself in one of the upstairs rooms and starved to death.

This is a great story, but total bunk. Yellow fever, which does feature in some local ghost stories, is not spread from human to human contact, but spread by mosquitos. Local tour guide and author, James Caskey was not able to locate any reference to a doctor living on this site (this house didn’t exist in 1876) or anywhere in this area named Brown. While this story isn’t true, that doesn’t discount the paranormal activity here. Some of the activity described by Caskey in his authoritative 2008 book, Haunted Savannah,  includes the apparition of an elderly man seen peering from an upstairs window—despite the fact that there was no floor underneath that particular window—odd sounds being heard by the neighbors, and several strange anomalies appearing in photographs.

A year after Caskey’s book was published, a dumpster fire set by teenage pranksters ignited the modern addition at the back of the house. Photos of the damage show the addition with broken, charred windows and a missing roof. Neighbors, worried about the building’s safety pressed the city for action, though they were thwarted by the slow-turning wheels of government and absentee owners.

Caskey makes an appearance in a recent episode of Haunted Towns on Destination America. The show follows the Tennessee Wraith Chasers as they visit cities and towns throughout the country with haunted reputations attempting to suss out why these places have earned such reputations. Their episode on Savannah concentrates on the legends surrounding Wright Square, located just around the corner from 12 West Oglethorpe. Caskey is interviewed early in the episode where he notes that legend of the square and the house may be connected.

Wright Square, just around the corner from 12 West Oglethorpe. Photo by XEON, 2013, courtesy of Wikipedia.

He also remarks that the house has never been investigated, spurring the show’s investigators to investigate themselves. In fact, another local guide and investigator, Ryan Dunn, explored the house in 2010 and had a frightening encounter. On the second floor Dunn’s camera “powered down for no apparent reason.” He continues, “As I looked up, I saw a black shadow person cross the hallway in front of me from one bedroom to the other.” He describes the shadow figure as being three dimensional and roughly shaped like a person, but with no discernable features.

Dunn also includes a fascinating tale from the 2009 fire. After extinguishing the fire, local firefighters held a fire watch in order to ensure that the fire did not reignite. Staying in the house overnight, the firefighters began to tell ghost stories and daring each other to creep up the stairs to the “haunted room” where Dr. Brown supposedly died. One firefighter bravely entered the room and let out a scream. Dashing down the stairs, the firefighter remained in his vehicle out front for the rest of the evening, refusing to reveal what he encountered in the room.

During the Tennessee Wraith Chasers’ investigation, they meet a property manager working on the renovation of 12 West Oglethorpe who told them the story of Dr. Brown. While the story is being told, the crew’s camera unexpectedly cuts out. After getting their camera up and running, the property manager tells the investigators that he had had one peculiar incident while working in the house where his name had been called by a disembodied voice. The paranormal team did a sweep of the house including the basement where a temperature gauge registered a temperature of 66.6 degrees. During the evening investigation, the group experienced battery drain, captured a few EVPs, and heard a disembodied voice.

The building opened its doors on January 5th as the Savannah outpost of the Charleston restaurant Husk. In the award-winning hands of chefs Sean Brock and Tyler Williams, Husk opened in Charleston, South Carolina in 2010 in a historic haunted home next door to haunted landmark, Poogan’s Porch. Serving Nouveau Southern cuisine, the chefs playfully rework classic Southern dishes and ingredients bolstered by research into the gastronomic history of the region. The restaurant has also made a point to occupy historic structures in order to preserve the historic built environments in addition to food ways and incidentally, the spirits, of each city where it operates.

Sources

  • Caskey, James. Haunted Savannah: The Official Guidebook to Savannah Haunted History Tour, 2008. Savannah, GA: Bonaventure Books, 2007.
  • Cowen, Diane. “Spirited Savannah.” Houston Chronicle. 19 March 2006.
  • Curl, Eric. “Three downtown Savannah historic commercial buildings closed to public and awaiting restoration.” Savannah Morning News. 16 November 2013.
  • Dunn, Ryan. Savannah’s Afterlife: True Tales of a Paranormal Investigator. Atglen, PA: Schiffer, 2014.
  • “Savannah.” Haunted Towns. Season 1, Episode 3. Originally aired 9 August 2017.
  • Whiteway, Maria. “Husk is here!” Connect Savannah. 10 January 2018.
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Florida Hauntings, County by County–Part I

This is part one of a project to examine a ghost story from every single county in Florida.

See part I (Alachua-Brevard Counties) here.
See part II (Broward-Clay Counties) here.

 Alachua County

Beaty Towers
University of Florida
Gainesville

Beaty Towers, 2011, by Porsche997SBS. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Built in 1967, this modern student dormitory building is supposedly the domain of the spirit of a young woman who committed suicide. Local lore relates that this young woman, distraught over a failed relationship or a pregnancy leapt to her death from her dorm room window. The spirit has been heard sobbing and seen walking the halls. She also gets the blame when student’s things go missing. When pressed, most university officials have denied that anyone has died in this building, though Tom Ogden notes that a university historian spoke of a suicide here.

Sources

  • Dailey, Erin. “Feeling brave? Gainesville’s greatest haunts.” Gainesville Scene. 30 October 2013.
  • Enkerud, Mark. “UF campus holds decades of legends, ghost stories.” Independent Florida Alligator. 16 August 2009.
  • Ogden, Tom. Haunted Colleges and Universities. Guilford, CT: Globe Pequot Press, 2014.
  • Williamson, Amanda. “Gainesville and surrounding areas boast a collection of haunted tales.” Gainesville Sun. 28 October 2012.

Baker County

Olustee Battlefield Historic State Park
US-90
Olustee

 In February of 1864, Union forces set out from occupied Jacksonville, Florida with the intent of making inroads into the state to cut supply lines, free slaves, and possibly recruit African-Americans for service in the Union army. Heading west towards Lake City, the Union forces under Brigadier General Truman Seymour encountered entrenched Confederates under the command of Brigadier General Joseph Finegan at Olustee Station near Ocean Pond. Among the union forces involved in this battle was the 54thMassachusetts Volunteer Infantry Regiment, one of the first and most well-known African-American units.

Olustee Battlefield entrance sign, 2007. Photo by Ebyabe. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Fighting through the thick forest of palmetto and pine, the almost equally pitted troops (5,000 Confederates versus 5,500 Union troops) fought throughout the afternoon of February 20. The Confederates repulsed the Union troops and inflicted heavy casualties, causing the Union to lose some 40% of their forces (203 killed, 1,152 wounded, and 506 missing, a total of 1,861 men) while the Confederates lost about 20% of their forces (93 killed, 847 wounded, and 6 missing, a total of 946 casualties in all). Union forces retreated to Jacksonville after being beaten back.

The battlefield, created as Florida’s first state park in 1912, is home to an annual reenactment during which re-enactors have had a number of odd experiences primarily involving full-bodied apparitions. One of the more interesting of these was an encounter between a re-enactor on a horse and a spectral Union soldier. The specter appeared and tripped the horse throwing the rider. Before the re-enactor could recover, he was smacked in the face by a rifle butt. Looking around, the shaken re-enactor searched for evidence of the soldier who tripped him, no footprints or any evidence was found. While no other documented encounters have been as violent, many have seen apparitions of soldiers.

Other tales recall the spectral sounds of war frequently heard here including the sounds of men shouting and gunfire. Investigators here have also captured some very interesting EVPs including a voice that responded, “Damn, I’m dead” when told that the spirit died in battle here.

Sources

  • Battle of Olustee. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 27 November 2010.
  • Brown, Alan. Stories from the Haunted South. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2004.
  • Lapham, Dave. Ghosthunting Florida. Cincinnati, OH: Clerisy Press, 2010.
  • Messick, Bonnie. “’Local Haunts’ TV show features Jacksonville ghost hunters.” 29 September 2010.

Bay County

Holiday Inn Resort
11127 Front Beach Road
Panama City Beach

 Panama City Beach is often associated with the rowdy Spring Break activities of high school and college students. Over the past few decades as Spring Break has become more and more a riotous celebration, young men, feeling invincible thanks to youth and fortified by alcohol, have engaged in “balcony diving.” Climbing up buildings Spiderman-like, despite state laws banning the practice, some have fallen and been seriously injured or killed. The spirit that has been seen on the upper floors of this modern resort is reportedly decked out in typical Spring Break attire—a white t-shirt, colorful shorts, and sunglasses on a cord around his neck—but the figure is missing his head. Perhaps this spirit remains to warn others to not engage in the same dangerous behavior.

Sources

  • Lewis, Chad and Terry Fisk. The Florida Road Guide to Haunted Locations. Eau Claire, WI: Unexplained Research Publishing Company, 2010.

Bradford County

Florida State Prison
7819 Northwest 228th Street
Raiford

When they find me they must kill me,
Oh Jesus, save my soul!
I can’t go back down to Raiford,
I can’t take that anymore.

–Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Four Walls of Raiford” (1987)

Shortly before his execution in the electric chair here, serial killer Ted Bundy confessed that he was afraid to die. Despite his personal fear, Bundy led more than 30 victims to face death throughout the west and in Florida. It was at the Chi Omega sorority house at Florida State University in Tallahassee in 1978 where Bundy attacked four sisters killing two of them and disappeared into the night. A few weeks later, Bundy abducted and killed a 12-year-old girl from her junior high school in Lake City. After being found guilty of these murders, Bundy was incarcerated here while he awaited his appointment with the electric chair, January 24, 1989.

A former guard reported in 2001 that several guards witnessed the apparition of Bundy “sitting casually on the electric chair,” smirking at them. So many staff members encountered the spirit that the warden could not find anyone willing to enter the execution chamber alone. Others saw Bundy in his former holding cell on death row. Blogger Lon Strikler of the blog, Phantoms and Monsters, published two emails he received regarding the spirit of Bundy. One email was from a local construction worker who saw a spirit resembling Bundy walk past him accompanied by the form of a young woman. Another email from an inmate reveals that inmates have frequently seen Bundy’s smirking spirit strolling through one of the housing units.

Sources

  • Ramsland, Katherine. “Ted Bundy’s Ghost.” Psychology Today. 27 October 2012
  • Strikler, Lon. “Recent ‘Ted Bundy’ Ghost Sighting.” Phantoms and Monsters Blog. 17 August 2015.
  • Word, Ron. “Survivors are haunted by memory of Ted Bundy 10 years after execution.” Seattle Times. 24 January 1999.

Brevard

Ashley’s of Rockledge
1609 US-1
Rockledge

Ashley’s, 2010, by Leonard J. DeFrancisci. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Some believe that Ethel Allen’s rough road to her grave included a stop at Jack’s Tavern, her favorite local hangout. Several years ago, I wrote about paranormal investigators conducting an EVP session at Ms. Allen’s grave in the Crooked Mile or Georgiana Cemetery on Merritt Island. After asking if she was present, investigators received a reply, “yes.”

On November 21, 1934, Ethel Allen’s mutilated body was found on the banks of the Indian River in Eau Gallie, some 16 miles away. The nineteen-year-old had been seen just a few days before when she stopped at a local packing house to say goodbye to a friend. Ethel was leaving to visit her mother, accompanied by a male acquaintance and she may have also stopped by her favorite local hangout, Jack’s Tavern, now Ashley’s of Rockledge. The Tudor-style restaurant has paranormal activity, some of which has been attributed to Ethel Allen.

A variety of sources state that Ethel may have been murdered within the walls of the restaurant in a storeroom (possibly near the famously haunted ladies restroom) or just outside the building. A local genealogy blog makes no mention of where Ethel may have met her end, but I get the feeling it probably was not in or around the busy tavern. The stories of the restaurant’s haunting are readily available though they seem to perpetuate different variations of the murder.

The activity runs the gamut from simple, cold breezes to voices and screams to full apparitions being seen and captured on film. Some sources also note that the activity does not seem to be limited to just the possible shade of Ethel Allen. There are other possible spirits including a child and an adult male. It seems that Ashley’s may be one of the most paranormally active restaurants in the state.

Sources

  • Boonstra, Michael. “1934 Murder of Cocoa’s Ethel Allen.” Michael’s Genealogy and Brevard County History Blog. 9 April 2011.
  • History. Ashley’s of Rockledge. Accessed 3 November 2014.
  • Jenkins, Greg. Florida’s Ghostly Legends and Haunted Folklore: Vol. 1 South and Central Florida. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 2005.
  • Neale, Rick. Brevard’s spookiest spots are dead center for teams of specter-spotters.” Florida Today. 27 October 2013.
  • Thuma, Cynthia and Catherine Lower. Haunted Florida. Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole, 2008.
  • Walls, Kathleen. Finding Florida Phantoms. Global Authors Publications, 2004.
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There’s something about Mary—Maryland

The Judge’s Bench
8385 Main Street
Ellicott City

The rain had slackened on the night of July 30th in Ellicott City, Maryland when the water flowing down Main Street began to form into cascades and eventually a torrent. The historic cobblestone streets and storefronts funnelled the raging water into a flume as it sought the refuge of the Patapsco River at the foot of Main Street. Cars, pedestrians, mud, merchandise, and eventually pavement and parts of the street joined the river-bound tumult. Within hours much of the street itself had been swept away leaving the foundations of the buildings on either side exposed. In the chaos, two lives were lost, several buildings totally destroyed, and many more sustained severe damage.

Ellicott City is no stranger to flooding and its historic streets and buildings bear scars from floods over the centuries. Some of those scars are spiritual in nature. It has been claimed that Ellicott City is the most haunted city in the country—though I take no stock in any claims of being “the most haunted”—though at least some of that haunted nature may stem from the floods. The father and son ghosthunting team of Michael J. and Michael H. Varhola, authors of Ghosthunting Maryland, posit that granite may also be a cause. The city lies on a large deposit of granite, some of which has been quarried for the city’s building materials. Indeed, many historic structures use granite as well as the city’s cobblestone streets. Regardless of the cause, Ellicott City does have more than its fair share of ghosts.

Flood waters have severely damaged storefronts on the lower end of Main Street. Photo from MDGovPics, 2016, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Maryland’s governor tours Main Street after the flooding. The Judge’s Bench is located just up the street on the left. Photo from MDGovPics, 2016, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Situated on the upper reaches of Main Street, The Judge’s Bench escaped the damage visited on its neighbors down Main Street by the floodwaters of July 30, 2016. As part of downtown Ellicott City, however, The Judge’s Bench has not escaped the city’s more haunting aspects. Indeed, this pub has one of the city’s more well-known ghost stories. In fact, the story is noted in the building’s description in the Maryland Inventory of Historic Properties.

The Inventory of Historic Properties notes that the Judges Bench property has been occupied at least as far back as 1860. The stone and wood frame building on this site has been occupied by several businesses over the decades, most notably Berger’s Grocery Store. During this period, the grocery’s proximity to the local courts supposedly brought judges to the store on their lunch. The judges would often sit on a bench outside the store as they ate, thus the name “The Judge’s Bench.” In researching the building, I stumbled across an interesting article in the Baltimore Sun concerning a fire that severely damaged a block of Main Street in 1940. Unfortunately, while the article notes Berger’s Grocery, a laundry, and the Church of God as being in this block, it does not specify addresses and I can’t determine if this was the exact block.

The story of the fire is interesting, however, especially in the treatment of the Chinese immigrant businessman, Der Wong, who owned and operated the laundry that was decimated in the fire. The reporter decided that the fire was much less interesting than Mr. Wong’s personal story and the loss of his life savings (in cash) that he stored in the now-ruined building. While the reporter treats Mr. Wong and his story condescendingly, he also buries the details of the fire, though he notes that much of Berger’s Grocery was lost and that the Bergers, both of whom were 56, escaped to the roof of the building where firemen brought them down by ladders. No one was killed in the fire.

The Judge’s Bench has operated as a bar for several decades and for much of that the story has been told of the resident spirit, Mary. According to locals, the daughter of the Bergers took her own life in 1962 on the third floor by hanging herself from one of the building’s rafters. While she makes her presence known throughout the building, her spirit is most active on the third floor. In 1997, the bar’s manager told a reporter from the Baltimore Sun, “I make people come upstairs with me because I’m scared.”

Staff had already had issues with liquor bottles falling from behind the bar and one of the bar owners opened one morning to discover liquor bottles neatly lined up on the floor behind the bar. Other staff had issues with the restrooms where toilets would unaccountably flush on their own, faucets would turn themselves on, and an entire roll of toilet paper once unrolled itself while no one was in the bar but a single staff person.

Some years ago, one of the owners was working in the building’s third floor, she was shocked to feel a cold breeze, but could not locate a source. A 1997 investigation of the bar documented in a Halloween article in the Baltimore Sun provides the impressions of a psychic who explored this haunted area. “The only thing I’m getting is that someone once used this as a refuge,” the psychic contends, “I think this was a refuge…a place where maybe someone came to hide from everyone.” The psychic noticed the rafter where Mary supposedly hanged herself and the sensitive remarked, “There’s something about it that keeps catching my eye. It looks like there was fire damage or something.”

Since the disastrous July floods, the Judge’s Bench has reopened and life has begun to return to Main Street and presumably, Mary has returned to her antics.

Sources

  • “Chinese laundryman loses life’s savings as shop burns.” Baltimore Sun. 6 April 1940.
  • Maryland Investory of Historic Properties. “The Judge’s Bench.” Accessed 2 January 2017.
  • Nitkin, Karen. “Change is stranger at Judge’s Bench.” Baltimore Sun. 27 July 2000.
  • Nitkin, Karen. “Ghost tours attract visitors to Ellicott City.” Baltimore Sun. 29 July 2011.
  • Ollove, Michael. “The spirits move them.” Baltimore Sun. 31 October 1997.
  • Peterman, Erika D. “Spirited excursion attracts ghost club.” Baltimore Sun. 24 May 1998.
  • Rector, Kevin. “2 dead, emergency declared after historic Ellicott City ravaged by flash flood.” Baltimore Sun. 1 August 2016.
  • Sachs, Andrea. “A history spree in Ellicott City, Md.” Washington Post. 16 October 2014.
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Rock ‘n Roll Revenants—Washington, D.C.

Roll & Roll Hotel
1353 H Street, NE
Washington, D.C.

Not far from the halls of the nation’s power, H Street—lined with handsome commercial buildings from another age—escapes towards Maryland. The Rock & Roll Hotel occupies one of these old commercial building, a building that is evidently still occupied by spirits from its previous incarnation: a funeral home. Some of the spirits may enjoy the loud, hard-driving rock music that has replaced the comforting organ music that is usually played throughout funeral homes, but other spirits apparently are disturbed by it.

According to a Halloween season article in the Washington City Paper, the nightclub’s staff (despite its name, the Rock & Roll Hotel is a live music venue and nightclub) has had numerous odd experiences throughout the building. One employee had his wife wait on him in the lobby while he locked up the building. When he returned, she was standing on the street.

“She’s like, ‘Weird, someone left the radio on.’ And it’s like some old talkie show, and they’re talking about her. And they’re describing her dress, and asking, ‘Who is she? Why is she here?’ So I come down five minutes later, and she’s literally standing in the middle of H street with her arms crossed like, ‘Nope, nope, nope.’”

Other members of the staff have heard the sounds of disembodied footsteps, voices, and have witnessed the occasional spectral figure within the building. Several staff members have been spooked in the building’s restrooms when they’ve heard stall doors slamming while in the restroom while they were alone. Candles that were distinguished by staff before locking up have been found burning the next day, even when they were doused with water.

Sources

  • Rudig, Stephanie and Justin Weber. “Some believe that the Rock & Roll Hotel nightclub hosts more than just shows.” Washington City Paper. 27 October 2016.
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Ramblings from a Spirited Alabama Sojourn

During the first few minutes of the first annual Haunted History Tour in the small town of Wetumpka, Alabama, my tour group was shuffled into a room in the unrestored portion of the town’s CHAMBER OF COMMERCE BUILDING (110 East Bridge Street). The dingy room was in rough shape and a collection of folding chairs was set out for tour participants. I glanced through a doorway into an adjoining room and was greeted by a scarecrow with a mischievous grin painted on its burlap face.

The Wetumpka Chamber of Commerce just before Wetumpka Haunted History Tour, 2016. Photo by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

The thought ran through my head, “Someone has put out some tacky Halloween decorations out for this tour. Oh my God, I hope the rest of the tour isn’t like this!” My fears were allayed however when the guide began talking about how this scarecrow moved on its own around the third floor. Passersby on the streets outside have noted the scarecrow peering down on them from one of the third floor windows. When they look again the scarecrow is often looking down from a different window. Employees of the chamber of commerce have also noted the scarecrow’s erratic movement, even once finding it torn apart on the floor of the bathroom. Even more shocking was when the scarecrow reappeared “in pristine condition”—to use our guide’s words—the following day in its usual position overlooking downtown.

The chamber’s scarecrow that moves on its own accord. Photo by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

The scarecrow, along with the other spirited compatriots, is overseeing a revival that’s taking place in downtown Wetumpka and throughout the state of Alabama. The state is beginning to awaken from its long, sad economic dream state and confidently stride back towards a fully awakened existence. Utilizing its own history, hominess, natural hospitality, stories, and even its ghosts, Alabama is brushing off the dust of its past and creating a more hopeful future.

Some of you may have noticed my absence during October. Please forgive me, I have been traveling throughout Alabama taking part in investigations and ghost tours. The life of a blogger can be rather dull when you’re only writing about these places rather than experiencing them. Last Halloween I promised myself that I would leave my schedule open this year so I could take advantage of the various investigations and ghost tours that crop up during the Halloween season. With one exception, all my investigations and tours were in Alabama, a state that I have discovered really wants its stories told.

My first jaunt, the first weekend of October, took me to Sylacauga, the Marble City. Located in central Alabama, Sylacauga (pronounced sil-uh-CAW-guh), is about 45 miles south east of Birmingham. The town was built primarily on marble quarrying: carving up the fine marble vein that spans thirty miles under this section of Talladega County. Near the downtown, the COMER MUSEUM (711 North Broadway Avenue) is situated in an Art Deco-styled marble-clad building built in the 1930s as the town’s library. Sculptures and carvings from the local marble grace the entrance of the elegant building that serves as a virtual attic for the area squirrelling away and displaying an array of historic artifacts.

I was in town for an investigation at the museum with S.C.A.R.E. of Alabama, a group founded by authors Kim Johnston and Shane Busby (who wrote Haunted Talladega County together, Johnston is also the author of Haunted Shelby County, Alabama and Haint Blue: The Rockford Haunting). Members of the group include haunted collector and author Kevin Cain whose book, My Haunted Collection, is now a part of my Southern Spirit Library, he’s also written a number of supernatural fiction works; and Kat Hobson who hosts the radio show “Paranormal Experienced with Kat Hobson” on which I appeared a few months ago and will be appearing at the end of this month. The group hosted this investigation as part of a series of public investigations that they host as fundraisers for the places investigated.

The fascinating investigation concentrated on a number of objects throughout the building that may have spirit attachments. See my rundown of the investigation here, “The Haunted Collection in the Marble City—Alabama.”

Entrance to De Soto Caverns, 2016. Photo by Lewis O. Powell IV, all rights reserved.

On the route I decided to stop outside of Childersburg to check out DeSOTO CAVERNS & FAMILY FUN PARK (5181 Desoto Caverns Parkway). As I waited for the cave tour I watched a young father carry his child off the porch of the gift shop heading towards the family’s car. In his arms the child squirmed and cried in the depths of a temper tantrum. As they passed the statue of Hernando de Soto the father said, “Hey look, it’s Hernando de Soto!” The child only screamed louder. Goodness knows that de Soto inspired similar reactions from the natives when he marched through this area in 1540.

Interior of the caverns with a replica of a native burial in place. Photo by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

Scholars suggest that Spanish explorer and conquistador Hernando de Soto may have stopped in the area as he hacked his way through the forests and natives of the region. While there is no proof that he visited the cave, there is evidence that it was known to the local natives. Several native burials were located in the main room of the cave as well as the remains of a white trader who was killed after he carved his name in the cave which was considered sacred to the natives. Being a cave fan, I was happy when Johnston and Busby included the cave in their book on haunted Talladega County.

While I have had some creepy experiences in caves (see my experiences at Lost Sea Cave in Sweetwater, TN), I didn’t have anything odd happen. Johnston and Busby note that a young daughter of the cave’s owners had experiences with Native American spirits during her childhood on the property. Worried that these spirits may have been upset by the family’s use of the cave as a tourist attraction, the owners brought in members of the native tribes that once owned the land to cleanse the property and rebury the bones of their ancestors that had originally lain quietly in the cave. Apparently, the spirits have been appeased, though I do wonder if there is any residual energy that may cause some activity on occasion.

Sylacauga itself seems to be waking up however: a number of buildings in its downtown were occupied and open for business including what appeared to be several new restaurants. For dinner I considered BUTTERMILK HILL RESTAURANT (300 East 3rd Street) which occupies an early 20th century house just outside of downtown. Listed in Johnston and Busby’s book, the restaurant shares the house with an assortment of spirits and a dark history that includes a murder within the past decade. While the menu looks delectable, it was a bit pricey for my current budget, though I did take some pictures.

Buttermilk Hill Restaurant, 2016. Photo by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

My second sojourn to Alabama took place over the penultimate weekend of October. Due to work on Friday, the trip turned out to be rather rushed and I didn’t have much time to really enjoy it the trip up. S.C.A.R.E. of Alabama sponsored an investigation of JEMISON-CARNEGIE HERITAGE HALL MUSEUM (200 South Street East) and the adjoining ARMSTRONG-OSBORNE PUBLIC LIBRARY (202 South Street East) in Talladega. Despite  NASCAR races taking place the same weekend at the nearby (and cursed, supposedly) Talladega Superspeedway in Lincoln, the leafy streets of Talladega were quiet and still. South Street boasts some fine institutions and a handful of ghosts. On this peaceful night, antebellum MANNING HALL (205 South Street East), the huge, main edifice of the Alabama Institute for the Blind and Deaf, across the street from Heritage Hall was lit up like a beacon. Heritage Hall’s smaller, more feminine, Beaux-Arts façade was lit up as if in graceful answer to Manning Hall’s heavy, masculine Greek Revival colonnade. According to Johnston and Busby, Manning Hall does have some spirits of its own, quite possibly including the shade of the Institute’s founder, Dr. Joseph Johnson.

Manning Hall at the Alabama Institute for the Deaf and Blind. Photo by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

The Jemison-Carnegie Public Library was the dream of Louisa Jemison, a member of the prominent Jemison family who now have a handful of haunted places associated with them. Designed by noted Alabama architect Frank Lockwood, the library was built with a donation of land from Louisa Jemison and the Carnegie Foundation. When the library opened in 1908 local lore tells of a little 8-year-old girl sitting on the top step the first day and her being the first person to check out a book. The little girl, Gentry Parsons, would eventually pen her own books and donated many books to this library.

The facade of Heritage Hall on the night of the investigation.
Photo by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

Good architecture has power. In creating beautiful spaces, the architect can physically manipulate those entering the space; the eyes and chin are raised and the dignity of the space encourages those entering to straighten their back out of respect. With better posture, those entering have their senses heightened and the feeling of awe can mellow into a sense of inspiration, lightness, refinement, and freedom. Like the great cathedrals of Europe, the architecture of Heritage Hall does exactly that. The high ceilings, airiness, and grace raises the senses of those walking up the front staircase and entering the front door. The main bay of the building is a large open space with a dramatic staircase directly ahead leading down to the main librarian’s desk.

Interior of Heritage Hall just inside the front door. Photo by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved. 
The interior of Heritage Hall looking down the stairs just inside the front door towards the old librarian’s desk. Photo by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

After entering for the investigation I was greeted by the museum’s director and given an excellent tour of the building. The open space inside with the walls lined with art from local artists gives the place a sense of veneration and the art displays the tremendous talent throughout the region. I was also introduced to some of the paranormal activity that has been experienced here. With this building being a community center for such a long period of time, the energy that has passed and continues to pass through it has likely left a psychic imprint. That can be one explanation for the disembodied footsteps and doors opening and closing on their own accord. As a library, this building has also inspired passion for many people, people who return to this beloved spot in spirit. Some of the spirits believed to still oversee business here are Miss Willie, a former librarian; Tom Woodson, a long-time director of the museum who died a few years ago; and Louisa Jemison who may return to check on her beloved library.

Main entrance of Armstrong-Osborne Public Library, 2016. Photo by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

Spooning Heritage Hall like a protective older sibling is the Armstrong-Osborne Public Library which opened in 1979. Sadly, the architects of the newer building did not take their cues from Lockwood’s design. The building is minimalist and angular with no ornamentation; utilitarian modernist at its worst. The interior is very typical late 20th century library design which emphasizes function over design. While the architecture is nothing to write home about, the institution itself seems to be very well stocked and the librarians and staff present were delightful and very interested in the investigation.

Hall of Heroes entrance. Photo by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

The library itself has experienced a modicum of strange activity particularly around the genealogy room and its adjacent hallway which are actually part of a 2006 addition to the building. That hallway is now the Hall of Heroes, honoring the many men and women of Talladega County who have served in the armed forces. The hall is lined with photographs ranging from World War I to the most recent conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq. In this hallway the spirit of a woman has been seen while the sounds of a party sometimes emanate from the genealogy room itself when it’s empty. The investigation of the library and Heritage Hall didn’t really uncover much evidence-wise. After sitting with Ghost Boxes in the main reading room of the library we adjourned to the genealogy room and the Hall of Heroes. Fitted out with computers, microfilm readers, and shelves of books old and new, the genealogy room isn’t particularly creepy, even in the dark. We did an EVP session and at one point seemingly heard a “no,” though I was one of the few people to hear it. It may have also been gastric noises from one of the participants. After relocating to Heritage Hall we didn’t pick up much activity, though we had some K2 spikes when some of men began lounging on Miss Willie’s library desk.

The Hall of Heroes is lined with the photos of men and women who served in the armed forces from Talladega County. Photo by Lewis O. Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

Sources

  • Johnston, Kim and Shane Busby. Haunted Talladega County. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2015.
  • “History.”Talladega Armstrong-Osborne Public Library. Accessed 12 November 2016.
  • “Our History.” Jemison-Carnegie Heritage Hall Museum. Accessed 12 November 2016.
  • Wetumpka Area Chamber of Commerce. Wetumpka Haunted Heritage Tour. 28 October 2016.
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Street Guide to the Phantoms of the French Quarter—Royal Street

This article is part of my series, Street Guide to the Phantoms of the French Quarter, which looks at the haunted places of this neighborhood in a street by street basis. Please see the series main page for an introduction to the French Quarter and links to other streets.

Royal Street

Hotel Monteleone
214 Royal Street

This imposing hotel is the tallest building in the French Quarter and, at 600 rooms, among the largest. This building is a physical, literary, and paranormal landmark within the Quarter. When a lowly Sicilian cobbler, Antonio Monteleone, purchased a hotel in 1886, he probably did not imagine that it would be the beginning of a classic American rags-to-riches story. His hard work paid off and he acquired neighboring buildings and expanded his hotel. Since it opened its doors the hotel has attracted celebrities including numerous well-known writers who have mentioned the hotel in their works.

Hotel Monteleone, 2009 by Bart Everson, courtesy of Wikipedia.

One of the more well-known features of the Monteleone is the Carousel Bar featuring an actual carousel that was assembled in the bar in 1949 and rotates slowly as patrons enjoy craft cocktails. While patrons revolve at the bar, spirits revolve around patrons and staff throughout the hotel. Spirits here range from a trusty engineer to a little boy who supposedly died of a fever while his parents were out. Others include the spirits of a few people who committed suicide by jumping from the roof. The International Society of Paranormal Research investigated the hotel in 2003 and concluded that there are 12 individual entities patrolling the halls and corridors of this hotel.

Sources

  • Caskey, James. The Haunted History of New Orleans: Ghosts of the French Quarter. Savannah, GA: Manta Ray Books, 2013.
  • “History.” Hotel Monteleone. Accessed 7 June 2016.
  • Hudson, Shaney. “The Big Easy’s his haunt.” The Age (Melbourne, Australia). 27 February 2012.
  • Mroch, Courtney. “Why Hotel Monteleone’s Haunted 14th Floor Isn’t What it Seems.” Haunt Jaunts. 25 March 2011.

Cafe Beignet
334 Royal Street

The spirit of a Native American woman is occasionally seen strolling through this restaurant that occupies an old carriage house. Most likely she remains here from the time prior to the city’s existence. She is most often seen towards closing time.

Sources

  • Dwyer, Jeff. Ghost Hunters Guide to New Orleans. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2007.
  • Muro, Maria. “Haunted Eats.” New Orleans Living Magazine. 9 October 2012.

Louisiana Supreme Court Building
400 Royal Street

This monstrous white marble-clad building caused much controversy when the site was cleared starting in 1903. This block was originally a collection of 19th century buildings bisected by Exchange Alley which was lined with offices for architects, engineers, politicians and lawyers. The destruction that took place here contributed to the rise of preservation policies throughout the city. Upon completion of this building in 1910, the Louisiana Supreme Court, state Attorney General, and other courts moved in, though by 1934, the building was deemed inadequate. After years of deferred maintenance, the Supreme Court moved out in 1958. The building saw renovations starting in the 1990s and reopened in 2004 with the state Supreme Court returning to the building.

Rumors of the building being haunted began to arise during the building’s renovations. Author and researcher Victor C. Klein interviewed a construction supervisor and several workers and contractors who told similar tales of tools and equipment disappearing in the building. A number of them also encountered “a well dressed, middle age, white gentleman” whom they found looking out a window in the upper stories of the building. When confronted, the odd gentleman would disappear.

Louisiana Supreme Court Building, 2015 by MusikAnimal, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Klein continues by noting that guests of the Omni Royal Orleans Hotel on nearby St. Louis Street would report this man to the front desk staring intensely into their rooms. According to Klein, this was so frequent that the front desk had a scripted response to these calls, though they didn’t inform the guests that this gentleman is probably a ghost.

Jeff Dwyer remarks on several other spirits within the building including a pair of shooting victims who were supposedly gunned down in a courtroom during a Mafia trial in the 1930s and a panhandler who is sometimes seen just outside the building on Royal Street.

Sources

Brennan’s
417 Royal Street

One of the more well-known and respected restaurants in the city, Brennan’s has made its home in this historic building since it opened in 1946. This 1795 structure once housed the Bank of Louisiana. Later on in the 19th century, Paul Morphy, one of the most famous chess players in the world lived and died here. He may be the apparition that is sometimes seen in the dining room.

Sources

  • Dwyer, Jeff. Ghost Hunters Guide to New Orleans. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2007.
  • Taylor, Troy. Haunted New Orleans. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2010.
Brennan’s, 2015 by Infrogmation, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Court of the Two Sisters
613 Royal Street

One of the more romantic of New Orleans’ great restaurants, the Court of the Two Sisters possesses a number of legends including one about the gates through which patrons pass. The wrought iron gates are supposed to have been made in Spain where they were blessed by Queen Isabella with a charm that all those who touch them as they pass will be charmed. The restaurant occupies an 1832 building that housed a shop owned by two sisters, Bertha and Emma Camours. Apparently inseparable, the sisters operated a notions shop in this building for many years and, not being able to live without the other, died in 1944 two months apart.

The courtyard of this grand restaurant has a wishing well known as the “Devil’s Wishing Well” as it may have witnessed and been charmed by rites practiced here by Marie Laveau, the city’s great 19th century Queen of Voodoo. Until it was toppled by Hurricane Betsy in 1965, a willow tree grew here where pirate Jean Lafitte may have dueled with and killed three men. Those three men may be among the specters flitting throughout this courtyard. Enjoy one of the famous Jazz Brunches served here daily and be sure to pay homage to the sisters who may still be holding court.

Sources

  • Dwyer, Jeff. Ghost Hunters Guide to New Orleans. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2007.
  • “Our History.” Court of the Two Sisters. Accessed 8 June 2016.

LaBranch Building
700 Royal Street

The delicate lacy ironwork of this large home hides one of crueler ghost stories in this city. In the early history of the city a system of plaçage was practiced by many of the wealthy white planters. This system, found in Spanish and French colonies, allowed these wealthy men to take on mistresses, often free women of color, whom they would support. Certainly such arrangements caused conflicts within the legal marriages of these men. Such a conflict is at the heart of the story here.

Upon the death Jean Baptiste LaBranche, who owned this home at one time, his wife, Marie, was able to find out the name of his mistress. She sent an invitation to the young woman inviting her to tea. When the unsuspecting mistress arrived, instead of exchanging pleasantries over tea, Marie LaBranche had the woman bound and chained to a wall in the attic where she was left to die a slow death from starvation. While this is a marvelously gory legend, it is clouded with a good deal of doubt. Occupants of this building have reported paranormal activity, however. Cold spots and feelings of panic have overtaken some working on the third floor, where the poor mistress supposedly met her untimely death.

Sources

  • Dwyer, Jeff. Ghost Hunters Guide to New Orleans. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2007.
  • Taylor, Troy. Haunted New Orleans. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2010.

St. Anthony’s Garden
Behind St. Louis Cathedral across from Orleans Street

This meditative garden has existed here behind the cathedral since the establishment of the church. Located between two haunted alleys: Pere Antoine’s and Pirate’s Alleys, the garden is named in memory of Pere Antoine or Antonio de Sedella, whose spirit may haunt the alley named for him as well as St. Louis Cathedral. According to Jeff Dwyer, this garden was a popular place for duels in the mid-18th century. Some sensitives have detected wafts of smoke from those events.

Sources

  • Dwyer, Jeff. Ghost Hunters Guide to New Orleans. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2007.

734 Royal Street

Just like the story of the LaBranche Building, the story from this classic New Orleans town house involves a mistress, in this case she was an octoroon (she was 1/8th black) and her name was Julie. She was kept by a wealthy young man who was officially unattached in a well-furnished apartment here. Despite her pleas to her lover to marry her, he could not do so without losing his social standing and perhaps his fortune with it. Carelessly, in order to appease her frequent requests for marriage, the young man said he would marry Julie if she spent the coldest night in December nude on the roof. On the coldest night in December she undressed and crawled onto the roof. Her lover discovered her lithe corpse frozen not long after.

Since that time, Julie’s nude form has been seen on the roof of this building on the coldest night in December. During the remainder of the year Julie lingers in the warmth of the building’s interior. The Bottom of the Cup Tearoom once occupied the ground floor of this building (it moved to 327 Chartres Street) where the shop offered tea and psychic readings. Many of the psychics working here noted Julie’s shade and they believe she may have moved with the shop to Chartres.

Sources

  • Dwyer, Jeff. Ghost Hunters Guide to New Orleans. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2007.
  • Smith, Katheine. Journey Into Darkness: Ghosts and Vampires of New Orleans. New Orleans, LA: De Simonin Publications, 1998.

Cornstalk Hotel
915 Royal Street

This intimate boutique hotel occupies a mansion with a unique cast-iron fence featuring stalks of corn. Legend relates that the fence was commissioned to comfort the Iowa-born wife of a former resident by reminding her of the cornfields of home. Once the home of Judge François Xavier Martin, he may be one the spirits that still stalks the halls with his footsteps, rattling door knobs. The sounds of children have also been heard here.

Sources

  • Brown, Alan. The Haunted South. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2014.
  • Dwyer, Jeff. Ghost Hunters Guide to New Orleans. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2007.
Cornstalk Hotel by Infrogmation, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Andrew Jackson Hotel
917 Royal Street

A tragedy on this site more than 200 years ago may still continue to resonate today. A boarding school or orphanage (sources differ) stood here that was destroyed by fire. Five young boys lost their lives and they still play throughout the courtyard and hallways of this hotel. Sheila Turnage notes the experience of a night manager who was diligently working at his desk when he realized he was being watched. Looking up he saw the heads of a group of children trying to peer above the top of his desk. The children vanished moments later.

Sources

  • Asfar, Dan. Ghost Stories of Louisiana. Auburn, WA: Lone Pine Publishing, 2007.
  • Dwyer, Jeff. Ghost Hunters Guide to New Orleans. Gretna, LA: Pelican Publishing, 2007.
  • Taylor, Troy. Haunted New Orleans. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2010.
  • Turnage, Sheila. Haunted Inns of the Southeast. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 2001.

Starling Magikal Occult Shop
1022 Royal Street

If you care to test drive any of the ghost hunting equipment available for sale here, the Starling Magikal Occult Shop offers its own ghosts. In a 2015 article, the shop’s co-owner Claudia Williams noted that staff and patrons of the shop hear disembodied voices and feel the touch of invisible fingers. Objects occasionally move around on their own accord as well.

Sources

  • Lopez, Kenny. “Want to hunt ghosts? Here are the tools you’ll need…” 26 October 2015.

LaLaurie House
1140 Royal Street, private

Of the myriad haunted houses throughout the South, few have captured the public’s attention more than the hulking LaLaurie Mansion that looms over the intersection of Royal and Nicholls Streets. While the structure itself is significant historically and architecturally, it’s the legends of the atrocities that took place here and the ghosts from those events that draw crowds of tourists. Though the house is not open to the public, the legend still draws people here.

In 1831 this property was purchased by Delphine LaLaurie, the wife of Dr. Leonard Louis LaLaurie. Madame LaLaurie had been married and widowed twice before her marriage to the good doctor and she had five children by her previous husbands. After construction of the mansion in 1832, LaLaurie took up residence and became a central pillar to New Orleans society.

LaLaurie Mansion, 2011 by Reading Tom, courtesy of Wikipedia.

The legend goes back to a fateful report of a fire in the kitchen here April 10, 1834. Firefighters arrived to discover the kitchen in flames and an elderly slave cook chained to the stove. She admitted to setting the fire as a suicide attempt to prevent her being sent to attic from which she said no one ever escaped. A mob that had gathered broke their way into the slave quarters and soon discovered the mutilated remains of “seven slaves, more or less horribly mutilated … suspended by the neck, with their limbs apparently stretched and torn from one extremity to the other” as the New Orleans Bee described the events the next day. While the mob remained to destroy the house and grounds in anger, Madame LaLaurie and her family fled the city. No one ever faced justice for the cruelties inflicted on the slaves here. While this is the most commonly related legend about the house, there is quite a bit of controversy.

As the story has captured the imagination of many, it has found its way into books dating back to the late 19th century, film, television and even video games. Most recently, the legend of Madame LaLaurie was woven into the plethora of local legends in the story arc of American Horror Story: Coven. Portrayed by Kathy Bates, Madame LaLaurie is a simpering racist weighted down with a curse of immortality placed upon her by the immortal Voodoo Queen, Marie Laveau. Researchers looking into the legend in recent decades have revealed that Delphine LaLaurie’s reputation may have been targeted as part of a smear campaign.

Do the spirits of slaves still stalk this lovely mansion? Legends relate that former residents here encountered some horrific spirits, though there are few recent stories. Writer and psychic Kala Ambrose tried to commune with the spirits while standing outside of the house recently. While she stood there a number of curious tourists inquired if this was the famous LaLaurie House. A short time later when she placed her hand on the wall of the house a passing ghost tour group took photographs of her. She didn’t contact anything out of the ordinary, perhaps the house is now just haunted by tourists.

Sources

  • Ambrose, Kala. Spirits of New Orleans. Cincinnati, OH: Clerisy Press, 2012.
  • Caskey, James. The Haunted History of New Orleans: Ghosts of the French Quarter. Savannah, GA: Manta Ray Books, 2013.
  • Delphine LaLaurie. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 10 June 2016.