Category: Jails and Prisons

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No milkshakes after midnight—Bolivar, Tennessee

Old Hardeman County Jail
305 East Market Street
Bolivar, Tennessee

On a recent investigation of the old Hardeman County Jail in the small, but well-haunted town of Bolivar (pronounced BAH-lih-vur to rhyme with Oliver), paranormal investigators had a long conversation with a spirit that requested a chocolate milkshake. One wonders if milkshakes are unavailable in the afterlife. Certainly they’re unavailable in Bolivar after midnight.

Looking at the building from the all-seeing eye of Google Streetview, the old jail is a fairly unremarkable mid-century modern building as one heads out from downtown. According to a recent article from Mississippi News Now, this structure possesses several dark secrets. For one, the building is constructed atop a cemetery. Construction crews in the late 1950s did not relocate the graves on the site, choosing instead to simply build over them.

Of course, during the time that it served as a jail a great deal of sadness filled the building. Much of that sad energy continues to linger. A black figure has been reported walking through the booking area, the spirit of an inmate who took his life remains in his former cell, and the sounds of a woman’s sobbing emanates from the cells that once held females. The spirit of a former sheriff who also died in the building is sometimes felt. On this recent investigation he may the source of an EVP captured at the door to the former sheriff’s office.

EPIC Haunted Tours is now conducting investigations in the old jail and in other historic buildings throughout Bolivar including The Pillars and the Little Courthouse Museum—located just a few doors down from the old jail. I have covered one other location in town, Magnolia Manor, which was “certified” as being haunted several years ago. If you visit Bolivar, you might consider dropping off a chocolate milkshake at the old jail.

Sources

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Crime and Punishment in South Georgia

Crime and Punishment Museum
(Old Turner County Jail)
241 East College Avenue
Ashburn, Georgia

The war in Europe had been heating for only a few months when the front page of The Atlanta Constitution noted that a touch of winter was being felt in Georgia. The paper was almost entirely taken up with news from the fighting that the minor note on page 7 might be totally disregarded by the average reader.

12 September 1914
Page 7

 HANGED FOR THE MURDER OF HIS MOTHER-IN-LAW

Ashburn, Ga., September 11.—(Special.)—Miles L. Cribb paid the death penalty on the gallows in the county jail here this afternoon at 1 o’clock for the murder of his mother-in-law, Mrs. Mary E. Hancock, near Rebecca, in November, 1913. Only a few close friends of the family were allowed to witness the execution.

After bidding his aged mother, brothers and little 9-year-old son goodbye the condemned man mounted the scaffold with signs of nervousness.

Sheriff King sprang the trap at exactly 1 o’clock. Twelve minutes later Cribb was pronounced dead. The body was turned over to relatives who will leave tonight for Jones county where Cribb will be buried tomorrow.

The murder for which Cribb was hanged was serious enough to make a headline on the front page of The Atlanta Constitution’s front page.

8 November 1913
Page 1

THREE WOMEN ARE VICTIMS OF ENRAGED FARMER’S FURY; ONE DEAD AND TWO DYING

Miles Cribb of Rebecca, Ga., Kills His Mother-in-Law and Seriously Wounds His Wife and Sister-in-Law.

EFFORT MADE BY WIFE TO SECURE ONLY CHILD LEADS TO THE TRAGEDY

Estrangement Between South Georgia Farmer and His Wife Leads to the Death of Aged Woman and Wounding of Her Daughters

Cordele, Ga., November 7.—(Special.) Enraged because his wife would not agree to a reconciliation with him after a brief separation of two weeks, M. L. Cribb, a Turner county farmer, living about two miles from Rebecca, tonight about 6 o’clock shot and instantly killed his mother-in-law, Mrs. J. G. B. Hancock, fired two bullets into the body of his wife, probably fatally wounding her, and then turning the pistol on his sister-in-law, Miss Sallie Hancock, fired the remaining bullets, inflicting a wound from which she will probably die during the night.

 Reports are to the effect that Cribb went to the Hancock home about 6 o’clock and, pushing open the dining room door without a word of warning, ripped out a revolver and shot Mrs. Hancock, 70 years of age, dead in her chair at the supper table, fatally wounded his wife and seriously wounded his sister-in-law, Miss Sallie Hancock.

[…]Cribb hastily left the scene before aid from nearby neighbors reached the wounded women and sought a hiding place in the woods nearby.

Miles Cribb made his way to his brother’s home where he attempted suicide by putting his revolver to his head but his brother, Rev. W. J. Cribb, was able to grab the weapon from him and urged him to surrender. The article notes that this horrific incident stemmed from his mother-in-law’s attempt to get custody of the couple’s child, presumably the son mentioned in the article about the hanging. The 1913 article concludes with the gathering of a mob wishing to lynch Mr. Cribb.

[…] Feeling is strong against Cribb in the Rebecca district, and is rapidly growing stronger, and it is believed that Warden Putman is trying to get Cribb to a place of safety early enough prevent mob violence.

[…] Late reports from the little town are that a mob has formed near the scene of the shooting and will make an effort to take Cribb from the officers f they are located. These reports have not been verified.

The streets of Rebecca are practically deserted, nearly all the male citizens having gone to the scene of the tragedy.

The following day Mr. Cribb again was in the front page headlines of The Atlanta Constitution:

9 November 1913
Page 1

 I Know I Must Pay Penalty But Save Me From Lynchers, Cries Cribb, Women’s Slayer

 Cordele, Ga., November 8.—(Special.) Miles L. Cribb who was the principal actor in one of the dastardly and horrible crimes ever enacted in the section of Georgia…is now safely confined in the Dougherty county jail [in Albany, GA]. While he is now probably safe from mob violence, feeling in the community near the scene of the tragedy continues [to be] very intense, and it is thought that until he is given trial, if then, it will not be advisable to return him to the Turner county jail.

[…]Upon the arrival of Putnam [the warden who arrested Cribb] and Cribb on the outskirts of Ashburn they found a mob had gathered there, intending to do violence to Cribb if he was brought there. [Sheriff John A.] King was notified of the whereabouts of Cribb, and eluding the angry citizens, he took him in an automobile as rapidly as possible to Sylvester and then to Albany.

Once the furor died down, Mr. Cribb was eventually transferred to the Turner County Jail where he faced a jury next door in the Italianate halls of the Turner County Courthouse on January 6, 1914. Both Cribb’s wife and sister-in-law survived their wounds and were present. Word of the trial was not published in The Atlanta Constitution until nearly a month had passed.

7 February 1914
Page 12

 CRIBB MUST HANG FOR BLOODY DEED

Wife Smiles as Ashburn Man Is Sentenced for the Killing of His Mother-in-Law.

 Ashburn, Ga., January 6.—(Special.) “We, the jury, find the defendant guilty,” was the verdict returned this afternoon by the twelve men who had been chosen to decide the fate of Miles Cribb, who was placed on trial in Turner superior court this morning at 8:30 o’clock charged with the murder of Mrs. Mary E. Hancock, hos mother-in-law, in the Rebecca district last November.

Silence pervaded the crowded courtroom from the time the bailiff in charge of the jury announced to the court that they were ready to enter until the last word of the sentence of death was uttered by Judge Cox, fixing Tuesday, March 3, 1914, as the date of execution.

Between his aged mother on the right and the Rev. W. J. Cribb, his brother, on the left, the unfortunate man sat with bowed head for the most part throughout the trial which lasted from 10 a. m. to 1:30 p.m. The mother of the defendant sobbed constantly, as did the defendant, himself, as his counsel feelingly pleaded for mercy from the jury.

[…]The wife of the defendant, together with her relatives, who occupied the front seat, smiled her approval of the verdict and sentence as the condemned man was turned over to the sheriff.

[…]It is very likely that Cribb will remain in the jail here until his execution as the bitter feeling toward him immediately after the crime has almost subsided.

Cribb languished in the Turner County Jail for a number of months before he was executed there in September, less than a year after his heinous deed. The Turner County Jail is not atypical of turn of the century jails that remain in small towns throughout the South. It’s a heavy brick building in the reigning vernacular style of the period with some Romanesque-revival elements. The building takes on a very solemn air, especially when compared to the righteous flamboyancy of the courthouse next door. The jail features a tower-like element on its west corner that echoes the clock tower on the courthouse and the steeple of the Baptist church that can be seen between the two when viewed from College Street. This solemnity gives the building the air of strength, order, and as a place to avoided.

Old Turner County Jail, 2015, by Jud McCranie. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

According to a 2003 article, the jail’s strict architectural lines led it to be referred to as the “Turner Castle” by locals. It was constructed in 1906 for Turner County which had been established the previous year. The jail opened in 1907 for inmates. As was common in small town jails, the building provided a home for the sheriff and his family as well as room for inmates. The sheriff’s wife was tasked with providing meals for the inmates as well as her husband and family.

At the back of the building a metal staircase leads to the second floor where male inmates were confined in small 7’X 7’ cells. Two bunks on either side provided sleeping accommodations for the inmates, four of which could be confined in a single cell. The second floor also held a “death cage” where Cribb would have been confined in the hours leading up to his meeting with state-sanctioned fate. This cell is just a few steps from the steel trap door that would drop Cribb to his death at the end of a strong rope. This harsh conditions persisted until the county opened a new jail in 1994.

According to the jail’s documentation in the Georgia Architectural and Historic Properties Survey, the solemn mood of the jail sounded like something akin to a revival service for Cribb’s hanging, the last hanging conducted in Turner County and the second hanging in the jail (the other was in 1907). Mrs. Netta Shingler, who sang a hymn before the execution, described the event as a “once in a lifetime” event attended by the sheriff, deputy sheriff, school superintendent, and a prominent local Methodist minister. A service was held where Mrs. Shingler notes that “if the prisoner heard us he made no signs but those conducting the service were overcome.”

The jail has been preserved as a museum examining the harsh jail conditions that once existed throughout the South. Among the artifacts displayed here is a bloody shirt collar of Miles Cribb’s shirt from his execution. While the museum explores the spirit of crime and punishment in the South, spirits persist here as well, trying to tell their own stories. The spirits slam doors, shake beds, and have been noted to leave indentions in the old mattresses in the cells. Museum staff have allowed a number of paranormal investigation groups investigate the jail with one of the groups, Southeastern Paranormal Investigative and Information Team (S.P.I.R.I.T. Paranormal), having a piece of tile thrown at investigators in the basement during their 2012 investigation. Reportedly, the tile shattered on an opposite wall.

During this investigation members of the team had a variety of personal experiences seeing, hearing, and feeling things. A member of the Ghosts of Georgia Paranormal reported that during their investigation in 2013 that he heard voices throughout the building. The Albany Herald has just recently reported on ghost tours of the jail that are now being conducted on Friday and Saturday nights by the Paranormal Society of Middle Georgia. Perhaps Miles Cribb is still pitifully pleading forgiveness for his heinous deeds.

Sources

  • “Ashburn, GA. Museum puts a lock on history.” com. 15 July 2003.
  • “Ashburn man spends the night in haunted jail.” 12 June 2015.
  • Big Bend Ghost Trackers. “Investigation Report for the Crime and Punishment Museum.” 6 October 2007.
  • Blanchard, Haley. Georgia Architectural and Historic Properties Survey: Turner County Jail. No date.
  • “Cribb must hang for bloody deed.” Atlanta Constitution. 7 February 1914.
  • Ghosts of Georgia Paranormal Investigations. “Investigation Report for Old Jail Museum, Ashburn, Ga.” 13 April 2013.
  • “Hanged for the murder of his mother-in-law.” Atlanta Constitutition. 12 September 1914.
  • “Historic jail in Ashburn offering ghost tours.” Albany Herald. 27 March 2016.
  • “I know I must pay penalty but save me from lynchers. Atlanta Constitution. 9 November 1913.
  • P.I.R.I.T. Paranormal. “Investigation Report for Crime & Punishment Museum.” 23 June 2012.
  • “Three women are victims of enraged farmer’s fury.” Atlanta Constitution. 8 November 1913.
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” As the Georgia moon sends ghastly shafts”—Albany, Georgia

N.B. This article was edited and revised 20 May 2020.

In searching through some old Alabama newspapers, I stumbled across this fascinating article from Albany, Georgia. Located in southwest Georgia, Albany ranks as the 8th largest city in the state, though its distance from major interstates has limited its growth. It should also be noted that a non-Georgian can easily be  identified by how they pronounce the name Albany. Most Georgian’s know that the town’s name is pronounced as AWL-benny rather than ALL-bany.

In addition to being a damn good ghost story, this article provides fascinating historical details. The article begins by calling on Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, the great Scottish writer and physician who created the great Sherlock Holmes. Sir Conan Doyle had a fascination with spiritualism and was active in the British spiritualism movement. This article does comment somewhat on the spiritual movement that was sweeping America at this time, particularly with its description of locals gathering to hear these spirit voices.

birds eye view of Albany Georgia 1885
A birds-eye view of Albany, Georgia, 1885.

It should be noted that this article is a product of the Jim Crow South. I do not personally condone this racist ideals or language that permeate this article.

For a glimpse at the lives of African-Americans in Albany at this time, Wikipedia provides a summary of African-American writer W.E.B. Du Bois’s  1903 description of the city is his book, The Souls of Black Folk:

He described it as a typical African-American majority-populated rural town in the Deep South. Du Bois discussed the culture, agribusiness, and economy of the region. Du Bois described Albany as a small town where local sharecroppers lived. Much of the soil had been depleted of nutrients because of intensive cotton cultivation, and people found it hard to make a living. Once a bustling small city with an economy dependent on cotton, it had numerous cotton gins. The planters were dependent on slave labor and Albany had declined steadily in the late 19th century. After the disruption of the Civil War and poor economy of the late nineteenth century, the local agricultural economy suffered. Du Bois wrote that Dougherty County had many decaying one-room slave cabins and unfenced fields. Despite the problems, local folklore, customs, and culture made Albany a notable small city in the South.

The Anniston Star
Anniston, Alabama
Page 1
9 June 1922

Page Sir Conan, Georgia City is Haunt of Ghost

Spirit of a Hanged Negro is Making Folk Uncomfortable in Albany, Ga.

ALBANY, Ga., June 9.—(United Press)—Call for Sir Conan Doyle! Call for Mr. Doyle!

Albany has a “spirit” he may commune with to his heart’s content, if he isn’t too high toned a spiritualist to attend the same séance with the ghost of a hanged negro.

Z. T. Pate and his family live in what used to be the Warden’s quarters of an old abandoned jail here. The rear of the building, where years ago, prisoners waited their fate, is now but a shell, but the ancient warden’s quarter’s [sic] make a comfortable home for the Pates.

Recently while in the rear of his house, Pate said he heard a voice—a negro’s voice—speak clear and distinctly out of nowhere—“Boss, dis rope aroun’ mah neck shore do hurt.”

Pate was startled, but interested. He told others about it but got the usual answer—a skeptical laugh.

Then he invited in a few of his neighbors. They sat in the back room and listened. Nothing happened until they became quiet, the [sic] again the voice from nowhere saluted them.

Now it’s one of Albany’s chief places of interest.

Each night as the Georgia moon sends ghastly shafts throughout the broken windows of the old jail a party of Albanites gather in the Pate’s home and listen. They have not been disappointed yet, Pate says.

The voices will not answer a question. It will ask them and comment upon things said in the room. A person, in a whisper, will say something as a test to one sitting by him. Although no other person in the room can hear what has been said, the strange voice comments intelligently upon what the whisperer has told or asked his neighbor.

The building has been examined throughout for wires and none have been found. Nothing that could be used for a radio receiving set is in the building. Tests have been made to see if a ventriloquist is responsible and the theory abandoned.

Recently two gentlemen of color were taken in the ghost chamber.

“Who is them niggers, Mr. Pate?” the voice demanded.

With terror gripping the negroes, [sic] Pate answered giving their names. The building seemed about to collapse according to those present. Sounds of breaking woodwork of falling furniture and breaking glass were heard. The negro visitors lost only a few seconds in decamping.

There are many here who laugh at Pate’s ghost as it is called but none have solved the mystery of the strange voice yet, and they still come nightly to “listen in.”

A search for other newspaper accounts and the exact location of this jail has been fruitless.

Sources

  • Albany, Georgia. Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 6 December 2015.
  • “Page Sir Conan, Georgia City is Haunt of Ghost.” Anniston Star. 9 June 1922. Page 1.
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A Southern Feast of All Souls—Newsworthy Souls

A collection of hauntings from recent news.

Marty’s Blues Café
(formerly Brandi’s Blues Cafe)
424 West Beacon Street
Philadelphia, Mississippi

N.B. This location has been covered in more detail in “Death on the move–Philadelphia, Mississippi.“

The chef at Brandi’s Blues Café was working in the kitchen early one recent morning. Startled by a loud bang he continued working until he heard water running in the sink. He walked over, turned the sink off and returned to his work. Glancing up he saw a figure standing near the kitchen door. It was “about 6 ft. It had a little pot belly. I saw it for three or four seconds.” Thinking it was a co-worker, the chef returned to work. After discovering he was alone in the building he began to hear footsteps and he left the building until his coworkers showed up.

After researching the history of the building and the area, it was discovered that a man was executed nearby in the 1940s. Paranormal investigators brought in to investigate did pick up an EVP response when they spoke the name of the man executed.

Sources

  • Gater, Harold. “Is this Mississippi blues café haunted?” The Clarion-Ledger. 24 September 2015.
  • Jennings, Lindsey. “Haunted Philadelphia Café Investigated.” 24 September 2015.

McRaven House
1445 Harrison Avenue
Vicksburg, Mississippi

The new owners of the McRaven House, often described as the most haunted house in the state, have been very busy restoring the historic house and mingling with the home’s famous ghosts. In one interaction, the new owners captured an EVP of a female’s voice saying, “That’s a funny old clock.” The house has a number ghosts covering nearly all periods of the home’s history from the late 18th century to the present day. McRaven is now open to visitors for history and haunted history tours.

McRaven House, 2016, by Zamburak. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

Sources

  • Norris, Alana. “McRaven House opens its doors Friday.” Vicksburg Post. 28 September 2015.

Old Chatham County Jail
145 Montgomery Street
Savannah, Georgia

The Savannah Ghost Research Society has recently deemed the Old Chatham County Jail to be “the most haunted place” in this paranormally active city. Ryan Dunn, founder and head of the society told the Savannah Morning News, “We came in with a lot of equipment and pretty much investigated the place. We caught a lot with audio. We did capture a couple with thermal imaging and thermal cameras.” Dunn notes that the group captured more audio evidence here than they have captured at any other investigation.

The old jail is a formidable modern building that stands out from the historic buildings which surround it within the venerable Savannah Historic District. In use as a detention facility until 1989, the building has since been used for storage of archival records and, for Halloween, the building is being used for a haunted house called “Panic in the Pen,” and hosting paranormal tours as a fundraiser by the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff called in paranormal investigators to help add some real life terror to this already terrifying building.

Employees in the old facility have noted paranormal activity here since the building’s retirement as a correctional facility. One of the sheriff’s deputies remarked that he remembers hearing doors slam and footsteps in the building at night.

Sources

  • Hoagland, Karen. “Old Chatham County Jail investigated for paranormal activity.” Savannah Morning News. 13 September 2015.
  • Ray, Brittini. “Investigators: Old Chatham County jail ‘’most haunted place in Savannah.” Savannah Morning News. 1 October 2015.
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The season for specter-spotting—Newsworthy Haunts 10/9/2014

With the Halloween season already in full swing, media has started pumping out news items profiling our spectral friends throughout the country. Here’s a sampling of recent paranormal news from the South.

Gainesville Public Library
127 Main Street, NW
Gainesville, Georgia

If anything, the Gainesville Public Library does not outwardly appear to be a classic haunted building. The red brick, Brutalist-style building resembles countless modern library buildings throughout the country, but it includes something that many of those libraries do not have: a few ghosts. One of those spirits made an appearance during an investigation last weekend.

The library has been known to be haunted for some time and Nancy Roberts wrote about it in her 1997 book, Georgia Ghosts. The primary spirit Roberts wrote about has been called “Miss Elizabeth” or the “Lady of the Library” by the library staff. One staff member encountered her one night as she was closing. A strange young lady stood near the elevator, “she was only a few feet from me! Her brown hair, which was soft around her face, fell to her shoulders. She was about medium height and wore a long, dark dress, either navy or black.” The staff member turned away momentarily and when she turned back, the strange woman had vanished.

Other staff members described Miss Elizabeth in a 2011 Gainesville Times article as “wearing a long, dark skirt with a white shirt and a dark shawl. Her dark hair is pulled away from her plain face; on her neck she wears a broach.” In addition to seeing this fleeting apparition, the spirit is blamed for turning lights off and on, moving books and possibly riding on the elevator.

While the library building is not old, the property upon which it sits has quite a bit of history. At times during the history of the town, the property was a homestead and also contained a family cemetery. In the 1920s, the graves were moved and a hotel built on the site. The hotel was torn down to build the library.

During the recent investigation, however, it wasn’t Miss Elizabeth who made an appearance; it was the spirit of a small child. During the library sponsored investigation lead up by members of the Southeastern Institute for Paranormal Research, investigators encountered a spirit in the children’s section named Emma. One group heard the giggle of a child, while someone in a different group was touched lightly on the arm and then later another participant had her hair lightly tugged. A sensitive in the group stated that the spirit was a little girl with curly blonde hair dressed in a style reminiscent of the 1950s.

The sensitive remarked that the child seemed to be happy, loved book and “was glad someone had come to play with her.”

Sources

  • Gunn, Jerry. “Ghost hunters seek spirits at Gainesville Library.” Access North Georgia. 20 September 2014.
  • Gunn, Jerry. “Paranormal investigators meet a girl named Emma.” Access North Georgia. 5 October 2014.
  • King, Savannah. “Local ghost hangouts: Gainesville Library.” Gainesville Times. 30 October 2011.
  • Roberts, Nancy. Georgia Ghosts. Winston-Salem, NC: John F. Blair, 1997.

Old Clay County Jail
21 Gratio Place
Green Cove Springs, Florida

The Florida Times-Union has recently deemed the Old Clay County Jail to be a place where it is always Halloween. Paranormal investigators have deemed the building to be one of the most active that many of them have seen.

Old Clay County Jail, 2010. Photo by Ebyabe, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Built by the Pauly Jail Company in 1894, the building saw its last inmate in 1972. The building now serves as home to the Clay County Archives. Like most corrections facilities, this building has seen the worst of society and a number of tragedies in its long history. Among the tragedies was the assassination of a sheriff, an inmate suicide, five executions and another suicide on the front lawn.

Reports of activity from the jail include voices, apparitions and hair-pulling. Activity has become so well known that the Clay County Historical Archives website features a page describing the haunted conditions of the building.

Sources

  • Buehn, Debra W. “Old Clay County Jail stars in Local Haunts’ TV show Sunday.” Florida Times-Union. 1 April 2010.
  • Clay County Historical Archives. Ghosts in the Old Jail. Accessed 9 October 2014.
  • Hogencamp, Kevin. “It’s Halloween all year at old Clay County jail.” Florida Times-Union. 3 October 2014.
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Playhouse Phantoms of Pensacola

Pensacola Cultural Center
400 South Jefferson Street

Florida has a glut of haunted theatres; not that that’s a bad thing. A recent project has me researching theatres throughout the South and it seems that Florida has more than any other state. Perhaps it’s geography or something in the air or all the seawater that surrounds the state; it gives one pause.

On the official website for the Pensacola Cultural Center, one statement stands out, “The spaces where judges handed out justice and criminals served their time are now filled with the positive energy of dancers, actors, artists, and students.” The building was initially constructed in 1911 as the Escambia County Building, housing the county Court of Records and the jail. Places where criminals were tried, sentenced, incarcerated and executed now thrum with the rhythm of the arts in this old building.

It seems that some of the criminals are still doing time in this Neo-classical structure. A man has been seen lurking within the building. A staff member working in the building afterhours heard the operating of a nearby elevator. Shortly afterwards the dark shadow of a man walked past the staff member’s open door. She called out but did not get a response. When she looked into the hallway, it was empty.

The Pensacola Cultural Center, 2007. Courtesy of Pensapedia.com.

A couple staff members working late in the auditorium saw a man sitting in one of the seats. They both saw him simultaneously and turned to look at each other. When they turned back, the man was sitting in a different seat, on the opposite side of the house. They described him as wearing a worn suit and having a gaunt face. Some have identified this male spirit as that of Hosea Poole, a small time criminal who murdered his brother. Poole was the last man executed in the jail when he was hung July 31, 1920. However, there is little evidence, other than coincidence, to solidly identify the spirit as Poole’s.

The playful spirit of a young girl, possibly from the 1920s or 30s has also been witnessed. Unlike the male spirit’s almost menacing presence, the young girl has been heard giggling and she has been seen playfully skipping through the hallways. She is known to peer curiously over shoulders and she is occasionally seen peering from shadowed corners.

Saenger Theatre
118 South Palafox Place

Known as the “Grande Dame of Palafox Street,” the Saenger Theatre was literally built from the ruins—the bricks and other fittings—of the Pensacola Opera House which was destroyed in the 1917 Nueva Gerona hurricane (so named for the destruction it caused to the Cuban town of Nueva Gerona). The theatre opened in 1925 as a venue for live performances and film. Broadway shows and vaudevillians on “The Road” played here as well as films like Cecil B. DeMille’s The Ten Commandments which opened the theatre.

Saenger Theatre, 2010, by Ebyabe. Courtesy of Wikipedia.

The Saenger thrived as a cinema for a few decades until competition from multiplex big screens and the small television screens now found in homes began to shrink the audiences to the Grande Dame. The theatre closed in 1975 but was reopened as a cultural center in 1981. The theatre was extensively renovated in 1996.

With the crowds that have passed through the theatre’s doors since its opening and whatever spiritual residue may be left on the old bricks and other fittings from the old opera house, it’s no wonder that the Saenger Theatre has some paranormal activity on hand. Voices have been heard in the balcony of the building and spirits may affect the electrical circuits at times. Author Alan Brown records an incident that happened to the electricians working on a touring show. Just after hanging and adjusting the lighting for a show, the lights began to flash erratically on their own volition. The blame for this activity is laid upon the spirit of a worker who died when the boiler in the basement exploded, though—like Hosea Poole at the Pensacola Cultural Center—there is nothing to specifically identify the culprit.

Sources

  • Brown, Alan. Haunted Pensacola. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2010.
  • Jenkins, Greg. Florida’s Ghostly Legends and Haunted Folklore, Vol. 3: The Gulf Coast and Pensacola. Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 2007.
  • Pensacola Cultural Center. About PCC. Accessed 26 February 2013.
  • Saenger Theatre (Pensacola, Florida). Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 26 February 2013.
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“Just Visiting”—Old Jail Tour, Charleston, South Carolina

Old City Jail
21 Magazine Street
Charleston, South Carolina

N.B. This article was edited and revised 30 June 2019.

ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
A set of old jail keys. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
A barred window. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
One of the jail corridors. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.

Standing in front of the Old Jail in Charleston, South Carolina, even in the midst of summer heat and humidity, is chilling. The building is imposing and threatening akin to a bully rising to ask, “Do you have a problem with that?”

On a chilly evening in early December with a chill wind blowing, the building grows more threatening. While waiting for my 10 PM ghost tour of the building, I stood in the cold with a few couples and spoke with a couple visiting from Rhode Island specifically for Charleston’s ghosts. They were staying in the Battery Carriage House Inn and had rented one of the haunted rooms for the evening. Definitely, they are proof that much can be said of “paranormal tourism.”

Our guide, Susan, was very efficient and no-nonsense; precisely the type that I like as a guide, someone who was down to earth yet open minded. In fact, she reminded me of the actress Ellen Page, someone I would love to just hang out with. She remarked that while the jail looks quite large and imposing from the outside, it is actually much smaller inside.

We walked around back and she discussed the gallows that stood behind the jail for many years. The design, apparently, was somewhat unique and would, at times, decapitate the victim instead of merely breaking their neck. She described one of the final executions, that of a young man who may have been in the wrong place at the wrong time. She ended with the statement “his ghost is said to be one of the many here.”

ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
A cage for the more dangerous criminals. These cages would hold multiple inmates at the same time. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell, IV, all rights reserved.
ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
The building is being stabilized and restored by the American College of Building Arts. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.

We moved inside and found ourselves in a cell where torture was described then moved on to a large room with a replica of the cage that was used for the more violent offenders. There was a discussion of criminals and their treatment and we moved again downstairs to see solitary confinement, the kitchen, and some other rooms off a small corridor on the lowest level. The guide pointed out a large room that had served as a surgery during the Civil War. She suggested that if any room had spiritual activity, it was that room.

ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
An original cell door. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
Another cell door. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
Yet another cell door. Note the “peep holes.” Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.

We finally entered a dark room next to the exit and were told a bit about paranormal activity involving the possible spirit of a former warden, one who had served at the jail for quite a long time. After this, we walked out a back entrance and the tour was over. I was surprised by the emphasis placed on the history and so little mentioned of the paranormal, this is a haunted jail tour, isn’t it? I cannot blame the guide, she was following a script which she later admitted was very dry and dull, she went so far as to say that all the guides spiced up each tour with additional stories and information.

Being disappointed at the lack of ghosts on the ghost tour, I stuck around to ask the guide what she’d experienced. She was more than happy to fill me in on the details. She mentioned that she had lasted longer as a guide on this tour than anyone else, as many others had been scared away, especially while having to lock up the building alone after tours. Personally, she’s heard voices in the empty building, specifically the sound of men in conversation as well as hearing her name called. She’s also been touched. She mentioned other guides who have felt nausea in certain areas and who’ve had much stranger experiences in the monstrous edifice.

I was happy to finally hear of some specific activity as most sources on the haunting fail to be very specific about the details of the haunting. While the conversation with the guide was quite interesting, it bothers me that few of those details were revealed on the tour. The tour is offered through Bulldog Tours which offers the Ghosts and Dungeon tour which I took a few months ago and which I would highly recommend. Unfortunately, the jail tour is the only real chance the public has of actually touring the interior as well. I’d like to encourage Bulldog Tours to review the script for this tour and add in some more ghosts.

At the outset of the tour, the guide encouraged the group to take pictures. She went on to say that balls of energy, known as orbs, were often captured in and around the building and that this was known as “paranormal activity.” Actually people quite often capture these “orbs” in all types of photographs and, more often than not, these are reflections of light off of water vapor, dust or insects.  Earlier that week, while visiting the Lost Sea in Tennessee, I took a series of photos while in the boat on the underground lake there and these photos, taken in a very humid environment, are filled with “orbs.” In my photos, I did capture one prominent orb. It may be dust or it may be paranormal.

ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
Looking down a flight of stairs. The orb is just below the center of the pic. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
Closeup of the orb. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell, IV, all rights reserved.

I did capture one other anomaly, though this is much stranger. The photo shows one of the upper hallways and is looking towards a set of metal stairs. There are two very bright lights around the stairs. This was taken with a flash and it appears to be very brightly reflected off of something, though I can’t figure out what. There’s a little bit of light reflected on the glossy paint of the stairs, but it’s not so reflective as to reflect back the amount of light in the photo. Again, I can’t say it’s paranormal, but it is odd.

ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
The odd light anomaly. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
Closeup of the light anomalies. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.
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“Layers on the dark history cake”—Charleston’s Old City Jail

Old City Jail
21 Magazine Street
Charleston, South Carolina

N.B. This article was edited and revised 30 June 2019.

See my photographs and a review of my tour of the Old City Jail here.

Zak Bagans of the Travel Channel’s paranormal show, Ghost Adventures, described the history of the South’s most genteel port city, Charleston, as “just layers and layers on the dark history cake.” It’s certainly an interesting analogy, though I must confess that I often find Mr. Bagans’ antics annoying. In fact, I have been known to refer to his team’s techniques as the “ADHD method of ghost hunting.” However, I am excited to see they are investigating Charleston’s Old City Jail.

ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
The Old City Jail. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.

Back in July, my love affair with Charleston was rekindled when I spent nearly a week there. I spent my days wandering the streets making a pilgrimage to sites that I’ve spent years reading about, including the Old City Jail. The building is a massive, looming structure that seems to glower down upon anyone passing along Magazine Street. If a building could threaten someone, this building would threaten a horrible, miserable death. Staring up at the crenellated turrets, decaying bricks, windows like empty eye sockets, and the massive and thick brick walls, it’s hard to imagine this place could not be haunted. The memory of it sends a chill up my spine.

For 137 years, 1802 to 1939, this hulking castle groaned with the cries of prisoners. The property upon which the building was constructed had originally been set aside for public use in 1680, and contained, at various times, a hospital, and a poor house. For many years, a workhouse for slaves called the Sugar House stood next to the hulking jail.

Slaves found “wandering” the streets were held in the Sugar House until their owners bailed them out. While locked away here, slaves would be forced to work on a treadmill to grind corn for use in the jail. This constantly turning treadmill often injured and maimed the slaves, and at times their bodies or body parts would end up in the ground corn.

The jail itself was just as harsh with inmates locked away in large, group cells, instead of individual cells. The most dangerous prisoners, or those that were possible escape risks, were chained to the floor. Men and women were not separated, and all had to live in filth where vermin, infection, and disease were rampant.

ghosts Old City Jail Charleston South Carolina haunted
The Robert Mills addition to the Old City Jail. Photo 2011, by Lewis Powell IV, all rights reserved.

Among the many unfortunate souls who passed through the building’s Gothic portal was the legendary couple, John and Lavinia Fisher, who lived their last days in the moldy, dark halls of this place. Their ghastly tale involved them murdering guests of the inn that they ran just outside town. While this legend is the focal point of many tour guides’ tales, A recent book has freed the couple from the shackles of their legendary crimes. Bruce Orr, a former Charleston homicide detective, explored the legend of the couple, their crimes, and their supposedly defiant ends discovering that all but the most basic facts were just myth. In fact, there is nothing to even corroborate that the spirits within the jail are even the revenants of the Fishers.

The harsh conditions led to the building of a new jail in the late 1930s. In recent years, a group led by the American School of Building Arts has been working to restore the crumbling castle on Magazine Street. Ghost tours now bring tourists through the damp halls that still echo with spirits.

Among the activity that Mr. Bagans and his crew might encounter inside the old jail are spirit voices, apparitions, and even physical contact. Staff and visitors have had numerous experiences. One of the more intriguing episodes was recorded in a 2002 article in the Charleston Post & Courier: a worker leaving the building late one evening felt that he wasn’t alone. This was confirmed when his flashlight beam picked up a grayish, gaunt man standing to the right of the exit door. He stared at the man for a moment and when he moved towards the man he disappeared, only to reappear on the left side of the door. The figure then vanished and the worker fled. Yet another layer in the cake of history…

Sources

  • ABC News 4. “’Ghost Adventures’ heads to spooky Charleston scene.” 19 October 2011.
  • Barbour, Clay. “Eerie, dark history haunts Old City Jail.” The Post & Courier. 27 October 2002.
  • Behre, Robert. “Old City Jail now a national treasure.” The Post & Courier. 28 May 1999.
  • National Park Service. “Old Jail.” Charleston’s Historic, Religious and Community Buildings. Accessed 7 August 2011.
  • Orr, Bruce. Six Miles to Charleston: The True Story of John and Lavinia Fisher. Charleston, SC: History Press, 2010.
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Haunting of the Old Heard County Jail

Old Heard County Jail
Court Square
Franklin, Georgia

Old Heard County Jail, now the Heard County Historical Center and Museum in Franklin, Georgia. This facility was built in 1912 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1981. Photograph by Lewis Powell, IV, 2010, all rights reserved.
Side view of the Old Heard County Jail. The inmate’s cells were located on the second floor while the first floor held offices. A museum employee reported hearing the sound of cell doors slamming shut when she was alone in the building. Photograph by Lewis Powell, IV, 2010, all rights reserved.
The tower on the front of the Old Heard County Jail. The gallows are located in this tower and were quite possibly used for executions. This location was investigated by West Georgia Paranormal Investigations and presented in their show, Ghost Burn. Photograph by Lewis Powell, IV, 2010, all rights reserved.

Sources

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A Mississippi Dante–Noxubee County

Noxubee County Library
103 East King Street
Macon, Mississippi

N.B. Revised 28 December 2017.

Downtown Macon Mississippi around the turn of the century haunted Noxubee County Jail Public Library ghosts miraculous vision
Jefferson Street, Macon, Mississippi, probably just after the turn of the 20th century. Courtesy of the Mississippi Department of Archives and History, Forrest Lamar Cooper
Postcard Collection.

Sitting in a jail cell in the newly opened Noxubee County Jail in 1907, Si Connor was visited by Jesus. “Jesus have been here since I been in jail and have taken me to hell and showed me everything there, and what sort of place it is,” he told a reporter a couple weeks before his execution. Connor was shown a “big fire” with a “man toting water to the folks in the fire.”

“Hell,” continued the inmate, “is a right big place. Yassah, I spec it is as big as Macon, maybe bigger.” In preserving the African-American man’s dialect, the unnamed reporter from the Macon Beacon showed no compassion for the man’s vision, based on race and class. Interestingly, Connor points out that the fire contained both whites and blacks.

Connor’s next vision took him to the gallows that had been erected for his own state-sponsored demise. The sheriff put the noose around his neck and a pair of angels appeared and told him, “Si, don’t you be skeered or shamed or nothing for you is a child of God.” The angels flew him to heaven where he was greeted by his grandmother, sister, and “my little baby.” “I saw lots of Noxubee county folks up there. Yassah, white people too.” Continuing in his vision, Connor replies, “Jesus Christ told me to tall all the people down here to believe in him and He would save them.”

The reporter notes that “the condemned man tells all this with earnestness and sincerity, but with the same silly smile he wore when on the witness stand telling of killing his wife with an ax.” The jailer is quoted saying that Mr. Connor “has no dread of death, saying he wants to stay here as long as he can but is ready to go and doubtless he is. As a horrible example to a portion of his race, he will prove a failure.”

Allow me to round out the scene with a bit of local history. In 1830, sixty Choctaw leaders met with government agents at a place with the marvelous name of Dancing Rabbit Creek. There the Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek was signed on the 27th of September ceding some 11 million acres of Choctaw land east of the Mississippi River to white settlers in exchange for some 15 million acres in Oklahoma.

The ceded land became a huge swath of what is now the state of Mississippi and a small portion of western Alabama. In 1833, the portion of the ceded lands around Dancing Rabbit Creek was established as Noxubee County, so named for the Noxubee River; meaning “stinking water” in the Choctaw language. Near the center of the county, on the Noxubee River, the town of Macon was established as the county seat. The town prospered and, according to the 1938 WPA guide to Mississippi, “the big white- columned homes are the remaining evidence.”

As Sherman burned the state capital, Jackson, during the Civil War, the state government moved to Macon temporarily, setting up business at the Calhoun Institute, one of a handful of schools in and around Macon. Two sessions of the state legislature met in these school buildings while one of them, as well as many of Macon’s church buildings, were commandeered for hospitals.

Most histories of the area seem to stop just after the turmoil of the Civil War, so one might be tempted to assume that the town returned to being a sleepy hamlet. Judging from the population numbers in the 1938 WPA guide (2,198 people) and the numbers provided by Wikipedia (2,461 people in the 2000 census), it seems that little has changed throughout the bulk of the twentieth century.

The original Noxubee County Jail was constructed in Macon in 1860, on the eve of the Civil War. Around the time the new jail was constructed, the old jail was described by a local attorney and state representative as being, “no jail at all.” Unfortunately for the local citizenry, the old jail was regularly the scene of prisoners simply removing bricks from the masonry walls to escape.

Macon Mississippi haunted Noxubee County Jail Public Library ghosts miraculous vision
The Old Noxubee County Jail and current library, 2009. Photo by Jimmy Emerson, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Hailed for its luxurious appointments, the new jail offered “steam heat, electric lights, hot and cold baths and ‘saw and file-proof cells,” which “will minister to [the prisoners’] comfort and pleasure their sense of the magnificent.” The new facility was constructed by the Pauly Jail Company, a company out of St. Louis that has been constructing correctional facilities since 1856. Quite a number of the historic (and haunted) jails remaining throughout the South were constructed by this company.

Recognizing the need for a modern facility, a new jail was constructed in 1978. The historic importance of the old jail was noted and the building was added to the National Register of Historic Places the same year it closed. In 1983, the building was renovated for use as a public library all the while maintaining some of the inner workings of the original building including bars and unused gallows.

About two weeks after Connor reported his description of the inferno to the Macon Beacon, gallows were erected for him across the street from the jail. During the days leading up to Connor’s hanging, he was allowed to preach to crowds of African-Americans that gathered below his window. On Friday, September 26th, 1907, before a crowd that had gathered to witness “the deep damnation of his taking off,” Connor left this world.

Connor walked, dressed almost entirely in black, resolutely to the scaffold and spoke in a strong voice before the noose placed over his neck and the trap sprung. The paper describes the scene with a sense of wonderment. “There were curious ejaculations as to the expressions of wonder at the nerve he exhibited in the face of horrible death, and there were—from the emotional members of his own race—exclamations of admiration for his courage and his religious faith that braved the terrors of the unknown future.”

According to Alan Brown, inmates of the jail reported that Connor continued to make appearances within the building and that his spirit still abides in the library that once held him. Perhaps this Mississippi Dante is still trying to save the living souls of Noxubee County.

Sources

  • Brown, Alan. Stories from the Haunted South. Oxford, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 2004.
  • Federal Writers’ Project of the Works Progress Administration. Mississippi: A Guide to the Magnolia State. New York: Viking Press, 1938.
  • “The Hanging.” Macon Beacon. 28 September 1907.
  • Macon, Mississippi. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 11 August 2010.
  • Newsome, Paul & William C. Allen. National Register of Historic Places Nomination form for the Old Noxubee County Jail.  28 September 1978.
  • “A Noxubee Dante.” Macon Beacon. 14 September 1907.
  • “Noxubee’s New Jail.” Macon Beacon. 11 May 1907.
  • Rowland, Dunbar. Mississippi: Comprising Sketches of Counties, Towns, Events, Institutions and Persons Arranged in Cyclopedic Form, Vol. II, L-Z. Atlanta: Southern Historical Publishing Association, 1907.
  • Treaty of Dancing Rabbit Creek. Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Accessed 11 August 2010.