HGB Ep. 567 - 1886 Olde Park Hotel

Moment in Oddity - Dr. Suess House (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

There is a very strange tower of a home located just outside of Talkeetna, Alaska. The home looks like it came straight out of a children's book. The outward appearance looks like 12 different homes all stacked on top of eachother with each subsequent house, smaller than the last. This is why it is known by locals as the Dr. Seuss House. The house itself has no correlation to the actual author, however the whimsical nature of the building's structure is the reason for the moniker. The home stands a towering 185 feet high. The creator and builder, Phillip Weidner, calls the structure his "poem to the sky". There are various ladders and staircases to the different levels which, according to what you are traversing, have a total of 14 to 17 floors respectively. The home is still currently under construction and due to the owner's day job as one of Alaska's top trial lawyers, Weidner finds it difficult to find the time needed to complete this unusual structure. He surmises however, that once it is complete, he and his family will enjoy the tower and he looks forward to sitting atop it to enjoy the Northern Lights in the future. We definitely recommend looking up photos of this unique home because it certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Phillips Brooks Born

In the month of December, on the 13th in 1835, Phillips Brooks was born. He was born into a wealthy New England family. He graduated from Harvard in 1855 and after a brief stint as a school teacher at the Boston Latin school, he began to study for his ordination in the Episcopal Church in 1856. While in seminary, Brooks preached at Sharon Chapel in Fairfax County, Virginia. After graduating in 1859, from the Virginia Theological Seminary, Phillips Brooks became an ordained deacon and in 1860 he became an ordained priest. His sermon at Harvard's commemoration of the Civil War's dead garnered Brooks nationwide recognition. After time spent in Germany, Brooks spoke of "thrilling music" and "thrilling incense" during church services. He encouraged many aspects of the liturgical movement, including congregational singing during the liturgy. Phillips Brooks had several publications based upon sermons and preachings he had delivered, but one thing he is most well known for today, is his authoring of the Christmas carol, "O Little Town of Bethlehem" which was based on the text that Phillips Brooks wrote in 1868.

1886 Olde Park Hotel 

The Olde Park Hotel has stood for over 130 years in Ballinger, Texas, which is known as the Greatest Little Town in Texas. From the outside, the hotel looks pretty unpretentious, but it has a storied history. The building has housed not only a hotel, but a brothel, a boarding house, school, restaurant and antique store. Today, it is run as an event host that can be rented. This is mostly for ghost hunts because this hotel is said to be one of the most haunted hotels in Texas. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Olde Park Hotel!

Ballinger, Texas was a railroad town. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway built a line west from Brownwood that terminated in a new town they built. They decided to name the town for a stockholder in the railroad company, Galveston attorney William Pitt Ballinger. The line was completed in 1886 and the town would be incorporated in 1892. Ballinger is home to one of the few Carnegie libraries still operating in its original building. This opened in 1909 with funds from Andrew Carnegie. The towns economy exploded around cotton production and the railroad. Soon saloons were popping up and outlaws started showing up. Gun battles happened occasionally. The current downtown historic district features a courthouse square with many buildings dating back to the late 1800s. These buildings include not only the library. but the Texas Theater, the historic post office, the County Building and City Hall. And then there is the Olde Park Hotel.

Pinning down a history of the hotel is very difficult. A flood in 1905 wiped out the official records in Ballinger. As we said, the hotel is unpretentious. The architectural style is hard to describe and pretty simple. Clearly, this is a building that has been added onto through the years. It is believed that it started as a white, two-story house that existed before 1886 as it appears in a picture dated before that time. The house would become a hotel in 1886 known as the Three Sisters Hotel. Ballinger would become a rough and tumble place that outlaws gravitated towards. The hotel would be multi-purposed into a bordello twice and the first time would have been in the 1800s. Outlaws more than likely stayed at the hotel, especially when it was a brothel. These outlaws could have included Sam Bass who committed the biggest train robbery in US history, the Newton Boys who were bank and train robbers and had stolen more than any other gang at the time they were caught, Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow, John Wesley Hardin was a gunfighter who killed his first man at age 15, Emmanuel "Mannen" Clements headed the ruthless Clements family who were cattle rustlers and gunfighters, and Jim "Killer" Miller aka,"The Deacon" who was a gunfighter." He got his nickname because he attended church and didn't drink or smoke. Bonnie Parker grew up in a nearby town and that's why its thought that she and Clyde had stayed here at some point. 

When prohibition started, the hotel became a place for bootlegging. Some time in the early 1900s, Washington Hampton Secrest II owned the hotel and called it the Secrest Hotel. The Keel family would buy it in 1922 and they owned it for multiple generations. The hotel would get the name Olde Park Hotel at that time. The history of the hotel also claims that this was called the Royal Hotel at some point and that the building would serve as a meeting house, boarding house, school house, restaurant, music store, a brothel for a second time and antique store. Jeanette Findley Truehardt was the owner who bought the hotel and opened it as an antique store. In 2016, Dan and Connie LaFave purchased the building from Jeanette. The couple began their own ghost hunting team in 2009 called Graveyard Shift Paranormal Investigations and that is why they were attracted to the hotel. They focused early on with local private hauntings. They branched out to bigger locations and the ghost town of Helena, Texas became one of their favorite places to investigate. Dan has penned four books, one of which is about the Olde Park Hotel. 

The couple renovated the 10,000 square foot hotel, creating 10 themed rooms. There is the Pink Room upstairs that is also known as Helen's Azalea Suiteroom in honor of Helen Keel. The Green Room is upstairs and is the only room with original furniture from the Keel family. There's also a doll in there called Ginny. The Rice Marriott Room is also known as the Red Room and is decorated with red and white pinstripes and was named in honor of the son of a previous owner of the hotel. The Yellow Room was also named Iona’s Oleander Suite named after Jeanette’s grandmother, Iona. There's a doll named Abigail in there. Downstairs is the LaFave’s Master Suite and its decorated in gold and burgundy. Preston’s Parlor was once Jeanette’s grandson’s room. The Pruiett Wildflower Room is named after “Tex” Pruiett Keel who was one of John and Virginia Keel’s sons. The Chrisco’s French Bordello is named after Jack & Juanita Chrisco and has blue and gold colors and a haunted mirror. The Presentation Room has a 10 foot movie screen and there is also the Secrest Sitting Room, Anne's Theater and Virginia's Country Kitchen.

Despite having all these rooms, the hotel is not run like a traditional hotel. The hotel is run as a haunted venue that can be rented for an evening. There are claims of over two dozen spirits at this hotel. Talk of haunting activity has been going on in Ballinger for decades. When Jeanette had the antique store, people would ask if they could go upstairs and when they came back down they would ask if the place was haunted. Many customers would tell her that they saw somebody walking around upstairs who would disappear. There was also the spirit of an older gentleman who liked to sit in an armchair on the second floor and a woman in a period dress was seen by a customer and she assumed she was dressed up since this was an antique shop, so she went up to her to ask about a price and the woman disappeared. Also during the antique store days there was a doll kept in the main store room that was not for sale. That was because the porcelain doll belonged to the current owners mother, and she once witnessed it levitate between two shelves of its own accord. A psychic told Jeanette that there were thirty spirits in the hotel. 

The LaFaves had experiences right from the beginning that continue. They decided to share the building with other paranormal enthusiasts. Part of the reason we have hauntings going on here is that Dan has brought in a lot of haunted objects, including dolls, and some of the wood they used for renovating came from the ghost town of Runnels. Location is also involved as the hotel is right across from the courthouse where criminals were hanged back in the day. That first night that Dan and Connie stayed in the hotel, they slept in the downstairs owner's suite. Dan was awakened by something caressing his scalp. He at first thought it was Connie, but when he opened his eyes he saw another woman. He jumped out of bed and the woman disappeared. She had been wearing a dress from the 1800s that was black with white and red on the sleeves. She had long black, curly hair. And she was completely solid. If she hadn't disappeared, he would have thought she was fully human. Dan thinks she was one of the working girls from the brothel days. That was the beginning of hearing disembodied footsteps and seeing a variety of ghosts that included children, a cowboy and other painted ladies. Cold spots are felt and disembodied voices are heard. There are nose pictures involving perfume and cigar smoke. People claim to be touched, pushed and scratched.

The couple decided to create a toy room for the child ghosts. Activity increased after that. They also set up a doll room, which features dolls from all over. Dan purchased a porcelain doll he named Ginny. This is the doll that is in the Green Room, which is also called the Honeysuckle Suite. The doll apparently moves around in this room and is found in different places. The first-floor hallway has a workshop at the end and women always feel uneasy in there. A male ghost haunts the workshop and Connie describes him as being a grumpy old fart. Although he is worse than just yelling "Get off my lawn." He can be violent. Dan was leading a tour with seven women and when he took them in the workshop, the spirit got angry. A woman suddenly said that she saw something peek out of a room and then pull back. Everybody looked in that direction and watched to see if whatever it was would appear again. And sure enough it did. A small, shadowy child specter walked between two rooms. This spirit was followed by a taller spirit dressed like a cowboy. This figure was so big it blocked out the whole hallway. The light was out in the workshop, so Dan flipped it on and the workshop ghost hurled an object that crashed across the room. One of the women fainted dead out. Several of the women ran from the workshop and exited the hotel. They were done with the tour.

Dan says upstairs in the back is the most haunted area of the hotel. Psychics have claimed that a room in that area has given them visions of a man attacking a woman. He grabs her by the throat and pushed her up against the wall. No one knows if he actually ended up killing the woman, but the energy in that room is quite dark. Nick Groff investigated the hotel over two nights for his Death Walker series during Season 2. He mostly ran around with what he called his Puckwudgie, which is a glorified spirit box, and tried interacting with the spirits of this man and this woman. Groff repeatedly asked for the man to touch him or try to attack him and nothing ever happened. Nick did claim to feel nauseous a couple of times and got some interesting stuff to come across the Geo Port, but nothing earth shattering. A Para Lyte went off during the night while he was sleeping and he heard disembodied footsteps in the hall and then a Paranormal Music Box went off.

Other spirits that might be here include a couple of the infamous outlaws. In March 1887, Emmanuel Clements was shot and killed in a bar in Ballinger by a man named Joseph Townshend. Townshend was ambushed by Jim Miller who was known as The Deacon and assassinated. Jim Miller was later hanged by a mob of people in 1909 after he killed a deputy marshal. The Deacon is said to haunt the hotel now and possibly Clements. We will say that the name Emmanuel came up multiple times on Groff's spirit box. Could the shadowy cowboy figure seen near the stairs be one of these outlaws? People have taken to calling him Slim. He apparently likes to whistle. There is another huge shadow cowboy that acts like a marshal in the place, policing the other ghosts. He is seen everywhere in the hotel. 

A lady of the evening named Annie hangs out on the second floor in the Traveler's Suite. She likes to talk on EVPs and has identified herself by name. There is a spirit that likes to stand by the downstairs bathroom and people call him Glenn. An unidentified old woman wanders the hallways. Several of the child ghosts have been identified as Dennis, who has blonde hair, Benjamin, who is 9-years-old and loves to talk and play in the play room, and an unnamed 5-year-old boy, who loves trains and the play room. Several previous owners are thought to be here. Kay Seacrest is one of them and she generally appears in a dress from the 1800s. One group staying overnight had Dan investigating with them and Dan asked the spirits to demonstrate the walking of cowboy boots and sure enough, there were the sounds of boots walking across the floor.

The Ghost and Getaways Blog investigated and they reported, "We investigated the 1st floor but we spent most of our time on the 2nd floor.  One team member reported a creepy feeling and having unexplained noises on their audio recorder near and in the LaFave’s Master Suite, however we were not able to get enough data to establish validity of the recordings or who it might be.  Other than that, there wasn’t much to report for the 1st floor.  We just seemed to gravitate to the second floor. In the Pruiett Wildflower Room, team members reported activity on the Rempod and a creepy feeling. Twice they spent the night in that room and reported activity throughout the night. Nothing was significant or frightening enough to drive them out of the room but they did NOT have a quiet night. We spent much of our time in the upstairs hallway and going towards the back. We had erratic EMF activity and could not find a reason or the source for it.  Using a laser grid, we may have seen shadows down towards the end.  I say that we may have seen shadows because, after a  while, the lights kind of play tricks with your eyes.  At least it does with me.  While we were not able to document shadows with a camera, a few of us are pretty certain we saw something. We also had some hits on the Parascope but they were erratic and did not seem to be in direct response to questions.  We used a Ghostbox as well but didn’t get any responses that seem to coincide with a direct question.  Most of our activity seemed to be with the Parascope and K2 meters."

Stephanie Hendricks wrote in September 2024, "I recently visited here August 24th 2024 for an overnight investigation and I must say this place is definitely haunted. Before we even began our investigation or even setting up our equipment , we heard weird sounds, footsteps, knocks and just an overall feeling of being watched and followed. Dan gave us the rundown on what all was accessible to us and then the tour and history of the place. After we did the tour we went about our way picking our rooms and deciding where we wanted to set up certain equipment and which items like motion activated lights or motion activated sound items to put in the areas we knew it would definitely trigger the most. I sat on my own adventure while the other two did the things they needed to do and I must say, even before it got dark I caught footsteps following me, breathing down my neck, deep heavy feeling of not being wanted, a deep growling sound and tugged from behind on my shirt. 

As it got dark, Dan was nice enough to do a spirit box session with us that most definitely brought all the spirits out to play. The voices that came through was insane, the answers we got when would we ask questions were so accurately answered it definitely made the hairs on my entire body stand up. He also was amazing enough to do a seance session with us and our EMFs were going crazy. The Para Light was going so high we all had a very eerie feeling, we felt heaviness in the room, footsteps outside the room, a scream, our motion triggered balls were lighting up like crazy in the doorway and the hallway. A dark shadow appeared in the doorway that one of the people I came with was so terrified he said he felt as if he was being held down in his chair. There were crying sounds that sounded so clear it’s as if the woman was standing right next to us. Dan went about his was and headed into his room and us 3 started our investigation. Dan has a room called “The Box” which is a mixture of the Estes method and his own where you put on blacked out googles with light flashing and headphones you put on that are totally noise canceling and a spirit box in a small dark room. No one but me would do it first. This has got to be the most disturbing part of my investigation. Not only was I in total darkness in a room, I was all alone on the 2nd floor as the other 2 were downstairs watching everything. I began my session and not even 3 minutes later there was loud footsteps, banging on the door and mind you I’m wearing noise cancelling headphone and I was grabbed on my right arm so tightly as if someone was telling me to get up or get out that I threw off my equipment and ran the heck out so fast and did not look back. Another encounter in the doll room I had was I had told Jolita one of the haunted dolls who is in a glass case to let me know she knew I was there in some way that when I came back I would know either something was off or changed and that I was going to come later to investigate the room more in depth. I came back about 20-30 minutes later and her head was turned a different direction. Trust me I had so many more experiences like knocking on my door, seeing movement outside my door, part of a leg/foot running away as I opened my door to my room BUT a hard shove out of a room that clearly didn’t want me there. From door opening and voices telling me to leave now, I would definitely recommend you visit this place and experience what we did. Like I said so much more happened that was totally insane I will definitely be back." 

The Olde Park Hotel has seen over a hundred years of history and some of it hasn't been pleasant. On top of that, many haunted objects have been brought into the hotel. And it runs as a haunted attraction during the Halloween season. Have all of these things led to paranormal activity? Is the Olde Park Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 566 - La Purisima Mission

Moment in Oddity - Hidden Message in a Bottle Found in Lighthouse Wall (Suggested by: Jenny Lynne Raines)

We love lighthouses and there is one located in Corsewall, Scotland at the most northerly point of the Rhins of Galloway that contained a once-in-a-lifetime discovery. A message in a bottle was found within the lighthouse wall. The message was written using a quill and ink and it was dated September 4th, 1892. Written in cursive were the names of the three engineers who installed a new lens and lantern at the top of the lighthouse. Once the task was accomplished and the lighthouse was re-lit, the team sat down with that quill and ink to record their names and to describe the purpose of their work at the lighthouse. The men then rolled up the paper and placed it inside a glass bottle. They then inserted the bottle into an empty space in the lighthouse wall. And there the bottle sat for 132 years. Recently there were engineers hired to make some repairs to the lighthouse. The men discovered the hidden bottle and retrieved the note from within. The engineers were astonished to discover that the paper described the exact same task that they were currently working on. The note read, "Corsewall Light & Fog Signal Station, Sept. 4th 1892. This lantern was erected by James Wells Engineer, John Westwood Millwright, James Brodie Engineer, and David Scott Labourer, of the firm of James Milne & Son Engineers, Milton House Works, Edinburgh, during the months from May to September and relighted on Thursday night 15th Sept. 1892. The following being keepers at the station at this time, John Wilson Principal, John B Henderson 1st assistant, and John Lockhart 2nd assistant. The lens and machine being supplied by James Dove & Co. Engineers Greenside Edinburgh and erected by William Burness, John Harrower, and James Dods. Engineers with the above firm." Finding a mysterious message in a bottle after being hidden for 132 years, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Danish-Icelandic Act of Union Signed

In the month of December, on the 1st in 1918, the Danish-Icelandic Act of Union was signed. This treaty agreement established Iceland as a fully sovereign state in a personal union with the Danish king. The state was then known as the Kingdom of Iceland but was still connected to Denmark through a shared monarch. Iceland then had its own flag, government and control over their domestic affairs, however, Denmark was responsible for managing Iceland's defense and foreign affairs. The treaty contained a clause wherein both Iceland and Denmark could request a reevaluation of the agreement in 1940. This clause allowed for the possible dissolution of the union if no new compromise could be made within three years. In 1944, Iceland wanted to have the issue of its constitutional status and the question of full independence settled. Due to WWII, negotiations with Denmark could not be conducted. On June 16th, 1944, Althing, which is Iceland's national parliament, abolished the 1918 Act. The following day, the Constitution of the Republic of Iceland was established.

La Purisima Mission (Suggested by: Marisa Tull)

La Purísima Mission is located in Lompoc, California. The Spanish mission once covered nearly 300,000 acres and was established to evangelize the local indigenous people known as the Chumash. The mission was successful with as many as 24,000 cattle and sheep and over 2,000 people. There was a major earthquake and the Chumash eventually revolted and the mission was abandoned. Eventually it was restored and is today a state historic park with stories of hauntings. Join us for the history and hauntings of La Purisima Mission. 

Lompoc (Lom poke) is based on the Chumash (choo mash) word lumpo'o, which means "in the cheeks." The Chumash apparently liked to name things for body parts and they were the main people group living in this area. This town has a very diverse history starting with the indigineous people groups who lived and hunted here for 10,000 before the first European settlers arrived. The Spanish building their mission would utterly change the culture and a devastating earthquake in 1812 would change the landscape. After the mission was abandoned, a Temperance Society decided to make this their mecca and they purchased 43,000 acres in 1874. By 1888, Lompoc was an officially city and it began to thrive as a port was built for shipping. The railroad would change that at the turn-of-the-century and agriculture would become a main focus for the economy. The area would become known as "The Valley of the Flowers." Then it was discovered that diatomaceous earth could be mined here and major mining operations began for that and that is still one of the main employers here. Vandenberg Air Force Base was established here as Camp Cooke in 1941 and it was the first Air Force missile base. When the Space Shuttle Program began, there were high hopes to use the base as a launch pad. The explosion of the Challenger in 1986 shut down the West Coast Program for good. The area went into an economic crash, but tourism helped bring it back and one of the top places to visit is the refurbished mission. This is the most authentically restored mission in California's mission system.

The mission begins with Father Junipero Serra who was born in 1713 in the village of Petra in Spain. His parents worked in the crop fields and that is what he did as a child. But he would visit the Franciscan friary that was near his home and his heart was really pulled that way. At the friary he was educated and his parents allowed him to become a novice in the Franciscan order when he was 17. He eventually became a full member of the Franciscan order and was given the name Junipero. In 1737 he became a full priest. The man was brilliant and he earned his doctorate and he decided yo go on a foreign mission and that is how he came to be in the Americas. He began in Baja California, which was under Spanish military rule. He and his fellow priests only had spiritual control. Father Serra noticed that as they moved through Baja California that the native population was dwindling. They were killing the indigenous people with disease, particularly syphilis. He moved further into California and he devised a plan to build three missions along California's central coast.

Serra planned the mission, but he didn't get to see it come to fruition. He had passed away in 1784 from tuberculosis. His successor was Spanish priest, Father Presidente Fermin de Lasuen. He was born in 1736 and became a Basque Franciscan. Lasuen would be known as the "forgotten friar," and he was often lonely and depressed. The priest should've been memorable as he founded nine of the twenty-one missions in California. He dedicated the La Purisima Mission on December 8, 1787 with a focus on evangelizing the Chumash. The Chumash had a difficult decision to make. They could either convert to Catholicism and join the mission or they would have to leave the region. In those first few years, several thousand Chumash were baptized into the Catholic Church. The price would be heavy for the Chumash. The Spanish brought many diseases with them. Hundreds died from chicken pox and measles. 

Those first years there was a lot of building at the mission as well. Over 100 adobe buildings were built and livestock were raised. A water system was designed that would help with the growth of crops. This was a prosperous time for the mission until the morning of December 21, 1812. The Santa Barbara earthquake shook the ground beneath the mission, scaring the priests, soldiers and indigenous people. This quake wasn't too bad, but the one that followed fifteen minutes later was so intense that the adobe walls of the buildings shattered and most of the mission was turned to ruin and rubble. The priests described it as "presenting the picture of a destroyed Jerusalem." Damage happened at all the missions within a 100 mile radius. Soldiers at the Presidio in Santa Barbara abandoned it, opting to build thatched huts, which proved to be a good idea because the area was played by earthquakes for months. The Presidio is a haunted location itself with stories of ghostly nuns and priests and soldiers. Not only was La Purisima Mission decimated, but a large fissure opened in the hill behind the mission and several feet of mud washed out from the crack. It was impossible to rebuild at this site.

Father Mariano Payeras (Pah ye rahs) had become the leader of the mission and he made the decision to rebuild in the location where it is located today, four miles northwest in the Canyon of the Watercress. A Catholic community grew up around the chapel and 1,000 Chumash converts called this home. Father Payeras was loved by everyone and was zealous in his work. Father Payeras was born on the island of Majorca in 1769. He joined the Franciscan order and traveled to Mexico to attend a missionary school. Then he worked at four missions in California for the rest of his life, ending at La Purisima. He wrote a catechism in the language of the Chumash that was never published, but proved useful at the mission. Father Payeras was given an ecclesiastical burial under the church's pulpit after he passed away on April 28, 1823 at the age of 53.

A rebellion had started in Mexico while Payeras had been in charge of the mission and the relationship between the Chumash and the Catholics was becoming strained. The supply ships had stopped coming and so a black market started with people looking for food and supplies. As the tensions rose, the Spanish made it worse by forcing the Chumash to work for very little money. Mexico fought for its independence from Spain and won in 1822. With the ousting of Spain from Mexico, the mission system started to lose its hold in California. And the Chumash at La Purisima rose up against the heads at the mission, locked themselves in the church and they controlled the mission for a month before Spanish soldiers from the Presidio marched on them and killed sixteen of them. Others were wounded. Pillars throughout the site still bare the battle scars to this day. Many of the Chumash ran off after this. There was soon no support for the missions. By 1845, the missions had been secularized and La Purisima was auctioned off by the Mexican government. A man named Don Juan Temple bought it for $1,100.00. This would be the time when the Mission Period became the Ranching Period.

The Catholic church acquired the title to Purisima in 1874 after going to court, but there was no reestablishment of the mission. The land was sold in 1883, without including the cemetery or the church, which by this time was in ruins. The Residence Building was used as housing, a blacksmith shop, a barn,  a general store and saloon. Eventually this building was abandoned after a fire destroyed part of the building. The Union Oil Company bought the land after this and then deeded it to the Landmark Club of California in 1905. They made a deal that the club had to repair the Residence Building, but they weren't able to raise the capitol needed and the Union Oil Company got the title back. The Catholic Church retained ownership of the chapel through this whole time and they joined the Union Oil Company in 1934 in giving the property to the County of Santa Barbara. California and Santa Barbara County bought more land, growing the property to 507 acres. This became La Purisima Historic Monument under the Division of Parks. The National Parks Service used a Civilian Conservation Corps Camp to help restore the site. This is today, a living museum. A museum, with ghosts.

For decades, people have claimed that the mission is haunted. Perhaps one of the most haunted locations in California. There are those who claim there is a dark energy here. There can be no doubt that the docile Chumash being forced into conversion and work and having their land taken, has left behind some negative energy and feelings. Ghostly soldiers have been seen by volunteers, docents and visitors. Cold spots are felt and people often feel that they are being watched. The corridors are filled with shadowy figures. When these figures are approached, they silently disappear. Many unexplained sounds are heard, including disembodied footsteps and whispers. Doors slam shut on their own. There are also reports of a spirit, people call the Weeping Woman. Visitors claim to hear her cries near the cemetery and others have seen her apparition wearing period clothing.

At the time when the mission moved from the Mission Period to the Ranching Period. At this time, there was a fiesta held on the site and a woman named Anita caught the eye of two different men. These men were named Jorge and Vincente. They challenged each other to get Anita's attention. The men were going to ride horses and try to grabbed three chickens that had been buried up to their necks. They were to ride at a full gallop, grab and chicken and wring its neck. Jorge didn't get any chickens and Vincente got all three. Jorge later fought with Vincente and he killed Vincente. The body was buried somewhere around the soldiers quarters. Jorge ran and was never captured. The spirit of Vincente is said to haunt the Soldier's Quarters. 

Bill Henry was a long time docent and he had several experiences over the years that he shared with the Lompoc Record in 2012. He was dressed as a soldier for a presentation and he felt something push or shove him from behind. When he turned, there was no one behind him. Early one morning he was opening up the park buildings and he had his young granddaughter in tow. Both of them suddenly started hearing what he calls “death chants.” The granddaughter was terrified  by them and wouldn't return to the property. Henry also saw the spirits of three girls perched in the window seat of the Cuartel. Henry says of the mission, "There are some things that just cannot be explained away, including sounds, lights without a visible source and random movements."  Bill told Ghost Adventures that he was cleaning up after Founder's Day festivities and he went into the Soldier's Quarters and saw bare footprints in the sand in an area that is locked up and the public doesn't have access.   

Another worker named Arthur Carlos said that the way the Married Soldier's Quarters were set up was that the wife and soldier shared a bed and there were cots for daughters. Boys were supposed to sleep outside. Arthur was sleeping overnight and he was on a cot, when he was awakened by something. He looked towards the door and he saw a soldier with a leather jacket and this figure gave him a very menacing look. He said to himself, "Ok Art, get a grip. You're just imagining things and this isn't real so don't worry about it." So he looked away and then he looked back a couple minutes later and the figure was closer. Pretty soon, the spirit was standing over him. The menacing look was still on the spirit's face and then it reached down and grabbed his neck. Arthur wrenched his neck to the side and his eyes popped open. He was like, oh I was asleep and dreaming, but then he realized that his adam's apple was really sore and throbbing. He was really freaked out after that and he won't sleep alone in that room again.

One visitor to the site said that she felt a sudden chill while exploring and she felt as though something were behind her. She turned a saw a shadowy figure the mission. The figure vanished as quickly as it appeared and she was quite shaken by the experience. Another woman had been visiting and she had dressed up as a vaquero and she was walking near the Sacristy Door, a place where women were not allowed during the mission time and this woman was thrown back up against the door. That woman never returned to the mission.

A volunteer at the mission was working late and they heard faint chanting in the chapel. He was the only person at the chapel, so he couldn't figure out where this chanting was coming from. He went to investigate and the chanting stopped. One day, there was a man playing music on a guitar in the chapel and he stepped over the grave of Father Payeras. His guitar immediately went out of tune. When he stepped back to where he had been, it went back into tune. He again stepped over the grave a few minutes later and the guitar went out of tune. The guitarist looked down and realized he had stepped over the grave, so he stepped back and the guitar was back in tune. He moved away from the grave because clearly, someone was not happy with him stepping over the grave.

Richard Senate is a world-renowned paranormal investigator out of California. He is a California historian and lecturer, so he has visited the mission many times. On one of those visits, he led a team of students and psychic researchers. He said, "Independently, the group’s members felt cold spots throughout the church at the Mission." Many had an odd feeling and one of the students said he had a sense of fear or unease while inside the church. Senate was told by someone who had worked on the Civilian Conservation Corps team in the 1940s, that he and other workers unearthed five small skeletons from under the tile floor of the church. Senate asked this worker to join him at the mission and show him where the skeletons had been found in the chapel. Those spots matched up with where the students had felt cold spots. 

Senate told Ghost Adventures that he has had three dramatic experiences at the mission. He was in the chapel alone one day and walking down the center when he got really dizzy and he looked down to catch his bearings and when he looked up, there were three Native Americans kneeling on the floor up near the altar. He described them having long hair and one had a blanket thrown over their shoulders. Their clothes were all dirty and ripped up and he distinctly remembered seeing one with pock marks all over his face. He believes those marks were from small pox. And Senate was positive that this wasn't a vision from the past or something residual because one of the Native Americans turned and looked at him. And then they all just disappeared. The second experience happened in the Weaving Room. Senate was standing near the door and he heard flute music. It was just a few notes and he didn't see what was causing the sound. Senate took the crew over to the Padre's Quarters and it was here that he saw the ghost of a greyhound dog. It was curled up on the floor sleeping. It woke up, look at Senate and then disappeared.

Novelist Tamara Thorne was at the mission and she heard disembodied voices speaking something other than English. A visitor named Steve claimed to see the ghost of a Padre in the Padre's Quarters. It's believed this was the ghost of Father Payeras. The bed in here always seems to mess itself up too. A docent named Dee Lonnon said, "I went out one night, and I was one of the last people to see the building be closed up and locked. I wanted to be there when they opened the room the next morning. By 7 a.m., I took my dogs out there for a walk, and sure enough, the bed was messed up, just like someone had been under the covers overnight." Now maybe an animal sneaks in somehow, but the place is locked tight. Steve Schuler-Jones was the operations ranger at La Purisima and he had many experiences. He was the contact for the security company and he got several calls that the alarm had been triggered. He would drive to the site and fine nothing out of the ordinary.

Ghost Adventures investigated the site in June of 2009. The evidence they collected included hearing a baby crying, battle cries, knocking and flute music. They caught several EVPs which captured "come here," "lay down," "sit up," "do you belong here," some Spanish words and the name Vincente", "lay down", "sit up", "do you belong here?" They captured an orb of light floating by the altar. On a thermal camera they captured something that looked like it was a figure standing out in the field. Maybe it was a Spanish soldier. They also caught what sounded like residual sounds of a man speaking in the field. There were people who said the thermal image was nothing. Someone going by CWilsonLPC defended the thermal signature caught by Ghost Adventures saying, "With regards to the thermal photo, it’s relatively hard to debunk, the area they pointed at was towards the south of the mission (alongside Purisima Road), if it was a false positive, there would have been heat signatures of all the animals in the paddocks there since from their direction, alongside any heat signatures from passing vehicles and wildlife in the brush, the paddocks would have been adjacent to their angle, there is the possibility of a trespasser since people do hike the trails there at night, but it would have been extremely unlikely since the trail access points come from the far north of the mission complex (at the base of Mission Hills neighborhood, a good 45-60 min hike), and the only other access points would have been guarded (all Purisima Road entrances). The Spanish soldier guess is reasonably accurate however, since the Spanish were outside the complex during the revolt while the native Chumash were inside."

Zak and crew also experienced the really common occurrence of the bed getting messed up on its own in the Padre's Quarters. The mattress and sheets were pushed up. Nobody was in the room from the time they were shown the room. When the room was first shown, the bed was neatly made. They crew also had a bizarre temperature fluctuation that we've never seen before. Their temperature gun went from 70 degrees to 40 degrees in the weaving room. Maybe it was a malfunction, but if not, that is really weird. 

La Purisima Mission is a reminder of a history where the indigenous people were pushed into changing their culture to suit strangers to the land. We have found time and again that subjugation of native people and causing their deaths through sickness or war, leaves a psychical energy that manifests in a supernatural way. Is that what is happening at La Purisima Mission? Is the mission haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 565 - Haunted Cedar Key and the Island Hotel

Moment in Oddity - Frog Milk (Suggested by: ?)

Throughout history, many methods of food and drink preservation have been discovered. Prior to the invention of modern refrigerators, preserving things like milk proved to be challenging. However, centuries before modern refrigeration, the people of Russia and Finland discovered a strange method for keeping milk fresh and free from bacteria. It just so happens that the body secretions of their common frogs have many antibacterial properties. Although the idea of preserving milk with frogs was considered folklore, scientists in Moscow announced this discovery back in 2012. Apparently, Russian brown frog's skin secretes peptides that have antimicrobial compounds that help reduce the growth of fungi and bacteria. The scientists even discovered that the slime of these amphibians can even be as effective as certain pharmaceuticals against bacteria like salmonella and staphylococcus. Now, we don't recommend grabbing some random frog and popping it into your milk to help it last longer. Nor do we recommend licking one because you're worried about a possible bacterial infection. But a fascinating amphibian fable that turns out to be factual certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Christopher Columbus Discovers Puerto Rico

In the month of November, on the 19th, in 1493, Christopher Columbus discovered the island of Puerto Rico. Columbus was on his second voyage to the New World and arrived on the island with approximately 1,300 men and 17 ships. He named the island San Jaun Bautista to honor Saint John the Baptist. The explorer encountered the indigenous Taino people who called their island Borinquen and themselves, Boricua. In the beginning, the Taino people were friendly with Columbus and his men, sharing gifts and food and showing the explorers how they lived. Unfortunately, Columbus and his men soured the relationship with the island people by forcing them into labor and slavery. As interrelations continued to decline, smallpox took hold of the natives wiping out a majority of their people. The first European settlement on the island was established by Juan Ponce de Leon in 1508. The settlement was called Caparra. By 1521, the island was renamed Puerto Rico which means "rich port" and that port city became San Juan.

Haunted Cedar Key and the Island Hotel

We originally featured the Island Hotel and Restaurant in Cedar Key, Florida back on Ep. 36 in 2015. In November 2024, we stayed overnight and did a little investigating and while our experiences were subtle, it does seem that paranormal activity does occur here. The building was originally built in 1859 and used as a general store and it was built to last. The building material that was used was Tabby, which is a mixture of oyster shells, sand and limestone, and the structure has lasted 165 years. The most recent hurricanes to hit the area, particularly Hurricane Helene, only caused slight wind damage to the structure. The building has passed through the hands of many owners, some of whom may still remain in the afterlife. People claim there are as many as thirteen ghosts here. The rest of Cedar Key did not fair well during Hurricane Helene, but we still enjoyed the surroundings of what seems to be a very haunted island. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Island Hotel and Cedar Key!

Cedar Key is located just south of the mouth of the Suwannee River. This is actually a group of barrier islands, despite being referred to as just Cedar Key. The islands derived their name from the Eastern Red Cedar that once grew abundantly in the area. It is believed that Archaic indigenous people were here, followed by the Woodland Indians. These groups left behind shell mounds that can still be visited at Shell Mound Historic Site. When the Spanish arrived, the Timucua tribe were here and they were decimated by the Spanish when they arrived in the 1500s. The Cedar Keys would go on to be used by several groups including the Seminoles and pirates. The United States Army established itself on Cedar Key in 1839 by building a fort there where a garrison was headed by General Zachary Taylor. A hurricane in 1842 chased the army away. That same year, Congress passed a law called the Armed Occupation Act. The bill was a blatant attempt to run the Seminole off and bring more white people to Florida.

It would be the Florida Railroad that would bring big changes to Florida and in particular Cedar Key. The President of the Florida Railroad was also a United States Senator, David Levy Yulee. Yulee was a Jewish Moroccan, making him the first ever Jewish Senator. Because he was the president of the Florida Railroad, he was nicknamed the "Father of Florida Railroads." Yulee had bought Way Island, which was part of the Cedar Key group, to have a place for the railroad's terminal facilities. Cedar Key would become the railroad's western end of the line. The first train arrived in 1861.

Because the railroad meant prosperity, several people took interest in establishing homes and businesses there. Major John Parsons bought some land and began construction on the building that would one day become the Island Hotel. The structure was built from Tabby as we said and massive 12-inch oak beams secure the frame of the structure in the basement. Parsons partnered with a man named Francis E. Hale and when the building was finished, they named it Parsons and Hale's General Store. Unfortunately, just as the general store was ready for opening and business seemed ready to grow in Cedar Key, the Civil War started. It brought a halt to all growth and it brought war to Cedar Key. Union troops invaded the area and they burned nearly every building. The general store was left alone because the Union saw it as a strategic point for a headquarters. Cedar Key was near a major port and the general store provided shelter, supplies and storage.

Major Parsons joined the war effort and he served as a commander of some Confederate volunteers. He and his men defended the Gulf Coast and soon the Confederates were able to take back Cedar Key and they then used the general store as a barracks. The war ended and Parsons returned to Cedar Key where he and Hale reopened the general store. Parsons and Hale ran shipping from the general store and supplied the area with everything from furniture to oil to hardware to food to building supplies. The Cedar Key Post Office and the customs house were also inside the general store. At some point, Parsons and Hale decided to offer boarding at their place and John Muir is one of the people who may have stayed there. Muir is considered the father of America's National Park System. Cedar Key was the finish to his thousand mile walk, which he had started in Indiana and this walk was his attempt to study and enjoy the natural landscape. He wrote of this adventure in his book "A Thousand Mile Walk to the Gulf" and in it he recounts stepping into a little general store in Cedar Key. President Grover Cleveland is also rumored to have stayed at the Parsons and Hale's General Store on a return trip from Cuba. Times were very good, but they would not last.

Parsons died in 1888 at the age of 71. Florida is known for hurricanes and a big one hit Cedar Key in 1896. Most of the town was destroyed and despite the fact that the general store was built from almost indestructible tabby, it did suffer damage. A fire roared through the town a few years later and then the business collapsed. Cedar Key had hit rough times. Francis Hale died in 1910 and the property went to Langdon Parsons, Major Parsons nephew. He decided to sell the building in 1915 to a man named Simon Feinberg. Feinberg had no use for the general store and he turned the building into a full fledged hotel he named Bay Hotel. Feinberg added a second floor balcony and reconstructed much of the inside. Marcus Markham managed the operation with his wife.

On May 11, 1919, Feinberg died in the hotel under very mysterious circumstances. Feinberg was a religious man and he supported the efforts of the Temperance Society, a group heading up the effort to bring Prohibition. Prohibition had not been made law yet, but President Woodrow Wilson had already called for a temporary wartime prohibition in 1917. Feinberg had gone to the Bay Hotel to collect money from the manager and was dismayed to find out that the manager had been running a whiskey still in the attic. There was a false roof about twelve inches below the real roof and this concealed the copper pipes used for the still. The manager wanted to placate Feinberg, so he treated him to a wonderful meal and then Feinberg retired to the hotel and went to sleep. He never woke up.

The hotel would filter through the hands of several owners after the death of Feinberg. The building became known as the Cedar Key Hotel and then later was renamed Fowler's Wood after a new owner. It was the hotel's tenure as Fowler's Wood that it would become a brothel and speakeasy during the 1930s. A Mr. Crittenden managed the hotel at this time. In 1932, the railroad stopped running to Cedar Key and economic depression hit the area once again. Times were so tough for the hotel that it went into foreclosure. The owner took the foreclosure pretty hard and tried to burn the building down three different times. His plan might have worked had he stopped to remember that the fire department was right across the street. The fire was extinguished every time.

Ray Andrews bought the property at the end of the 30s and had his sister and her husband manage the place. It was here that most of the residents of Cedar Key heard about the attack on Pearl Harbor. In 1945, the King Neptune lounge was added to the hotel. The hotel would experience a renaissance and one of its grandest times when in 1946, Bessie and Loyal "Gibby" Gibbs purchased the hotel. It was in bad shape and they renovated it and reopened it as the Island Hotel. The couple added their unique flair to the place and Gibby kept bar. The townspeople loved to gather at the bar, as did visitors. Some of those visitors included Pearl Buck, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Frances Langford, Richard Boone and Myrna Loy. In 1948, the couple hired an artist to paint murals in the restaurant and bar and upstairs. The restaurant had a great reputation as well and was known as a place to eat the freshest seafood and vegetables around. Bessie created many of the recipes cooked by their chef Catherine "Big Buster" Johnson and she chastised any patrons who did not eat their vegetables. She is credited with creating the signature dish for the restaurant with Big Buster. That dish is Heart of Palm Salad and the restaurant still serves it. The recipe includes slivered lettuce, slivered palm hearts, pineapple chunks, chopped dates, chopped crystalized ginger that is covered in palm dressing made from mayonnaise, vanilla ice cream, peanut butter and green food coloring.

In 1950, Hurricane Easy hit Cedar Key and ripped the roof off of the Island Hotel. The upstairs room was water damaged as well as the King Neptune mural in the bar. The couple added the nearly wraparound veranda on the second level in 1958 and they filled it with rocking chairs. Gibby Gibbs died in 1962 and while Bessie had just lost her love and her rock, she forged forward with continuing to run the hotel. Gibby's body was cremated and his ashes spread at Channel Marker 32. Everyone called Bessie "Miss Bessie" and she was beloved on the island. She had a big personality and didn't put up with any nonsense. A drunk who came into the lounge filthy was quickly ushered out by Miss Bessie and she handed him a bar of soap. Miss Bessie got involved in the community in many areas. She helped establish a museum, she fought to keep the oldest house in Cedar Key from being demolished and the hotel served as a de facto Chamber of Commerce for the city of Cedar Key. The city gained not only prominence in Florida, but at a national level as well. Miss Bessie served as a City Commissioner, Judge, Fire Chief and Mayor. On top of all that, she ran the Island Hotel successfully until 1973. 

Arthritis was getting the best of Miss Bessie by that time and two back operations had left her in a wheelchair. She sold the hotel to Charles and Shirley English and bought a little wooden cottage on Hwy. 24. Bessie would die tragically in a house fire two years later and her remains were cremated and laid at sea with Gibby. We ended our trip on Cedar Key with a visit to the Cedar Key Cemetery to see Miss Bessie's cenotaph. The Englishs did not last long and they sold the hotel to Harold Nabors in 1978. Nabors remodeled the bar and made that his main focus, letting the restaurant and hotel fall by the wayside. In 1980, he sold the operation to Marcia Rogers and she refocused efforts on the restaurant once again, hiring Chef Jahn McCumbers. The restaurant again became a place known for its food. Singer Jimmy Buffett became a frequent guest at the Island Hotel during the 1980s and gave impromptu performances in the Neptune Bar. The hotel was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. Marcia got a little New Agey at this time and closed the Neptune Bar to the public and made it into a coffee and juice bar where she hosted things like the Full Moon Wakefulness Retreat. Cedar Key residents burned her in effigy in front of the post office in response. And that's not surprising because the locals love this lounge and it was very busy on the Saturday night we stayed there.

Tom and Allison Sanders bought the place in 1992 and cleaned it from top to bottom and reopened the Neptune Bar after they fully reconstructed it, covering it with a Cedar Key cedar top. The Island Hotel became a social center once again and the restaurant continued its reputation for good food still under Chef Jahn McCumbers. Dawn Fisher and Tony Cousins moved to Florida from England and they purchased the Island Hotel in 1996. The couple would focus on refurbishing the hotel and added private bathrooms to every room. Central heat and air was also added, bringing the hotel more up to date. Televisions and phones were still kept out of the rooms to retain the hotel's charm and that continues today. While redecorating the dining room, the couple hired a colorist to help them decide which colors to use. They chose a lilac and plum with a pine ceiling. Dawn got the shock of her life when Bessie Gibbs' nephew came to visit and showed her a bunch of old photos. One of the photos was in color and featured the dining room. The colors that Bessie had chosen to paint the dining room were the same ones that the dining room was repainted with by Dawn.

Dawn and Tony got married and had a child and realized that the hotel was too much for them, so they sold it in 2001 to Bill and MaryLou Stewart. The Stewarts had been born in Florida, but they had both ended up in Texas. They retired and decided to return to Florida. Things at the hotel seemed fine at first, but in 2002, the couple abruptly fired the entire staff, boarded up the place and ran back to Texas. The Cousins took back ownership and reopened the hotel and restaurant. They then sold the place to Andy and Stanley Bair, who still own it today. They refreshed the place and have run it for the past twenty years. Stanley writes of their adventure, "We returned to the States in August 2003 and began a search for 'that one last quiet, undeveloped spot' that might be still found in Florida. We stumbled onto Cedar Key and the Island Hotel. We immediately knew we had found what we were looking for. The wonderfully quaint island and the manner in which they welcomed us has been a bonus beyond our wildest dreams. We are greeted every day by friendly, smiling faces. Our first few weeks were spent giving the hotel a face lift. We painted the downstairs lobby and replaced worn out furniture throughout the hotel. A new bath/shower was added for room #27. The hotel quickly came back to life, and I do believe even the ghosts are smiling. It is as if they had spent the day at a beauty parlor! Our staff is excited about the 'new look' and they have reason to be proud of 'their' hotel again."

The Island Hotel has ten rooms and operates as a bed and breakfast, so there is a complimentary breakfast in the morning. Get the french toast - you won't be disappointed. All the rooms are decorated differently with antiques and each has their own private bathroom. Rooms 27 and 28 have the bathroom across the hall from the room, which can be a little inconvenient, but we didn't mind. Although there are no televisions or phones in the rooms, there is Wi-Fi. As one can see, the hotel has passed through many hands, but it has never lost its character. Its spirit has continued to thrive and now some say that spirits from the past remain here at the Island Hotel. Thirteen spirits to be exact. Let us introduce you to the thirteen ghosts. As described earlier, Native Americans lived in the area before the Island Hotel was built. Three spirits have not been described by anybody, but psychics claim that they are there. Then there are two spirits of Native Americans that have been seen in the hotel at various times. A fisherman has made an appearance and another specter has been described as tall and thin. None of these spirits is very well known, but the rest of the thirteen are seen more often and have made themselves known.

One of these is a young black boy. When the Island Hotel was Parsons and Hale's General Store, this young man of nine was given the job of stock boy. He would stock shelves and keep the store clean. One day, something went missing in the store and the manager accused him of stealing. Whether the boy actually stole anything is not known, but he was scared and ran away and hid. The location he chose to hide in was a bad one. It was a five foot deep, 2,500 gallon cement cistern in the basement of the store and he drowned. No one knew what happened to him until his skeleton was discovered in the cistern a year later. The young boy's ghost continues to haunt the basement. Although, Kelly thinks she had him interacting with her on the dowsing rods in our room on the second floor.

There is another female spirit that is described as a small-waisted woman wearing a long black dress with a modest black hat. She has been seen in the downstairs by staff and guests for decades. This spirit is usually holding a pitcher of water. She is thought to have been a woman who ate at the restaurant and then died on her way home when her carriage overturned. This spirit and the little black boy are thought to cause puddles in the hotel. One of these puddles kept appearing under a bed. Sometimes water would be dripping down from the bed frame, but the bed and bedding were dry. On another occasion, a mother came to the hotel so her daughter could write a paper on the ghosts of the hotel. This mother was amused by the whole idea of ghosts until a staff member took them to the puddle room and a puddle of water formed at the mother's feet. When the staff member pointed this out, the mother screamed, grabbed her daughter and ran from the hotel.

The most seen ghost at the hotel is that of a Confederate soldier who apparently died on the property for unknown reasons. Had he been wounded or did something sinister take place? His ghost seems to like to take early morning walks and is often seen in the early morning mist that blankets the coastal location. He is seen standing at attention near the doors leading to the stairs, also. Some have wondered if the apparition is that of Major Parsons who had led a Confederate garrison.

As we talked about earlier, Simon Feinberg had died at the hotel under mysterious circumstances. Had his meal been too rich and caused him to have a heart attack or was someone trying to protect their whiskey still and made sure he would not interfere with operations by killing him? Was he poisoned? Feinberg seems to be at unrest. Hotel guests have seen him walking the halls and heard disembodied footsteps. Feinberg is called the "Wandering Ghost" for this reason. He has been seen in Room 27, which is the room where he died. He also seems to like the kitchen pantry.

Room 27 seems to be the most active area of the hotel, which is why we booked that one. Besides being haunted by former owner Feinberg, a prostitute from the brothel days hangs out in this room and the adjacent Room 28. She had worked here during the Depression and it is believed she was murdered. Male guests have had the most experiences with her. They not only see her, but they feel their bed being sat upon and occasionally a patron receives a disembodied kiss. When lights are turned on, she vanishes. This painted lady appears wearing white and also likes the waitress station in the early evening. Two female guests found a tiny indentation on their bed as though someone was sitting on it when they returned to their room after having a hot toddy in the Neptune Lounge.

The manager who some think poisoned Simon Feinberg was Marcus Markham. He was drinking one night in the King Neptune Lounge when he got in a fight with a steamboat captain. The argument got very heated and a knife was pulled. When the fight was over, Markham had been stabbed to death. His spirit seems to have taken up residence in the bar. His apparition is most often seen behind the bar near the pantry. Bullet slugs have also been found in the wall behind the King Neptune painting. Were these just from some idiot shooting at the painting or did something else take place here in the bar? Hopefully Markham and Feinberg stay away from each other.

The dominant ghost at the Island Hotel is Bessie Gibbs, whose tenure at the hotel is the most memorable. It's not surprising that she would be here since she loved it and she still enjoys taking care of the place. People claim to see her attempting to make beds and cleaning and rearranging furniture. Miss Bessie is a prankster who enjoys locking guests out of their rooms and occasionally comes walking through rooms in the middle of the night only to disappear through another wall. Owners have been locked out of the hotel several times with not only the front door being locked, but the kitchen screen door is locked from the inside. She drops pictures off the wall, unplugs lamps and makes loud noises. The swing on the second floor is her favorite spot as she sat there often during her tenure. We definitely interacted with her and will share more about that in a moment.

One guest reported the following story, "After being out many hours later, my husband wanted to go to sleep while I still wanted to hang out in the famous lounge. I told him to keep the lights on and I was taking the flashlight (having heard that the main ghost had sense of humor about flipping on and off lights). The lights were still on though when I went upstairs. I still felt strangely calm (and I'm rather intuitive and sensitive so if I hadn't been feeling peaceful I would not have even fallen asleep). After several hours of good sleep, I immediately was awakened by a LOUD BANG. It sounded like a book had been slammed to the floor. That was all I heard I waited a while longer and then woke my husband up and asked him to check to see if the Bible that was right next to the bed was still there. He said it was. He got up and turned the nightlights on and we both discovered that a Kleenex box that was on a coffee table across the room had been thrown down across the floor. Just to rule out any possibility of a breeze doing this we did all sets of tests placing the box under a fan and everything but knew it had to have been thrown." 

Our friends over at Peace River Ghost Trackers have investigated the building and the following were their personal experiences:

*We entered the basement at 4:30pm and was also accompanied by Derrick from channel 20 news out of Gainesville. The basement had a lot of dust so any pictures from down there are hard to prove. Scott did have a heavy feeling at one point near the cistern where a 9 year old boy had drowned in the 1860’s. Scott had to remove himself for a moment from that area. Sprout also felt the heavy feeling in her chest and also chose to leave.
* Sprout was entering the room behind the bar at around 1:30am which was where a man had died of a knife stabbing. While entering I had a very cold breeze sweep over the top of my left hand and could find no explanation for it.
* At 2:15am Toni, Sprout, Janice and Scott where in the kitchen using dowsing rods to communicate with a man who is connected with the pantry. Many staff have seen and felt his presence for many years. We were standing in the order stated above when the activity occurred. Janice was facing the pantry and using the dowsing rods, she asked where the spirit was and the one rod swung around and pointed behind her. When Janice asked for the spirit to move in front of her, Toni said “here it comes”. Toni said she saw a dark shadow of a figure of a man coming towards her then making a sharp turn in front of all of us. One at a time we all said “oh” as the coldness swept passed us. I saw Janice shaking from the cold and Scott said it went down his arm.
*We had laid down for bed at 4:30am and shortly after I (Sprout) heard what I thought to be the piano down in the lobby. It was about 7 or 8 hits on the high notes of the keyboard then Lori started to talk. (her first time in a haunted hotel she was a bit nervous ) then I heard it again about 4 hits this time. That's when I asked Scott if we would be able to hear the piano in our room. He said he hopes so because he had just heard it. Didn't get up cause we were pooped and had enough for the night. I can say I believe we were the last to go to our rooms for bed and didn't hear anyone else up and moving about the hall.
* In the morning we were getting the 2 sets of keys together for check out but could only find one set. The key was finally found in the Velcro sealed left pocket of a pair of shorts in the suitcase. They were Scotts shorts and he does not use the left pocket. They were also folded up and unworn shorts. Lori watched her video from the night before and saw Scott take the key out of the door. He put almost everything on the dresser so it was assumed that is where he set the key. There were several incidents of room doors being unlocked by themselves told to us by other investigators. Sprout even witnessed room 23’s door unlock twice by itself. The occupants of the room were inside during the first time and were sitting on the opposite side of the room when the door unlocked.

The television show "Haunted Inns and Mansions" featured the Island Hotel in 1999. Debra Lyon-Dye wrote "Cedar Key Spirit Tour, A Walk Through History" in 2016 and she shares two of her experiences in it. (pg. 92-93)

Our investigation of the hotel gave us subtle results. We first conducted an EVP session and we think we caught something. (Island Hotel EVP) Sounds like "yeah" or "yep" perhaps to the question of whether there were multiple spirits with us. We tried a couple ESTES sessions, but absolutely nothing was coming through using the AM band. I (Diane) didn't trust the FM band. Our most prominent experience involved glasses. I was positive I had put my reading glasses in my fanny pack before we headed down to dinner, but when I went to pull them out to read the menu, they weren't in my pack. When we returned to the room, I expected to see them sitting on the bed or side table where I had accidentally left them. Not there. We searched the room and I concluded that I had lost them somewhere. We turned our backs from the couch to look some more and then Kelly goes, "Here they are!" front and center in the middle of the couch. No way we would have missed them, especially because my laptop was sitting there open and I had looked behind it. I tried to explain it away as we just both missed seeing them, but then we heard from our listener Joanne about her many experiences and this convinced us that Miss Bessie was playing around.

(Joanne's experiences)

There are other haunted locations on Cedar Key. The Historical Society Museum that was the former Lutterloh Building is located at 609 2nd Street. This started as John Lutterloh's private residence and eventually was used as an army depot, service station, restaurant, library and gift shop. The last owner was Gertrude Teas and she donated the building to the historical society in 1978. The building was restored in 2007 and hosts a variety of exhibits on the history of the island. The ghost here is referred to as the Chain Smoking Ghost. Smoke is smelled in the building and upon investigation, nothing is found. Chairs occasionally fall over on their own and strange noises are heard.

The Hale Building located at the corner of Second and D Street is named for former mayor Francis E. Hale who built the structure in 1880 to be used as a clothing and grocery store. The structure is 4,000 square feet with 17 inch thick tabby walls, fifteen foot ceiling, heart of cedar timber framing and a bricked courtyard in the back. A second story porch was added at the turn-of-the-century. Several businesses have used the building including I.O. Andrews & Co., which sold ladies' and gents' furnishing goods, a doctor's office was here as was a real estate office. There was a bar and a movie house and Tony's Chowder House, which opened in 2005 and is still there today on the ground floor. Chef Eric's chowder has won world-championships. The restaurant is named for his brother. Hauntings: pg 101

Cedar Key has certainly seen its fair share of tragedy and death via storms and such. The spirit of these islands is strong and some have to wonder if the presence of spirits is also strong. Does the Island Hotel host more than just living guests? Are there spirits here, particularly Miss Bessie? Are Cedar Key and the Island Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 564 - The Life and Afterlife of John F. Kennedy

Moment in Oddity - Invention of the Webcam (Suggested by: Ruth Dempsey)

For many people, coffee fuels their day. Those who work in a corporate setting know how tragic it can be heading to the coffee machine just to find the energizing beverage is all gone. What if you worked in a seven story building that only had a single coffee pot that held a mere 6 cups! That's the stuff of nightmares. Traveling multiple floors just to find an empty pot is a horrifying thought! In 1991, the University of Cambridge was in that particular predicament. Their solution was an invention that many of us use today. Computer scientist, Dr. Quentin Stafford-Fraser stated, "One of the things that's very, very important in computer science research is a regular and dependable flow of caffeine". To resolve the issue, Dr. Quentin and Dr. Paul Jardetzky set up a camera to monitor the single coffee pot that supplied all seven floors of their building. The webcam would record photos three times per minute. The men also wrote software that would allow people in other departments to view the camera images on their computers. This helped people cope with the emotional distress of traveling all the way from other floors just to find an empty carafe. Contemplating a building of 7 floors only containing a 6 cup fuel for life is terrifying in and of itself, but the fact that it was the precursor to a modern day device such as the webcam, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Bram Stoker Born

In the month of November, on the 8th, in 1847, Abraham "Bram" Stoker was born in Marino Crescent, Dublin, Ireland. He was the third of seven children born to parents Abraham Stoker and Charlotte Mathilda Blake Thornley. Bram was a sickly boy due to an unknown illness which seemingly resolved itself once he started school at the age of seven. He wrote of this time, "I was naturally thoughtful, and the leisure of long illness gave opportunity for many thoughts which were fruitful according to their kind in later years.". Serious illness never found him again until later in life. He even excelled in multiple sports while attending Trinity College and Dublin University. Stoker began his interest in the theatre while still a student. He took a position as a theatre critic but at the time, this type of job position was held in low regard. However, Stoker's way with the written word garnered much attention. Soon he was publishing his first short stories beginning in 1872 with "Crystal Cup" and graduating to his first novel with "The Primrose Path" in 1875. During his days as a theatre critic, Stoker wrote a favourable review of Henry Irving's performance in Hamlet. This critique prompted an invitation to dinner by Irving and the two became fast friends. Bram Stoker went on to work at the Lyceum Theatre alongside Henry Irving serving as his business manager and personal assistant. Stoker was a prolific writer but he is most well known for his Gothic horror novel Dracula. Some say that Vlad the Impaler was Stoker's inspiration for the classic novel, although today many people dispute this. However, the physical attributes of Count Dracula are said to be modeled after his friend Henry Irving with his aquiline face, high nose bridge, arched nostrils, domed forehead and bushy eyebrows. Bram Stoker suffered a stroke in 1906, shortly after the death of his friend Henry Irving in October 1905. The initial stroke left him significantly debilitated and over the following six years he suffered many more before his passing in 1912.

The Life and Afterlife of John F. Kennedy

John F. Kennedy's presidency lasted for only 1,000 days, but his legacy has lived on for decades. He was the youngest man elected to the Presidency and his youth and vision inspired a nation. His life was cut short by an assassin's bullet, a bullet that people still debate the origin of to this day. And perhaps that is why the spirit of JFK seems to be at unrest. Or was it because his life was cut so very short? Join us for the life and afterlife of John F. Kennedy!

John Fitzgerald Kennedy was born to Joseph and Rose Kennedy on May 29, 1917 in Brookline, Massachusetts. He was the second of their nine children and named for Rose's father. Every one called him Jack. The family faced a bit of discrimination because they were Irish Catholics and this seemed to fuel the families desire to be successful. Joseph Kennedy attended Harvard College and made a promise to himself to become a millionaire by the time he was thirty-five. And he made good on that mainly through the Stock Market where he did insider trading and market manipulation. The Kennedy family was involved in politics, which would pass down from Joseph Kennedy's father to his sons. Trust funds were set up for the Kennedy siblings and they would never know want. Despite the life of privilege, Jack was a sick kid. He nearly died from Scarlet Fever before he was three. A variety of illnesses would plague him his whole life.

The Kennedys moved outside of Boston when Jack was three. The family spent summers in Hyannis Port on Cape Cod, which is a six acre property with three houses that has been nicknamed the Kennedy Compound. Christmas and Easter would be spent at the Kennedy winter retreat in Palm Beach, Florida. Jack Kennedy started attending Canterbury School in 1930, but transferred to Choate (KOH-ate) the following year after he had an appendectomy and had to leave school to recover for several weeks. Choate technically was Choate Rosemary Hall, which was a private college-preparatory school in Connecticut. Joe Sr. had picked this school because he wanted his sons to mingle with Protestants as he figured this would help their future political careers. The pressure to succeed was tough for Jack and he had a hard time measuring up to his older brother Joe. So Jack became a rebel, leading a pack of boys into playing pranks like exploding a toilet seat with a firecracker. He nicknamed his crew The Muckers Club after the headmaster said a bunch of "muckers" had done the deed. One member of the group was a guy named Lem Billings who would be a lifelong friend of Kennedy.

Billings was a year ahead of Jack, so he repeated his senior year so that he could graduate with Jack. He spent holidays with the Kennedys and they treated him like another son. Jackie Kennedy would later comment that Billings had been a house guest at her house since she married Jack. Billings helped with the campaign for the presidency and would help organize White House dinners. He was often referred to as the "First Friend" and he helped Jack to get around when he was ill, some staff referring to him as being better than a trained nurse. Billings was gay and Kennedy knew this all the way going back to Choate. Based on some pictures that I've seen of the two, it would seem Billings carried a torch for Jack. The feelings may or may not have been reciprocated, but Jack wasn't worried about Billings.

Kennedy enrolled at Harvard College in 1936 and he got involved in sports and various clubs, one of which was the Spee Club, an elite "final club" at the university. In 1939, he traveled extensively through Europe. In 1940, he graduated cum laude from Harvard with a Bachelor of Arts in government. War was rolling across Europe at this time and the Kennedy brothers joined the Navy, with Joe going off to be a flyer in Europe and Jack became a commander of a patrol torpedo boat in the South Pacific. That boat had a crew of twelve men under Lt. Kennedy and on August 2, 1943, it came upon a Japanese destroyer that was headed directly towards it. The destroyer split  Kennedy's boat in half, killing two men. Everyone else abandoned ship as Kennedy was slammed hard in the cockpit. He had an old football injury that was aggravated. Despite his injury, Kennedy rescued one of his men and then led the rest to a small nearby island. The group survived on the island for six days before two native islanders found them and went to get help. Jack had escaped death. The following year, his brother Joe would not escape death. His plane blew up while he was on a dangerous mission.

Jack returned home and received medals and the war ended. Joseph Sr. had been grooming his eldest for politics and he had big dreams for his son Joe. Now Joe was dead and Joe Sr. was determined to push Jack in the same direction he had been guiding Joe Jr. In 1946, Jack began his assent to the presidency by running for Congress in Massachusetts and he won. He served three terms and then ran for Senate, winning that seat in 1952. The following year, on September 12, 1953, he married Jacqueline Bouvier. Jackie was 12 years his junior. She was born in 1929 in New York and named after her father John "Black Jack" Bouvier. She grew up in Manhattan and Long Island and had a great relationship with her father early on, but he fell into alcoholism and had multiple affairs leading her mother to separating from her father in 1936. The divorce would be finalized in 1940 and Jackie was deeply affected by the split. Jackie graduated from George Washington University in 1951. 

Jack and Jackie met at a dinner party hosted by journalist Charles L. Bartlett in May of 1952. They had a lot in common. They were both Catholics and intellectual equals. Jackie's wedding dress was designed by fashion designer Ann Lowe, who came up in our previous episode about the Tampa Bay Hotel. The marriage was tested early with Jack nearly dying during a spinal operation in 1954 and Jackie suffered a miscarriage in 1955. In 1956, the couple had a stillborn daughter. In 1957, Caroline was born and the family posed for the cover of a Life magazine in 1958 as Jack ran for re-election to the Senate. Jack Kennedy was a writer on top of everything else and he wrote "Profiles in Courage" in 1955 and he won the Pulitzer Prize in history. Jack began flirting with the presidency in 1956 when he was almost nominated as Vice President. Four years later, the Democrats would make him their nominee for President.

JFK chose fellow challenger Lyndon B. Johnson as his running mate. He figured Johnson would help him win the South. Richard M. Nixon, who was the current Republican Vice President, was nominated as the Republican nominee. Many people thought that Kennedy was too young to be President at the age of 43, but it worked in his favor because this campaign would be the first to be heavily televised. Debates were run in prime time slots and a sweaty, older Nixon looked bad next to a young and fresh-faced Kennedy. The race was very close and Jack barely won the popular vote. During the campaign, Jackie was pregnant with John Jr. and he was born right before Kennedy was inaugurated. Jack was sworn in as the 35th president on January 20, 1961. His inaugural speech would give us the enduring line, "Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country." The Kennedys would have another son named Patrick that was born in 1963, but he died shortly after birth from a serious lung ailment.

The Kennedys tenure at the White House improved "the People's House" greatly. The couple loved history and they wanted people to visit the White House. Jackie restored all the rooms in the White House and the couple gathered the finest art and furniture in the United States. The White House also became a home catered towards children as Caroline and John-John were very young. A tree house sat out on the White House lawn and a preschool was set up inside. Kennedy was the first president to have press conferences broadcast live on television.

The Kennedy presidency occurred at the height of the Cold War. The Soviet Union and the United States had been racing to outdo each other in manufacturing nuclear weapons. JFK was very worried about the prospect of a war that he knew would kill millions of people. He also wanted to fight Communism and President Eisenhower had set his eyes on Cuba and overthrowing Fidel Castro and Kennedy carried out that task. A band of Cuban exiles were trained and sent to invade Cuba and the place they landed was called the Bay of Pigs. The invasion was ill-fated and no one was supposed to know the US was involved and it failed on all fronts. Kennedy paced around the White House for days berating himself for being so stupid. When it came to confronting the Soviet Union, he was far more successful.  

The Cuban Missile Crisis originated in October of 1962 and this would be the closest that America and the Soviet Union would come to nuclear conflict in all of history. Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev had reached a deal with Fidel Castro to bring nuclear missiles into the country. Castro was eager to agree because of the Bay of Pigs attempted invasion. American intelligence services caught wind of the plan and Kennedy knew there was no way he could allow those weapons to get so close to America. A public warning was issued by President Kennedy and it went ignored as missile sites were constructed in Cuba. Kennedy sent a letter to Khrushchev and issued a "quarantine" on Cuba. JFK addressed the nation that evening and said, "It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union." Tensions rose, we went to DEFCON 2 and JFK considered an attack on Cuba. There were mixed messages and misunderstandings as things escalated. The crisis ended on the 13th day of the confrontation after a secret deal was made that embarrassed the Soviets in public. They publicly removed everything from Cuba, while America secretly removed their missiles from Turkey in exchange. 

President Kennedy had big goals for America. He wanted to pass civil rights laws to help end segregation in the country and he proposed a new Civil Rights bill to Congress. He addressed Americans on TV saying, "One hundred years of delay have passed since President Lincoln freed the slaves, yet their heirs, their grandsons, are not fully free. This Nation was founded by men of many nations and backgrounds…[and] on the principle that all men are created equal." JFK created the Peace Corps, that still exists today, and this program takes Americans around the world to help on projects in disadvantaged areas. He had dreams of winning the space race and he said in a speech at Rice University, "We choose to go to the moon. We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard, because that goal will serve to organize and measure the best of our energies and skills, because that challenge is one that we are willing to accept, one we are unwilling to postpone, and one which we intend to win, and the others, too." Kennedy would be president for 1,000 days and then an assassin's bullet would cut him down in the prime of life and at the height of his presidency and he wouldn't see many of his goals come to fruition.

Now before we get into the assassination, we've painted a very nice picture here of JFK. This is what the Kennedys would want, specifically Jackie who would present the whole idea of Camelot to the general public. But there is a lot of "ick" when it comes to JFK. As we discussed in our Life and Afterlife of Marilyn Monroe, it was no secret that JFK was having an affair with Monroe, as was his brother Bobby. The idea that the brothers were behind her death is a source of controversy, but one that we could believe. JFK ended up cutting Monroe off after Jackie threatened to take the kids and make the affair public so that he could kiss a second term goodbye. The Kennedy men were not good for women. No one knows for sure how many women Jack slept with during his marriage, but saying "dozens," hardly scratches the surface. Three to five different women a week is very possible. JFK was an ill man with a list of ailments and he believed that sex helped treat some of these illnesses. And Jackie may have looked the other way because trying to keep up with a sex addict would be an impossibility. Maureen Callahan wrote the book, "Ask Not: The Kenndys and the Women They Destroyed" in 2024. In it, she shares the assault of a young virginal 19-year-old by JFK and it is clear that the Kennedy men for several generations have used women for their own needs.

But that wasn't the only dark side to JFK. Did the Mafia help get Jack elected? There are theories that the Chicago Outfit was approached by either Joseph Kennedy or Frank Sinatra to get their help with getting union members to elect Kennedy. Was JFK's marriage to Jackie, his second marriage? New York Times writer Seymour Hersh suggested in his book "The Dark Side of Camelot," with FBI records to back it up, that Jack got really drunk at a party in 1947 and ran off with a beautiful socialite named Durie Malcolm to a Justice of the Peace and got secretly married. When his father Joseph found out, he had it annulled. Malcolm denied before her death that she had ever married Kennedy. The Kennedy family used to joke that if a mosquito ever bit Jack, it would die. Jack had a failure of the adrenal glands called Addison's disease that would have killed him if not for cortisone shots. He had intense back issues for which he needed painkillers. He was prone to infection. The man was basically a walking pharmacy and his doctor was the original Dr. Feelgood. He would give the President these speed-laced cocktails. So whether he meant to be a drug addict or not, JFK certainly was one.

And this brings us to a day that would be a moment in time that many people can set the calendar of the lives upon. It was around thirty minutes after noon on November 22, 1963 when President Kennedy and his wife Jackie were sitting in the back seat of a limo going through Dealy Plaze in Dallas, Texas, waving to the crowds when a bullet blew a hole into Jack's head. JFK was preparing to run for re-election in the fall of 1963 and Texas was an important state. The President's team planned a two-day, five-city tour through Texas which began with San Antonio. Dallas was the third stop and Governor John Connally and his wife, Nellie, picked the Kennedys up in an open convertible Lincoln Continental limousine. It had a plastic bubble that could go on top of it in case of rain, but some early morning rain had stopped, so the top was taken off. The car entered Dealey Plaza and Nellie Connally yelled back to JFK, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you." President Kennedy answered, "No, you certainly can't." She then heard three gunshots in quick succession. Her husband was shot in the back and the President was shot once in the upper back that went through to the front of the neck and once in the head. The back wound indicates a shot from behind. The head wound indicates a shot from the front.

The car had just gone past the Texas School Book Depository and inside, on the third floor, was a man named Lee Harvey Oswald. Oswald had once been a Marine who earned a sharpshooter qualification. He was reportedly a Marxist who moved to the Soviet Union and tried to get citizenship. When the Marines found out about this, they downgraded his discharge from honorable to undesirable. Oswald returned to the US with a woman he had married in the Soviet Union and their daughter in 1962. He purchased a rifle with telescopic sight and a .38 revolver. In 1963, he moved to Texas and got a job at the Texas School Book Depository in Dallas. The official investigation, The Warren Commission, would claim that Oswald acted alone and that he fired three bullets from a sixth-floor window at the southeast corner of the Book Depository. Oswald ran from the scene and when confronted by Patrolman J.D. Tippit, he shot and killed him. He then hid at the Texas Theater and was arrested there. He was arraigned and interrogated over two days. Oswald denied any guilt and said, "I didn’t shoot anybody, no sir … I’m just a patsy." The plan was then to transfer him to the county jail on November 24, 1963 and he was shot and killed by Jack Ruby. Ruby claimed he acted alone and that he was angry over the assassination, but many people believe he was part of a wider plan too. Ruby was convicted and sentenced to die in the electric chair, but the ruling was overturned on appeal. A pulmonary embolism from lung cancer, killed Ruby in 1967.

Nobody believes that Oswald was a lone shooter. Ok, there is a poll that about 33% of people do think Oswald acted alone, but anyone who watches the Zapruder film knows that the head shot came from the front of the President. That's why his head goes back and the back of his skull is blown off. A few seconds before that happens, Jack reaches up to his throat, which is probably when he was shot through the back. The House of Representatives Assassination Committee in 1979 found that it was possible that there was another shooter. Official records claim that there was no federal agent on the grassy knoll that day. JFK Documentary Producer Brent Holland tells a story about Texas police officer Joe M. Smith racing behind the picket fence on the grassy knoll and encountering a suspicious man lurking right behind the fence where it was believed the shots had come from. This man pulled out a Secret Service badge and he told Smith to keep looking. Several other witnesses reportedly ran into a Secret Service agent as well. So if there were officially no federal agents assigned to be there, where was this guy from? Was he really Secret Service? Did he fire the shots? 

There was a man named James Braden who was arrested on the day of the assassination at the Dal Tex Building in Dealey Plaza. It was found that this was an alias and his real name was Eugene Hail Brading and he had a long record of criminal activity. He was later released, but there are verified reports that he met with Jack Ruby the night of November 21, 1963. Fast forward to Robert Kennedy's assassination and guess who was picked up for questioning fifteen minutes away from the site of the assassination? Brading. There are other conspiracy theories as well. Some believe Cuban exiles carried this out or that the Mob had Kennedy taken out. New Orleans Mafia boss Carlos Marcello admitted on tape to the FBI in 1985 that he had planned the assassination and that Ruby worked for him. Still others look at the government and point at the CIA. There's no better way to shut up a President and give a stark warning to future Presidents, than to gun him down in broad daylight in front of a crowd of people. We've heard people argue that Lyndon Johnson and George H.W. Bush might have been involved as well.

Jackie was an amazing woman. She had endured losing three children. She tolerated countless affairs. And she watched her husband get his head blown off in broad daylight as he sat next to her. She immediately crawled across the back of the car to gather the pieces of his skull that had been blown off the back of his head and then she tried to piece his skull back together and hold it together as they rushed to Parkland Hospital. Jackie boarded Air Force One later that day, still covered in her husband's blood and probably brain matter, and witnessed the swearing in of Vice president Lyndon B. Johnson because she wanted to reassure the nation that we had a continuity of government. And then she planned a great memorial and helped a nation mourn.

President Kennedy's assassination affected the country deeply. Neither of us were alive at that time, so we thought it would be interesting to hear from Diane's parents what it was like to be alive at that time. (Mom and Dad on Kennedy)

As Diane's parents said, a horse-drawn caisson carried Kennedy’s flag-draped coffin to St. Matthew’s Catholic Cathedral from the Capitol Rotunda on November 25th. The riderless horse with the boots in reverse in the sirrups was named Black Jack. This is one of the highest military honors bestowed upon the fallen. There were 800,000 people along the funeral procession route. Kennedy was buried with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery and Jackie lit eternal flame. But this may not have been the end for JFK's spirit.

There are those that claim that there is a curse connected to the family, the Kennedy Curse. Now keep in mind, this is a large family so having several tragedies is possible. But it does seem they have had more than their share.

August 12, 1944 – Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. died when the military aircraft he was piloting exploded over East Suffolk, England.
September 9, 1944 – William Cavendish, Marquess of Hartington, newlywed husband of Kathleen Kennedy, was fatally shot by a German sniper while leading his company near Heppen, Belgium.
May 13, 1948 – Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy (formally known as Kathleen Cavendish, Marchioness of Hartington) died in a plane crash in France.
August 23, 1956 – Arabella Kennedy, daughter of John F. Kennedy, died at birth.
August 9, 1963 – Patrick Bouvier Kennedy, son of John F. Kennedy, died of infant respiratory distress syndrome two days after his premature birth on August 7 in Otis Air Force Base, Massachusetts.
November 22, 1963 – U.S. President John F. Kennedy was assassinated by Lee Harvey Oswald as he rode in a motorcade through Dealey Plaza in Dallas.
June 5, 1968 – U.S. Senator and Democratic presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy was shot by Sirhan Sirhan in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles on the night of his victory in the California primary; Robert died the following morning.
January 23, 1974 – Athalia Ponsell Lindsley, who dated Joseph P. Kennedy Jr. until his death, was murdered at her home.
April 25, 1984 – David A. Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, died of a drug overdose in a Palm Beach, Florida hotel room.
December 31, 1997 – Michael LeMoyne Kennedy, son of Robert F. Kennedy, died in a skiing accident after crashing into a tree in Aspen, Colorado.
July 16, 1999 – John F. Kennedy Jr. died together with his wife Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and her sister Lauren Bessette, when the plane he was piloting crashed off the coast of Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.
September 16, 2011 – Kara Kennedy, daughter of Ted Kennedy, died of a heart attack while exercising in a Washington, D.C. health club.
May 16, 2012 – Mary Richardson Kennedy, wife of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., died by suicide on the grounds of her home in Bedford, New York.
August 1, 2019 – Saoirse Kennedy Hill, granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, died of an accidental drug overdose at the Kennedy Compound in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts.
April 2, 2020 – Maeve Kennedy McKean, granddaughter of Robert F. Kennedy, disappeared with her eight-year-old son, Gideon, during a short canoe trip in Chesapeake Bay. Their bodies were recovered from the bay later that week. Autopsies revealed that both had accidentally drowned in the turbulent and chilly water.

Another weird thing about Kennedy that seems to have some paranormal connections are the connections between President Kennedy and President Lincoln. (pg. 117 in "Haunted Presidents by Charles A. Stansfield, Jr.)

As for Kennedy's ghost, there are people who say they sense the spirit of JFK at the Kennedy Compound. And his final resting place at Arlington Cemetery has reports of a bright, luminous mist being seen over the grave or near it. The full-bodied apparition of JFK has been seen at the grave as well. These mostly came in at a time when the coffin had to be moved so that a permanent gas line could be installed to replace a propane tank. Jack might also haunt a historic location on the Freedom Trail in Boston named the Union Oyster House.

No one is sure exactly when the building was built, but the street it is named for was laid in 1636. Hopestill Capen's dress shop was here starting in 1742. The oldest newspaper in the United States was established on the upper floor in 1771 and was called "The Massachusetts Spy." This was published by printer Isaiah Thomas. The first paymaster of the Continental Army set up his headquarters here in 1775. During the Revolutionary War, Capen's silk and dry goods store hosted the wives of Adams, Hancock and Quincy, as well as other women, who sewed and mended clothes here. Louis Phillippe, who would be king of France from 1830 to 1848, lived on the second floor of the building in 1796. He taught French to the young ladies of Boston. Capen's Dry Goods Store closed in 1826 and two men named Hawes Atwood and Allen Holbrook Bacon bought the former store and opened the Old Oyster House in 1826. They installed a semi-circular Oyster Bar. Fun Fact: The toothpick was used here for the first time. A man named Charles Forster had imported toothpicks from South America and he hired Harvard boys to eat at the Union Oyster House and ask for toothpicks. The restaurant then was owned by someone else and in 1970, Joseph and Mary Ann Milano bought the place and still own it today. This was a favorite restaurant for Jack and he loved the privacy of the upstairs dining room. The booth that he used was nicknamed "The Kennedy Booth" and it was dedicated to his memory. JFK's spirit likes to hang out at the booth. His apparition has appeared in the dining room and seems to just be silently watching people eat. In the bathroom, his reflection has sometimes been seen in the mirror.

President John Kennedy inspired a nation and highlighted that we could solve our common problems if we put our country's interests first and worked together. He was a catalyst to civil rights legislation. He protected this nation from nuclear war. And he was a flawed man. Jack's life was cut short and there really has been no justice for that act. Could his spirit be at unrest? That is for you to decide!