HGB Ep. 588 - Beattie Mansion

Moment in Oddity - Odd Orchids

At History Goes Bump, we love nothing more than to be outside gardening. Any listeners that I am personal friends with have seen my posts of my various orchids in bloom. Recently I saw an article discussing two very unique looking orchids. The white egret orchid and the naked man orchid. The white egret orchid is found in China, Japan, Korea and Russia. Its delicate petals really do resemble a white egret in mid-flight. The blooms are said to represent purity and freedom with their ethereal fringed petals that sway in the wind. The plant grows naturally in grassy wetlands, upland bogs and seepage slopes. This exquisitely beautiful plant can be purchased online through many orchid growers. And of course, my other mention was the naked man orchid. Yes, that is indeed one of its common names. This species of orchid is also known as the Italian orchid and is native to the Mediterranean Basin. The flowers themselves grow atop a thick stem and are densely gathered, similar in appearance to a Lily of the Nile flowering stalk. In Italy, these orchids are believed to promote virility. The individual flowers do actually look like naked people. They are generally colored with variations of pink and purple, with pure white specimens being quite rare. The reason why the common name for this orchid is naked man and not naked woman is due to a certain, ahem, way that the flower's petals are arranged. These orchids are also available online and we encourage our listeners to look them both up, if nothing more than for a chuckle. Nature can produce some stunning varieties of flowers, but orchids that closely resemble feathered white egrets and another looking like a crowd of naked men, certainly are odd.

This Month in History - Battle of Hamburger Hill

In the month of May, on the 11th, in 1969, the Battle of "Hamburger Hill" began during the Vietnam War. U.S. troops were attempting to seize Dong Ap Bia Mountain. This battle endured multiple attempts to scale the mountain over a ten day period and led to many bloody hand-to-hand combats with the North Vietnamese. The mountain was called Hill 937 by US forces and was part of Operation Apache Snow with the objective of driving the North Vietnamese forces from the A Sau (Ah Shaw) Valley. The battle was especially brutal with major losses on both sides. The U.S. suffered 72 killed and over 372 wounded while the North Vietnamese were said to have had an estimated 630 soldiers killed. The U.S. captured Hill 937 but later abandoned it on June 5th. The North Vietnamese re-occupied Hamburger Hill a month later. This battle and abandonment of the target, brought about questions regarding the purpose and costs of the battle. The outrage over what appeared to be a senseless loss of American lives was aggravated by photographs published in Life magazine of U.S. soldiers killed during the battle. It fueled anti-war sentiments regarding criticism of the high casualty rate and perceived lack of strategic clarity during the Vietnam War. Despite the criticism, many soldiers and military leaders disagreed and Army General Melvin Zais stated, “Those people are acting like this was a catastrophe for the U.S. troops. This was a tremendous, gallant victory.”

Beattie Mansion (Suggested by: Sarah Crom)

The Beattie Mansion in St. Joseph, Missouri has stood for more than 170 years. This began as a home for the Beatties and later became a home for unwed women and orphans and then an assisted living facility that occasionally served the addicted and people with mental health issues. The current owner wanted to open a boutique hotel, but he had trouble keeping help. Something was scaring them all off. Once he started having his own unexplained experiences, he knew he needed to open up the house to investigators. There has been no shortage of activity for these investigators. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Beattie Mansion! 

St. Joseph, Missouri is where Jesse James supposedly died. The city was founded on the Missouri River by Joseph Robidoux (Robe ee do) and the city is named for him and the biblical St. Joseph. This was a frontier town that leaned toward the wild side and thus became a launch point for people heading for the Wild West. Thus the nickname "Gateway to the West" was given to it. Not only did the railroad end here until western routes were built, but the Pony Express also ended here. St. Joseph was officially incorporated in 1843. In 1854, Armstrong and Eliza Beattie built their mansion in St. Joseph on Main Street. It would be called the "House on the Hill." Armstrong Beattie was born in 1811 in Virginia. When he was ten, his family moved to Howard County, Missouri. His father died shortly thereafter and he found work as a hat maker in Columbia, Missouri. Eliza Snoddy came into his life in 1841 and the couple married. They would have no children, but would eventually took under their wing several nieces and nephews. The Beatties moved to Hunstville, Missouri and Armstrong worked as a merchant for ten years. In 1852, the Beatties arrived in St. Joseph and Armstrong set his sights on the banking industry. The only banking offered in the town was out of the back of John Corby's general store. And all that really consisted of was a metal safe. So Armstrong was going to become St. Joseph's first full-time banker. He opened his bank in a storeroom under the City Hotel and ran the following advertisement in the St. Joseph Gazette on January 28, 1853: "A. BEATTIE, Banker and Dealer in Exchange, St. Joseph, Missouri, 'Buys and sells exchanges on all the Eastern, Western, and Southern cities and sells on San Francisco, California in sums to suit. Collections made on all the principal cities of the Union and proceeds to promptly remitted for at current rates of exchange. Land warrants bought and sold. Office on Jule Street in the City Hotel Building.'" The banking business flourished and Beattie was able to build his own bank building on Second Street. In 1872, he moved to the west side of Third Street into a building which had been the United States Express Company. So the old Pony Express building that is today the St. Joseph Historical Society. In 1854, the Beatties built their mansion. The house was two-stories with a flat roof and built from red brick. There was a veranda on both levels in the front. The interior was typical with bedrooms on the second floor and the first floor having a parlor, dining room and other community spaces. The basement had the kitchen and a dumb waiter was used to bring up food.

Eliza had a sister named Margaret Snoddy who married a man named Robert Wilson in 1826. The couple would have two sons, John and James, and a daughter named Mary Ann. Margaret died in 1837 at the age of 29. Little Mary Ann was taken to Armstrong and Eliza and they raised her as their own. In 1855, she married a man named Rufus L. McDonald and they had seven children. Mary Ann's brother James came to St. Joseph when he reached adulthood and Armstrong brought him into partnership in the bank. On his side of the family, Armstrong had a nephew named Thomas Weakley and he brought him into the bank too. Not only did he work with banking, but Armstrong got involved in politics and he served on the City Council from 1855 to 1856 and then he was voted in as mayor six times: 1857, 1858, 1860, 1866, 1876 and 1878. Armstrong was thought of very highly and the newspaper said of him in 1878, "No man has exercised a greater influence upon the character of business stability, integrity and progress of our city than Mr. Beattie. We are all greatly indebted to him. He has made his way in the world by unswerving integrity, energy, industry, and business capacity. No man is more widely or favorably known among the bankers of the West." 

Not long after that, Armstrong would contract cholera. It was the third time in his life that he was stricken with the illness and this final time would kill him. He died on July 26,1878 and was buried in Mount Mora Cemetery. His funeral was attended by many city and county officials and business leaders. The Globe wrote of Armstrong after his death in 1878, "Ex-Mayor Beattie, of St. Joseph, died this morning, after a short illness.  Mr. Beattie was one of the oldest as well as one of the most generally respected citizens of our sister city, and perhaps did as much as any other man to give St. Joseph her present commercial importance.  He was at the head of the oldest and most substantial bank in the city, and it can be said of him that he has been of great use to his fellow men, his community, and to himself." Now the story told about Armstrong and his will is that he left only the house to Eliza, but no money to upkeep the house or her in general and that he gave his money to nieces and nephews. This story seems to be told to lend credence to Eliza haunting the place because it was all she owned. We found his will that was dated August 30, 1875 and presented to court July 29, 1878. And the beginning of it reads, "I, Armstrong Beattie of sound and disposing mind do make and ordain this my last will and testament hereby revoking all other wills heretofore made. 1st I desire and request my executor to pay all my just debts. 2nd I give bequeath and devise to my wife Eliza J. Beattie my household and kitchen furniture, and one half of all my estate personal real and mixed, absolutely, of which I may die possessed and seized. 3rd In the event that my said wife shall depart this life before I do, I give bequeath and devise to the brother, nephews and nieces and sister of my said wife to wit" and it goes on to name them all and then continues with divisions of the rest of the estate. So it sounds to us like Eliza got the house and half of everything else after debts were paid.

Eliza didn't have the house for long as she died two years after Armstrong. The family sold the mansion to the Ladies Union Benevolent Association (LUBA) and they refurbished it and opened the "Home for the Friendless." This was a place for all of the discards of the city from the homeless to prostitutes to widows to orphans. The first month it was open, eighteen people moved in. St. Joseph apparently was full of brothels, eighty of them, so several of those residents were sex workers who had children out of wedlock. The mansion became a refuge for them. A death occurred in the house in 1892. This was four-year-old Mabel Iden. A big change came for the house in 1895. The house was converted into the Memorial Home for the Aged and another wing was added to the house. It ran as a home for the elderly for 100 years and then residents were moved to a more modern facility. The Beattie Mansion was then used as a group home for the mentally ill and substance abuse addicts. That shut down and the house sat empty for awhile and then in 2005, the mansion was bought by Michael Burkart who had dreams of renovating it into a bed and breakfast.

Renovations didn't go according to plan because of all the supernatural activity that took place in the house, so it is in pretty rough shape. Tools would go missing or get moved. Construction crews kept getting run off because of the level of weird stuff and (owner) finally gave up on trying to make the place a bed and breakfast. The mansion hosts every kind of haunting activity. There are two pianos in the house that get played by ghosts. Child ghosts like to run up and down the stairs and even swing on the chandeliers and this has been caught on SLS cameras. There are disembodied footsteps, dragging sounds and slamming doors. There are creepers here and that is what they call them. These are entities that move along the ceilings and up and down the corners of rooms. Shadow figures and full-body apparitions are seen. Most importantly, this place has a haunted potty chair. Yep, you heard that right. This is a wooden chair that has a square cut out of it and was apparently used as a portable toilet. The manager and main guide is psychic Mary Ann Podrasky. Podrasky has said, "We have footsteps, whistling, my name is called, we’ve heard piano music played. I’ve heard singing right in this area, which I attribute to Eliza. My husband’s been locked in the basement before. I thought it was hilarious."

It is believed that at least a hundred people have passed in the mansion over the years. The main spirits thought to be here include Armstrong and Eliza Beattie. Eliza seems to hang out mostly on the second floor and is a constant presence. A child spirit named Mabel Iden also hangs out in a bedroom on the second floor. The kitchen hosts quite a bit of strange stuff. The most haunted area is, of course, the basement. There is an unhappy spirit in the basement who people call either Charles or Walt. He likes to taunt visitors and has been heard laughing and walking the hallways. Some people think he is just a grumpy former caretaker who is seen looking dirty because he was usually taking care of the boiler.

The paranormal group Afterlife Sessions investigated in 2018. The group were in the kitchen doing a Spirit Box session. They asked if the spirits had good memories of the kitchen and "I did not" was the answer. They asked if the butler was there and "almost done" was the response. They got a whiff of perfume while doing the session. In the basement, they tried an experiment with a teddy bear on one end of a hallway that had a Mel Meter just a little bit in front of it, then an area with sprinkled baby powder and then another device that could light up. They did get that device to light up, but no ghost seemed to run through the series they had set up. They were trying to get the children down there to walk though the powder to get to the bear. One of the investigator's last names was Biddle and that came through the Spirit Box. They brought the teddy bear upstairs and placed it in a seat with the light-up device in front of it and asked if the spirit would touch the bear. The Spirit Box said "no" and then "I ain't dead," but then the light did go on.

Marcia Davis and the Midwest Ghost Hunters investigated in 2019. They used the Portal for a Spirit Box session. Earlier in the evening, Marcia had found a quarter on the basement floor and she put it in her pocket. They got "coin" to come though the Portal and then when they asked if the spirit needed money, "I do" came through. And then WHOA!!!, the Portal said, "Marcia pinched it." When they asked why the spirit needed money, they got "broke." The next morning, Marcia got caught up on the basement door knob and had opened it, without realizing she had done that and the investigators thought the door had opened on its own. So they start doing a Portal session after that and asked if the spirit opened the door and the Portal answered "Marcia." They captured a whistle on one their cameras. On another camera they got this weird light anomaly that we found to be pretty interesting in the way it moved. It seemed to go along the hall and then disappeared into the floor just as the investigators come into the space. They caught an EVP saying, "Get inspired."

Michaela Miller-Stout wrote for Medium in 2021 about a visit she made to the house, "Two of my friends volunteered to join me at the Beattie Mansion for photos. Almost immediately upon setting foot in the house with Podrasky, events began to take place. There was no shortage of disembodied voices and breathing, doors opening and closing, feelings of being touched, camera malfunctions, footsteps and seeing figures watching curiously from down the hall. After the short hour and a half we spent in the mansion, we could safely say this was one of the most active places any of us had ever been to. After our visit, even Podrasky admitted, 'They showed off for you three.'" They captured an EVP saying "go" twice. (EVP says go) 

Jason of Cemetery Road on YouTube investigated in September of 2022 and he got a cold chill near a stairway in the newer section that has a lot of activity near it. He also thought he heard someone coming down the stairs and he asked if anyone was there and there was nothing. This was as he was doing an initial walk through of the house. During the investigation that night, they caught an audible "hi" on the camera and they heard it at the time as well. There were the sounds of hard shoes on a hard floor. Jason had his son with him and they decided to do a dowsing rod session in Room 19. Someone indicated they were in the room and said that they passed away in the room and that they were a man. The spirit said they took their own life. It also indicated that both the Beatties were in the house. When Jason asked if it was okay for them to be there, there was no response. Then he asked if they wanted them to leave and it said "yes" so they left the room. But what if it meant the house in general? They did dowsing rods in another room and were speaking to an elderly person who liked having them there. This was a really tame investigation.

Amy from Amy's Crypt investigated the mansion in 2022. One of the main things that happened is that they placed a Para4ce Music Box on the bed in the room where Mabel hangs out. Amy asked Mabel to get the music box to go off and it went off for an extended period of time. Her boyfriend Jarrad was down in the basement by himself with the Ghost Tube App and he asked, "How do you feel about me being in this room right now and it responded "insulted." Later it said "there was a moron" and Jarrad wondered if it was calling him a moron. A cat ball on the bed went off a little later. They had a relatively quiet investigation.

Sue Poshusta of Short Bus Paranormal Investigators told KCTV5 about an experience she had in the house in 2024. She had a music box across the room from her and she invited the children to come in and play. The music box started playing like crazy. She asked them to stop playing the music box and suddenly, the right side of her body turned to ice. So it was as if the children came running over to her.

We get the feeling that the hauntings at the mansion are more subtle. And we've heard that the spirits embrace a more calm investigating technique. But just because ghosts are a little more shy and quiet about being around, doesn't mean they aren't haunting a place. Is the Beattie Mansion haunted? That is for you to decide!