HGB Podcast, Ep. 78 - Legend of Mercy Brown

Moment in Oddity - The Legend of Catherine's Hill

On the Black Woods Road of Maine originates the tale of a female spectre. When the sun is setting and fog rolls in, many people claim to see the spirit of a decapitated woman named Catherine stalking the road between Franklin and Cherryfield on Route 182. The story of how Catherine lost her head involves a car accident. Or possibly a carriage accident. You see, the legend of Catherine's Hill has many different tellings depending on the decade and the storyteller. People are warned to respect the space where the spectre is seen and are directed to not take anything home with them. If a passerby should see Catherine on the side of the road, they must attempt to pick her up or she will curse them. It is said that one young man sped past the apparition and when he looked in his rearview mirror, he saw Catherine sitting in his back seat. He ended up crashing his car and dying. How do people know he saw Catherine? Well, that is what legends are all about after all. Many people claim to feel a presence and one TV reporter who visited the area for a story remarked that something was pressed against her back the whole time. Now that certainly is odd.

This Day in History - The Charge of the Light Brigade

On this day, October 25th, in 1854, the Charge of the Light Brigade occured during the Crimea War. Many people are probably familiar with the Lord Tennyson poem about the Charge of the Light Brigade. The third stanza gives all the horrible details:

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley'd and thunder'd;
Storm'd at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

The Light Brigade was a British Calvary made up of the 13th Light Dragoons, 4th Light Dragoons, 17th Lancers, 8th Hussars and 11th Hussars. They were facing Russian forces. And unfortunately, in the fog of war, orders were either miscommunicated or misunderstood and the Light Brigade, which was suppose to pursue a retreating Russian artillery, instead went for a frontal assault on a different Russian artillery that was well positioned and much larger. As the poem describes, the small force was surrounded and shot at from all sides. The casualties were high and the small division was forced to retreat. While historians have argued for decades about what really happened, there is no doubt among any of them that the Light Brigade showed true valor in facing an obvious outcome.

Legend of Mercy Brown  (Research Assistant: Lianna Sapien)

Most people assume the lore of vampires that originated in Europe, stayed in that area, but there was a time when America was embroiled in the middle of a vampire craze in New England. It was the 1800s and the dreaded consumption was wreaking havoc. Many families lost several of their members. One of those families was the Brown family. It was the death of one of their daughters that started the Legend of Mercy Brown. Were there really vampires in America and was Mercy one of them? Join us as we investigate the history of this craze and a young woman named Mercy Brown.

A few podcasts ago, we covered the Salem Witch Trials. New England was swept up in a craze about witches during that time and it would seem that superstitions still ran high in this area, even after it was apparent that what happened in Salem and other parts of New England was terribly wrong. In the late 1800s, tuberculosis started running rampant throughout the area. The Brown family lived in Exeter, Rhode Island. Exeter was sparsly populated and the Civil War had decimated the town's numbers. Soon something else would lower the population even more. The Brown family consisted of George, his wife Mary Eliza and their children. George was a farmer and well respected, so it was tragic when his wife Mary took ill. By 1883 she had died and eldest daughter Mary Olive was sick. She died seven months after her mother.

At the time, tuberculosis of the lungs was referred to as consumption because it took a while to kill its victims. They seemed to waste away as they coughed up blood. The ill would grow pale and stop eating. Eventually, they would look almost like what most people would assume a vampire would appear to look like. One out of four people were dying from the disease. Rumors and superstitions instilled fear that perhaps something other than disease was happening here. And when one family seemed to have more deaths than others, town folk wondered if perhaps a family of vampires was living in their midst. A few years passed and life went back to normal for the remaining members of the Brown family. Everyone was happy and healthy until George’s son Edwin took ill. Knowing what the disease could possibly do to Edwin, George rushed his son to a doctor who recommended sending Edwin to Colorado Springs in the hopes that the mineral water would cure Edwin’s affliction. The climate of Colorado was believed to help cure people with tuberculosis as well. He improved and returned home only to find that his sister Mercy Elena had taken ill.

Mercy was ninteen, but youth was not on her side. She had contracted what had been termed the "galloping" variety of tuberculosis. This meant that the disease moved swiftly. Mercy passed away on January 17, 1892. Her body was placed in a stone crypt awaiting the spring thaw to be buried. This helped preserve bodies. Edwin's disease took a turn for the worse and soon the people of the town started blaming a vampire for the Brown family's woes. They were certain that the vampire was living inside one of the Brown graves. This belief was held in more than just the town of Exeter. At least 80 burials have been found in recent years that appear to exhibit signs that people had been exhumed and their bodies desecrated in some way as to stop them from rising from their graves. Henry David Thoreau mentions an exhumation in his journal on September 29, 1859 to prove the point that this panic was a very real historical event.

With Edwin growing sicker and weaker, George was getting desperate. He did not want to lose his son and he started to believe that perhaps the neighbors were right and a vampire was stalking his family. This vile undead thing had to be entering his son's room at night. The only thing to be done was to exhume his family members and find out who was the culprit. Imagine how desperate these people in new England must have been to exhume their loved ones. It was happening all over. Doctor Harold Metcalf joined George in taking part in an old folk remedy. Together, on March 17, 1892, they exhumed the bodies of Mary Eliza, Mary Olive and Mercy to find if any of them were vampires. Mary Eliza and Mary Olive’s skeletons were all that remained. However, Mercy’s body was still fully intact because she had been placed in the cool crypt and it was winter. Decompensation had not really begun. The two men also believe that they found fresh blood on her body. Mercy Brown was the vampire!

As was the practice in that day, Mercy's body was cut open and when her organs were found to still be full of blood, everyone was certain that the ritual they were about to embark upon was right. Mercy's heart was removed and burned. The ashes were collected and mixed with water so that Edwin could drink the concoction. It was believed that this would cure Edwin of the vampire attacks and break the spell. Edwin was obviously not cured. Within two months, consumption had taken his life as well. Historically, it is recorded that Mercy Brown was the last vampire exhumation. Newspapers of the day like the Providence Journal reported the story and referred to what was done as barbaric. This seems to have helped stop the practice of exhuming bodies.

In Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dr. Seward writes in his diary, "There are such beings as vampires, some of us have evidence that they exist. Even had we not the proof of our own unhappy experience, the teachings and the records of the past give proof enough for sane peoples." The people of Exeter and elsewhere were sane people. They got caught up in a craze. But what they did may have left lasting effects in the afterlife. Desecrating bodies and the emotions around this seem to have led some spirits to hang around, particularly Mercy Brown's spirit. Fun fact: It is believed the story of Mercy Brown inspired Bram Stoker as well and that Lucy is based on Mercy.

To this day, visitors of the Chestnut Hill Cemetery in Exeter, Rhode Island report strange occurrences surrounding Mercy Brown’s grave. Stories of seeing the ghost of Mercy Brown taking a stroll along the graveyard are told by visitors. The sound of a young woman crying is heard and even a bright blue light near Mercy’s tombstone has been seen by some guests. Locals say that if you hide behind the tombstone of a man named William C. Johnson and look through the tombstone’s square hole towards Mercy’s grave on a moonlit October night, you may see the ghost of Mercy Brown walking through the cemetery. And a tradition has grown around the idea that one can make Mercy appear by knocking on her grave three times and asking, “Mercy L. Brown, Are You A Vampire?” Mercy will appear to you or speak to you.

There is a bridge near the cemetery that some claim Mercy visits. The faint smell of roses can be detected when she is nearby. And there are those who are terminally ill that claim Mercy has come to visit them to tell them that dying really isn't so bad after all. In 2011, two teenage girls died in a car accident while on the way home from a moonlight visit to Mercy’s grave along Purgatory Road. Mercy made a quilt that Brown family descendants still have to this day with a pattern that is called the Wandering Foot. A legend claims that if someone sleeps under a quilt with this pattern, then that person will be doomed to roam the earth forever. Surely, Mercy herself had slept beneath the quilt. Is this the cause of her unrest? 

Were there ever vampires in New England? Did New Englanders allow themselves to get carried away again a hundred years after their witch trials? Does Mercy Brown's spirit still walk among us because of the false accusations? Is she searching for her heart? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:
For more information on the vampire panic and archaelogical finds:   http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-new-england-vampire-panic-36482878/?no-ist

HGB Podcast, Ep. 77 - Cachtice Castle

Moment in Oddity - A French Calvary Captures a Dutch Fleet

War sometimes brings us some of the strangest stories in history. The year was 1795 and it was a very cold January in den Helder, which was part of the United Provinces. Today, we call the United Provinces, the Netherlands. The French Revolutionary Army was making advances into this area and a group of French Hussars, which is a term used for a light cavalry, were ordered to capture den Helder. Johan Willem de Winter led his men with plans to keep Dutch ships from running to their ally, Britain. When the cavalry arrived, they found a very bizarre scene that was quite fortuitous. Ice had solidified around the Dutch fleet and the ships were stuck. The Hussars quickly surrounded the ships and forced the Dutch sailors to surrender. The fact that a cavalry charge was able to catch a fleet of ships is not only the only time this happened in recorded history, it also is quite odd.

This Day in History - Alfred Nobel is Born
 by Jessica Bell

On this day, October 21st, in 1833, Alfred Nobel was born in Stockholm, Sweden. Alfred was most interested in literature, chemistry and physics. Rather than being able to pursue a career in literature, he was sent abroad to study and to become a chemical engineer. While in Paris, Alfred became very interested in nitroglycerin and how it could be used in construction work. He worked together with his father to develop nitroglycerin as a commercially and technically useful explosive. Unfortunately, these experiments resulted in accidents that killed several people, including Alfred's younger brother, Emil. Alfred found, through his experiments, that mixing nitroglycerin with a fine sand would turn the liquid into paste which could be shaped into rods. These rods could then be inserted into drilling holes. He named it "dynamite” and he also invented a detonator or blasting cap which could be set off by lighting a fuse. Alfred was able to put up factories in more than 20 countries as the product became very much in demand. He was once described as "Europe's richest vagabond." By the time Alfred died in San Remo, Italy on December 10, 1896, he had over 355 patents. In his last will and testament, he wrote that much of his fortune (approximately 265 million US dollars) was to be used to give prizes to those who have done their best for humanity in the field of physics, chemistry, physiology or medicine, literature and peace. His will was opposed by his relatives and questioned by authorities in various countries. In 1901, the first Nobel Prizes in Physics, Chemistry, Physiology or Medicine and Literature were awarded in Stockholm, Sweden and the Peace Prize in Kristiania (now Oslo), Norway.

Cachtice Castle and Elizabeth Bathory (Research Assistant - Rachel Hore)

The Cachtice Castle was once home to Baroness Elizabeth Bathory. She came from a family known for their cruelty to the peasontry and she possibly witnessed incredible violence from the time she was a child. Is this what led her to be called the "Blood Countess?" Was she truly the most prolific female serial killer of all time? Or was she given a bad rap, so that others could have her power and possessions? The Castle is a magnificient structure that may house the energy of intense emotions and pain. Has the energy led this structure to become haunted? Does Madame Bathory still walk its halls? Come with us as we look at the history and hauntings of Cachtice Castle and Madame Bathory.

Cachtice Castle originally belonged to Peter and Pongrac from the Hunt-Poznan family. The castle was built in the thirteenth century and is located in the Little Carpathians where it is isolated amongst the hills and its surrounding village is isolated as well. It was built to defend the western end of Hungary. The castle was built on limestone rock and made defensible by the sheer drop on three sides. It was made from stone and mortar, two building materials that do not stand the test of time, and the castle eroded. After it was abandoned, it quickly began to fall into ruin. The top floor was stuccoed on the interior and covered in frescos. A few of those last today. There were four levels with a dungeon in the bottom level. The castle had a connected manor house and though not ornate, it was decorated with fine tapestries and the food was served on plates of silver and gold.

In 1392, Stibor from Stibotice took ownership of the castle and he at one time owned up to 15 castles. In 1569, the Nadasy family became owners. We will discuss more about them in a moment. The army of  František Rákoczi II burned the castle in 1708. Repairs were made so that the castle could be tranformed into a jail. It burned once again and in 1772 the castle manor house burned as well. The entire complex then deteriorated. An interesting fact about the town of Cachtice is that it had been considered a town at one time, but was downgraded to a village. We had not realized there was a difference.

It was through the Nadasy family that Madame Elizabeth Bathory comes into the picture. She was born into Hungarian nobility in 1560 and given the name Erzsebet, which was Anglicized to Elizabeth. She was rumored to have suffered from epilepsy and fits of rage. Count Ferenec Nadasy was a soldier and Bathory was married off to him in an arranged marriage at the age of fifteen. Before the marriage took place, she had a fling with a village peasant and became pregnant. She was hidden away in her family's castle until she gave birth to a girl, who was quickly given away since this was not only scandalous, but the child's father was a peasant. There does not seem to be much of a relationship between the Count and Bathory. He was away at war for long periods of time. Some believe that he taught her torture techniques that were used in battle to get enemy prisoners to talk.

Countess Bathory would be bored while her husband was away and pieces of insanity seemed to creep inside her mind. In 1604, the Count passed away from illness leaving Bathory alone in the castle. As she aged, she worried that she would lose her beauty. Wrinkles started to form at the corners of her eyes and mouth. The elasticity of her skin was fading away. For some reason, she started to embrace the idea that youth was connected to blood. Possibly she had heard tales of vampires that roamed the woods and hills of Transylvania. Vampires did not age or die as long as they had blood. And certainly the blood of young innocent peasant girls would be the best. After all, peasants were beneath her station in life. Who would miss them? The call was put out that the castle needed lots of young servant girls and peasant families were all too happy to send their daughters off with hopes that the Countess would educate them and take good care of them. This is not what the legend of Countess Bathory would lead us to believe.

Madame Bathory appears to have taken enjoyment from causing pain to others. It is said she beat girls until blood ran, made incisions and pierced their bodies, and used hot irons to brand and burn their skin. Needles were driven into lips and fingernails. Some servants were stripped naked, covered in water and thrown outside into the frosty winter. During warmer temperatures, the girls were covered in honey and secured to the ground so that insects could attack them. The tales are numerous and horrific. But she did not just enjoy torturing the girls. She killed many of these servants, some estimate as many as 650, so that she could drain their blood and bath in it, believing that it would help her skin retain its youthful appearance. She occasionally drank the blood as well leading many to later accuse her of being a vampire. And by today's definition of vampire, she really would have been considered to be one even though she was not dead.

But was she truly the Blood Countess? On the 29th of September in 1610 the Viceroy of Hungary, Count Thurzo, was sent with a troop of men to investigate rumours of missing servant girls at the Cachtice Castle. Elizabeth was confined for the night and servants who had served as accomplices were questioned to try and discern what exactly had happened. It is said that under torture, the accomplices told all about the horrors they had witnessed or participated in commiting. The Countess was never put on trial to protect the family's name and keep the property in their hands, but she was punished. In 1611, she was walled up in a room in a tower of Cachtice Castle and left to live out the rest of her days there. There was a narrow slit where only food and water could pass through. Four years later she was dead. She had lived to be 54.

Since there is written testimony, it would seem that something did happen at the castle, but these narratives seem almost too extreme to be believed. Could it be that the accomplices were pushed into declaring falsehoods because family members wanted to take the Countess' power from her? The viceroy had tried to have her imprisoned shortly after he became palatine. It was believed that this was because he had his eye on her wealth. King Matthias owed the Countess a lot of money and some believe he conspired to have her framed. Claims that she kept a list of victims have never been proven to be true as no such record has been found. And the lack of a trial is suspicious. We will more than likely never know the truth, but the legend lives on and only continues to grow.

A traveler to Cachtice Castle once said: ''With this tale fresh in our minds, we ascended the long hill and gained the castle, and wandered over its deserted ruins. The shades of evening were just spreading over the valley, the bare grey walls stood up against the red sky, the solemn stillness of evening reigned over the scene and and two ravens, which had made their nests on the castles highest towers, came towards it winging their heavy flight, and wheeling once round, each cawing a hoarse welcome to the other, alighted on their favorite turret, I could have fancied them, the spirits of the two crones, condemned, to haunt the scene of their crimes, while their infernal mistress was expiating her murderers by more wretched dooms."

So was that just random imaginings or is there truth to the thought that Cachtice Castle might be haunted? Ghost Hunters International did not find any evidence of hauntings in their brief investigation, but ask many of those who have visited the ruins and they will tell you that there is a darkness there. People who walk the ruins claim to get strange feelings in certain areas and to see shadow people. Whether these are shades of the victims or the Countess herself is unknown. Haunting shadow cats are seen and the Countess was known to have pet cats. An urban explorer recorded a weird sounding growl when he was at the castle, but there were no other people or animals around at the time.

Was Elizabeth Bathory the most prolific serial killer in history? Or was she betrayed and lied about? Does her restless spirit still walk on this side of the veil? Have the spirits of her victims stayed to haunt the place where they experienced inhumane treatment, torture and death? Is Cachtice Castle haunted? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes
http://departments.kings.edu/womens_history/erzebet.html

HGB Podcast Ep. 76 - St. Augustine Light Station

Moment in Oddity - Eilean Mor Lighthouse Mystery

In December of 1900, a ship was sailing to the Flannan Islands in the UK. It's mission was to bring supplies and a relief keeper to the Eilean Mor Lighthouse. The Island had been named for St. Flannen who had been an Irish Bishop because he built a chapel on the remote island. Other than the lighthouse keepers, the island was uninhabited. The ship arrived and docked and noticed something amiss right away. No one was at the dock to meet them. The relief lighthouse keeper, Joseph Moore, ascended the stairs that led up to the lighthouse and he had a feeling of foreboding. The fact that no one had responded to the blasting of the ship's horn was troubling. The door to the lighthouse was unlocked and the kitchen left evidence that the keepers had vacated quickly. There was half eaten food and a chair was tipped over. Two of the three oil skinned coats were missing. The kitchen clock had stopped. A search of the island was ordered, but no sign of the keepers was found. The head of the Northern Lighthouse Board Headquarters, Robert Muirhead, left for the island a few days later to investigate. The historic UK website describes what the investigation revealed:

"Muirhead immediately noticed that the last few days of entries were unusual. On the 12th December, Thomas Marshall, the second assistant, wrote of ‘severe winds the likes of which I have never seen before in twenty years’. He also noticed that James Ducat, the Principal Keeper, had been ‘very quiet’ and that the third assistant, William McArthur, had been crying. What is strange about the final remark was that William McArthur was a seasoned mariner, and was known on the Scottish mainland as a tough brawler. Why would he be crying about a storm? Log entries on the 13th December stated that the storm was still raging, and that all three men had been praying. But why would three experienced lighthouse keepers, safely situated on a brand new lighthouse that was 150 feet above sea level, be praying for a storm to stop? They should have been perfectly safe. Even more peculiar is that there were no reported storms in the area on the 12th, 13th and 14th of December. In fact, the weather was calm, and the storms that were to batter the island didn’t hit until December 17th. The final log entry was made on the 15th December. It simply read ‘Storm ended, sea calm. God is over all’. What was meant by ‘God is over all’?"

A box of ropes was found strewn across the rocks near the water and it was surmised that the keepers were trying to rescue the rope from the sea and a wave washed them away. But then why had the clock stopped in the kitchen? Was it such an emergency that all three keepers had to speed off leaving a chair on the floor? And why wasn't the third oil skinned coat used? And what of those entries with the bizarre weather revelations? Had some weird weather event only taken place on the island? Whatever happened, this mystery certainly is odd!

This Day in History - The Battle of Neville's Cross

On this day, October 17th, in 1346, the Battle of Neville's Cross is fought. It was fought during the Second War of Scottish Independence. King David II led his band of Scottish troops into battle and they numbered between 10,000 to 15,000 men. King Edward III had violated the Treaty of Male, which had ended the Hundred Year War by bringing troops into Normandy. The French were beaten and so David II marshalled his troops. Unfortunately, he did not take advantage of the element of surprise he had and his troops took their time moving forward. They camped outside of the city on October 16th and the next morning a small scouting faction was sent out. They were met by the English forces and were nearly all killed. A couple were able to get away to warn David II. It was too late to reach a better position, The English had the upper hand. The battle was tough and two factions fighting with David II took heavy losses and finally took off, leaving him to battle with his troops alone. They had some success hitting the English flank, but eventually were beaten and David II was captured. He was imprisoned in the Tower of London for eleven years. Lord Ralph Neville was one of the commanders of the English forces and he had a cross erected on the battlefield. That is where the battle got its name.

St. Augustine Light Station

The St. Augustine Lighthouse is actually a Light Station, meaning that the lighthouse is accompanied by several outbuildings. This is one of the tallest and oldest lighthouses in America. We visited with several History Goes Bump listeners to experience the Dark of the Moon Ghost Tour. While many families lived here without incident, there were a couple that suffered tragedy. And it is through those tragedies that spiritual energy seems to have continued on, even after all these years. We had what seemed to be an experience of our own. Come with us as we share that and the history and hauntings of the St. Augustine Light Station.

We have discussed the history of St. Augustine in a couple of other podcasts. Obviously, this is one of our favorite cities to visit. Here is a brief refresher on the origins of St. Augustine. The city was founded in 1565, making it one of the oldest cities in both North and South America. It is America’s oldest city.  The city took its name from the day upon which the city was founded by Pedro Menéndez de Avilés, the Festival of San Augustín. The city was originally founded to protect the Spanish trade route and the Castillo de San Marco was built to help facilitate defense with a small city cropping up nearby. St. Augustine found itself being constantly under assault.

It was decided that a watchtower needed to be built, so that the people of the city would know when they were going to be attacked. They chose the spot where the modern day lighthouse now stands. The tower was built from wood in the 1500s. Several times it had to be rebuilt because wood was a bad choice for material. Later it was decided that what was really needed was a lighthouse. In May of 1824, the Coquina built lighthouse lit its light for the first time. It stood for several decades as the shoreline washed slowly away. Joseph Andreu and his wife Maria De Los Delores Mestre Andreu lived here before the Civil War. Joseph met tragedy one day when he decided to paint the outside of the tower and he fell to his death. Later on in the podcast, we will play one of the guides describing this horrific event. Maria took over as lighthouse keeper in 1860. She was the first female and the first of Hispanic descent to have that job. During the Civil War, a local harbor master named Paul Arnau and Maria removed the lens from the lighthouse to keep it from union soldiers and they buried it in the ground. Arnau was taken captive and under torture on a vessel, he revealed the location of the lens and the Union forces replaced it, so they could see the shipping lanes. Maria left after this and never returned. Or perhaps she did in the afterlife.

By 1870, the government realized that the lighthouse was in danger and they began construction on the present day lighthouse in 1871, making sure to build a firm foundation in coquina. Iron and brick were used for the tower. The lighthouse was completed in 1874. It is St. Augustine's first and oldest brick structure still standing. Paul J. Pelz was the architect who designed the lighthouse. He also designed the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. The lighthouse rises to 165 feet above sea level and contains 219 steps to reach the top. We climbed those steps both in the dark on the ghost tour and the next day when we returned in the light. The lighthouse is capped with a red lantern shaped dome that contains the original first order Fresnal lens. The lens is hand blown, stands nine feet tall and came from Paris, France. The lens was damaged in the 1980s by a vandal taking a potshot with a rifle. Head Keeper William Russell was the one to first light the torch in the lighthouse in October 15, 1874. So we were here 141 years after that event. The old watchtower was still standing nearby, but by 1880 it had been toppled into the sea.

Gun shot aftermath

The tower on the inside is illuminated by nine windows and there are eight flights of cast iron spiral stairs that end in platforms, so that people can rest. This would have been needed by the keepers who had to hoist a can full of fuel weighing 30 pounds, up those stairs every two hours. This is no longer necessary today because the lighthouse is fully automated with a 1,000 watt bulb lighting the original beacon of the Fresnal lens. But before automation, lighthouse keepers were needed. The brick lighthouse keeper house that still stands today, was built in 1876. It was triplex that held two families and a single lighthouse keeper assistant. The first family to live in the house was the Harn Family.

William A. Harn was originally from Philadelphia. He had served during the Civil War as Captain of the 3rd New York Independent Battery and fought in the battles at Fredericksburg and Gettysburg. His military service is what probably led him to be the first keeper to wear a uniform. He arrived in St. Augustine with his wife Kate and six daughters. For twenty years, Harn served as Head Keeper at the lighthouse. In 1886, Harn documented an earthquake that rocked the lighthouse in August of that year. He thought the tower was going to fall over. During his tenure, fuel was switched from lard to kerosene.

Lens Mechanism

Fresnal lenses

The family had to deal with little amenities. Bathrooms were not inside the Keeper's house until 1907. Electricity was not installed until 1925. During World War II, the Coast Guard used the light station as a lookout and they built a garage where they could work on vehicles. Today, that building is used to help restore recovered nautical items and things damaged by water. By the 1960s, families no longer stayed at the station. The house was rented out and in 1970, it was nearly gutted by fire. Then it stood vacant for a while and was in danger of being bulldozed. In 1980, the Junior Service League of St. Augustine signed a lease and restoration efforts began. The Fresnal lens was first to be fixed. The rest followed and today the St. Augustine Light Station is a museum that hosts thousands of visitors.

The building that visitors enter through today was built to be a cottage for a keeper. The keeper who had it built was unwilling to live in the keeper's house because of all the unexplained activity going on in the house. It would seem that some of the keepers and some of their family members have decided to stay on at the light station in the afterlife. History Goes Bump, along with five of our listeners went on the Dark of the Moon Tour at the St. Augustine Light Station. Not only was the tour fun, but it was informative about the history of the location and had a couple of unique things about it. One was that we got to climb the lighthouse at night and view the city. The other was that we got to explore on our own for an hour or so. We've never been on a ghost tour that allowed that. The tour guides work for the lighthouse and so you know they care about the place and the funds go to keeping this wonderful piece of history alive. We had Dave and Ann Student with us, Julie Brammer, Jaran and Belle.

We're going to play several sound bites that we recorded that night, featuring some of the haunting stories. Before we started the tour, we were informed of a little issue with the women's bathroom. Apparently, it is haunted. One of the more famous stories about the lighthouse goes back to its initial construction. The construction supervisor was Hezekiah Pittee and he had his children at the site with him. A railcar had been rigged to serve as a way to move supplies. The children found it to be quite handy for play and they would ride the car along the rail to where it stopped near the ocean. One day the car did not stop like it normally did and it went flying into the ocean, trapping three young girls. Only one of them was rescued. She was a neighbor girl. The other two girls were Hezekiah's children. Later, men laying bricks along the scaffold would hear children laughing. They would scamper down to warn the kids not to play with the railcar and they would find no children anywhere. In the 1960s, a man had rented the keeper's House and invited friends to stay with him. They woke up that night and found a girl in an old fashioned dress staring at them from beside the bed. The girl smiled at them and disappeared. We hiked through a nearby woody area and tried to figure out where the railcar line would have been. A guide showed us a picture taken in the woods of a white figure.

Spiral staircase

The children are seen inside the lighthouse as well. Sometimes standing near the stairwell, wearing what people describe as old fashioned clothes. The guide showed us a picture of a shadow figure taken as it looked down over a railing. It was a very compelling picture.We wonder if perhaps the girls played a trick on us. We were mysteriously locked in the lighthouse while on free time. Denise left to go outside for a minute and when she came back, she couldn't open the door. Jaran and I tried opening the door from the other side, but it was locked tight. We thought the lock was broken and had automatically locked. A guide came with a key and informed us that the lock on the inside is not functional. It can only be locked from the outside with a key. How did that door lock itself? One of the guides also told us about muddy footprints that were left inside the Keeper's House. There were no barefoot children on the tour and the footprints would not wash away. They finally disappeared one day on their own. We saw the pictures of these as well.

As we mentioned earlier, a keeper named Joseph died while trying to paint the lighthouse. He is here and his wife Maria has returned here as well. The guides told us some personal stories in regards to this and also more details on the way that Joseph died. It was not pretty. He hit many things on the way down and someone in his family more than likely witnessed the whole thing. Their ghosts many hang out on the first floor. We went down into the basement and were told about another Keeper named Pete. Pete liked to smoke down here and occassionally the sweet smell of his tobacco can be detected. He likes to put pressure on men's chests and to touch ladies on the legs. We heard stories from both our guide and later, Julie and Diane spoke with another guide who told us some pretty strange occurences that have happened with Pete. He seems to be able to control EMF Meters.

Are the spirits of those who once watched over the lighthouse still here, continuing their watch in the afterlife? Are the ghosts of children playing in the woods and in the lighthouse? Were we locked inside the lighthouse by some weird happening with the lock? Is the St. Augustine Light Station haunted? That is for you to decide!

Our group before the tour

Here we all are on top of the lighthouse!

HGB Podcast, Ep. 75 - Marie Laveau and Voodoo

Moment in Oddity - The Revenge of Princess Olga of Kiev

Some people take revenge to an extreme that is quite bizarre. Princess Olga of Kiev is an example of this. She was married to Prince Igor who became King of Kievan Rus. One day, King Igor went to a Slavic tribe named Drevlyans to obtain his tributes from them. The Drevlyans didn't want to give the king anything, so they killer him. They should have just given him their tributes. Olga took over as regent because her and Igor's son was only three. The Drevlyans didn't want a female ruling, so they sent a bunch of suitors to Olga. She was infuriated. She had the suitors, along with the boat they arrived in, thrown into a trench and buried alive. She demanded better suitors, but not because she actually wanted a husband. This next batch of men were locked in the bathhouse, which was set ablaze. Then she announced she had picked a suitor and invited 5,000 Drevlyans to a celebration. She had them all slaughtered. And finally she told the Drevlyans that she had a small request. She changed the tributes to be paid and the Drevlyans were relieved and even thought they had the upper hand. Olga had simply requested three pigeons and three sparrows from each home. She then sent the birds back with embers tied to them and the town burned to the ground. If you think that's improbable, our military was going to do the same to Japan using vats and the tests actually worked. Even after this heinous revenge was carried out, Princess Olga was named a saint in the Russian Orthodox religion and Roman Catholicism. Now that certainly is odd!

This Day in History - Emperor Claudius Dies
by Steven Pappas

Onthis day, October 13th in the year 54 CE, the Roman emperor Claudius dies. Many historians of the time seemed to point to poisoning as the cause of death and this is the most widely accepted theory behind Claudius’s demise. The list of people with access and motive wasn’t a short one. Many implicate his personal taster as the one who did the deed, but it would appear the person with the most motive was Claudius’s wife Aggrapina. She did not want to see Brittainicus, her step-son, come of age and take the throne. And after many months of poor marriage to Claudius, many believe she used the poisoning of her husband to ensure that her son, Nero, took control of the Roman Empire. Nero became emperor in the early hours of October 13th at the age of seventeen, making him the youngest emperor up to that point. He would go on to have an infamous career as the ruler who dipped Christians in oil and lit them aflame to illuminate his garden and is even rumored to have “fiddled while Rome burned”.

Marie Laveau and Voodoo  (Research Assistant: Jessie Harms)

New Orleans is a city that seems to ooze the paranormal and the occult. The wrought iron balconies and cobble stone streets remind people that this is a city with a deep history. Every corner seems to reveal a new delight for the history lover and foodie alike. Whether it's the jazz streaming from the windows of the French Quarter to the beignets at shops like Cafe Du Monde, New Orleans is an amazing city. The legend around New Orleans' Voodoo Queen Marie Laveau is larger than life, as large as the mystique of New Orleans itself. She captivated the city for decades and her grave still draws people from around the world. It would seem that the spirits are very active here. Come with us as we discover the history and the hauntings of Marie Laveau.

In 1718, Governor of French Louisiana La Jean-Baptiste Le Moyne founded the city of Nouvelle Orleans in honor of Phillip Duc d'Orleans at the mouth of the Mississippi River. In 1722, Le Moyne moved the capital of Louisiana from Biloxi to what is known today as New Orleans. The area of what is known today as Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana at the time was one territory claimed by the French. Le Moyne believed that the area that was settled as New Orleans was safe from "tidal surges and hurricanes."  Unfortunately in the same year, a hurricane destroyed the city, but the city was rebuilt in the grid pattern that you can find today in the French Quarter. 

In 1762 and 1763, France signed treaties with Spain, giving the city over to Spain's control. In 1788 and 1794 (the year widely believed to be the year Marie Laveau was born) the city was destroyed by a fire, and rebuilt in brick with many of the those buildings and cathedrals still standing today. In 1803, Louisiana went back under French control, who in turn, 20 days later sold it to the United States as a part of the Louisiana Purchase. The final battle of the War of 1812 was fought in New Orleans with Colonel Andrew Jackson leading the Americans.

Nailing down specifics on Marie Laveau is difficult, not only because legends take on a life of their own, but because Laveau's namesake daughter is rumored to have taken up the Voodoo Queen mantle after her mother's death. Historians are not sure which of the two women contributed most to the Voodoo Queen reputation. On this podcast, we are focusing on the elder Marie Laveau and consider her to be the true Voodoo Queen. Marie Laveau was born most likely in 1794, although some claim 1796 or 1801 as her birth year. Her place of birth is disputed as well. Most claim that she was born in New Orleans, but others say she immigrated here from Haiti, which was known as Saint Domingue at the time. And it probably is no surprise that her parentage is unclear. Some say she came down from royalty. What is most likely is that she was of mixed race. Her father was a white man named Charles Laveau.

She was a beautiful woman who caught the eye of Jacques Paris, a Haitian. He asked her to marry him and they did just that on August 4, 1819. They did not live happily ever after. Jacques disappeared a few years into the marriage. Where he went, nobody knew. Some speculated he had returned to Haiti. Common sense makes us think that possibly he met a bad end because he was declared dead. There was no funeral or burial for him. Did Laveau really not know what happened to her husband? If he left her, they wouldn't declare him dead. All we know is that they soon started calling Laveau, "Widow Paris."

Laveau took up with another Haitian named Louis Christopher Duminy de Clapion. They did not marry, but that didn't stop them from having 15 children together. A man named Doctor John became an intregal part of her life at this time. His real name was John Bayou and he was a Voodoo doctor. He taught her how to make gris gris bags, how to use Voodoo dolls and how to produce charms and curses. He was a good teacher and she was a good student because soon Laveau was a very powerful priestess. She rose above all other Voodoo practitioners and many believe she was the most powerful in the city. So powerful, that many claim she held sway over the entire city. She even seemed to have power over government officials.

One story claims that she used her powers to convince a judge to declare a man innocent who was actually guilty of murder. The man's father gave her a house in return for her help. There were those who did not believe that Voodoo had any power and thus, neither did Laveau. Political power can really be more powerful than magic don't you think? Fun fact: Marie Laveau had citizenship with France, Spain and the United States.

Many people believed Laveau could do anything. She could conjure magic to cause people to fall in love some said. She could bring material wealth to people. She could cure illness. These are all good actions and Laveau is said to have had a big heart and one that cared especially for the poor and slaves. She herself had been born a free woman. Because of her care for the downtrodden, she would very often provide her services for free to them. Laveau was not just the Voodoo Queen. She had a very mundane day job. She was a hairdresser. And she was very good at that as well. Many of the rich and influential would come to her and this is where she could have gained her political power as some claim. And on the seedier side of things, there are rumors that she ran a brothel and this is how she established her political influence. She possibly could have had inside information from servants who worked in upscale homes as well. Her high standing was proved through a ritual she held on the banks of Lake Pontchartrain in 1874. Nearly 12,000 attended the ceremony.

Laveau lived to the ripe old age of eighty-six and she died of natural causes in her home on June 15, 1881. She was buried in Saint Louis Cemetery No. 1. Or at least that is what is traditionally believed. Some say nobody knows where she was buried. Laveau had named a daughter with her same name and she became known as Marie Laveau II and is believed to have continued her mother's work. Her legend has lived on through countless novels, movies, comic books and much more. We believe that the Voodoo priestess in Disney's Princess and the Frog was inspired by Laveau. One reason is because lore about Laveau claims she had a snake named Zombi. Angela Bassett played Laveau in the American Horror Story series during its Coven run.

The practice of Voodoo in New Orleans is well known now, but during Laveau's time, it was done in secret. In Voodoo, there is one supreme god. He is called by various names depending on region. This god is unreachable. That is why there are so many spirits in Voodoo. These spirits are needed in order to communicate with the supreme god. Different ceremonies and traditions are practiced, each with a specific purpose that usually involves asking a minor god or spirit for help with something. Some of these rituals call for animal sacrifice.

A Salt Lake Tribune article from 2008 shares this story as told by tour guide and New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum historian Jerry Gandolfo:

"The story begins a long time ago - back when God lived on Earth, managed a vegetable garden and had a servant named Legba. Every night, it turned out, someone would steal from God's prized garden. So God told Legba he was going to make it rain, saying footprints in the mud would lead him to the thief. The next morning, the garden was a complete mess. As God dissolved into a rage, Legba - a dedicated prankster - showed up giggling, holding a pair of God's own muddy sandals. "You must be sleep walking," he told God. This made God furious, and he decided to move to heaven. Because he was mad at Legba, he left the servant behind. God told Legba he'd be the connection between mortals on Earth and God in heaven, and he turned Legba into a rainbow. But because rainbows aren't always available when ceremonies are necessary, he also turned Legba into a snake. Legba is the main spirit in Voodoo, a belief system that seeks the intercession of spirits, but there are thousands of others enlisted by God. In New Orleans, Legba is known by another name. He is St. Peter, the Catholic saint who holds the keys to heaven."

Something unique about Voodoo is that possession is a key part of the practice. A spirit will displace the soul of a practitoner and enter the body. The spirit will speak through the channeler and give predictions, directions or advice. Someone who is possessed will feel no pain. Although there are different forms of Voodoo practiced in Africa and Haiti, both traditions incorporate possession. Voodoo passes on like an oral tradition as seen between Marie Laveau and Doctor John. It is a personal religion and there is not one primary holy text.

The Voodoo that Marie Laveau practiced is the one observed in Haiti, which is the African form with a twist. Slaves brought the religion with them from Africa. Slave owners often required that their slaves be baptized into Catholicism. This forced the slaves to hide their Voodoo and soon many Catholic traditions became intertwined with their Voodoo. The spirits took on the names of Catholic saints, the cross became a symbol of the crossroads and Catholic hymns were sung. Leaders in Voodoo are called priests and priestesses. The gris gris bags mentioned earlier are little pouches used with curses or charms. A practitioner puts a small item in the pouch like an animal skin, dried beans, herbs or stones. Voodoo dolls are used to try to control people or cause them harm. Ancestor worship and the wearing of protection amulets is found in Louisiana Voodoo as is the Ouanga, which is a charm that poisons an enemy using the crushed up roots of the African Figuier Maudit Tree mixed with holy candles, holy water, bones and nails.

At its base, Voodoo is a pretty creepy religion, especially to outsiders. Animal sacrifices, contorted and weird dances, possession and strange tonics all contribute to the idea that Voodoo is creepy. Does it conjure evil? There are some misconceptions when it comes to Voodoo, just as there is with Wicca or Witchcraft. History has clearly taught us that religion can be used for both good and bad. Much of it comes down to the individual practice. There are rumors associated with the creation of zombies in regards to Voodoo as well. These aren't your flesh eating "Walking Dead" kind of zombies. These are generally people held under someone's sway either through drugs or magic.

Marie Laveau's tomb is said to be the most haunted in New Orleans. People visit this final resting place from all over the world. Many come seeking to ask the Voodoo Queen for a favor despite the fact that she has been dead for decades. There are a couple of rituals involved with this practice. The first is for the seeker to knock three times on the tomb and then say the request out loud. After the request is fulfilled, the seeker is suppose to return to the tomb with a gift consisting of either coins, liquor, flowers or a Monkey or Cock Statue. In the past, people would mark the tomb with three Xs using paint or a chip of brick, but that practice is illegal now. The second ritual features the seeker drawing an X on the tomb, spinning three times, knocking on the tomb and yelling out their desire. When it is fulfilled, they are to come back and circle their X and leave an offering.

Her apparition has been witnessed walking among the tombstones at the Saint Louis Cemetery. She is wearing her turban and can be heard uttering voodoo curses. And strangely, there are some who claim that Laveau appears as a phantom cat prowling the graveyard and that it eventually disappears into Laveau's crypt. The cat's eyes glow red. Laveau lived in the location that is now 1020 Saint Ann Street and she haunts that property.

St. John's Eve, which is June 23rd, is a holy day in the Voodoo religion. On this day, ceremonies are held in which new practitioners are baptized into the religion. In New Orleans, this ceremony is held on Bayou Street. Many claim that Laveau rises from her grave on this night to supervise the ceremony. Right after the announcement went out that Laveau had died, people claimed to have seen her on the street, so they disputed the death claims.

Was Laveau's reputation enough to scare people? Did she just have political power? Was she really able to conjure magic? Does Marie Laveau's ghost still walk the streets of New Orleans? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:
http://www.history.com/topics/new-orleans
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_10798634

An interesting article written about her upon her death:

"Those who have passed by the quaint old house on St. Ann, between Rampart and Burgundy streets with the high frail looking fence in front over which a tree or two is visible, have been within the last few years, noticed through the open gateway a decrepid old lady with snow white hair, and a smile of peace and contentment lighting up her golden features. For a few years past she has been missed from her accustomed place. The feeble old lady lay upon her bed with her daughter and grand children around her ministering to her wants.

On Wednesday the invalid sank into the sleep, which knows no waking. Those whom she had befriended crowded into the little room where she was exposed, in order to obtain a last look at the features, smiling even in death, of her who had been so kind to them.

At 5 o'clock yesterday evening Marie Laveau was buried in her family tomb in St. Louis Cemetery No. 1. Her remains were followed to the grave by a large concourse of people, the most prominent and the most humble joining in paying their last respects to the dead. Father Mignot conducted the funeral services.

Marie Laveau was born ninety-eight years ago. Her father was a rich planter, who was prominent in all public affairs, and served in the Legislature of this State. Her mother was Marguerite Henry, and her grandmother was Marguerite Semard. All were beautiful women of color. The gift of beauty was hereditary in the family, and Marie inherited it in the fullest degree. When she was twenty-five years old she was led to the altar by Jacques Paris, a carpenter. This marriage took place at the St. Louis Cathedral. Pere Antoine, of beloved memory, conducting the service, and Mr. Mazureau the famous lawyer, acting as witness. A year afterwards Mr. Paris disappeared, and no one knows to this day what became of him. After waiting a year for his return she married Capt. Christophe Glapion. The latter was also very prominent here, and served with distinction in the battalion of men of San Domingo, under D'Aquin, with Jackson in the war of 1815.

Fifteen children were the result of their marriage. Only one of these is now alive. Capt. Glapion died greatly registered, on the 26th of June, 1855. Five years afterwards Marie Laveau, became ill, and has been sick ever since, her indisposition becoming more pronounced and painful within the last ten years.

Besides being very beautiful Marie also was very wise. She was skillful in the practice of medicine and was acquainted with the valuable healing qualities of indigenous herbs.

She was very successful as a nurse, wonderful stories being told of her exploits at the sick bed. In yellow fever and cholera epidemics she was always called upon to nurse the sick, and always responded promptly. Her skill and knowledge earned her the friendship and approbation, of those sufficiently cultivated, but the ignorant attributed her success to unnatural means and held her in constant dread.

Notably in 1853 a committee of gentlemen, appointed at a mass meeting held at Globe Hall, waited on Marie and requested her on behalf of the people to minister to the fever stricken. She went out and fought the pestilence where it was thickest and many alive today owe their salvation to her devotion.

Not alone to the sick man was Marie Laveau a blessing. To help a fellow citizen in distress she considered a priceless privilege. She was born in the house where she died. Her mother lived and died there before her. The unassuming cottage has stood for a century and a half. It was built by the first French settlers of adobe and not a brick was employed in its construction. When it was erected it was considered the handsomest building in the neighborhood. Rampart street was not then in existence, being the skirt of a wilderness and latterly a line of entrenchment. Notwithstanding the decay of her little mansion, Marie made the sight of it pleasant to the unfortunate. At anytime of night or day any one was welcome to food and lodging.

Those in trouble had but to come to her and she would make their cause her own after undergoing great sacrifices in order to assist them.

Besides being charitable, Marie was also very pious and took delight in strengthening the allegiance of souls to the church. She would sit with the condemned in their last moments and endeavor to turn their last thoughts to Jesus. Whenever a prisoner excited her pity Marie would labor incessantly to obtain his pardon, or at least a commutation of sentence, and she generally succeeded.

A few years ago, before she lost control of her memory, she was rich in interesting reminiscences of the early history of this city. She spoke often of the young American Governor Claiborne, and told how the child-wife he brought with him from Tennessee died of the yellow fever shortly after his arrival with the dead babe upon her bosom was buried in a corner of the old American Cemetery. She spoke sometimes of the strange little man with the wonderful bright eyes Aaron Burr, who was so polite and so dangerous. She loved to talk of Lafayette, who visited New Orleans over half a century ago. The great Frenchman came to see her at her house, and kissed her on the forehead at parting.

She remembered the old French General, Humbert, and was one of the few colored people who escorted to the tomb long since dismantled in the catholic Cemetery, the withered and grizzly remains of the hero of Castelbar. Probably she knew Father Antoine better than any living in those days - for he the priest and she the nurse met at the dying bedside of hundreds of people - she to close the faded eyes in death, and he, to waft the soul over the river to the realms of eternal joy.

All in all Marie Laveau was a most wonderful woman. Doing good for the sake of doing good alone, she obtained no reward, oft times meeting with prejudice and loathing, she was nevertheless contented and did not lag in her work. She always had the cause of the people at heart and was with them in all things. During the late rebellion she proved her loyalty to the South at every opportunity and fully dispensed help to those who suffered in defense of the "lost cause." Her last days were spent surrounded by sacred pictures and other evidences of religion, and she died with a firm trust in heaven. While God's sunshine plays around the little tomb where her remains are buried, by the side of her second husband, and her sons and daughters, Marie Laveau's name will not be forgotten in New Orleans. Daily Picayune - June 18, 1881."

HGB Podcast, Ep. 74 - Gettysburg

 
Moment in Oddity - The Nagyrev Poisonings

It all started in 1911, during World War I. Lonely soldiers' wives in the Hungarian town of Nagyrev decided to comfort their loneliness in the arms of the enemy. Allied POWs were being kept in the town and many of these women took them as lovers and some were impregnated. A midwife by the name of Julia Fazekas came to town that year. Her own husband had mysteriously disappeared. The women of Nagyrev came to her with their problems. Fazekas performed abortions on many of the women who were pregnant. And for the girls who came to her complaining that they had been forced to marry the men that were now off to war and that they wanted out to be with their foreign lovers, she helped teach them how to make arsenic by boiling flypaper and skimming the poison off the top of the water. When the men returned from war, they would eat food made with the arsenic and die. Now you might think that suspicions would grow when the village clerk started recording all these deaths as murder. But the village clerk did not record the deaths as murder because she just happened to be the cousin of Fazekas. The poisonings soon spread from the returning soldiers to other family members. These young women would off their parents as well since they considered them a burden. Every little problem was solved with arsenic. By the time a neighboring town caught wind of what was going on in Nagyrev, 300 people had been murdered by 50 different women. The idea that arsenic poisoning could become a fad certainly is odd!

This Day in History - First Railway in Ireland Opens

On this day, October 9th, in 1834, the Dublin and Kingston Railway opens in Ireland. It was the first railway system for the country and it was not completed without jumping through some hoops. Not everyone was keen on having the railway, particularly if it affected them personally. The line was going to run for six miles between Westland Row in Dublin and Kingstown Harbor in County Dublin. This meant having to cross through the property of two landowners, one of whom was Lord Cloncurry. Cloncurry was an Irish politician famously known for his adultery lawsuit against Sir John Piers. Cloncurry decided that he was going to make some elaborate requests of the railway company before he would agree to let them use his land. He demanded that they build him a foot bridge over the line so that he could cross to his bathing area. He wanted the bridge to have a Romanesque temple built on it as well, complete with a tunnel for him to go through and a cutting to maintain his privacy. The other landowner made a simpler request of a large sum of money. The Dublin and Kingston Railway ran on that October 9th with eight carriage cars pulled by a locomotive named Hibernia. The line remains today as a part of the DART line, which is the Dublin Area Rapid Transit.

Gettysburg  (Research Assistants: Steven Pappas and Amy Connor)

The Battle of Gettysburg is perhaps the most famous battle of the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln even gave one of his most enduring speeches from Gettysburg and named it the Gettysburg Address. Nearly every American knows the first line, which reads, "Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal." Many men died during that battle and it was truly the turning point of the war and the beginning of the defeat of the Confederacy. Perhaps this is why the Battle of Gettysburg continues to this day. Not just as a part of re-enactments, but as ghostly battles continuing on the field. Countless witnesses have reported seeing the battle, hearing the sounds of the battle and bumping into ghostly soldiers. Today, we explore the history and hauntings of Gettysburg.

The town of Gettysburg is a borough and the Adams county seat in Pennsylvania. In 1736, the land that now makes up the center of Adams County was purchased by William Penn's family from the Iroquois Indian tribe. At the time, the land was called Marsh Creek. The majority of the first settlers were of Scots-Irish descent that had fled Northern Ireland to escape English persecution. The French-Indian War led the residents of Adams County to become victim to several raids. One such event took place on April 5, 1758. The Jameson family was attacked at dawn. There were several children in the family, including a daughter, Mary who was around 16 at the time. Mary was captured and two sons escaped. Several other family members were captured and taken West. Only the fate of Mary's parents is known, they were murdered on the trip West. Two Seneca women later adopted Mary. She had multiple opportunities to return to the "white" world, but chose to remain with the Native Americans. Later in life she married two Indian chiefs and bore several children. Mary died in 1833 in her 90's. There is a life-sized monument dedicated to her memory at St. Ignatius Loyola Catholic church in Pennsylvania.

The Bard family fell victim to a similar attack on April 13, 1758. Their home was raided and their infant was murdered. Catherine Bard was kidnapped, but her husband escaped and was able to bargain for her release. It's important to note that raids only occurred during the French-Indian war. At the close of the war, residents were able to again exist peacefully.

In 1761, Samuel Gettys, an early settler of the area, opened a tavern. A short 25 years later, his son, James, had added 210 lots to the town which included a town square. Back then Gettysburg was part of York County. But in 1790 the residents decided to separate from York County. In 1800 the state legislature approved a new county. And so, Adams county was born, named after then president John Adams. The residents chose Gettysburg as the county seat and named the city for the Gettys family.

In 1860, Gettysburg had a population of 2,400 people. As many as ten roads led in and out of town making a small, but successful economy possible. There were approximately 450 buildings that held merchants, banks and taverns. Also included were carriage builders, shoemakers and tanneries. Gettysburg was also home to several schools and other educational facilities. The burgeoning industries and road system led two armies to Gettysburg in the summer of 1863.

When the summer of 1863 rolled around, the Confederate Army, led by General Robert E Lee, had achieved many victories. This convinced Lee that his army was ready to invade the north. This decision moved both armies from war-ravaged Northern Virginia toward Pennsylvania. Lee thought that once he invaded the North , and if by chance he was victorious, the tired and haggard North would pressure the Lincoln administration to end the war.

The 75,000 man Confederate Army was marching toward central Pennsylvania when on June 30 they learned that the 95,000 man Union Army led by George C Meade was pursuing them. Both armies arrived in Gettysburg on July 1st and thus began the Battle of Gettysburg. A battle that would last three days, but live on in infamy. General Robert E. Lee commanded the Confederate forces and General George Meade commanded the Union Army. Two small factions of Confederates headed to Gettysburg, led by Hill and Ewell, to gather supplies. Unbeknownst to them, a Union cavalry was already there, but they were few in number and the Confederates drove them back to Cemetery Hill. Lee saw the advantage his men had and he ordered Ewell, who had taken over for the mortally wounded Stonewall Jackson, to attack Cemetery Hill. Ewell was worried that there were too many Union forces and he delayed. Because of this delay, Union reinforcements were allowed to arrive that evening and fortify Cemetery Ridge all the way to Little Round Top.

The following morning, July 2nd, Lee decided to attack the Union where it stood. He directed two of his leaders to attack from each side while he drove through the center. Lee had wanted to strike early, but one group of Confederates were not in position until 4pm. Daniel Sickles led his Union troops into holding the line. They stretched from the Devil's Den through a peach orchard and onto Little Round Top. The Confederates hit hard and Sickles was wounded. The Union lost ground. They retreated from the orchard and Devil's Den, but a Minnesota Regiment helped to hold Little Round Top. The battle was bloody and by evening, both sides had lost 9,000 men each. 35,000 in total had died over the two days, but there was more fighting to come.

On July 3rd, General Lee made a critical decision that would be a bad one. He thought that the Confederates were close to victory based on the previous two days of fighting. He ordered a division of 15,000, led by George Pickett, to march three quarters of a mile in open field to hit the center of the Union forces. This plan would come to be known as Pickett's Charge. It began at 3pm, led by an infantry bombardment of artillery. The Confederates were hit from all sides and Pickett's division lost two thirds of their numbers. The survivors retreated and Lee regrouped for a Union counterattack. He expected it to come the next day, but it never did. Lee knew his army was decimated and on the evening of July 4th, he led his men back to Virginia. This battle signaled the end was near for the Confederacy.

Several months later, the citizens of Gettysburg were still working through the aftermath of the battle. A prominent attorney, David Wills  was tasked with the establishment and construction of the Soldiers National Cemetery. It was meant to honor and be the final resting place of  the fallen Union soldiers. Wills was also responsible for the dedication ceremony and he invited president Abraham Lincoln to attend. The ceremony took place on November 18, 1863. And this is when Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg address.

The city of Gettysburg and in particular, the battlefield where the Battle of Gettysburg was staged are thought to be some of the most haunted places in America. Tales of hauntings reach into the thousands. Bodies littered the streets of Gettysburg and many were dumped into mass graves. Those that were wounded and dying were taken to buildings throughout the town that were turned into makeshift field hospitals. Meaning that people died all over the town. Could this be why there are so many accounts of haunting experiences?

Denise and I have a paranormal investigator friend, Linda Zimmermann, who was driving through the area with her husband. A mist was laying over the battlefield and she and her husband saw a man approaching them who they thought was a re-enactor. Until he disappeared. She couldn't believe she had witnessed this full bodied apparition.

When Filming the 1993 film Gettysburg, several of the extras who were playing soldiers were sitting on the hill known as little round top. They were approached by another gentleman wearing a tattered and burned Union army uniform and who smelled of sulfur. He commented on how intense the battle had been, passed out extra rounds of ammunition, and walked down the hill. The extras assumed this was just another actor who had wandered up the hill, but when they brought back the ammo to the props department, the props folks said it had not come from them and identified the rounds as authentic and dating back to the mid 1800s. Could have just been an extra who happened to be a collector, but its still pretty odd.

The Pennsylvania Hall building at Gettysburg college was used as a hospital during the battles and as a lookout. General Lee himself watched from the Old Dorm's cupola. One resident and his roomamte claim to have seen a shadowy figure in the cupola. This happened over several nights. Surely many men saw their end in the building. Two of the faculty were coming down on the elevator from the fourth floor to the first level. The elevator kept on going past the first floor and on to the basement. When the elevators opened, what the men described was a silent horror. They said they saw ghastly figures of bodies laying around and a nurse and doctor tending to them. Blood was splattered across the walls.There was no sound from the scene that laid before them, but they said the nurse looked at them with a pleading look on his face. They hit the buttons for the doors to close and made it back up to the first floor. Both men still claim to have seen this.

There have been countless accounts of people hearing screams on the battlefields and cries of soldiers urging their men to "Charge!" from within the woods surrounding the battlefield. Orbs and Mists have been captured on film in many locations on the battlefield, especially at the Sachs Covered Bridge. This is where many have claimed to see a few different apparitions of soldiers. The battle poured into the town and skirmishes took place everywhere. The dead bodies laid in the street to the point that the smell of decay was overwhelming. Women would press handkerchiefs soaked in pepperment or vanilla to their faces to protect themselves from the smell. Those scents are still detected today as ghostly aromas.

Many homes that were built on the edge of the battlefield are now owned by the National Park Service and there are claims of hauntings in these homes. The George Weikert House is one such haunted residence used by park rangers. There are tales of a door on the second floor that refuses to stay shut. One ranger nailed the door shut and still found it opened later. The attic plays host to disembodied footsteps.

Another of these homes is the Hummelbaugh House, which is haunted by a Brigadier General and his dog. Brigadier General Barksdale was wounded on Seminary Ridge. He was brought to the front of Hummelbaugh House where he called out for water over and over. This was even after he had been given water. The General died and was buried on the property, but his wife soon arrived and had the body exhumed, so she could bring it home to bury her husband properly. She brought the General's loyal dog with her and he leapt onto the grave before the body was exhumed. They managed to pull him away, so they could unbury the General. The dog jumped back on the grave after the exhumation and refused to leave. The wife finally left the heartbroken dog who became a fixture at the farm. He remained there until he died from dehydration since he refused food and water. The General's cries are heard to this day and people report seeing not only the General, but also his dog. And an unearthly howl is heard sometimes on the anniversary of the General's death.

In the town of Gettysburg, a childrens orphanage opened in 1860.The original owner had to move out of the area and left Rosa Charmichaels in charge. She was a sadistic woman and the orphanage was closed in the 1880s after it came out that she beat the children, tied many of them in the basement for days on end, and also was rumored to have killed some of them. They later found that the basement had been converted to a dungeon with torture devices and shackles on the walls for children to be chained up and, many times, left to die. There have been numerous accounts of people hearing disembodied children's voices and even feeling as though they are being physically touched.

Fun Fact: Some people have claimed to not only see ghost soldiers, but full on ghost battles. As a matter of fact, Diane once heard the popular conservative talk show host Michael Medved share his story about camping out on the battlefield with a bunch of friends and in the middle of the night they were awakened by the sounds of battle. They found themselves in the middle of what seemed like a real life battle only they could see through the men. It was this experience that convinced this total skeptic that ghosts were very real.

The Farnsworth House Inn is home to many disturbing hauntings as well as some less terrifying ones. One of the rooms is even closed and padlocked because of all the aggressive activity that has been reported there. Here is a quote about the inn from weird US:

 "The lock on that door sometimes rattles of its own accord, and meanwhile, up in the garret’s ensuite bathroom, a bloody mess that’s almost impossible to clean sometimes appears. The room was apparently a post for three Confederate sharpshooters during the conflict, and presumably at least one of them was seriously injured or killed there. In another upstairs room, a bereaved man is heard sobbing inconsolably, and seen carrying a child wrapped in a quilt. The door to the cellar often opens to an apparition carrying a wounded comrade down to the catacombs, where a voice is heard singing quietly. And in true Sixth Sense mode, the temperature suddenly plummets inexplicably.Other rooms feature less frightening occurrences. The McFarland Room often contains strange sounds, including unusually heavy breathing (and close-up, not from neighboring rooms). The Schultz Room is supposedly often visited by a solicitous midwife who tucks you in, and a little boy. Both are considered very benign presences, but apparently one of them smokes cigars."

The battle that took place at Gettysburg seems to continue to rage on. The eyewitness accounts are too many to ignore. It is difficult to claim that people are just imagining these experiences. But as we always like to do, we leave it to the listeners. Is Gettysburg haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Podcast, Ep. 73 - Bran Castle

 
Moment in Oddity - The Vetala

The vetala is an interesting part of Indian lore. Some people mistake the vetala as a ghost, but these spirits actually possess the bodies of the dead. Where they originate from is uncertain, but the legends claim that the vetala lurk in cemeteries just waiting for a nice fresh corpse to arrive. They jump inside and reanimate the body, but they are not satisfied with just wandering around inside a dead body. They enjoy shocking people, so they do strange things with their new homes. They turn the hands and feet backwards. While these spirits enjoy playing with humans, they also can help humans. Indians believe that the vetala guard their villages. Some people claim that vetala are vampires since they appear undead, but one distinction is that the vetala can wander in the daylight, while vampires shun the sun. The vetala may just be myth, but they certainly are odd.

This Day in History - Women's March on Versailles

On this day, October 5th, in 1789 during the French Revolution, the women in the marketplaces of Paris marched on Versailles. The march was one of the most significant parts of the French Revolution. Food was scarce at the time and bread was hard to find. When there was bread for sale, it was exorbitantly priced. The women of Paris had enough of the prices and scarcity. Particularly when they watched how opulently the rich lived. At the same time, revolutionaries were pushing for a constitutional monarchy. As the mob of women grew and united with the revolutionaries, riots began to break out. The mob grew to thousands and there was a call to ransack the armory. The group did just that and with weapons in hand they marched to Versailles. They entered the palace and violently confronted the guards and King Louis XVI. They told the king their demands and by the next day, the King, his family and the French Assembly went to Paris. The King lost his independence and the changing of the power structure began. This march by the women began the Third Estate, which signified that the French nobility was over and the balance of power was turning to the common people.

Bran Castle

Bran Castle is more famously known as Dracula Castle. Originally, the Teutonic Knights claimed this spot and had a wooden fortress on the site in the 1200s, but eventually a new castle would be built and it possibly might have been a place where Vlad the Impaler passed through. Queen Maria would take possession in the 1920s and turn the fortress into a fairytale castle. Bram Stoker chose this location as the setting for part of his novel "Dracula." Stoker never visited the castle and thus his description does not match reality. Count Dracula never lived here either being that he is fictious. But the history connected to the castle gives it an ominous mystique, one that would lead many to believe the castle is haunted. But is it? And what of the lore about vampires? Are they real? Join us as we examine the history and hauntings of Bran Castle.

Bran Castle was built in 1377 by King Louis I of Anjou, the Magyar king, as a militarily strategic fortress that blocked the trade route through the Bran Gorge, which was at that time on the border between Walachia and Transylvania. Magyar refers to a nation and ethnic group of Hungary. The castle was built into and atop a 200 foot rocky crag. It is a magnificent stone structure that took only five years to construct. Through the years, its fortifications would be strengthened. The numerous turrets rise above the treetops along with the tiled roofs. King Louis' military tactics against his enemy nation Walachia heavily relied on the fortification and blocking of gorges like Bran Gorge. The road here was heavily traveled for trade. The fortress was built to protect the Magyar customs centre and intercept the road through the Gorge that lead to Transylvania.

The residents of the nearby town of Braşov eagerly helped to build the fortress because it promised new economic opportunities for the area. They were also incentivized by the promise of the return of land historically belonging to them, and maintained a good relationship with the Magyar sovereignty. Amazingly, the fortress was completed within the King's reign, and was the scene for a major battle between Romania and Walachia according to some historians. After the Romanians won the war, Bran Fortress took ownership of a lot of the surrounding lands and continued to dominate the route through Bran Gorge.

Bran Fortress was in the possession of Magyar King Sigismund of Luxembourg from 1395 - 1406. During this time he used the fortress to invade Walachia and remove Vlad the Usurper, who was replaced by the king's ally, Mircea the Old. Bran Fortress changed hands to Mircea the Old in 1412, but only for occupation and usage, and was in his possession for six years. After Mircea the Old died in 1418, the fortress returned to Sigismund of Luxembourg and was used for defensive purposes.

In 1438 the Ottoman Empire launched a military campaign in Transylvania, passing back through Bran Gorge with their spoils of war. The residents of Bran were so scarred by this that they financed fortifications to Bran Fortress themselves, despite having no obligation to do so since the fortress wasn't their property. Iancu of Hunedoara, the Voivode (principle commander of the military) of Transylvania, defeated an Ottoman attack at Bran Fortress in 1442, and used the strategic position of Bran Fortress to defend Transylvania.

Interestingly, the Walachian ruler Vlad Dracul III known as Vlad the Impaler, who has been linked to Bran Castle in popular belief because of Bram Stoker's "Dracula," actually had very little to do with the fortress' history. The connection wasn't made until much later. The name Dracul comes from the Romanian word for dragon because Vlad II was inducted into the knightly Order of the Dragon. Vlad III had conflicts with the merchants of Braşov due to economic regulations, but attempted to follow the policies of his grandfather Mircea the Old and form alliance with Walachia. However, after some conflict, the Transylvanians broke the treaty and tense relations were heightened. In 1459, Vlad started a series of "punishment" raids against Braşov, and in 1460, attacked the area through the Bran Gorge and destroyed it in his typical bloodthirsty way, burning crops and impaling prisoners. Vlad's favorite form of torture was reputed to be impaling people while they were alive and rumors circulated that he dined among those dying in such fashion. Eighty thousand people were said to have been killed by Vlad. His barbaric reputation inspired the character of Count Dracula.

In 1462, Vlad was arrested by the Magyar king on charges of siding with their mutual enemy the Turks, as evidenced by letter from Braşov residents. He was released in 1476 on the insistence of Stefan the Great, ruler of Moldavia, and reached Walachia through the Bran Gorge in an attempt to reclaim his throne. He was successfully reinstated, but had a short reign before dying in confrontation against a contender for the throne. It is believed that Vlad died in battle, but there is no significant evidence as to where and how.

Bran Fortress changed hands from the Walachian Viovode to the residents of Bran from 1497 - 1521, and was involved in the Ottoman Empire's conquest of the Hungarian Empire. When the Ottomans took over the area, their leader planned to use Bran Fortress for his military needs, but after fierce resistance, conceded to allowing the Bran residents to keep the fortress for their own use. Over the next century, it was visited by political and religious representatives and the scene of a few battles, including more conflict between Walachia and Transylvania, during which the fortress was conquered by Transylvania. In 1625, a dungeon was added to the castle and torture was believed to be practiced within the room.

The residents of Bran finally regained control of the fortress when it was donated to them by the Transylvanian Prince Gheorghe Rákóczy II on 24th April 1651. At the end of the 17th century Transylvania became part of the Habsburg empire, but the residents of Bran were allowed to keep Bran Castle in accordance to the 1651 treaty. Bran lost importance in 1836 when the border was moved, but was restored in the late 19th century when the castle was repaired and given to the Braşov Forestry, who occupied it until 1918.

After World War I, the castle became a residence of Queen Maria of Romania, beginning its relatively short history as a royal residence. It was converted to the royal summer residence, and was much loved by the Queen until her death in 1938. She added windows to the arrow slits, horse stables, a tea room, children's playroom, a gaudy chapel and extensive gardens filled with plants and animals. In 1940, Queen Maria's heart was transferred to Bran so that, according to her daughter Princess Ileana, she could be closer to her people. The Princess also had the body of her beloved younger brother Mircea, who had died in 1916 at four years old from one of the war's fever epidemics, moved to Bran to be closer to their mother, believing that they would keep each other company. It is believed that the Queen's heart was placed inside a silver casket and encased in a cliff at Bran. Princess Ileana ensured the upkeep of Bran Castle, and during World War II, founded a hospital near it and became a nurse like her mother had in World War I while her husband served in the German army. The hospital was called Queen's Heart Hospital. She was forced to leave the country in 1947 when the king abdicated, but returned in 1990 to find the hospital in disarray and the castle's objects and furnishings dispersed by the Communist government. Serious restoration of the castle began and in 2014 the castle was put up for sale (although reportedly sans plumbing, removed by the Communists in 1958 for some reason). Queen Maria is reported to haunt another nearby castle named Peles Castle. The smell of lavender is detected by custodians at times.

Because Bran Castle is the only surviving castle in Transylvania that fits Bram Stoker's description of Dracula's castle, it has captured the world's imagination as the fictional castle, and Vlad the Impaler as Count Dracula himself. Bram Stoker actually did base the castle on Bran Castle, but having never actually visited Romania, he wrote off a description of the castle. The character of Dracula was inspired by the popular stories of Vlad the Impaler, but those accounts of his blood thirst were written for political purposes (remember that the people of Bran helped imprison Vlad with these accounts). However, Stoker was careful not to make any explicit connections between Vlad the Impaler and Count Dracula in anything other than name.

Stoker turned to the legends and lore of vampires to build his character Dracula after being inspired by the stories of Vlad's bloodlust and the character is also based on the local myths of the Bran area. For centuries the people firmly believed that evil spirits called "steregoi" lived among them. These ghosts lead normal lives during the day but at night, while asleep, their souls left their bodies and haunted the villages, tormenting people in their sleep. These evil spirits haunted their prey from midnight until dawn, when their power to harm people faded.

However, while the castle is of course extremely creepy, especially at night, the reports of hauntings are minimal. In fact, Freya couldn't find any evidence at all of its being haunted! Even the TV series Ghost Hunters International didn't find anything there, and Freya points out that you know they would have attributed a mouse squeak to cries of the undead. The castle does offer some fabulous events around Halloween to celebrate its history and popular culture, including ghost tours, although nothing has ever been seriously documented. It seems that the castle has gained notoriety as a "haunted attraction" only for its traditional/creepy decor and popular connections to Dracula, not because it actually is haunted.

This seems to be the perfect setting to explore the lore of vampirism. The term vampire became a part of the English language in 1732, but the folklore surrounding vampirism dates back centuries. At its very base, a vampire is a revenant. A revenant is a human corpse or the undead that rises from its grave. In most cases, the revenant is harmful to humans. Depending on the culture, a revenant can be either a spirit, a walking corpse or a demon. It's possible that these legends go back to Ancient Egypt.

The characteristics of the vampire include the ability to take the form of an animal like a dog, bat or wolf. They are pale with lips that can be a deep red depending on whether they have recently fed. They generally do not cast a reflection into a mirror and they have to avoid the daylight. Holy water and crosses repel them. These are considered the traditional characteristics. Some stories vary from this...you know, like sparkly vampires. The one core characteristic is the need for a vampire to consume blood. The story element that being bitten by a vampire means that you will become a vampire is pretty recent. It was actually thought to be possible that one could be born a revenant. Folklorist Paul Barber, wrote in his 2008 book, "Vampires, Burial, and Death: Folklore and Reality" that centuries ago, "Often potential revenants can be identified at birth, usually by some abnormality, some defect, as when a child is born with teeth. Similarly suspicious are children born with an extra nipple (in Romania, for example); with a lack of cartilage in the nose, or a split lower lip (in Russia) … When a child is born with a red caul, or amniotic membrane, covering its head, this was regarded throughout much of Europe as presumptive evidence that it is destined to return from the dead."

So how did such a legend get started? It comes down to ancient people not understanding decay. The typical human corpse goes through a series of changes as it decomposes. Generally, we would not know about these changes unless we dug somebody up. And that is what they did, dug people up. Someone would get sick in town and rumors would start that somebody had returned from the dead. The disinterred corpse would appear to still have growing hair and nails and blood would possibly be streaming from the mouth or nose. Internal decay causes bloating, forcing blood out of the body. Nails and hair seemed to continue to grow because the skin would pull back as the body dried. And if the circumstances were right, a body might be preserved for a long period of time.

The means of dispatching a vampire vary, but generally a wooden or iron stake is driven through the heart and the vampire's head is cut off. Unearthed ancient burials reveal that some people were buried either pinned under a rock or with a boulder jammed into their mouths. Archaeology Magazine reported in 2013 that two graves in Bulgaria contained bodies that had been pinned to the ground by iron stakes.

Bran Castle gained its notoriety through Bram Stoker's fiction, but the elements of story were inspired by true historical elements. Whether there are hauntings at Bran Castle or not, there is no doubt that the castle will always hold a mystique. And the popularity of vampires only seems to grow. Do the undead walk among us as either spirits or vampires? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:
Pictures of the castle:  http://bran-castle.com/gallery-castle.html
Music featuring This is Halloween by Kayzo & LooKas can be found here:   https://soundcloud.com/kayzo-music/this-is-halloween-kayzo-x-lookas