HGB Ep. 298 - Haunted Ybor City

The Moment in Oddity - The Bloody Pit

The Hoosac Tunnel took twenty-four years to complete at a cost of $21 million. It is a railroad tunnel that stretches nearly 5 miles in western Massachusetts. Many people have nicknamed the tunnel, The Bloody Pit. Construction was started in 1851 and you can imagine at that time that cutting through a mountain was quite the feat. Techniques that are used today for tunnel drilling were created at this time and in 1975 the tunnel was made an Historic Civil Engineering Landmark. Workers would pay a hefty price in creating this marvel. One hundred ninety-six of them would die from accidents. One accident trapped thirteen men who lived long enough to make a raft to keep from drowning when the pumps failed and water rose in the shaft in which they were trapped. They eventually suffocated. Another accident left two men dead after an explosion. A third man that was with the other two men, Kelly Ringo, escaped the explosion even though he was the one to actually set it off on accident. A little over a year later, Ringo was working in the tunnel again. He was found later strangled to death. No one was ever caught in connection to his murder. Legend claims that the two men who died in the blast he triggered had come back to exact their revenge. And it's easy to believe because there are many supernatural things that happen here from lanterns swaying on their own to disembodied voices to shadow figures. The ghosts of two men killed in a construction accident coming back to get the man who caused it, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Balloon Bomb Killed Six Near Bly
Suggested by: Shelley Emary

In the month of May, on the 5th, in 1945, six people were killed by a balloon bomb near Bly, Oregon. It was a beautiful day, the perfect day for a picnic. Reverend Mitchell and his wife decided to head to a wooded area along Leonard Creek to do just that. They invited five kids from their Sunday school class to join them. The Reverend dropped everyone at the picnic spot and then drove away to park the car. The Reverend describes what happened as he got out of the car, "As I got out of the car to bring the lunch, the others were not far away and called to me they had found something that looked like a balloon," Mitchell said. "I heard of Japanese balloons so I shouted a warning not to touch it. But just then there was a big explosion." Balloon bombs were constructed by the Japanese during World War II and they made as many as 9,000 of them. At least 285 of them made it all the way to the west coast of America. The balloons were made of paper and inflated with hydrogen. Each balloon carried a variety of bombs. Mitchell ran to where he had dropped his pregnant wife and the children. There was a crater a foot deep and 3 feet wide and everyone was dead. The victime were his pregnant wife; Dick Patzke, 14; Jay Gifford, 13; Edward Engen, 13; Joan Patzke, 13; and Sherman Shoemaker, 11. This was the only enemy-inflicted attack that caused casualties on the U.S. mainland during World War II. Be careful! Some bombs were never found and could still be out there and as proof of that, one was found in British Columbia in the Monashee Mountains in 2014.

Haunted Ybor City

When people claim that a town was the wildest in the west, we have certain images that come to mind. We envision gunfights in the street, brothels, saloons, cowboy hats and spurs. But what about a city that was dubbed the "Wild West of the South?" Change those cowboy hats to gangster fedoras and the spurs to cigars and you get Ybor City. This neighborhood just outside of Tampa, Florida has an amazing history, which has led to some interesting haunts. Join me as I explore the history and hauntings of Ybor City.

A small group of us took the Ybor City Ghost Tour a couple of weekends ago and our minds were blown about the history going on in this town. When you drive down the main drag, 7th Avenue, it becomes clear that this truly is Cigar City, but then you notice something else peculiar. There are Mardi Gras beads hanging from trees and littering the roofs of the businesses. That is because this city is built to reflect the French Quarter in New Orleans and in many ways, it does. Bars dot the landscape and the roads are built from brick. But rather than having the scent of stale beer and urine in the air, there is the sweet pungent smell of cigar smoke. And everybody smokes big stogies here, including that seventy-something woman we just passed, sitting outside of one of the haunted locations here. A must here is to watch a cigar being hand rolled. This street was named as one of the "10 Great Streets in America" in 2008. Another nod to New Orleans is the street trolley that runs up and down the street.

 Ybor City was founded by a group of cigar manufacturers looking for a place to relocate. They were originally located in Key West, a place that presented higher costs and transportation issues. Tampa was still near enough to Cuba to keep the price of the Cuban tobacco low and it also had the plus of new railroad lines being built throughout the state of Florida to facilitate transportation of the cigars to the rest of the United States. There was also the plus of lots of land. Key West was small and land poor, but in Tampa, workers could actually buy land and build their own homes. So workers migrated from Key West to Tampa. The leader of this group of cigar manufacturers was Vincente Martinez-Ybor and he built his workers homes and sold them for basically cost. The area was founded in 1885 and named for Ybor. The success of the city led Tampa to annex it in 1887. This was the state's first industrial town.

Ybor's cigar factory was the largest brick building in Florida. Immigrants came from everywhere to work here. The city took on a European atmosphere as these immigrants arrived from Germany, Romania, Italy and Spain. And, of course, many Cubans arrived too. Each group had their own club and all array of ethnic holidays were observed. These different groups brought their own specialties and soon shops were popping up all over Ybor City, as well as restaurants. German lithographers invented the cigar label. This made Ybor City pretty special. The ethnic clubs provided social outlets as well as healthcare for their members and workers were happy as they were not beholden to a company. This sounds like a company town, but it wasn't since the workers could own their own property. And what also makes this area great is that so many of these buildings - the factories, social clubs and balconied storefronts - still exist today.

So Ybor City sounds like a great place to work and live, but this area was called the Wild West of the South for a reason. There was no law here. When Prohibition was enacted throughout America, Ybor City completely ignored it. The taps here continued to run. Tunnels were built under the city and these were not constructed to facility the sewage system. These tunnels helped crime run rampant. They were used for transporting illegal goods or to help criminals escape when nightspots were raided. The lawlessness attracted the mob and gangsters. Speakeasies popped up everywhere, along with brothels and murder and mayhem were rampant. Organized crime ran a gambling game called Bolita, which is Spanish for little ball.  This is a game of chance like a lottery. A bag is filled with small numbered balls and one is pulled at random and this is the winning number. A notorious gangster named Charlie Wall ran many of the Bolita games and he used the proceeds to fund his criminal projects. As the 1930s rolled into the 1940s, residents of Ybor City took to calling it the "Era of Blood." The city continued to deteriorate and the buildings were abandoned. In the 1980s, the neighborhood took on new life as an artist colony developed in Ybor City. Soon bars and restaurants and stores moved in and the nightlife has been alive ever since. Also alive here, as remnants of the crazy past, are spirits.

Fun Fact: This is the only place where you actually can stand in Cuba while still being in America. There is a park dedicated to Cuban poet and revolutionary Jose Marti in Ybor City and it is owned by Cuba. The United States does not maintain it, so volunteers in the Cuban community take care of it. 

King Corona Cigars Cafe and Bar

Our first stop is the King Corona Cigars Cafe and Bar. The outside patio area along the street is dotted with tables and people sit here sipping wine or a craft beer and puffing on cigars. The cafe and bar were founded in 1998 by Don and Brenda Barco and they both have run it through all these years until Don passed away this past March 2019. The building has housed other businesses previously though. I believe the original store was a dress shop opened by Raul Vega and he ran that for sixty years. The twelve years following that, it was a women's upscale store called La Nica Fashions. And then the building was empty for two years until Don bought it. His family had been in the cigar business for five generations. The building needed a lot of renovations and Don enlisted some friends to help him. This is when they would discover that there was something other than dust left behind.

Joe Howden was one of those friends helping Don and he was there late one night by himself. He couldn't shake the feeling that he was not really by himself. He grabbed a hammer and walked towards the back of the building where he saw a very large man standing there. Joe didn't want a confrontation, so he held the hammer in front of his body and backed up towards the front door, hoping to run away. It turned out that he wouldn't have to run because the large man just evaporated into thin air. This large man was not the only spirit here. Another friend helping renovate was named Sarah. She was painting the walls when she saw a young girl at the back of the store. The girl just stared at Sarah and Sarah could see that she was wearing a period dress. Sarah said "Hello" but got no response. As she approached the girl, she disappeared. Patrons and workers have experienced disembodied voices and strange, unidentifiable sounds.

Mediums who have visited the cafe have seen the large man spirit and claim that it belongs to Raul Vega. One medium, named Joanne, walked to the back of the store and claimed to see a lot of blood everywhere as though someone had been killed here. She also claimed to see the spirit of a young girl cowering in a back storeroom and that this child spirit was terrified of something. The energy was so negative around her that Joanne ran from the room and would not go back inside. A few years later, another medium named Sheila joined writer Dave Lapham at the cafe. She saw the same pools of blood in the back of the store and Dave had told her nothing about the place. And she saw the little girl ghost cowering in the corner too.

Don Vincente de Ybor Historic Inn

Casa Ybor is the former Don Vincente de Ybor Historic Inn, which was established in 1895. The man who founded Ybor City built this building and did it in the Mediterranean style. Today, it offers retail, residential and office spaces, but it is best remembered as the Don Vincente de Ybor Inn and that is what it was when Dead Files visited. Originally, this was a real estate office, Ybor Land and Improvement Company, a planning and development office for the community and then it transformed into El Bien Publico Clinic, a medical clinic, in 1903. It would change names to The Gonzalez Clinic after the El Bien Publico closed in 1973. This would run until 1980. The building sat empty for 18 years and then Jack Shiver bought it in 1998 and fully refurbished the interior into a beautiful period decorated inn. It took two years and two million dollars. The beautiful staircase was restored as was the hand carved wooden bar and the brass and blush pink light fixtures. Persian rugs, beautiful French chandeliers and antiques were added. One of which was an imposing grandfather clock that was the grand prize winner at the 1915 Panama Pacific Exhibition in San Francisco. The basement had been a speakeasy at one time and was renovated to be a large gathering place. The Inn closed in May of 2015 and is now Casa Ybor. Darryl Shaw had bought the building for $2.2 million in 2014, so he probably decided it was worth more to have it as offices. It still was not open and was being renovated when we went by it.

During the clinic time, this was really a celebrated hospital. There was a man named Jose Luis Avellanal who had been born in Tampa in 1903. His father had founded the first clinic in the building. One of his father's first patients was a young boy that Jose had shot in the eye. Jose was a really bad kid and he was going to grow into a really bad guy. He would develop what he called an electric chair when he was young and confinced a neighborhood boy to help him test it. Needless to say, this would be another patient for his father. His father put him in solitary confinement hoping it would straighten him up, but he just escaped and stole his dad's car. He was shipped off to military school. He moved around when he became an adult with a stop in tennessee where he was charged with possession of drugs and kidnapping a woman. When he returned to Ybor City, he claimed that he was a doctor, but many feel the diploma was fake. He set up shop at El Pasaje Hotel where he conducted bizarre and macabre experiments. He told people he could raise the dead and even tried to publish articles on resurrecting the dead. Apparently, he was bringing dead cats back to life. At least, that was his claim. He also experimented with cryogenics. He practised as a plastic surgeon and gynocologist, so I can only imagine what kind of a horror show that was. He also established Southern University, which was really only a diploma mill and he was charged with fraud. He visited Mexico and returned claiming that he had been given the title of lieutenant general and he was often seen in full uniform around town. He eventually died in 1982. An interesting note, as if the rest of this wasn't, is that Jose wrote a suicide note. In it, he claimed to have had 500 sexual relationships. The note was nine pages of rambling and disturbing narcissism. 

Locals have called this location, Hotel Hell. Dead Files on the Travel Channel featured this in the first season and Amy really didn't like the place. The first entity she experiences is a nurse who worked in the clinic. She sees the spirit going back and forth over and over in what seems to be a residual manner as she continues to do her work in the afterlife. The nurse's name is thought to be Tabby.

There were 16 rooms in all and the two main haunted rooms in the inn were Room 303 and Room 305. The water is said to come on by itself and footsteps are heard. Outside of Room 305, Amy thought she saw the body of someone lying face up. When she entered the room, she felt a very negative energy and she felt sick. She felt like a murder-suicide had happened in the room. But this incident did not happen while this was an inn. Did it happen in the clinic? The front desk clerk, Ray, and he said a woman told him that she saw a ghost that stared at her in Room 305.

Tessa is the daughter of Jack Shiver and she helped run the inn. She was scared of the basement and always took the stairs two at a time when she was going up. She told Steve about a terrifying experience she had one day in the restroom down in the basement around 2:30 in the afternoon. She looked up into the mirror and saw a woman in a Spanish veil standing behind her. She could see right through the woman. She fell backward screaming in terror, spilling her purse and all its contents everywhere.

Jack Shiver himself had experiences too. He was down working in the basement and he saw a light and then a very small lady. There are no windows in the basement. The woman looked back at him and he thought she was a Spanish woman too. He could see through her, so he knew she wasn't human.

The basement had served as a speakeasy at one time and Amy could see that there were many people there. She had to leave the area after she was overwhelmed by at least twenty entities. She said that it felt as though many of them had killed somebody at some point. Some had crushed faces and they were vibrating. It all sounded very weird. She could sense the tunnels coming to the basement. Remember that Ybor City had these tunnels everywhere. So was this facilitating bringing in alcohol during Prohibition? Keep in mind that anything went in this city, so they really didn't need to hide stuff in tunnels. These tunnels could have helped Jose to move bodies as well. Did that happen? Amy thinks that perhaps her visions of people in the walls down in the basement was actually a morgue.

It will be interesting to hear what happens after the offices open. Will people in Casa Ybor experience the same things as though who ran and visited the inn that was here before?

The Cuban Club

In 1902, the Cuban immigrants in Ybor City formed El Circulo Cubano, which means Circle of Cubans. The original Cuban Club was made of wood and burned down in 1916. The club was quickly rebuilt in the same spot at the corner of Palm Avenue and 14th Street and this time they used brick, but not any old brick. They used yellow brick because it was three times the price of red brick and they wanted to one-up the Spanish Club and show off their wealth. The style was neoclassical and the club was opulent, boasting a gym with the latest exercise equipment of the time, a running track, a basketball court, a bowling alley, a pharmacy, a library and a swimming pool. Now the pool was only 10 ft. x 10 ft. and 10 feet deep, so it was more like a spa, but it was the only pool in Ybor City. There is a theater here with the ceiling painted like the sky. There is a small balcony and a little ticket booth just outside the doors. The dressing rooms are off to one side backstage and are small. The Grand Ballroom had elaborate murals painted on the ceiling and Tommy Dorsey and Glenn Campbell played their Big Band tunes there. The building was decorated with imported tile floors, stained-glass windows and elaborately carved scraffito spandrells. The fortunes of the club waned in the 1960s, but the Cuban Club Foundation bought the building and have preserved it.

Our tour guide told us that there were 300 known ghosts here. I'm skeptic, so obviously I find that to be a stretch, but there definitely do seem to be a few spirits here. EMF detectors were handed out and they went off most of the time we were in the building. I personally feel that much of the issue was electrical. There was wiring in the columns, people didn't have their cell phones on airplane mode and who knows what the wiring was like throughout the building.

The first spirit is a little boy named Jaime who drowned in the pool. This reminded me of the Queen Mary and the little girl who drowned and haunts the pool there. The pool had been down in the basement, but it is no longer there. Ghost Hunters visited in 2009 and they communicated with Jaime via the flashlight experiment. But no right away. They tried for an hour with no luck and then it occurred to them  that maybe Jaime doesn't understand English. Once they started asking questions in Spanish, they started getting responses. A few years ago, the tour guide had a woman with the group who had an infant with her. While everybody was walking around the basement with their EMFs, she stood off to the side to cradle her baby to sleep. She snapped a few pictures of the room while she stood in the corner and when she got home, she discovered that one of the pictures had what looked like the head of a little boy peering over a counter. The guide showed us the picture and it does indeed seem to be the head of a young person looking over a counter. The picture is grainy, but I found it interesting. There was something interesting here with a ball in the basement as well. (EVP of Jaime caught by Yoselis Ramos in 2014 - Saying Hi?) Photo of possible ghost by stairs where pool used to be:

Photo by Patty Summers

There is a Lady in White here. She was a young girl who was the bell of the ball, around sixteen years of age. She had caught the eye of a gangster and he pursued her heavily. She wanted nothing to do with him and rejected his advances several times. This angered him and if he couldn't have her, nobody would. When he found her out on the balcony patio, he picked her up and threw her off the top of the club. Her brother stabbed the gangster to death outside the club that evening. The tour guide had a group of five nineteen and twenty year old girls he was touring through the Cuban Club. They were up on the fourth floor where the ballroom is and he counted six silhouettes. When they got downstairs, there were only five women again. He is positive that he saw a sixth figure with the girls. This woman is seen in a white dress and red heels and is often seen walking up and down the stairs.

The theater is haunted by a young man who wanted to be an actor and a director. It took him two years to write and develop his original play. In 1919, he rented the theater and had his family and all the Cubans in the city come to see his debut. Halfway through the play, he forgets the lines to his own play. He is laughed off the stage and he runs away. He still had the keys to the theater, so he returns at four in the morning. He walked up on the stage, put a rope over the center beam and tied a noose on the end. He stands on a chair with the noose around his neck and finishes the play. The young man then stepped off to his death. His spirit haunts the theater and usually shows up around 4am. He is most often heard reciting his lines in Spanish. In the 1920s a member of the board was killed by another member during a heated argument. That murdered board member's ghost is said to walk throughout the building. A piano has been heard playing by itself in the theater as well.

Ybor City is a great place to visit. If you are coming to Tampa, make time to visit this neighborhood and walk those brick streets. Are these locations in Ybor City haunted? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:
Ybor City Ghost Tours: https://www.yborghosttour.com/

HGB Ep. 297 - St. John's, Newfoundland and Labrador

Moment in Oddity - Birmingham's Balloon Parade

The year was 1966 and Birmingham Alabama's Downtown Action Committee decided they wanted to have an animated balloon parade to celebrate the Christmas holidays. The Macy Thanksgiving Day Parade had these huge balloon figures and they wanted to do the same thing. They really hoped they could outdo Macy's efforts. They had plans for several blow-up balloons, many of which would be very unique, including monkeys, dogs and serpents. It was a grand plan. There was just one teeny, tiny little problem. You've seen the Macy's Parade on TV. Those balloons fly pretty high up in the air and many stand several stories high. I remember that there have been years that the balloon wranglers on the ground have had to keep the balloons held closer to the ground because of wind. But they have never had to keep the balloons low because of power lines or traffic signals. Unfortunately for Birmingham, their overhanging power lines and traffic signals were not conducive to floating balloons, so they had to mount the balloons on platforms and wheel them along the route. The first parade was themed as Fairyland and included Peter Pan, Snow White, Beauty and the Beast and of course, a vampire and Frankenstein's Monster...well, okay, I know that sounds weird, especially for Christmas, but here at HGB that sounds mighty fine to me! Hosting a balloon parade with all the balloons wheeled down the street, certainly is odd! 

This Month in History - Jim Thorpe Born

In the month of May, on the 22nd, in 1887, Jim Thorpe was born. Thorpe was a member of the Sac and Fox Nation and his Native American name was Wa-Tho-Huk, which meant Bright Path. And he did have a bright path in front of him when it came to sports. Thorpe grew up in Oklahoma and attended school in Carlisle, Pennsylvania where he became All-American twice for the football team. He was a versatile athlete and competed in the US Olympic Track Finals to compete in the 1912 Olympics hosted in Stockholm, Sweden in the pentathlon and decathlon, which were being introduced for the first time. He went to the Olympics and made a record in the decathlon that would last for two decades. Thorpe won eight of the 15 individual events comprising the pentathlon and decathlon and took home the gold in both. And then things started to go downhill. He lost his gold medals because of the amateur rule in place at the time for Olympics. Thorpe had received meager pay playing professional baseball before the Olympics. He would marry three times, two of them ending in divorce. He had eight children, one child dying in childhood. He retired from sports at 41, just as the Great Depression hit, and he could not find work. He fell into alcoholism and died in poverty at the age of 65 from heart failure. Thorpe was a victim of racism. The New York Times even ran a headline that read, "Indian Thorpe in Olympiad; Redskin from Carlisle Will Strive for Place on American Team." In 1983, Thorpe's medal placement was reinstated, but not the original gold medals because they had been stolen. His children were presented with commemorative ones. He is listed as a gold medalist by the IOC, but his 1912 reults are not restored to the official Olympic record.

St. John's in Newfoundland and Labrador (Dedicated to Robyn and Chris White)

St. John's is one of the oldest cities in North America and is found in Newfoundland and Labrador on the coast of Canada. Based on my personal experience, these oldest cities have a plethora of ghost stories. And St. John's is said to be the most haunted city in Canada. There are numerous historic locations here with a haunted reputation and we are going to look at several of them. Join me as I explore the history and hauntings of St. John's!

Newfoundland and Labrador are a province of Canada. Newfoundland is an island and Labrador is a part of mainland Canada, found to the East of Quebec and above Nova Scotia. There are 10 provinces in Canada and this is the newest, having only joined in 1949. It was initially named Newfoundland having been coined New Found Launde by King Henry VII after John Cabot discovered it in 1497. The name Labrador is thought to have been coined by a Portuguese explorer named João Fernandes. He was a landowner, which in Portuguese is "llavrador" and people started calling the coast he explored in Greenland "the labrador's land." Labrador was once part of Greenland. The name was officially changed in 2001 to Newfoundland and Labrador. The people here are from indigenous, French, Irish and English backgrounds. *Fun fact: On the coast of Labrador, the Maritime Archaic Indians left behind a burial mound that dates back 7,500 years and this is said to be the oldest known funeral mound in North America. The capital city of the province is St. John's and it is found in Newfoundland on the southeastern end. As I said before, this is a really old city.

From the beginning, St. John's was a prominent harbor known for its fishing in the North Atlantic. The Spanish, Portuguese, Basques, French and English all came with the British rising in power in the area. The first permanent settlers set down roots in the early 1600s with a family named Oxford building a plantation. The oldest commercial street known as Water Street was established shortly thereafter. Along this path were bars, storehouses, warehouses and shops that drew traders, fishers, captains, naval officers and even pirates. St. John's was a major commercial center and for this it became a prime location for attack. Many of these attacks started as early as the mid 1500s. The last attacks came in 1762 when the British recaptured St. John's from the French. Municipal government would be set up in 1888 and the population would rise to 30,000. Electric street lights came along with electric street cars. St. John's would be incorporated in 1921 and today is the financial and commercial center for Newfoundland and Labrador and, of course, the capital of the province.

So many historic cities have stories of big fires. They were so common because most everything was built from wood early on and most cities did not have great resources for fighting fires. St. John's had several big fires and then a great fire. The Great Fire of 1892 broke out on July 8th and was the worst disaster to ever hit the city of St. John's. On that fateful day, a strong wind was blowing out of the northwest and the city was extremely dry as there had been little rain for days. Work on the water main made the water pressure insufficient. It was the perfect conditions for a fire and one was about to start. At the top of Carter's Field, on Freshwater Road, stood Timothy Brine's stable. A pipe was dropped there, and although a pipe is a small thing, the stable lit up. It was around 4:45 in the afternoon. The relatively small fire did not initially cause alarm, but since the conditions were ripe, the fire quickly spread.

Once the residents realized that they would not be able to contain the fire, they decided to use their energy to move their valuables to stone buildings, which they thought would be protective. Obviously, that was not the case. One of these locations was the Anglican Cathedral of St. John the Baptist. A description of what happened to the cathedral reads, "With one fearful rush the demonic fire seized upon the doomed cathedral, and sooner than tongue could tell the immense edifice, a gem of Gothic architecture, the masterpiece of Sir Gilbert Scott and the pride of every Newfoundlander, was a seething mass of flame. With a crash, heard even above the din of the elements the roof fell in, and the result of the labors and offerings of thousands for many years vanished in a cloud of smoke and dust." The fire ravaged the business district along Water Street and Duckworth Street.

The cries of terror from women and children and the frantic attempts to quench the flames did not end until the next morning. As the smoke cleared, the residents were able to see the destruction. Few walls stood and those that did were tottering. Chimneys stood as the last remnants of homes. There was 13 million in losses with very little covered by insurance. Money from Britain, the United States and the rest of Canada poured in and St. John's rebuilt. Most of the old buildings here date back to this time and have a Second Empire styling. That's why so many have mansard roofs with bonnet-topped dormers.

St. John's is the city of legends. Many of the buildings in this city have ghost stories attached to them and I am going to share many of them with you. So put on your walking shoes and let's go see haunted St. John's!

290 Duckworth Street

As I mentioned, the businesses along Duckworth Street were devastated by the fire. Our first stop is at 290 Duckworth Street at the corner of Cathedral Street. The building is large, standing four stories tall with the back of the building curving up a hill. This was originally a doctor's office that was much like a hospital because surgeries were conducted here. Later, it would run as a funeral parlor and then the Victoria Station Inn. More recently it went through a series of restaurants: Chez Briann, The Vinyl Room and the Reluctant Chef, which is now closed. Last I saw, the property is listed as a rental for office space. Paranormal experiences include some really creepy apparitions. One is a woman who seems to be sporting her autopsy scars and another is a young woman whom is paralyzed with coins over here eyes.

Duke of Duckworth

The Duke of Duckworth is said to be the best pub in town. The pub has been in business for 25 years and is located at 325 Duckworth Street. I've heard they have the best fish and chips in town. They also have a spirit here that has been affectionately named the Duke. I'm not sure why they call him The Duke because no one knows his story or who he is. The ghost seems to be friendly and is usually seen as an apparition looking out the window and waving. A local artist painting a picture of this and it can be seen hanging in the pub. Staff members claim that he has other antics like moving glasses and hiding things. So you can go for a pint and maybe even have a specter to share it with.

Anglican Cathedral Graveyard on Church Hill

The Anglican Cathedral of St. John the Baptist is the oldest Anglican cathedral in all of Canada and found at 16 Church Hill. The Anglican Parish was originally established in 1699. The first stone church was built in 1843 and was heavily damaged during the Great Fire of 1892. It took 10 years to repair the damage. Disembodied voices are heard within the cathedral. The ghost of a young stone worker who had helped with repairing the cathedral is said to haunt the church. He fell to his death from scaffolding. It is said that he was unable to leave his work unfinished. Many of his co-workers saw his ghost around the job site. Even more shocking, in 1850, a picture was taken of all the workmen after they repaired the nave. They were wearing their Sunday finest and stood in front of the cathedral. The deceased man showed up in the picture, wearing his work clothes.

South of the church is the Anglican Cathedral Graveyard. There are tales of apparitions seen floating around the cemetery. There is a legend here about a man who refused to be buried. This man was believed to be a merchant who had sailed into St. John's. His body was found in a downtown lane in the late 1800s. He was brought to the Anglican cemetery for burial. His casket was lowered into the grave,but about halfway through, the gravediggers heard a knocking coming from the coffin. They quickly shoveled out the dirt and called the doctor. He came and declared that the man was indeed dead, so they started to bury him again. The knocking was heard again. They repeated the process of unburying the man and having a doctor check him again. He was pronounced dead once again and the reburial began with the doctor standing by. The knocking happened again, but the doctor refused to let the men unbury him and the knocking eventually stopped. Strange knocking sounds are heard in the cemetery to this day.

The Captain of Queen's Road

This legend dates back to 1740. There was a captain of a ship who made regular rounds between England and Newfoundland and he had taken up with a woman who lived along Queen's Road in a home later owned by a man named Samuel Pettyham. The captain did not know that he was not the only suitor of this woman. She had a jealous lover and one night he ambushed the captain and killed him. And then he beheaded the captain with a sword. The Captain's ghost is now said to be seen along the area where he was killed and he appears headless. The first person to report the tale was Samuel Pettyham all those centuries ago.

The Majestic Theater

The Majestic Theater is inside a building nicknamed the "flat iron building" on 390 Duckworth Street. Theaters already have a pretty haunted reputation, but imagine one built over an area that had been used for hangings. That is what we have going on here. The building was constructed in 1918 and was refurbished and reopened in 2017 and then promptly caught fire. I'm not sure it is even open right now because all the ticket buying websites have no events for the location and the theater itself has no website. When it was open, workers and patrons claimed to hear the disembodied cries of men, probably those who were hanged. Their moans have also been heard. And there is poltergeist-like activity.

Christians Pub

Christian's Pub is located at 23 George St and is the oldest pub on George Street. I'm not sure what getting screeched in is, but apparently Newfoundlanders know and this is what this pub is known for. If you are not a native of Newfoundland, the Screech In ceremony makes you an honorary Newfoundlander. Most ceremonies include wearing a Sou'Wester (which is a collapsible oilskin rain hat), answering the question "Is ye an honorary Newfoundlander?" with the proper answer "'Deed I is me ol' cock, and long may your big jib draw" and then you get to kiss...a cod or the ass end of a puffin. Christian's Pub has a picture of Anthony Bourdain going through the process. They have one ghost here and they have named her Maggie. She can be a rather rowdy spirit and has occasionally damaged some of the bar equipment.

The Masonic Temple

The three-story Masonic Temple can be found on Cathedral Street. The Masons had a group in Newfoundland beginning in 1746 when the Grand Lodge of Boston issued them a Freemasonfy warrant, but they had no place of their own. They would meet at various places around the city. Their first official home would be a wooden structure on Long's Hill that was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1892. The Temple was built in 1894, which is why it is of Victorian design. It was constructed from large red bricks imported from Accrington and features multiple pediments, pilasters and free standing columns. The cornerstone was laid on August 23, 1894 in a Masonic ceremony led by Sir William Whiteway, a former Newfoundland prime minister who served for 17 years and he built the Newfoundland Railway. The building was consecrated by the Masonic order in 1896. Sir John Chalker Crosbie donated a large amount of money in 1916 and those funds were used to buy a large and beautiful pipe organ that decorates the main room. There are also paintings in the main room of Whiteway and an engineer named Alexander MacKay. He developed the telegraphic and electrical systems in Newfoundland. The Masons used the building until 2007 and then they sold the structure. The Spirit of Newfoundland owns the building now and hosts dinner shows and other artistic endeavours. The Temple was added to the Registered Heritage Structure by the Heritage Foundation of Newfoundland and Labrador in April 1995.

There are several ghost stories told here. One involves a caretaker who claims he was looking for his phone when he backed into someone. Or what he thought was someone. He turned and found no one. Another story was experienced after the Spirit of Newfoundland theater group took over the building. A delivery driver was bringing boxes of legal files into the building. He went to the top of the landing of some stairs and found a man whom he asked for directions as to where to put the boxes. The man gazed at him for a minute and then disappeared. That delivery driver ran out of the building. The man seen by the delivery drivers has been seen by others and he always disappears. The pipe organ in the main room occasionally has music emanating from it when no one is playing it. Disembodied voices are also heard.

Another experience happened during a wedding held in the building in 1999. A man who was a high ranking member of the Masons had passed away a little bit before the wedding. The wedding was his grandson's and at the start of the ceremony, the presiding judge came into the room where the wedding was taking place with a lit candle. He got halfway to the bride and groom when the candle went out. He returned to the doorway, lit the candle and started forward again. The candle went out at the halfway point again. He decided to just carry on and the wedding continued. One of the guests pointed out that two pictures of the groom's grandfather hung on opposite sides of the wall of the room. This was the same spot where the candles went out.

Newman Wine Vaults

The Newman Wine Vaults were built in the early 19th century and consisted of two brick-and-stone wine cellars. The name comes from the owner, an English firm named Newman and Company. Their specialty was port wine. Today, the wine vault is a museum. There is unexplained stuff going on here with the two main spectres belonging to an African slave and a child. These spirits pinch people and occasionally get more aggressive and shove people. There is photographic evidence too. During a wedding photoshoot in the vault, a mysterious figure appears. 

The Grace Hospital Nursing Residence

The Grace Hospital Nursing Residence was built in 1923 and opened in September as the first maternity hospital in Newfoundland and was opened by the Salvation Army. It had 100 beds and soon served as the second nursing school in Newfoundland. The hospital was expanded over the years and grew to 200 beds. It was opened until the year 2000 and was left abandoned. Much of it has been demolished, save for the Nursing Residence. And it is this building that is said to be very haunted.

People who live near the property claim to see strange lights and apparitions. Strange noises come from the building as well. When the buildings were being demolished, a member of the demolition crew claimed that he saw someone peeking around door frames at him while he worked. He would just see this thing out of the corner of his eye, but one glimpse had him convinced that it was a little boy, so he decided to go find the child because he was not supposed to be here. He didn't see him anywhere, so he went back to work, but again saw the child. Then the child seemed to float and disappeared through a doorway. The child had been wearing a hospital gown. He didn't see him again.

A nursing student had gone home on break from his classes at university and his home was near the old Grace Hospital parking lot. He awoke at 4 am to a terrifying sound and when he looked out his window, he saw something terrifying. A figure was walking in the parking lot, but it had no legs. There was nothing below the torso. The noise he heard was a mournful call that the creature or thing would make every few minutes. It would walk around and then stop, lift its head to the sky and wail. The figure stopped after about 15miutes and walked towards the building where it disappeared. 

On a winter day, a nurse was leaving her shift at the hospital when she saw a woman walking toward the back of the hospital. She was worried about the woman because she was not wearing a coat. She also wondered if she was a patient because she didn't recognize her as a member of the nursing staff. She followed her around a corner, but could not see her anywhere. She followed the footprints in the snow and found they they stopped right in front of a solid brick wall. The woman was nowhere and she clearly had not walked anywhere else, unless she had flown.

The LPSU Hall

At the corner of Duckworth Street and Prescott Street is a mural of a young man named Fred Gamberg. It is a memorial to him. On July 10, 1995, he was just 24 years old when he slipped from a cliff in Flatrock, Newfoundland and drowned in the North Atlantic. He was a fixture at LPSU Hall, working as a maintenance man  and putting together music shows. He is said to haunt the building that can be seen behind the mural, LPSU Hall, a three storied timber-framed building. It is said that this is one of the most haunted buildings on one of St. John's most haunted streets. The building sits at 3 Victoria Street. This originally was home to the First Congregational Church of Newfoundland, which was built there in 1789. A fire destroyed it in 1817. Another church was built in its place, this time an ecumenical one. This one was also burned up in a fire, the Great Fire of 1892. The land was bought by the Sons of Temperance and they built their Temperance Hall there in 1893. They promoted abstinence from alcohol.

They didn't stay long and sold to the Longshoremen's Protective Union in 1912 and that is why this is called LPSU Hall. They renovated the building mostly on the inside. The exterior looks much the same as it did in the early 1900s. In 1976, the Resource Foundation for the Arts bought the hall and transformed it into the Resource Center for the Arts. It has twice been renovated since, once in 1984 and most recently in 2008. It is used as a theater and arts center.

There are several ghost stories here and why not since it is a theater. Strange sounds are a main part of the haunting. There are disembodied footsteps and then sounds with no reasonable explanation like things clattering to the ground, but nothing being on the floor when people search out a cause. And then there are the dark shadow figures that appear and disappear throughout the hall. I mentioned Fred. Reports of a young male ghost being spotted in the main theater sitting in seats started in 1995, right after Fred's death. A young woman was sitting next to him and she noticed that he was really enjoying the show. When the show was over, she turned to him to ask what he thought and when the lights came up, he completely disappeared before her eyes. She couldn't believe the seat was empty next to her. When she described the man later, people said that it sounded like Fred. And many people have seen him since then as well.

The New Courthouse

This location has the legend of Catherine Snow connected to it. She was accused of murdering her husband and was hanged from the window of the old courthouse on July 21, 1834. She was the last woman hanged in Newfoundland. Perhaps she haunts the location because she was actually innocent.

Catherine Mandeville was born in Harbour Grace, Newfoundland around 1793 and she eventually married John Snow and they had seven children. The marriage was not a happy one and the couple fought often with some fights getting violent. When John disappeared in August of 1833, people immediately started whispering that Catherine had done something to John. Dried blood was found at
John Snow's Salmon Cove wharf. Forget that we don't even know if this is human blood. The police arrested two men right away. One was Tobias Manderville who was Catherine's cousin and was reputedly carrying on an affair with her and the other was Arthur Spring, a household servant. Catherine ran for the woods when she heard about the arrests, but eventually turned herself in.

Spring confessed and said that the three of them had shot John and threw his body in the Atlantic Ocean. Catherine denied having anything to do with the crime and even though there was no evidence she had anything to do with it, she was convicted by a three man jury and condemned to hang. Manderville and Spring were hanged a few days later, but Catherine was pregnant, so they waited until she birthed and nursed the baby for a while before hanging her before a large crowd. Before dying she said, "I was a wretched woman, but I am as innocent of any participation in the crime of murder as an unborn child".

Several days after the execution, Catherine's ghost started showing up in the courthouse and outside where she had been hanged. The cemetery where she is buried also has had sightings. Local newspapers even reported the sightings. The old courthouse burned down in 1846,but this didn't stop Catherine. She was seen during the reconstruction and when the new building opened in 1847, her ghost was there again. The Great Fire of 1892 destroyed the courthouse yet again. It was rebuilt again in 1902 and Catherine's ghost was there again. Her spirit is seen throughout the building and people claim that phantom footsteps belong to her. The elevator goes up and down on its own as well.
St. Andrews Presbyterian Church was built in 1893 where the old catholic cemetery had been and there is no record that bodies were moved, including that of Catherine Snow. So perhaps that is why her spirit walks the grounds of the church here too. In 2012, nearly 200 years after she was tried and hanged, the case was reopened by the Newfoundland Historical Society, and Catherine was given a new trial. Two Supreme Court Justices, Carl Thompson and Seamus O'Regan sat in on the case and the defense lawyer was Rosellen Sullivan. Four hundred sixty people sat in the audience and served as jury. Catherine was exonerated, but that hasn't diminshed the activity.

The Four Sisters

There are four stone houses along Temperance Street at addresses 31 to 37 that were built by Samuel Garrett. They are formally called the Samuel Garrett houses, but everybody refers to them as the Four Sisters. Garrett built the homes over ten years, starting in 1893, to give to his four daughters as wedding gifts. Only two daughters would live in the houses. His daughter Mary died at 24 years old. His daughter Eliza never married and stayed at his home with him. Daughter Laurretta moved into number 35 with her new husband in 1901, and daughter Emily moved into number 37. Two of Garrett's grandchildren eventually would move into 31 and 33 when they were old enough. The houses were designated Registered Heritage Structures in 1988

There is a female ghost here. A family rented one of the homes and encountered this spirit. It began with their young daughter screaming and crying at night. She would tell her parents that she was visited by a woman who frightened her. Over time, the cries and screams stopped because the girl got used to the nightly visits and even started laughing and talking with the woman. People who pass by the homes claim to see a woman watching them from the window and sometimes even waving and then she disappears.

Others who have lived in the homes claim that a female ghost appears and then slides across the floor, passing through a wall. She will then sometimes appear in the house next door to where she has passed through. The reason for this is thought to be that this is a residual haunting and since the houses were once connected by doors, she is just walking through the doors rather than a wall. People claim to hear strange noises and to see ghostly lights coming from a tunnel that runs underneath the homes. The tunnel is thought to have once carried water from a lake that is 1.5 km away. When the buildings were abandoned, squatters claimed to have had several haunted experiences and made videos of the experiences to put up on YouTube.

There are hundreds of years of history here in St. John's. The buildings are beautiful architecture and each with its own special history. I've shared just a bit of that history with you here. Do these locations have ghosts walking around and continuing on in the afterlife? Are these buildings in St. John's haunted? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:
One of the more well-known ghost tours here is the St. John's Haunted Hike: http://hauntedhike.com 

HGB Ep. 296 - Battle of Passchendaele

Moment in Oddity - Myrtle Corbin
Suggested by: Jennifer White

Myrtle Corbin was born in Tennessee in 1868. She was born with a very rare condition known as dipygus. Myrtle had a twin that was a part of her, not like a conjoined twin, but as a malformed lower half. You see, Myrtle had four legs. The two middle legs were shorter and the feet on each only had three toes. Myrtle could control them, but she couldn't use them for walking. She had a problem with one of her longer legs as well as she had a clubbed foot. As was the case for so many people like Myrtle who lived during the 1800s, she was an oddity who would find a home in a freak show. Her first stop was with none other than P.T. Barnum and then later she moved on to Ringling Bros. and finally ended up at Coney Island. She was very popular and earned $450 dollars a week. She married Dr. Clinton Bicknell when she was 19 and actually was able to get pregnant and give birth five times. The couple had four daughters and a son and it is believed that three of her children were born from one womb and the other two were from another womb. Yes, Myrtle had two sets of sexual organs and in the book "Anomalies and Curiosities of Medicine" by George M. Gould and Walter L. Pyle it was reported that both vaginas menstruated , so clearly both functioned normally. Myrtle lived to the age of 60 and passed away on May 6, 1928. A human born with four legs, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Howard Hughes Dies

In the month of April, on the 5th, in 1976, Howard Hughes Dies. Howard Hughes was born Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. in Texas in 1905. He was born into some money, but would go on to make himself incredibly rich as a manufacturer, aviator, and motion-picture producer and director. He was not only one of the richest men in America, he was incredibly eccentric. He produced many movies, usually running over budget and including risque material. Two of those movies were the Academy Award-winning Two Arabian Knights in 1927 and Hell’s Angels. During World War II, he started manufacturing military aircraft, but these ran over schedule too and were not completed before the war ended. While testing one of the planes, the Hughes XF-11, Hughes had a near fatal crash that left him in chronic pain for the rest of his life. Another plane he built, the Hercules, came to be known as the Spruce Goose and was flown only once for one mile. It was an eight-engine wooden behemoth that was suppose to carry 750 passengers. Hughes' eccentricities included going into complete seclusion at times, obsessive-compulsive disorder and he was a germophobe. In 1953, he established the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. In his latter years, he moved around a lot going from the Bahamas to Nicaragua to Canada to England to Las Vegas and finally to Mexico. While in Mexico he starved himself to emaciation and was heavily addicted to drugs. He set out to seek medical treatment in 1976, but died on the plane ride from Acapulco, Mexico, to Houston, Texas.

Passchendaele (Suggested by: Brian Morse)

They say it was 103 days in hell. Any amount of time, during any war could be deemed hell. But the Battle of Passchendaele in Belgium during World War I brought a new definition of hell during war. The battle would be one of the bloodiest of the war, killing half a million men. The weather and mud at the field would contribute to dealing that heavy blow. Battlefields of all kinds seem to be epicenters for the paranormal. The blood becomes a part of the earth and seems to cry out from the afterlife. This area of ground would come to be known as Flanders Fields.

In Flanders Fields by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae.

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
 If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
 In Flanders fields.

Poppies. They're weeds. Not really anything special about them. At least there wasn't until war. It was during the Napoleonic War that poppies first became associated with fallen soldiers and memorializing them. But Flanders Fields would bring red poppies into the limelight of remembrance ceremonies and days. You see, dead bodies on a field make it unsuitable for growing many plants because of the high lime content. Poppies would flourish on Flanders Fields and for that reason they are worn on Remembrance Day in Commonwealth member states and on Veterans Day in America. So what happened on Flanders Fields? First, the Battle of Passchendaele was not the first battle fought here. This was actually the third Battle of Ypres. This was considered the Western Front and was a very strategic place because of the proximity of the railway line for supplying the German troops. This would end up being one of the most controversial battles of World War I and is still hotly debated by scholars and historians today.

Belgium is a culturally rich and diverse country. They have three official languages, Dutch, French and German, as proof of that diversity. The name "Belgium" comes from a Roman province in the northern part of Gaul known as Gallia Belgica. This area was inhabited by the Belgae before Rome invaded in 100 BC. The Belgae were a mix of Celtic and Germanic peoples. Merovingian kings would eventually rule over Belgium due to the immigration of Germanic Frankish tribes during the 5th century. Belgium would become mostly independent in the 11th century. The country became very prosperous through its wool industry that would later prove to be an issue when France would go to war with England. France expected their vassals in Belgium to join them against England, but Belgium relied on English wool. Belgian peasants later rose up against the French and defeated them and then spent decades of trading out who would rule over them, going from Burgundian territory to Austrian rule to Spanish rule then back to Austria and then the French again by 1794. After Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo, the great powers redrew the map of Europe and combined Holland and Belgium. The two countries proved to be too different and Belgium would finally become independent. In 1914, Belgium declared itself neutral, but that would mean little to Germany and that brings us historically to where we need to be for this episode.

As I said, Belgium had declared themselves neutral when World War I started and King Albert was ruling in 1914. The Germans requested that they be given passage through the country, so that they could attack the rear flank of the French. King Albert refused, so the Schlieffen Plan was launched and the German army invaded Belgium on August 4, 1914. The Race to the Sea began in September and the first Battle of Ypres would begin on October 19th and end on November 22nd. The end put a stop to the German advance in an unconventional way. The Belgian army flooded the Yser plain by deliberately opening the locks at Veurne-Ambacht, Nieuwpoort. The second Battle of Ypres would come as a devastating surprise chemical attack by the Germans. On April 22, 1915, the Germans released chlorine gas and the effect was immediate, killing thousands of Allied troops and driving them back. The success of the gas was so surprising to the Germans that they lost their advantage by not giving a full attack. The battle would be over by May 25th after the British basically blew the top off the hill where the German army was stationed. They had burrowed underneath and blew it up with mines.

This strategic spot had not seen its last battle. The Third Battle of Ypres would start on July 31st in 1917 and this would be the Battle of Passchendaele. The Germans had established a submarine base at Bruges, which was around 44 miles from Ypres. Germans had been using U-boats very successfully and the British were on the verge of defeat by them. The Germans called their submarines Unterseeboot or U-boot for short, which we anglicized to U-boat. While many might think that U-boats were mainly battle ships, they actually conducted a more damaging attack by raiding merchant ships and blocking shipping lanes. This cut off supplies. But the U-boats also sunk a large number of battleships starting with four of them in September of 1914.

So the Allied forces needed to do something to destroy this submarine base in Belgium. First they would need to seize the railway line that ran beyond the German line. General Douglas Haig of Britain would direct the attack. Haig took his plan to British Prime Minister David Lloyd George. That plan was to attack the Ypres Salient and if successful, the British could push all the way to the ports on the English Channel coast. And since I didn't know and I imagine some of you don't, a salient is a military term for an area where one side has pushed into their opponent's territory and it looks like a bulge. The three sides of the salient are surrounded, so the army within the salient is vulnerable. Usually trench warfare is the form the battle takes. Nobody was crazy about Haig's plan, namely because the British barely outnumbered the Germans. There was a fear that there would be a great loss of life and that fear was going to be realized. The plan was approved.

The offensive began with the detonation of 19 mines under the German lines at Messines Ridge. The explosions were heard all the way in London. Before talking about the battle to come, I need to explain how the land here was set up. Much of this was farm land and there had been an ancient drainage system set up to pull away the water and keep the land from getting soggy. All of the prior offensives had not only wiped out all of the vegetation, but the drainage system was destroyed. There was nothing to keep this area from becoming an apocalyptic quagmire. If there was any rain, especially a lot, these soldiers were going to be in big trouble. And we all know how it rains in this area. General Haig chose General Hubert Gough to lead the British offensive. Gough was unfamiliar with the Ypres Salient and that is probably why Haig chose him. He figured the man would do his bidding with aggression and without question. It was a fatal error.

So the British began their attack at 3:50 am on July 31, 1917. The British intially gained ground, but eventually were pushed back. Dozens of tanks rushed to help the British, along with a French contingent. For the next month, fighting went back and forth, as the ground became more sodden. Haig knew they were getting nowhwere, so he asked the Canadians to attack the French city of Lens occupied by the Germans to try to draw some of the Germans away. The Canadians opted for a different strategy and were really successful. Haig continued to falter and by September, politicians in London were calling for him to pull out of the Battle of Passchendaele. He refused and pressed on. The Australians and Kiwis came to reinforce the British, but the results were the same as they had been all along. The Allies would gain a little ground and then get pushed all the way back again. The Germans also attacked with chemicals once again, but this time they used mustard gas rather than chlorine gas. The mustard gas was nicknamed ‘Yperite’ after the city of Ypres. The gas blistered the skin, eyes and lungs. The death was painful. By October, Haig was turning to the Canadians again, but this time he wanted them to come to Passchendaele. Their leader, General Currie, didn't want to come, but he had no choice so he made sure to reinforce gun emplacements and rebuilt roads. He was worried that there would be at least 16,000 Canadian casualties.

The Canadians arrived and assaulted the Passchendaele ridge, but it made no difference. October had brought pure hell. The rain fell continuously. Shells rained down too with only a few being cushioned in the mud. That mud that made explosions less damaging also gummed up rifle barrels, slowed down stretcher-bearers and made it hard to detect the front line. Soldiers drowned in puddles, some being swallowed up as they slept. Private Richard Mercer described the horror of the mud in this way, "Passchendaele was just a terrible, terrible place. We used to walk along these wooden duckboards – something like ladders laid on the ground. The Germans would concentrate on these things. If a man was hit and wounded and fell off he could easily drown in the mud and never be seen again. You just did not want to go off the duckboards."

November would change things and the Canadians were successful as they launched their third large-scale attack on the ridge. They captured it and took back the ruins of Passchendaele village. One final assault captured the remaining high ground on November 10th and the battle was over. In the end, the losses were huge. The Allied forces had 275,000 casualties and the German had 220,000. Currie's prediction of 16,000 Canadian casualties was almost spot on with 15,600. Canadians were awarded nine Victoria Crosses, the British Empire’s highest award for military valour.

Churchill would describe the Battle of Passchendaele as a "watchword for the wasteful horror of the Great War." Another way to describe the battle would be a total waste. Within a few months, all the ground won would be regained by the Germans during the Spring Offensive of 1918. Two more battles would take place on the battlefields here. The Germans would finally be pushed out. Many of the remnants from those battles still exist today and there are dozens of cemeteries in the Ypres Salient area for the dead from these World War I battles. There are memorials to the missing and unidentifiable as well. The Menin Gate at Ypres features a memorial with the names of 54,000 men who died in the area during World War I. Although the medieval town of Ypres was never occupied by the Germans during the Great War, it was basically razed by the battles. During the 1920s and 1930s, it was reconstructed, brick by brick. Hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians died in Flanders. Conditions were inhumane. There can be no doubt that something sorrowful, fearful, angry and negative has been left behind. What remains in the paranormal ether from the Battle of Passchendaele?

The village of Passchendaele experiences multiple hauntings. The disembodied sounds of battle are heard throughout the village and this is accompanied by the screams of men. Machine gun fire is heard in the distance.

BBC News Magazine journalist Chris Haslam, wrote a piece entitled “Does the WW1 tourist trade exploit the memory of the fallen?” In the article he writes, “My disquiet is caused by something less solid – a brooding sense of malevolence oozing from the earth, as though the violence has a half-life. I’m no believer in spooks but the old lady I meet walking her dachshund most certainly is. Her name is Beatrijs and her dog is called Robert. As we amble down the muddy track, she tells me about mysterious lights seen flickering in no man’s land, of half-heard screams in the night and of corners of fields where generations of Robert’s ancestors have refused to go.”

Another ghost story goes back to World War I itself. The German army stationed at Ypres had a weird experience. In 1918, a British captain named Hayward reported watching the Germans throw granite and shot at an empty piece of land. The soldiers clearly seemed to be fighting against something, but he couldn't see what it could be. The Germans finally retreated and the British captured them. Captain Hayward asked the German colonel heading the contingent about what he had witnessed. The German officer claimed that there had been a white cavalry in the field. What did he mean by a white cavalry? The Germans swore they saw white riders on white horses and that they trotted right through bullets and got closer and closer until the Germans had to retreat. Did they see a ghostly cavalry?

John McCrae wrote In Flanders Fields for his friend Alexis Helmer who had been killed in the war. McCrae took care of wounded soldiers at a bunker in Ypres. He eventually died in 1918 of pneumonia. The site is now part of a memorial near the Ypres Canal. There are two ghosts reportedly here. People claim to have seen the full-bodied apparitions of John McCrae and his friend Alexis Helmer. The echoes of disembodied gunshots are also heard.

On a side note, there was a 2008 movie named Passchendaele that was shot in Calgary, Alberta, Fort Macleod, Alberta, and in Belgium that featured the experiences of a Canadian soldier at the Battle of Passchendaele. One of the places where part of the movie was filmed was in the Prince House in Heritage Park Calgary. The house is said to be haunted. A grandfather clock in the downstairs parlor started to chime during the movie. It chimed and chimed and the crew couldn't figure out how to stop it. So they called security to come help. The security forces were perplexed. They said that there was no way to stop the chiming because the clock had no innards. There was nothing inside to make it chime. Several tour guides at the house have heard it chiming as well. Security claims to see lights coming from the third floor. One guard called the manager to report it and the two men were stunned because there is no electricity on the third floor. The guides claim that whatever ghost is at the house, it is friendly.

Much blood was spilt on the fields of Flanders. The Battle of Passchendaele was the most devastating. Do the spirits from that time still roam that sacred ground? Is the Passchendaele Battlefield haunted? That is for you to decide!

Ep. 295 - Haunted Derby Street in Salem

Moment in Oddity - Fredric Baur Buried in Pringles Can
Suggested by: John Michaels

Fredric John Baur lies beneath a fairly normal headstone in the Cincinnati Springfield Township, but his burial container is anything, but normal. Baur was born in 1918 in Toledo, Ohio. He studied science in college and eventually went to work for Proctor & Gamble in Cincinnati as a chemist. His main job was to develop methods of food storage. In 1967, Proctor & Gamble developed a new-fangled chip based on Baur's experimenting. People had been complaining that chips were stale and broken and Baur designed a saddle-shaped chip that was easily stackable. But the chip wasn't tasty, so another man named Alexander Liepa took over and it would be his name on the patent for the chip that we all know as Pringles. Even though Baur didn't get his name on the patent, he is known for something else. That special chip needed special packaging and he invented the Pringles can. He declared that “the Pringles can was a revolution within the realm of snack food.” Baur died in 2008 at the age of 89. He told his children that he had a request about his burial. After he was cremated, he wanted his ashes buried inside a Pringles can. His children fulfilled his request by stopping at a Walgreens before arriving at the funeral home. The can was for the classic original flavor. Obviously, being buried inside a Pringles can, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Levi Weeks Acquitted in Manhattan Well Mystery

In the month of April, on the 1st, in 1800, Levi Weeks was acquitted of the murder of Gulielma Elma Sands. Elma had been found at the bottom of the Manhattan Well badly beaten and dead. This would be one of the first murder mysteries in New York and has never been solved. But Levi Weeks was indicted because he was Elma's love at the time. The couple had been intimate many times, leaving some speculating that Elma was pregnant when she divulged that the couple was secretly engaged. Elma met up with Weeks on the day they were to marry and she was not seen alive again. A carriage driving away from the well in a hurry was said to belong to Weeks' rich brother. That brother hired the best defense for his brother and that would be lawyers Alexander Hamilton and Aaron Burr. The case was circumstantial and the judge made sure to drive home that fact to the jury before he sent them to deliberate. Trials were very different at this time. All the evidence was laid out over 2 days and it was 2am when the jury was sent off to come up with a verdict. They wouldn't take long, only 5 minutes. They voted to acquit and Levi Weeks went off to become a very successful architect. The case and trial was controversial and a cause celeb at  the time. It was the first murder trial in the US to have a recorded transcript. The trial is referenced in the song "Non-Stop" in the 2015 musical Hamilton.

Haunted Derby Street in Salem

Long before America was America, there was Salem. The town was a successful and busy port city, but it would become an infamous location that still causes a chill to run down our spines at the mere mention of its name. Even though it was not the first spot to hold trials and hangings in regard to witchcraft, it would be the most well known. This apparently has left behind energy that lends itself to paranormal activity, but there is even more to the history of Salem that probably contributes to this spiritual residue. Based on my research, I would say that Salem has two main streets in its historic district that are the most haunted in the city. One is Essex Street and the other is Derby Street. On this episode, we are going to focus on the history and hauntings of Derby Street.

I've been to Salem, Massachusetts twice in my life and HGB has featured the Salem Witch Trials and locations like the Witch House and the House of the Seven Gables. This is a city that seems to be enveloped in an ethereal energy and that impression seems to be backed up by accounts of the tribes that used to live in the area that claimed that the land had an energy of its own and that energy was negative. I myself did not feel anything negative when I was there, but like so many historic cities in America, I had an appreciation for the history that penetrated nearly every building in this town.

What is it about Salem that makes it seem to be such a center of paranormal energy? Is it just the energy from the violence that accompanied the Salem Witch Trials? Or could there have been something here before the accusations started flying? Native Americans in the area seemed to think so and there are those who claim that multiple ley lines come together in Salem, making it a powerful place of spiritual energy. Ley lines are pathways of strong energy and that energy could be electrical or magnetic and even in some cases, psychical. Many of these lines run under places like churches or locations like Stonehenge, the Great Pyramid and Machu Pichu. Could these lines influence the emotions of humans or affect their thoughts? There is more to the history of Salem than just witch trials and hangings. Being a port city, it has stories of bootlegging, rum running, pirates and brothels.

Derby Street is named for Elias Hasket Derby, Sr. Derby was a very wealthy man and there are claims by historians that he was the first millionaire in America. He was usually seen walking around Salem using a gold-headed cane and wearing a Sir Roger de Coverley coat. Derby had made most of his money in shipping and trading. His father had a very successful business that he inherited and expanded so far that he was shipping to St. Petersburg, Russia. You can imagine that during the Revolutionary War, he had a bit of trouble with the British Navy. They intercepted his ships and nearly ruined his business as they impounded vast quantites of his rum and sugar cargo. Derby decided to rally the men of Salem and equipped at least 158 vessels with weaponry like 2,000 cannon. Men from Salem and the contiguous ports of Beverly and Marblehead manned the ships. When America eventually won the war, the news was brought from France aboard a ship that belonged to Derby named "Astrea." After the war, Derby continued his trade, which had to change tactics since during the war he operated as a privateer. This is when he would begin trade with Russia. America would send tar, rice, rum and turpentine and get back hemp, iron, tea, spices and duck, which was what they called a fine linen canvas used to make sails.

The Derby Street Historic District was established in 1974 and runs parallel to Salem Harbor. The district includes all of the buildings on both sides of Derby Street, beginning at Herbert Street and extending north to Blockhouse Square. Nearly all the buildings here are directly associated with the commerce and people from the 1760-1820 period. The House of the Seven Gables is at the far end of the street. Most of the buildings are in the Georgian Colonial and Federal styles.

Old Burying Point Cemetery - 51 Charter Street, borders Derby Street as well

Of course, the first stop in any city for me is a cemetery and like most cities, Salem has several. The cemeteries in Salem and in New England in general are some of my favorite. There is one that borders Derby Street and it is known as Old Burying Point Cemetery or Charter Street Cemetery as it is named for the street where one can find its entrance.This cemetery was founded in 1632, making it the second oldest cemetery in the United States. There are not many burials here, at least officially. That number is around 350 bodies, but as I found in Boston, sometimes a burial plot could hold several bodies stacked up on each other. Names from the headstones have found their way into the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne. Most of the headstones here are hard to read and falling over in a haphazard way.

There are many well known or historical figures buried here. Eight of them are members of Hawthorn's family, including his great-great grandfather John Hathorne, who was a judge during the witch trials. Nathaniel added the "w" to his name to try to distance himself from the man. Also buried here are the poet Anne Bradstreet, architect Samuel McIntire, witch trial judge Bartholomew Gedney and Mayflower passenger Richard More. And Giles Corey's second wife, Mary, lies beneath a small, white gravestone here. Giles name appears on a plaque in the cemetery known as the Witch Trials Memorial, along with the name of his third wife, Martha. Many of you probably are familiar with the curse associated with him in which his apparition appears as a harbinger of doom. They say he called out the curse as he was unmercifully pressed to death.

There are several spirits reputed to be here. The first is said to belong to the Hanging Judge, John Hathorne. People claim that he shows up in pictures taken in the cemetery. There is also a lady in blue here that wears a Victorian dress, carries a picnic basket and is usually joined by a little boy. Legend claims they both died in a tragic fire at an inn next to cemetery on Charter Street. These spirits are usually caught as white streaks in pictures. Christopher Forest wrote about a Lady in White in this cemetery in his book, North Shore Spirits, "The ghost itself does not typically appear in person. Rather, it often manifests itself in the form of orbs. It has even appeared as a slight figure in pictures taken at the site." So I guess she is different than the other woman because she is alone and has no basket? This spirit may not be readily seen in the cemetery, but she may wander to a nearby business based on reports that I have read. 

Murphy's Restaurant and Bar - 300 Derby Street

This business is Murphy's Restaurant and Bar. and it is at the back corner of the Old Burying Point Cemetery. Before it was Murphy's, it was Spirits and before that it was Roosevelt's and owned by Henry McGowan.

One legend claims that a casket crashed through the retaining wall into the dining room. I say "legend" because there is no verifiable evidence, but employees say that it really did happen and they will show you a patch on the wall that indicates some work was done to the wall. The casket is said to have belonged to a little girl.

The Lady in White has been seen by employees at the pub and specifically former owner Henry McGowan. He said that he was alone on the second floor in the restaurant one night around 3am when he saw a female apparition looking down on him. He looked away for a minute and when he looked back, she had disappeared. There are those who wonder if this is Giles Corey's second wife Mary. The two were said to be much in love. The Lady in White has been seen coming from her grave.

Bunghole Liquors - 204 Derby Street

Right across the street from Derby Wharf is Bunghole Liquors. Okay, so let's just get the laugh out now. Yes, this next location is a liquor store with the real name Bunghole. I can hardly say it with a straight face. The place looks so cool with its retro neon sign and it has a fabulous history for history and ghost story lovers alike. The building originally housed a funeral parlor, but liquor always seems to have had a home here. Embalming was done downstairs, but there was more than just preserving bodies going on down there. The name "Bunghole" was a nickname that people in town gave to the speakeasy in the basement of the funeral home. The term is actually what they call the hole in a barrel or cask. So clearly since this was a speakeasy, it was in operation during Prohibition. People would whisper to each other on the street, "Psst, I'll meet you at the bunghole tonight." The speakeasy had a perfect location since it was right across from the wharf. And remember those tunnels? The owner easily smuggled spirits into his joint. When prohibition ended, a friend of the owner suggested that he turn it into a liquor store and he did just that. The second ever liquor license was issued to Bunghole Liquors and they got rid of the funeral parlor accoutrements like the embalming tubes, which were closed up in the walls. The tunnels were also sealed.  

But something has remained from that past and it is confirmed by both patrons and employees. There are several spirits here. An assistant manager named Brandon O'Shea had his own experiences. When he started working at the store, he was a total skeptic. He was in the bathroom and the light had gone out. He suddenly felt a cat rubbing against his legs. He flew out of the bathroom and asked a co-worker if there was an animal in the store. Of course, there was not and when they looked in the bathroom, they saw nothing. So people are pretty sure that one of the spirits here is a ghost cat. O'Shea said, "When you're working alone, you always see weird things here. I'm telling you, I'm the last person ever to believe in this stuff. But something is here."

There are those who claim that there is residual energy left over from the speakeasy and that disembodied sounds and voices are heard. A camera in the basement picked up white flashes of light. The only other apparition that has been seen here is said to belong to a woman. New Year's Eve of 2013, the store had a big rush. An employee saw a woman walk behind the wine racks and then go out back. He couldn't pursue her to see why she was going out the back. He was sure another employee would have run into her, but that person saw nothing. They saw the woman in the store again two hours later. One of the employees actually bumped into her and when he looked up to apologize, there was no one there.

Salem Maritime National Historic Site - 160 Derby Street

The Salem Maritime National Historic Site was the first national historic site established by the National Park Service and this happened on March 17, 1938. The maritime history in Salem is rich. Shipbuilding and trade flourished and obviously, some of that trade was for smuggled products. Derby's son had a few tunnels built leading from the wharf to various buildings in downtown Salem in 1801. The goods would be brought up through trap doors, some of which can still be seen in various historic buildings today. These tunnels are said to be haunted.

This complex has several points of interest and several hauntings. We mainly are going to focus on Derby Wharf and the old Custom House. Derby Wharf was built by Elias Hasket Derby, Sr., for whom it is named, in 1783. The original wharf was shorter, but was extended to one mile in length in 1809. The Debry Wharf Light Station was built in 1871. The white and black lighthouse is fairly small, only standing 20 feet tall, and has a unique square design. The light for this one is actually red that flashes every 6 seconds and can be seen for 4 nautical miles. There was never a keeper's house here and was tended by a lamplighter until it was automated in the 1970s. The lighthouse has stories of at least one ghost, but there could be two. People who visit the wharf claim to see full-bodied apparitions of sailors from a bygone era and there are cold spots even on warm summer days. There was one woman who claimed to feel an icy tap on her shoulder as she walked the wharf and when she turned around, there was no one there. Many claim that the spirits they see belong to pirates and that they seem to be residual. But there are others who believe these shadowy figures are crewmen from the Andrew Johnson, which was literally ripped apart by the schooner the Haskell during a hurricane. Jeff Belanger, who hosts the New England Legends Podcast, wrote, "They saw dark, shadowy figures rising out of the sea. There were ten of them in all, and as they reached the Haskell, the watchmen could see that the figures looked like men. The dark wraiths reached their hands over the rail of the schooner and climbed aboard. Their eyes were black, like hollowed-out holes, and they wore dark and oily sealskins for clothes. The phantoms quickly took up positions around the ship and began to go through the motions of casting lines, rigging sails and setting the anchor."

The other main structure here is the Custom House, which faces Derby Wharf. This structure was built in 1819 and features a carved wooden bald eagle that is painted gold sitting on top of the brick Federalist-style building. Nathaniel Hawthorne had worked here at one time as a surveyor and he actually uses the location in the opening pages of "The Scarlet Letter." The Custom House issued permits to land cargo and certification for ship measurements. This was also where merchants paid custom duties. Those duties were very important because they were a main source of government revenue before there were taxes. The spirits here seem to belong to captains of ships and disembodied whispers are heard as though they are discussing the treasures they have aboard their vessels. Disembodied footsteps are also heard and strangely, flickering lights appear throughout the building, but disappear when approached.

I should mention that The Derby House is also here. There are no hauntings,but it was the home of the Derby's, so it is very historically significant. Elias Derby built the home in 1762 as a wedding present for his wife. They lived there for the first twenty years of their marriage and had seven children there. Derby called it the "little brick house." He sold it in 1796 to Capt. Henry Prince, who built the West India Goods Store next to the house around 1800. The Princes stayed until 1827 and then the house passed through various hands and had many uses, some of which were tenement apartments where the Polish community lived while working in the nearby mills. In the early twentieth century, the house passed into hands to preserve the history.

Witch's Brew Cafe - 156 Derby Street

The Witch's Brew Cafe and Mercy Tavern stand across from the wharf, which made them prime locations for brothels. Not only were there brothels here, but also bars and remember those tunnels? These were used to shangai men into working on the ships. So Derby Street basically became a red light district. The activity in the brothels and bars seems to still be here. Apparitions of sailors and pirates still walk about the restaurant. Tuesday nights are Tarot card reading nights.

Mercy Tavern - 148 Derby Street

This establishment was formerly In A Pig's Eye, which had been open for thirty years. The Boston Eater paper reported on the transition to the new restaurant in April 2017, "The food at Mercy Tavern leans towards a gastropub style with both international and New England comfort food. There are “small bites” such as hand-cut prosciutto, roasted cauliflower, and roasted red pepper crostini; appetizers such as French onion soup and pork skewers; and entrees that range from spaghetti and meatballs to fried chicken, a Cuban sandwich, burgers, and pan-roasted steak. Mercy Tavern also has 12 draft lines and a cocktail list." The name "mercy" was chosen because of the concept of mercy as a beautiful practice.

Regardless of what name hangs on the shingle here, the one constant are the hauntings. Those that take place here are full-bodied apparitions of pirates that appear to be hanging out at a bar. Disembodied voices are heard and the sounds of struggling men being carried off through the tunnels is also heard.

There is a bit of a troubling aspect to Salem. Some find it controversial that business has been made on the backs of people who were wrongly accused and hanged. Could this partly be to blame for the hauntings in the city? Bridget Bishop was the first woman to be hanged in the Salem Witch Trials. No one knows for sure when Bishop was born, but it is estimated to be around 1633. She and her husband moved to the Massachuestts Bay Colony in 1660. Her husband died four years later. She lived a life very different from the Puritans, which is probably what made her a target. She dressed in a way they considered to be flamboyant. She and her second husband fought often and in a very public way. In 1678, Bishop was brought into court for cursing at her husband. The exchange was described in the book Salem-Village Witchcraft, "Bridget, wife of Thomas Oliver, presented for calling her husband many opprobrious names, as old rogue and old devil, on Lord’s day, was ordered to stand with her husband, back to back, on a lecture day in the public market place, both gagged, for about an hour, with a paper fastened to each others foreheads upon which their offense should be fairly written."

After her second husband passed, rumors started flying. Bishop's stepchildren accused her of causing their father's death by bewitching him. Nothing came from that and Bishop married her third husband. They lived in downtown Salem where she owned an apple orchard. Bridget Bishop was arrested on charges of witchcraft on April 18, 1692. She was accused by Mercy Lewis, Abigail Williams, Elizabeth Hubbard and Ann Putnam, Jr. The next day, she was examined by Judge John Hathorne and Judge Jonathan Corwin. Here are some of the exchanges:

    “[Hathorne]: They say you bewitcht your first husband to death.
    [Bishop]: If it please your worship I know nothing of it.
    She shake her head & the afflicted were tortured.
    The like again upon the motion of her head.
    Sam: Braybrook affirmed that she told him to day that she had been accounted a witch these 10 years, but she was no witch, the Devil cannot hurt her.
    [Bishop]: I am no witch.
    [Hathorne]: Why if you have not wrote in the book, yet tell me how far you
    have gone? Have you not to do with familiar Spirits?
    [Bishop]: I have no familiarity with the devil.
    [Hathorne]: How is it then, that your appearance doth hurt these?
    [Bishop]: I am innocent.
    [Hathorne]: Why you seem to act witchcraft before us, by the motion of your
    body, which seems to have influence upon the afflicted?
    [Bishop]: I know nothing of it. I am innocent to a witch. I know not what
    a Witch is.
    [Hathorne]: How do you know then that you are not a witch?
    [Bishop]: I do not know what you say.
    [Hathorne]: How can you know, you are no witch, & yet not know what a
    witch is?
    [Bishop]: I am clear: if I were any such person you should know it.
    [Hathorne]: You may threaten, but you can do no more than you are permitted.
    [Bishop]: I am innocent of a witch.”

There was a lot of evidence provided, some of which included a neighbor claiming she had sent a talking deformed monkey to torment him. An examination found unnatural growths on her body. Bishop was found guilty of witchcraft on June 8, 1692 and hanged two days later. Since then, her spirit seems to be haunting many locations in Salem. Her spirit is said to be malevolent and I can imagine why she is angry. The main location is where her apple orchard once stood and since the Hawthorne Hotel is nearby, she is said to walk around the hallways there. But that is probably an erroneous location and the real spot is the Lyceum Building, home for Turner's Seafood restaurant. The scent of baked apples clings to the air where her spirit roams. This location is a couple blocks up from Derby Street.

If Bishop still walks around in the afterlife, it is probably not on this street, but because of what happened starting with her, the guilt, fear, anger and sorrow that permeated the witch trials, still continues on in Salem. And to make light of it might be why hauntings continue and spirits seem to be at unrest. Is Derby Street in Salem haunted along with all these various locations? That is for you to decide!

Ep. 294 - Dover Castle

Moment in Oddity - Movie Disclaimer About Work of Fiction
Suggested by: John Michaels

I'm sure there are a few of you out there that are movie credit readers like myself. Yep, I stay through the credits, not only to see if the producers of the film have thrown in a little extra at the end of the film, but I like to pay my respects to the full list of people who have made a film. The ones generally not paid much. If you've sat through the credits on any movie, you've probably seen the phrase, “This is a work of fiction. Any similarity to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events, is purely coincidental.” Did you ever wonder why every movie has that disclaimer? MGM released the movie "Rasputin and the Empress" in 1932. This film featured the story about mystic Grigori Rasputin and his relationship with the Russian imperial family, specifically the Tsarina, Alexandra Feodorovna. The Barrymore siblings, John, Ethel and Lionel, played the key characters of Prince Chegodieff; the Czarina and Rasputin. It is the only film in which all three siblings appear together. The Prince was depicted as the murderer of Rasputin and he was meant to represent Prince Yusupov who was still alive. He threatened to sue, but he didin't have the money to do so and he had claimed in his memoir that he was responsible for Rasputin's death. So his wife sued because she was also depicted in the movie and the film claimed she was raped by Rasputin. She felt that ruined her reputation particularly since it didn't happen. She won $127,000, the equivalent of almost $2.4 million today. The reason she won, according to the judge, was because the studio acknowledged that the movie was based on a true story. After that, studios decided to add the disclaimer to cover their butts and they do it to this day. So basically, Rasputin not only had an enduring impact on Russia, but also on Hollywood film making and that, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - My Fair Lady Premiers on Broadway

In the month of March, on the 15th, in 1956, the musical "My Fair Lady" premiered on Broadway. This was a musical based on George Bernard Shaw's "Pymalion." The story features a Cockney flower girl who desires to pass as a lady and so she takes speech lessons from professor Henry Higgins. The musical was directed by Moss Hart, choreographed by Hanya Holm and starred Rex Harrison and Julie Andrews and ran for 2,717 performances, closing on September 29, 1962. That was a record at the time. The Broadway theater that hosted it was the Mark Hellinger Theatre in New York City and then it transferred to the Broadhurst Theatre and then finally onto the Broadway Theater. Rex Harrison was not experienced in performing live with an orchestra and at the first preview he declared, "Under no circumstances would he go on that night...with those thirty-two interlopers in the pit." He then locked himself in his dressing room. He eventually came out right before the curtain went up and opening night was a success. The musical headed over to London where it was a smash hoit as well and went on to become the classic film starring Audrey Hepburn. My Fair Lady is considered to be "the perfect musical."

Dover Castle (Suggested by Sara Emmins)

Dover Castle stands on the White Cliffs of Dover in Britain. This castle was originally not much to behold, but during the reign of King Henry II, it would become a grand structure. Tunnels lie beneath the castle and are built into a cliff, making it unique among castles. This is the largest castle in the country and has been around since the 12th century. The castle was a key defense and saw wars that were revolutionary, civil, Napoleonic and great. Today, it is a tourist destination with a reputation for being haunted. Join me for the history and hauntings of Dover Castle!

Dover is located in Kent in the southeast of England. This is an area where human habitation dates back to the Stone Age. The Romans were the first to have a significant presence here and that is evident in the Roman lighthouse that still remains near Dover Castle. This is the tallest Roman structure in Britain and was built between 115 and 140 AD. The Church of St Mary-in-Castro stands next to the lighthouse and was built during the late 10th & early 11th century. The church was neglected for years and used for storing coal, but it is refurbished today and beautiful inside. Dover would become a fortified port and one of the Cinque Ports and has been nicknamed the "Lock and Key of England" with its strategic placement on the English Channel. Dover Castle would be built on the White Cliffs of Dover, which are that color because they are mostly composed of chalk.

Dover Castle is the largest castle in England and was built by Duke William of Normandy in the 12th century. The Great Tower was constructed during the reign of Henry II in 1179 and served a couple of purposes. The first was that it made for a great lookout. The other was more for Henry. He wanted something impressive to show off and he felt it reflected his power. People could see the tower on their way to Canterbury Cathedral. Let's talk about Henry for a minute. This guy had a lot going for him. I mean he was duke of Normandy from 1150, the count of Anjou, Maine and Nantes from 1151, duke of Aquitaine from 1152 and the king of England from 1154. He also partially controlled Scotland, Wales and the Duchy of Brittany and had eight children, five of them boys. Things were good, but he just had to start something with his friend Thomas Beckett, whom he had appointed archbishop in 1162. I guess it isn't fair to blame it all on the King. He was stubborn, but Beckett was a vain man and highly political. Their disagreements were numerous and neither would back down. King Henry would have one final altercation with Beckett. He sent knights to Canterbury to arrest Beckett for breaking an agreement, but Beckett refused to be arrested by lowly knights, so right there before the altar in the church, those knights hacked Beckett to death and then they looted his palace. Right after this, King Henry faced a rebellion led by his sons and wife and an invasion from Scotland and France. He overcame this and many said that Beckett who had been declared a saint by the Pope, had helped Henry. There are historians that believe Henry added the improvements to Dover Castle because of his guilt over his part in the murder of Becket.

Starting in 1179, King Henry II spent more money on Dover Castle than any other and nobody could figure out why. There was no great threat that the castle needed to protect against. It was strategically located, but there had to be some other reason why a castle, Henry mostly had ignored, all of a sudden was a place he was pouring money into to make improvements. It is said that until his death, he spent a total of £5,991, which was almost two-thirds of total expenditures on all English castles during those years. So why? The King was building this almost as a shrine to Becket near to Canterbury. In 1179, the King of France, Louis VII traveled to England and this became the first state visit in English history. Henry met him at Dover and they went on to Canterbury where Louis paid his respects to Beckett in a pilgrimage to save his ill son. They returned to Dover afterward. This incredible visit probably gave the king the idea that more of these kinds of visits would be coming and he wanted to really impress visitors. Thus, he poured money into the castle. The benefit would be that the castle would stand through the Great Siege of 1216, led by Louis VII’s grandson, Prince Louis of France, when he revolted against King John in May of 1216. This prince would not give up on trying to conquer Dover Castle and he would spend three months trying to do so, which stopped his momentum. He eventually was defeated and the castle had saved Henry's son's and grandson's thrones and this was attributed to Beckett as well. There are others who claim that a rising anti-monarchical cult inspired by Becket caused the King to want to improve the castle. He wanted to outshine Becket's tomb. Whatever the case, a bunch of money was used to improve the castle.

The next significant action that the castle would see would be during the Napoleonic Wars in the 18th century. Massive rebuilding was conducted and a bunch of gun emplacements were added. Also, a defensive earthen bank was built up to guard against enemy fire. This would also be when the second set of tunnels were added. They were placed 149 feet below the top of the cliff and were meant to house troops because the castle itself didn't have enough room to house the troops needed to man the artillery. About 2000 men lived in these tunnels, that numbered seven, at their peak. Napoleon never attacked Dover Castle, but that wouldn't be the end of the tunnels' use. And since I didn't mention it earlier, the first tunnels were built during medieval times when the Great Siege of 1216 was underway.

During World War II, these tunnels would become the nerve center for Operation Dynamo, which commenced on May 26, 1940. They were first reinstated for use by the Dover Naval Command starting in 1938 as the threat of Hitler loomed large. Operation Dynamo was the evacuation of Allied troops from Dunkirk, France. British, French and Belgian troops numbering over 400,000 were cut off by the German Army. Best estimates had only about 45,000 of the 400,000 being evacuated. Vice Admiral Bertram Ramsay, who headed the Dover Naval Command, was given the job of running the evacuation, which was clearly an impossibility and the first two days of the operation only made that seem even more the case. On the first day, only 7,669 men were evacuated and on the second day only 11,874. But on day three, the military got big help from some “little ships.” Old men and young boys, not fighting in the war, manned tugboats, pleasure crafts, barges and lifeboats from ports in England, Scotland and Wales. Their help during the evacuation made the total result of Operation Dynamo 338,226 men rescued in nine days. Those tunnels also became air raid shelters and Prime Minister Winston Churchill visited the tunnels often.

The Secret Wartime Tunnels are a winding maze and it is easy to get lost if not guided. They stretch over three miles. The rooms were refurbished in 2009 under a £2.45 million project managed by English Heritage and were made to resemble how they would have been in Henry's day. Tours are conducted in the castle and begin in an underground bunker room. There are multimedia presentations and the underground tunnel system takes visitors to an earlier time. Photography in the tunnels is prohibited. There are not only these Wartime Tunnels to see, but also medieval tunnels, an underground hospital, the Great Tower, the Regimental Museum and the battlements. The tunnels have mocked-up recreations of how things appeared in World War II. Two levels of tunnels were added during the war. Annexe, was added in 1941 and this is where the underground hospital was located. In 1943, a basement level, that was codenamed Dumpy, was added. Many parts of the tunnels are off limits because they have not been explored or are dangerous and one of those areas is Dumpy.

On a side note, I found a claim that Gawain is buried at Dover Castle. Sir Gawain was the nephew of King Arthur and he was a Knight of the Round Table. One of the greatest. He is the hero of the poem Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, which is one of the greatest works of Middle English literature. He goes to the Knight believing that the Knight is going to kill him, but it was a test. One that Gawain fails, so he asks the Knights of the Round Table to absolve him and they do. They also decide they will all wear a green sash as a reminder to always be honest. Gawain was killed as he came back to Britain to fight Modred and there are many claims as to where he is buried. There is a myth that claims he is buried on the Pembrokeshire coast as well. This older than the claims about Dover Castle and more probable. “And so at the hour of noon Sir Gawain yielded up the spirit; and then the king let inter him in a chapel within Dover Castle; and there yet all men may see the skull of him, and the same wound is seen that Sir Launcelot gave him in battle.”  [Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, Book  XXI, Chp 2] There is a thought that a skull was on display in a chapel at Dover Castle and people claimed that it was Gawain's skull and showed the wound that killed him.

There are many haunted spots in Dover Castle with several spirits making this their home. The most haunted area is the tunnel system. But before we get into that, let's talk about the battlements. The ghost that is here is said to be a young boy. A boy who played the drums of battle. He was sent on an errand, carrying a large sum of money. Some thieves either had heard he had this money or they got lucky when they captured him. They decapitated the boy and stole the money. Today, his full-bodied spirit is seen on the battlements. Well, not completely full-bodied. He is headless, but that doesn't keep him from playing his drum. He is not only seen doing this, but the disembodied sound of drumming is also heard.

Another spirit belongs to a woman and she wears a red dress. She is generally seen in the old keep and near the west stairway or mural gallery of the keep. No one has been able to make out her facial features and she generally seems to be sobbing. This apparition was reported by a male member of staff. There have also been sightings of a figure in blue being seen in the mural gallery, this figure has yet to be identified as male or female. Also in the keep and elsewhere, disembodied voices have been heard during the night and doors have been witnessed opening and closing by themselves often. Sudden unexplained drops in temperatures like cold spots have been felt.

A knight or cavalier has also been seen inside the castle. His dress seems to be from the early 17th century and he was first documented by a female member of staff in 1990. She was cleaning in the morning and when she got to the basement of the keep she saw a figure that had long dark wavy hair and a mustache. The spirit stared at her for about 30 seconds and then faded away into nothing.

As I said before, the tunnels are the most haunted and many times it is the spirit of World War II soldiers seen here and also felt. They are seen going about their duties in a residual manner. They have also been heard. One American couple visiting the castle claimed to hear violent screams and cries for help. They thought they were hearing a re-enactment and were startled to find out that no such thing was going on. The strangest soldier spirit seen here has a blurred face. The most recent spotting of him was in 2013. Occasionally, people get separated or lost in the tunnels and they tell stories of being chased out of the tunnels. They hear disembodied footsteps running at them and they flee in terror. It doesn't seem that anyone has been touched by these running spirits though.

There have been so many sightings of weird things in the tunnels, that the staff have created a protocol for how to deal with them. Christine Pascall, the castle’s visitor operations manager, said, “About once a month we will have a report of something untoward, like a figure. We have a process that we put into place where we close down the system, evacuate visitors and a team of staff will sweep through the whole network of tunnels. It can be very frustrating for visitors.”

Some schoolchildren were here on a school outing and were drawing pictures while in the tunnels. One boy wrote, “Where is Helen?” on his paper. When asked about it, he said that he had met a man in the tunnels dressed in a green jumper and brown trousers and that the man told him he was looking for Helen. The man matching this description was never found.

Another time, a tour group said a door had suddenly slammed shut and a stretcher trolley that was on display moved very quickly along the corridor as though something unseen were pushing it forcefully. A ghost has been reported in the King's bedroom and this spirit is usually only seen as the  lower half of a man. This was witnessed by two female staff members and the apparition crossed the doorway of the King's bedchamber during the evening search of the keep. They followed the figure into the chamber only to find he had disappeared and there was no other exit from which he could have escaped. Other members of staff were close by in the main hall at the time and they saw nothing. Nobody knows why only the bottom half of this spirit is seen.

A camera crew was filming at the castle and they heard a terrifying scream come from the battlements above them. The scream sounded as though someone had thrown themself off the castle. They ran for cover, so that they wouldn't be hit, but the scream just disappeared and no body appeared or hit the ground. The lighthouse and church also have a couple of spirits. One is a ghostly monk wearing a dark habit and the other is a phantom Roman soldier.

There are many castles in England. Each with their own special history. Dover is the largest and one of the oldest. The energy here crosses over many centuries and some of it seems to continue. Are there spirits here? Is Dover Castle haunted? That is for you to decide!

Ep. 293 - Kentucky Caves and The Trickster

Moment in Oddity - Giant Penguin in Clearwater
Suggested by: Kayla Buss

Leave it to Florida to have the prints of a giant penguin show up on a beach. In Clearwater, Florida in February of 1948, mysterious three-toed footprints showed up on the sand of several of the beaches on the Gulf Coast. These were really large prints measuring 14 inches long and 15 inches across. People were stumped as to what could be creating them and since the prints seemed to originate from the water, they knew it had to be some kind of water fowl or creature. Experts came to photograph and plaster cast the prints and they estimated that the creature probably weighed nearly 2000 pounds to make prints so deep. They started calling the creature the Clearwater Monster. People even claimed to spot a large furry creature in the water. Which was impossible, because The Clearwater Monster was a man. Yep. It was all a hoax perpetuated by Tony Signorini. He crafted himself a pair of 30-pound, three-toed, lead shoes and then after strapping them on, he stomped around the beaches near Clearwater for 10 years. Signorini had a partner in crime, his boss at Auto Electric,  Al Williams, whom was a well known hoaxer. Signorini revealed the hoax in 1988. Signorini had kept the metal shoes and wore them for photos to prove he was the giant monster penguin-like creature.

This Month in History - Churchill Talks about Iron Curtain

In the month of March, on the 5th, in 1946, Winston Churchill declares that the Iron Curtain has descended. Churchill was coming off of a political loss, having not been re-elected Prime Minister. President Harry Truman decided to cheer him up by inviting him to give a speech at Westminster College in the little town of Fulton in Missouri. Churchill jumped at the chance to build his American reputation. The President joined Churchill as he traveled to Fulton on the train and while they rode, Churchill asked the President to read a draft of his speech. The President told him it was very good, neither man knowing that the speech would go down in history. Churchill told the crowd at the sollege that "a shadow had fallen upon the scenes so lately lighted by the Allied victory." He explained that shadow was coming from Stalin’s Soviet Union. Churchill declared, "From Stettin in the Baltic to Trieste in the Adriatic, an iron curtain has descended across the continent." He emphasized the need for Britain and America to stay strong allies. Churchill was the most famous man to first use the term ‘iron curtain’ and before long, the Cold War was on.

Kentucky Caves and The Trickster

A cave is a large void found in the ground or in the side of a mountain or hill. A void is an emptiness and within that great nothing, one can find some of the strangest things. The state of Kentucky is not only a place full of caves, these voids seem to exist under the entire state with the largest cave system in the world being located here. Add to the limitless possibilities of what could exist within caves, the fact that these caves are carved mostly out of limestone and you have the perfect makings for strange supernatural activity.  I've been in two of these cave systems, Mega Cavern and Mammoth Cave. They are a wonder to behold. But there are stories of other things here that cannot be as easily explained as natural wonders and formations. Join me as I explore the history and hauntings of Kentucky's caves and the Trickster who may be playing within them.

I was inspired to produce this episode after watching Greg and Dana Newkirk's documentary "Hellier." I discuss parts of the documentary and specifically a moment when during a spirit box session, the group are warned of a coyote, which I interpret to be something other than the animal. Could this be the mythical Trickster god playing with the Newkirks. Do goblins really exist? This is what Hellier set out to document, but I think the result was actually an interaction with something quite different.

Since the early 1800s, tours have been run through the cave systems of Kentucky. The first one I visited there was Mega Cavern. This is an immense network of open areas that required riding in trams to tour much of it because it is so large. This place has bike roads and zip lines and all matters of entertainment. It once served as a bomb shelter because it was underground and had so much area for sustaining a large population of people. Mega Cavern is near Louisville, Kentucky and is actually considered the biggest building in Louisville. Yep, you heard that right, building. This cave system started as a massive limestone quarry known as Louisville Crushed Stone owned by Ralph Rogers that was worked by miners for 42 years, starting in the 1930s. The cave stretches over 4 million square feet and is considered a building because of the support structure that has been installed inside of it over time. It's so secure that commercial investors bought it in 1989 to turn into a storage facility and you do see Pods stored down there when on a tour. Recycled concrete, brick, block, rock and dirt have been used to fill in areas to make the support stronger. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, the cave was prepared to house 50,000 people if a nuclear attack occurred. The temperature runs around 58 degrees year round and on a side note, dogs are welcome on the tram tour.

I had no paranormal experiences myself. Are these caves in Kentucky haunted? That is for you to decide!