HGB Ep. 660 - Haunted Cemeteries 32

Moment in Oddity - Burro Schmidt Tunnel

In the Mojave Desert, in the early 1900's, there was a unique fellow named William "Burro" Schmidt. He began carving a legendary tunnel through the solid granite of Copper Mountain in 1906. Burro was driven by grueling ambition to create a shortcut for hauling his mining ore to the local smelter. For thirty-two years, he worked entirely alone in the isolation of the northern Mojave Desert. He operated as a human mole using nothing more than a pick, a shovel, a hand-drilled four-pound hammer, and dynamite. He lived very frugally, patching his clothes with burlap sacks and walking miles with his pack burros, Jack and Jenny, to gather water and kerosene. He squirreled away money to live on by working during the summer months for local ranchers. By the time he finally broke through the southern face of the mountain in 1938, Schmidt had single-handedly fractured and hauled out an estimated 5,800 tons of rock to create a nearly half-mile-long passageway. However, in a twist of irony, a new valley road had already rendered the route obsolete.  'Burro' never used the tunnel to transport a single ounce of ore, but he did host tours of the tunnel to curious onlookers. A lone man, single-handedly digging a roughly 2,087 foot tunnel through a granite mountain, to have it later be turned into a famous tourism destination, certainly is odd. 

Haunted Cemeteries 32

Cemeteries are some of our favorite locations and when they are haunted, it's like they are wrapped in a giant purple bow. Some are just little rural knockabout places with few burials. Others are large cemeteries with grand mausoleums. Some have legends that lean more towards the invented, while others have videos confirming that shadowy figures wander through the tombstones. All of them honor the dead, which may be why spirits are comfortable hanging out in them. Join us for Haunted Cemeteries #32! 

Mount Moriah Cemetery in Deadwood, South Dakota

Deadwood had an issue with its original burial ground, Ingleside Cemetery. It was getting very crowded and it was prone to flooding, which unearthed a few coffins here and there. So the Lawrence County government decided that another boot hill cemetery needed to be built. In 1878, this cemetery was laid out by Deadwood's Masons, higher up on the hillside of a rough mountain top. This would be a classic Victorian cemetery set in the northern Black Hills. They named it Mount Moriah Cemetery because in Masonic literature there is a line that reads, "Bury him on the hill west of Mount Moriah." Also, the Bible and Jewish Torah served as inspiration and that is represented in the road names in the cemetery. The cemetery gateway has several symbols on it representing the Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Freemasonry, and the Star of David. Around 3,700 people are buried here and several of them were moved here from the Ingleside Cemetery that was closed and emptied for housing. People sometimes still find bones in their backyards. *Fun Fact: The American flag flies here 24 hours a day based on tradition.* There are four Potter's fields within Mount Moriah and there is a children's section because so many died from typhus, cholera and small pox outbreaks. A mass grave was dug for victims of a devastating fire. On March 12, 1883 at around 11:00 p.m., a fire broke out at the Hood & Scott sawmill boarding house at the Brownsville Wood Camp, which was 9 miles south of Deadwood. Inside the boarding house were 11 sawmill workers who became trapped and killed inside the burning wooden structure. Contemporary reports noted that several victims might have survived had they not re-entered the building to try and retrieve personal belongings.  

In 1879, Colorado Charlie Utter supervised as Wild Bill's remains were moved to a new burial site at Mount Moriah. Wild Bill was born as James Butler Hickok in 1837. He is one of the most famous people from the American Old West and was a bit of every thing, lawman, scout, gunslinger, showman, gambler, cattle rustler and soldier. He was involved in several famous gunfights, one of which we covered on a haunted Springfield episode in which he had a duel with a man named Davis Tutt. He killed Tutt and was charged with manslaughter, but a jury cleared him. Wild Bill was a criminal by the time he turned 18 and he left his home state of Illinois for the frontier territories, getting a job as a stagecoach driver. He would later spy for the Union army during the Civil War. Wild Bill came to his end at the age of 39 in Deadwood on August 2, 1876 when he was shot and killed while playing poker in a saloon by Jack McCall. The hand Wild Bill held, two pairs, black aces and eights, and another unknown card, became known as the dead man's hand.

Martha Jane Canary was a unique woman. She wasn't given to frilly dresses and certainly wasn't very ladylike. She became the famous Calamity Jane, a legendary frontierswoman, sharpshooter and storyteller and that last one makes it hard to know exactly what was true about her life story. She embellished an autobiographical booklet for a tour she headed, but we do know she was born in Missouri in 1852 and died in South Dakota in 1903 and she was a beer drinker, foul-mouthed and chewed tobacco. She claimed, "It was during this campaign [in 1872–73] that I was christened Calamity Jane. It was on Goose Creek, Wyoming where the town of Sheridan is now located. Capt. Egan was in command of the Post. We were ordered out to quell an uprising of the Indians, and were out for several days, had numerous skirmishes during which six of the soldiers were killed and several severely wounded. When on returning to the Post we were ambushed about a mile and a half from our destination. When fired upon, Capt. Egan was shot. I was riding in advance and on hearing the firing turned in my saddle and saw the Captain reeling in his saddle as though about to fall. I turned my horse and galloped back with all haste to his side and got there in time to catch him as he was falling. I lifted him onto my horse in front of me and succeeded in getting him safely to the Fort. Capt. Egan, on recovering, laughingly said: 'I name you Calamity Jane, the heroine of the plains.' I have borne that name up to the present time." Calamity Jane ventured to Fort Laramie in July 1876 and it was there that she joined a wagon train that included Wild Bill and this was when the two met. The wagon train ended up in Deadwood. Calamity Jane remained in Deadwood after the death of Wild Bill and saved a bunch of passengers on a stagecoach that was attacked by Indians and she nursed victims of a small pox epidemic. By 1881, she was in Montana running an inn and in 1893 she joined Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. She died in 1903 from an inflamed bowel and pneumonia. She was buried next to Wild Bill Hickok. Rumor has it that Jane’s dying wish was to be buried next to Hickok, though he supposedly didn’t care for her that much.

Blanche Colman was a German Jewish immigrant who grew up in Deadwood and left for Washington, D.C. to work for a South Dakota congressman. She eventually returned to the Hills and got a job in the law office of Chambers Kellar who was Seth Bullock’s son-in-law. While doing that work, she was inspired to teach herself the law and she became the first female lawyer in South Dakota. She was admitted to the South Dakota Bar when she was 27. Blanche died in 1978 at the age of 93 and was buried on Hebrew Hill, a special Jewish section, along with about 60 others. 

The grandest plot in the cemetery belongs to Seth Bullock who was born in 1849 in Canada. He ran away from home several times as a teenager because his dad beat him. He became a sheriff in the Montana territory and then moved to Deadwood in 1876 to open a hardware store. Deadwood was a rowdy place at the time and Bullock became its first sheriff in 1877. Bullock also bought a ranch and introduced alfalfa farming to the region. There was also a flouring mill, mining and Bullock became a US Marshal. Teddy Roosevelt described Bullock as "a true Westerner, the finest type of frontiersman." Bullock died of colon cancer in 1919 and he was buried in a grave that faces Mt. Roosevelt on a high trail to White Rocks above Mount Moriah. 

Dora DuFran was an infamous madame in Deadwood. She began her life in England and emigrated to America in 1869 when she was a toddler. For some reason I don't know, she got started in prostitution when she was 14 and she also became a dance hall girl. Dora arrived in Deadwood when she was 15 and she opened a brothel - maybe youngest madame ever? Dora was friends with Calamity Jane and employed her several times as a cook and housekeeper. She owned several brothels with the most popular being Diddlin' Doras. There was dining, drinking and dancing here and it claimed you could bring your mother. A client said he wouldn't want his mother to know he had been there. Dora died of heart failure in 1934 and was buried next to her husband and parrot in Mount Moriah. 

People who enter the cemetery immediately feel as though they are being watched. Two female employees were locking up one night and did their standard walk through to make sure that no one was left in the cemetery. They saw a couple of shadows and when they investigated to see what was causing the shadows, they found nothing. Full bodied apparitions of Chinese workers have been seen in the Chinese section of the cemetery. The interesting thing about this is that nearly all of the Chinese bodies were disinterred and shipped off to China for burial due to religious reasons. The front gates open and close on their own at times. Voices have been heard in the cemetery and sometimes it is multiple voices that seem to be carrying on a conversation.  

Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester, NY (Suggested by: Amy Marie Osgood)

This is said to be one of the most haunted cemeteries on the East Coast. Mount Hope Cemetery was founded in 1838 in Rochester, New York and was the first municipal rural cemetery founded in the United States. The cemetery covers 196 acres and has 350,000 burials. Burials continue today. The Gate House is gorgeous and was designed by architect Andrew J. Warner in the High Victorian Gothic and Neo-Romanesque style. It was completed in 1874. There are wonderful monuments and statuary. One of the memorials is for men, women and children whose unmarked graves were discovered in Highland Park. It is named "Invisible No More: Honoring the Deceased Buried in the Public Section of Mt. Hope Cemetery" and was unveiled in 2023. There are around 1,000 people and they came from the almshouse, penitentiary and asylum in Monroe County. Another monument for a group plot represents the Rochester Orphan Asylum, which was founded in 1837. In January of 1901, a boiler at the asylum ignited a fire that killed 31 people, 26 of them were children. The tragedy led to Rochester revamping its fire codes. And speaking of fire codes, the Firemen’s Plot was designed in 1843 for the purpose of burying fallen firefighters. In 1880, the Rochester Firefighters Benevolent Association bought a larger section and the previously buried firefighters were moved to it. A 50 foot obelisk was constructed for the new plot. 

Michael Filon was mayor of Rochester from 1862-1863. He was also one of the founders of the Rochester amusement park named Seabreeze that opened in 1879 and is the fourth-oldest operating amusement park in the United States. Filon got the idea to use a train to transport people from downtown Rochester to the lakeside Seabreeze area while attending the 1876 Centennnial Exposition in Philadelphia. He gathered investors and the new rail line and recreational resort became a reality. Filon is buried with his wife beneath statuary that features a seated woman with a child sitting at her feet that she has her arm around. 

Nathaniel Rochester was the founder of the city. Rochester was born in Virginia in 1752. He went on to become a Revolutionary War soldier and land speculator and it was during his time doing that that he founded the settlement that would become Rochester. He platted out the streets and plots in 1811 and it was called Rochesterville. Nathaniel was part of a committee that petitioned for the formation of the Erie Canal as well. He and his wife Sophia had 12 children and 28 grandchildren. He died in 1831.

The father of the Pacific Railroad is buried here, Dr. Hartwell Carver. He was an early promoter of a transcontinental railroad. He helped hammer in the Golden Spike that officially joined the Central Pacific and Union Pacific railroads on May 10, 1869 at Promontory, Utah. The Union Pacific Railroad paid for his grand 54-foot monument that features a tall column with a statue of a robed woman depicting faith atop the column. She holds a Bible, has a star on her forehead and is pointing with one finger up towards heaven.

Kurt Vonnegut was a writer and author who published the novel Slaughterhouse Five in 1969. The novel is a semi-autobiographic science fiction anti-war work that features a main character named Billy Pilgrim. Pilgrim is based off the real life person Edward R. Crone. Crone had been imprisoned with Vonnegut during World War II during the Dresden Bombings. Crone had been captured after the Battle of the Bulge. He died from starvation while imprisoned. 

Frank Gannett, the founder of the Gannett Company is buried here. Gannett was an American publisher who began his career in newspaper and then founded the media corporation that carries his name. At his death, he owned 23 newspapers, 4 radio stations and three television stations. he wasn't into yellow journalism and gossip and kept his papers focused on standard news rather than big crime or sensational stories - so boring. Gannett Corporation is today known as USA Today Co, Inc. That just changed in 2025. Gannett died in 1957 at the age of 81. 

Susan B. Anthony is buried here under a fairly simple headstone. Anthony is one of the most famous suffragettes in America who traveled and lectured across the country, advocating for abolishing slavery and for women's rights in property ownership, labor organizing and voting. She did this work for over 60 years and faced violent mobs and armed threats and was beaten and imprisoned several times. Her image was hung in effigy and dragged through the streets. She died from pneumonia in 1906 at the age of 86. 

Seth Green was known as the Father of Fish Culture in North America because he pioneered work in aquaculture and fisheries conservation. People refer to him as the most important fisherman in American history. He established the first fish hatchery in New York in 1864. Green died in 1888 and is buried beneath a large monument with a female figure pointing to heaven and holding an anchor.

Dr. Charles Terrell Lunsford was Rochester’s first black physician. He practiced medicine from 1921 to 1972. He once entertained Martin Luther King Jr. at his house because he was also a Civil Rights activist. He is buried next to his wife and sister under a large headstone with the name Lunsford and the and the emblem of the American medical Association. 

The father of the telegraph, James D. Reid, has a monument that is a square column set on three graduated marble steps. There is a bronze portrait plaque of Reid and a bronze tablet that reads, "A pioneer of the telegraph and its first superintendent. Friend and associate of Morse. A kindly gentleman of beautiful character and stainless life. This monument was erected 1914 by telegraphers in appreciation and loving memory of his unselfish helpfulness."

And the great Frederick Douglass is here. He was born in 1818 and became a champion of civil rights after being born into slavery He learned to read and write from the wife of an owner and also from white children in his neighborhood. A new owner acquired him when he was 16 and this owner decided to break him since he seemed to be uppity. Douglass fought back and scared the man from attempting to hurt him again. He finally escaped from bondage when he was 20 and he moved north where he married a free black woman named Anna Murray. In the north, he joined the abolitionist movement and wrote and gave speeches. This propelled him forward as a symbol of the intellectual capabilities of black people.  He traveled extensively, both through the U.S. and abroad, and also aligned himself with the Irish nationalist movement. Douglass pushed for the women's right to vote as well and was the only black man to attend the landmark 1848 Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls. His wife died in 1882, and in 1884 Douglass remarried to a woman named Helen Pitts, who was a white woman 20 years his junior. He died in 1895. 

The land beneath the cemetery is said to have been haunted before Mount Hope was founded. Euro American settlers claimed that there was eerie phenomenon coming from the swampy, wooded area that included floating lights, powerful screams and groans, and figures emerging then disappearing into thin air. The reason why this may be the case is the Native Americans felt this land was sacred and then a dark energy seemed to move in because of a large cholera outbreak. There is a section of the cemetery that is sunken down and known as the “Devil’s Bowl.” There are rumors that occult rituals are conducted here and people claim to feel a malevolent energy there. A grave robbery in 2000 doesn't help these rumors. During the summer solstice in 2000, authorities found disturbed bones. It seemed that the skeleton of General Elisha G. Marshall had been removed from its grave and now the skull was missing. Police thought that perhaps this was taken for a ritual because satanic symbols were found near some of the bones. The general himself was described as being an evil genius. There are also reports of the apparition of an old man walking halfway across the road before vanishing directly in front of cars. A phantom jogger has also been seen.  

Gurnsey Hollow in NY (Suggested by: Ruth Dempsey)

We don't know when this cemetery was founded. Headstones go back to the early 1800s. Bill Burk wrote for The Villager in January 2024 about this cemetery, "Just outside of Frewsburg, New York, deeper in the woods than might be comfortable, past a small V-shaped ravine, there’s a low wooded area tucked into a valley. You access it by pathways that grow increasingly remote, highway to lane, pavement to dirt, road to path, then by foot into a dense copse. There are no landmarks to orient you, the walking track is your only guide. As you hike into the forest, there’s a Blair-Witch sense of displacement, you can’t help but feel it, either because of the surroundings, or invented by your subconscious, knowing where you’re headed, a disconcerting detachment, passing through the looking glass. As you ascend a small rise, a rusted metal fence looms, uneven and twisted, the teeth of a predator, as if you were standing still and the fence was thrust out of the ground." A legend claims that a prominent white cross sits in the cemetery and a local superstition warns that visitors must bow, curtsy, or "kiss the cross" out of respect before exiting the cemetery gates, or they will face a tragic fate.

Visitors have reported seeing a ghostly lady in white, a young boy, spectral orbs, and the apparition of a young girl or the sound of her moans. The girl is alleged to have been mentally handicapped and murdered by townsfolk for unknown reasons; some believe that the lady in white and young boy roam the graveyard to protect this girl. The Ghoul Guide visited the cemetery and had an experience while there. She was wandering through and recording videos and heard the faint sound of a music box. She said it sounded like the same notes as the paranormal music box. She wrote, "I remember standing there, saying something out loud about it as I glanced around, hoping to hear something else along with it - but it was silent, and there was nothing around that could have made that noise. It hadn't been until I got home and researched a bit more to find out the claims of phantom children playing there. Perhaps, I stumbled upon them playing. 

Chris Gethard, writing on the web site Weird U.S. says, “I am fascinated by every site I have visited in the course of researching and writing Weird NY. But none have intimidated me and frightened me as much as the Gurnsey Hollow Cemetery. My trip there was easily one of the more chilling experiences I have had in my entire life—including my five years in the employ of the Weird NJ/Weird US family of magazines and books, which have led me to visit hundreds of purportedly haunted sites personally. I don’t think words or even pictures can do justice to the atmosphere of this very unique and disturbing place.” 

Erie Street Cemetery in Cleveland, OH

Erie Street Cemetery is Cleveland's oldest existing cemetery, located at 2254 E 9th St right across from Progressive Field in downtown Cleveland, Ohio. I was just listening to Game 3 of the National League Championship Series - we lost to the Guardians and they were playing at Progressive Field.  (pg. 65) in Haunted Cleveland by Beth A. Richards and Chuck L, Gove. 

Toronto Necropolis

Toronto Necropolis is a non-denominational cemetery in Canada with over 50,000 burials. The cemetery was opened during the 1850s to replace the Strangers' Burying Ground that closed in 1855. There is a gorgeous High Victorian Gothic gatehouse and small stone chapel. In 1933, the Necropolis opened Ontario's first crematorium and this ran until 1990. There are many notable people buried here. One of these people is David Ward who was an English-born settler of a nearby island named for him, Ward's Island. He was a fisherman and hotelier who died in 1881. He suffered a great tragedy in 1862 when a boating mishap on Lake Ontario left his five daughters drowned. His son William survived. Four of the daughters are buried with David. Dr. Anderson Ruffin Abbott was the first Canadian=born black surgeon. He served as an officer for the Union army during the American Civil War. He was invited to a White House reception in 1864 and is thought to have been the first Black military officers to do that and President Lincoln greeted him courteously. Most guests were stunned to see him there and he said of the event, "We could not have been more surprised ourselves or created more surprise if we had been dropped down upon them through a sky-light." Dr. Abbott died in 1913 at the age of 76. Roy Brown was the RAF officer and World War I fighter pilotwho shot down Manfred von Richthofen, the "Red Baron." William Lyon Mackenzie of the Mackenzie House that we covered in Haunted Toronto is buried here. And there is the founder of the Toronto Telegram, John Ross Robertson, who died in 1918.

Henry Box Brown who famously mailed himself in a custom-made box from Richmond to Philadelphia in 1848, spent his last two decades in Toronto. Brown had been born into slavery in 1816 and worked in a tobacco factory in Richmond, After his wife and children were sold away to North Carolina, he resolved to get free. He got the help of a couple of friends to ship him in a box to the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. Once freed from the box, he lectured across New England and he eventually left for England to keep from being re-enslaved. He later became a hypnotist and magician. He died in 1897. My favorite burial here is for the amazing George A. Romero, who created, co-wrote and directed my favorite horror movie of all time, 1968's "Night of the Living Dead." Romero basically created the zombie film genre. Romero made other horror films like "Creepshow," "Monkey Shines," and he created the anthology television series "Tales from the Darkside." Not bad for a guy from the Bronx who got his start in commercials. He died in 2017. 

People feel as though they are being watched by something unseen. Full-bodied apparitions dressed in period clothing are seen on occasion. Orbs have been seen and photographed. Some visitors report being touched by disembodied hands. 

Oakwood Cemetery in Spartanburg, SC

Oakwood Cemetery is located at 184 Oakwood Avenue in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The cemetery was founded in 1883, making this one of Spartanburg's oldest active cemetery. The Oakwood Cemetery Corporation was formed by prominent citizens of the town and they bought 26 acres, which is now filled with around 6,000 graves. The grounds feature Victorian monuments and sculptures and there is also a Jewish section. This was also the city's potter's field and burial site for many prisoners from the state penitentiary. A family's personal burial ground is here too as it was on the acreage before the cemetery was founded. This was for the Thompson family and there are thirteen graves with death dates between 1828 and 1872. The Converse Garden was added in 2016. Unfortunately, in the 1940s, bankruptcy left the cemetery without care and this wouldn't change until 1983 when a woman named Martha Chapman reformed the Board of Directors a revived the cemetery. Many well-known families of the area are buried here, including the Twichells, Clevelands, Montgomerys, Floyds and DuPres. 

Other people buried here include Simpson Bobo who founded the oldest continually operating law firm in the United States: Bobo, Carlisle & Edwards, which operates today as the Bean Law Firm, Bobo also signed the ordinance of secession before the Civil War. John Belton White joined the American Expeditionary Force in 1917 and deployed to France during World War I. He fought in the Battle of the Somme and he sustained dozens of wounds from machine guns, rifles, bayonets, and shrapnel, earning six wound stripes. There were between 63 and 67 wounds. He was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross by General John J. Pershing on the battlefield, plus the Croix de Guerre (krwah duh gair). The founder of Converse College, Dexter Edgar Converse is buried here as well. He was a pioneer in the cotton mill industry. 

Locals call the cemetery "Hell's Gate." Paranormal activity in the cemetery ranges from people hearing disembodied children's laughter to drained batteries to seeing glowing orbs that float around the tombstones to full-bodied apparitions. One of those ghosts is our famous "Woman in White." This spirit is usually in the middle of a mist and wearing the wedding dress she was probably buried in. Another spirit is a young boy who asks people to play with him. Homeowners around the cemetery claim to ahve some hauntings in their houses as well. Paranormal investigator Laurie Fowler said, "I’ve caught a lot of paranormal activity in there [Oakwood], we’ve had all kinds of stuff happen. I’ve had equipment go dead on me, cell phones don’t work, and I’ve caught orbs." mellowwynn on Reddit wrote, "First place I saw a ghost! It was a young girl with a hat covering her face. A few minutes later a friend said “you saw that girl huh?" brokencookie78 on Reddit wrote, "In the mid-nineties, I visited just before sunset with a few friends. It was just before dark, as the sun was setting. We encountered a woman wearing a dark colored dress and veil who was standing at a grave with her head down and holding a single flower. We passed by her and when I looked back, she was gone. There was no sign of her anywhere, no flower on the grave. It freaked us out, so we high-tailed it out of there."

HGB Ep. 659 - The Black Jail and Other Haunts of Guthrie

This Month in History - Sweetest Day 3rd Sat Every October

In the month of October, on the 8th, in 1921 Herbert Birch Kingston and a committee of local confectioners established the first Sweetest Day in Cleveland, Ohio. Prior to this, Candy Day was originated in 1916 by The National Confectioners Association as a commercial push to encourage people to buy more sweets. This promotion stopped temporarily because of sugar rationing during World War I. The celebration's evolution into The Sweetest Day was begun by Kingston and a group of candy makers who sought to bring joy and comfort to orphans, the elderly, and those who felt forgotten. Silent film stars like Theda Bara and Ann Pennington handed out candy in the 1930s, which made the charity event famous. Over the decades, it has evolved from a regional act of charity into a broader occasion for expressing appreciation, love, and friendship. Today, the Sweetest Day is celebrated every 3rd Saturday of October. People celebrate by sharing greeting cards, small gifts, or sweets with loved ones and neighbors as a simple reminder that a kind word can enrich daily life.

The Black Jail of Guthrie (GUH three)

An abandoned and decaying building in Guthrie, Oklahoma has served a number of purposes throughout its history. This started as the Black Jail and then became a place of worship for the Nazarene Church. Then it was a social club before a cult known as the Samaritan Foundation made this their headquarters. And then there was the murder. It's no wonder that people say the place is haunted. Guthrie has a couple of other haunted locations as well including a train depot, theater and former saloon. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Black Jail and other haunts of Guthrie.  

Guthrie was the first capitol of Oklahoma. The history of this town is a crazy one as it seems to have started overnight. The historic Land Run, or Harrison's Hoss Race, brought 10,000 people to Guthrie in a single afternoon, which was quite the thing for a town that was only a railroad stop before the Land Run.  In 1887, the spot was used as a coaling and water stop named Deer Creek along the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. The Harrison part of the Harrison's Hoss Race name was for President Benjamin Harrison. He had signed a proclamation on March 23, 1889 opening up the Unassigned Lands in the Oklahoma District. This made two million acres available for settlement under the provisions of the Homestead Act of 1862, which stated that settlers could claim up to 160 acres of public land and if they improved it over the next five years, they would get the title to the land. Prospective settlers from across the United States came by wagon, horse or railroad. Fifty thousand people surrounded the Unassigned Lands on April 22, 1889 and at noon, the signal was given that the entry points were open. An avalanche of wagons and horsemen surged forward. Ten thousand of them ended up in Guthrie and a tent city sprang up, which was replaced quickly with wooden buildings and Guthrie became one of the largest cities west of the Mississippi. Wooden buildings were replaced by brick and sandstone later. The Guthrie Chamber of Commerce reports in their history by "August 1889, The Guthrie City Directory listed the following: 6 banks,16 barbers, 16 blacksmiths, 17 carpenters, 2 cigar manufacturers, 5 newspapers, 7 hardware stores, 15 hotels, 19 pharmacists, 22 lumber companies, 39 doctors, 40 restaurants, and an astounding 81 lawyers!" In 1890, Guthrie became the Territorial Capital. When Oklahoma became an official state in 1907, Guthrie was its first state capital. The state government moved to Oklahoma City in 1910. There are over 2,000 buildings in the Guthrie Historic District and just outside that boundary is the First territorial Jail, commonly known as the Black Jail. 

The Black Jail was one of the very first Federal Prisons in the Midwest. Today, it sits on the NW corner of 2nd Street and Noble Avenue and was built in 1892. The jail was constructed with 18-inch thick limestone and brick walls that were dark in color and so the inmates took to calling it the Black Jail. As was the case with these old jails, the stone construction and era left the interiors stiflingly hot in the summers and freezing in the winters. These temperature changes led to illness. 

Despite being solidly built and advertised as inescapable with a metal cage surrounding the front entrance on the second floor at the top of the stairs, inmates did escape. The first escapee was W.D. Lockett, who escaped in 1895 after he was imprisoned for counterfeiting. He escaped by prying the lock off his cell and then he went through a window connected to the kitchen. Bill Doolin was another of the inmates to escape. Doolin was an American outlaw who many believe was the Wild West's greatest gang leaders. He led the Doolin-Dalton gang and their specialty was robbing banks, trains and stagecoaches. Doolin had been born in Arkansas in 1858 and at the age of 23, he headed to Indian Territory to be a cowboy. He found work as a cattleman under Oscar Halsell who also employed a variety of men who would become outlaws. One of these men was Emmett Dalton. Emmett and two of his brothers would form the Dalton Gang. Doolin would have his first run in with the law in Coffeyville, Kansas when he got drunk and disorderly with some other guys and a shootout with lawmen ensued - that escalated fast! The lawmen were wounded and Doolin got away. He joined the Dalton Gang shortly thereafter and is thought to have been holding horses for them in an alley during a bank robbery that ended up with four of the gang members dead and Emmett wounded with 23 gunshots. Doolin formed his own gang at the end of 1892 that he called The Wild Bunch. The gang would be one of the most powerful in the Old West. Doolin was captured while using the sulfur springs in Eureka Springs, Arkansas and he ended up in the Black Jail. As Deputy Bill Tilghman escorted Doolin into Guthrie, a crowd of 2,000 people lining the street cheered. On July 5, 1896, Doolin and 13 other inmates broke out of the jail. Four of them had overpowered one of the guards. Doolin used a revolver to get the only other guard at the jail to unlock the cells of nine other prisoners. The group locked one guard in the bull pen and the other in a cell and then took a bunch of coats and vests that belonged to the jailer and guards and took a few weapons. They ran into the night. Doolin was tracked down two months later and killed by a posse.

The county no longer needed the jail by 1924 and it was closed. The Guthrie Church of the Nazarene bought the building and remodeled it so they could use it as their church building. The third floor was removed so the second floor could be expanded into a sanctuary. First floor cells were converted into classrooms. Another pastor took over the church in 1934 and the congregation surged, so the building was expanded again by 2,000 square feet. The original red sandstone was covered by white stucco. The church occupied it until 1970. 

The Logan County Association for [Mentally Handicapped] Citizens used the building for a while and then it was donated to the territorial Gunfighters Club in 1990. And then came the jail's cult period. The Samaritan Foundation Cult acquired the building in 1993. This cult was connected to the disappearance and death of Allen Ross. Allen Ross was a Chicago cameraman and indie filmmaker who made seven films with German filmmaker Christian Bauer. Right after they completed their final film, he vanished without a trace. Christian Bauer made the documentary "Missing Allen" in 2001, four years after Ross' disappearance, since the police didn't seem to be doing anything. He investigated what happened to his friend. The Samaritan Foundation was started by a woman named Linda Greene. Greene had become a nurse and was working in an innovative Oklahoma hospice in the 1980s. She was a sometimes actress and poet and married five times. Linda embraced the esoteric and before long, she had surrounded herself with 60 like-minded people that she at first led in self-help seminars. Before long, this was a religious cult based on her obtaining answers with dowsing. These people believed that Linda could answer the great mysteries of life by using swaying pendulums to give them answers. She would move a pendulum over objects and that pendulum would give the Samaritans guidance on the biggest and smallest of decisions. It was believed that the pendulum would fight off evil forces too. And then Linda also wrote books she believed would revolutionize the world. The teachings got crazier as the group went along as Linda promoted an obsessive fear of government agents and telephones and zombies. Yep, they feared the walking dead before it was a popular series. There was a custody battle that drew unwanted attention to the cult because a mother had taken her two children with her to the cult and then told her husband, Jonathan, she wasn't coming home. He fought for the kids and during the two days of testimony during the custody court case, the Samaritan Foundation’s teachings were exposed to the public. The Branch Davidian Waco thing had just happened and people thought the groups were connected. Jonathon testified to his wife’s “bizarre” behavior beginning 18 months earlier when she began receiving correspondence from the Samaritan Foundation. She was swinging a pendulum over things including the children to remove evil. To defeat bar codes on product labels, which Greene also claimed were evil, groceries were placed on circular drawings. He found the same drawings underneath the children’s pillows. It was also revealed that Linda taught her followers that vampires could steal their souls through the phone lines. And she claimed to be Christ. Johnathan won the case and this was the beginning of the end for the group as officials started paying attention to them and eventually condemned the jail building. The cult left Guthrie for Cheyenne, Wyoming in 1995 when the pendulum told them to go. After Allen disappeared, the group scattered to the wind. 

Allen Ross first picked up a camera as a teenager in Chicago. After leaving home, he worked driving a cab while he lived a bohemian life in a downtown loft. Allen met Christian and they started making films together featuring odd and unexplained topics. One of these films featured UFO abductees. 

In 1993, Allen met Linda Greene and fell in love with her. At the time, Linda was working as a nurse and writing books. Allen illustrated one of the books for her. He told all of his family and friends that he was very happy with Linda, but they were still shocked when he announced that he was leaving his beloved Chicago for rural Oklahoma. Linda and Allen ended up in Guthrie and Allen would send postcards back to his twin brother Brad. One such note read, "I seized the opportunity to seek answers for questions I had not been able to ask." Another cryptically read, "The masters will shut you up in a pen with others, then it will be up to you to find a house to enter." Allen told everyone that they were living in a former jail and church in Guthrie that Linda called The Monastery. Allen met up with Christian to make their final documentary in 1995 and they wrapped filming in New Orleans. Christian Bauer told Dennis Murphy in 2005 that Linda showed up in New Orleans and she was nothing like what he expected. He described her as being "very demanding. She was very controlling. She was not the caring kind of woman I had imagined her to be when I saw her on the picture the first time. Allen seemed embarrassed by her presence. When she mugged for his camera, Allen panned away. He's telling her, stay away from us but she follows the camera and she dances. He wants to get away from it, and he continues his pan and she just disappears out of the frame." Allen left New Orleans and returned to Wyoming with Linda and no one saw him again. Eventually, Linda's ex-husband contacted the Cheyenne Police and told them that Allen had been murdered. He even said that Allen was buried in the basement of his and Linda's home. The police didn't find anything and shortly thereafter, Linda faxed the police and Christian Bauer and accused her ex-husband of killing Allen. She wrote, "After Allen was shot, he was dragged perhaps downstairs. I saw Denis carry two sacks of concrete, which were by the back door, downstairs." 

Allen's body was finally discovered exactly where Denis said it was, buried under concrete in the basement of the home he shared with Linda. Investigators zeroed in on Linda and her devoted follower, Julia Williams, but Linda died of liver failure in 2002 before she could face justice. Julia was eventually arrested and convicted as an accessory to murder after the fact.

After the Samaritan Foundation left the building in 1995, it sat abandoned and has continued to deteriorate through the years. It is owned privately and unsafe to enter, so there are no tours there. There are tales of it being haunted and there are believed to be several ghosts that wander the empty spaces. 

Ghost Adventures investigated in April of 2017 during Season 14. The brought a Ouija Board with them and as it spelled out the first word, Aaron's camera kept going in and out of focus. The
Ouija Board spelled out: "JP", "No" (x2), "1119", "Yes" (x3), "1", "Kill", "Get out", "2", "Zozo", "Mama", "Kill one of you", "Jay", "Fami...", "Kidney." Of course, Zak ends up feeling like he is in a trance. Everybody felt a cold energy and a shifting in energy that got very heavy. They heard disembodied footsteps, a door slam and strange noises. The overhead night vision camera stopped working on its own. The Puck Device fed out the words "Paranormal", "Malevolent", "Holy" and "Assault." The X Camera caught a large piece of plywood falling to the ground after it allegedly levitated. 

Throughout the years, people would claim to hear weird noises in the jail. Imagine the sound of a cell door shutting during the pastor's sermon. Disembodied voices have been heard many times and people even claim to hear phantom singing when standing outside the jail. 

A group did an investigation of the jail and one of the members shared with Professor Caleb Lack, "When I was there it was rather dangerous. I was assigned to write about it from an author of the book "Ghostly Tales from America's Jails." I personally witnessed a few unexplainable moments. Walking up the main floor of the prison, I noticed a large hole in the floor. Peering into the basement, I stopped walking to observe and take some photos. Lightly behind me I heard a few dragging footsteps lingering. I was truly startled because I was wearing soft-soled shoes. Another experience that caught my attention was while I was in the basement photographing James Phillips cell, I noticed what appeared to me a man walking across the window. In hopes that it was one of the volunteer workers, I rushed up the stairs to speak to him. I ran to the front door and I stepped outside and looked up the street and around and there was no one in sight. While standing in the cellblock hallway of the basement, my associates and I were startled by the sound of metal hitting metal similar to the closing of a cell block door. There's only one metal door left in the prison and that door was about 3 ft in front of us within our view. We searched for another door and with no luck at all, we were not able to locate the origin of the noise or recreate the noise with any debris in the area. We had the sense of being followed and the strong sense of being watched. It was very uncomfortable." 

James Phillips was an inmate in the jail in 1907 and he was the first white man sentenced to be hanged there. As he watched the gallows being built, his fear grew and one day he collapsed and died with the coroner reporting that he had died of fright. His spirit continues to hang out in the old jail. His spirit is seen looking through the window across Second Street where the gallows would have been being built.

Stone Lion Inn

The Stone Lion Inn was built in 1907 by the Houghton family. They had begun their life in Guthrie in a home next to where they built this new home. This cost them around $12,000 to build, which made it the most expensive home in the town at the time. The mansion was 8,000 square feet and had four floors with bedrooms upstairs and a library and parlor on the first floor. The Houghtons had twelve children and unfortunately, one of their children died from whooping cough. This was seven-year-old Irene and the story goes that her nurse had given her the wrong medicine. The Houghtons eventually fell on hard times and they moved from the house in the 1920s. The mansion then became the Smith Funeral Home in 1929. The next owners would be the Walker family, who bought it in the 1950s. They owned it for more than thirty years and then a woman named Becky Luker bought it in 1986. The house had caught her eye when she saw it advertised in the window of a real estate business. She was inspired and believed that this house would make a perfect bed and breakfast. She recruited a bunch of people and they got it renovated and converted into the bed and breakfast. 

Dinner is served in the oak-paneled dining room and the cook can also be seen preparing meals in the 200-year-old French kitchen. There is seating for ten in the kitchen. The interior features six suites that can be booked and leaded glass bookshelves, Adam’s staircase, bathrooms with clawfooted tubs, 3 fireplaces and huge pockets-doors. The mansion’s grounds have pecan trees, flowers, and lilac bushes. A scrumptious breakfast is served in the mornings. And on weekends, the B & B hosts murder mystery parties. 

Becky shared the following story that probably goes back to its funeral home days. On the day Luker closed on the house, she did a tour of the house with Mrs. Walker, who at the time was an elderly woman with curly bright blue hair. The furniture had been auctioned off, but there was still one table in the house. Becky said, "I really didn’t know what it was at the time. I said, ‘Aren’t you going to take this table?’ She says, ‘No sugar, we don’t have room for that.’ I asked if it was a baker’s table, and she said, ‘Well no I’m not sure what it’s used for, but use it any way you see fit.’ She knew damn well it was an embalming table." That table is still in the bed and breakfast and guests will see it upon entering and it usually is holding a tray of Coke products and an ice bucket on top. But that isn't all that is left over from the house's past. There are spirits. Becky had no doubt there were ghosts when they started renovations. It seemed that the spirits didn't want their home changed. Luker told the Ocolly website in 2014, "I had no idea about the history of this place when I bought it. I’m a skeptic, but some things are hard to look past...Steps going up and down the stairs, doors opening and closing, but when you’re living with that many people, you’re thinking someone must be getting up to go to the bathroom or having a cigarette on the front porch. When everything was done and my mother and the workers went home, we still were hearing the noises. Then I began to think, ‘This house has issues.’"

Becky even found herself calling the police on occasion. She believes the third floor is the most haunted. Becky shared that her son would neatly put away his toys at night before going to bed, but in the mornings, he would find his toys scattered all over the room. Perhaps Irene is enjoying the toys. There are those who think that her father is in the house as well and his pipe tobacco can be smelled. 

Guests have seen child-size apparitions and claimed that these figures tucked them into bed or they have heard ghost children and complained the following day about noisy children in a bed and breakfast that had no overnight child guests. A wooden ball has also been seen rolling across the mansion floors. A staff member shared, "The first time, I was doing laundry down there, and the door locked on me. I sat down there for a while before someone came home and heard me. It happened a couple more times, but I remembered to use another exit I forgot about the first time whenever it happened again. I prop up things against the door so it won’t happen again." She also shared, "The doors will open and close in sequence. When you’ve been in this house as long as we have, you know which door is opening or closing from anywhere in the house. It’s always in the same order when it happens." And also, "Ebony, my daughter, was 5 at this time, but she would be the only one who went upstairs to play by herself. I asked her what she was doing once, and she said she was playing with that little girl. I said, ‘What little girl?’ She said, ‘The girl that plays upstairs.’"

When Becky bought the White Peacock Inn as a sister property, she had a strange experience. The Stone Lion Inn took on a severe, unexplainable rancid smell that spread over the entire first floor of the inn. Believing the main house was "jealous" of the new property, the owner sat on the stairs and verbally reassured the building that they weren't abandoning it for the White Peacock. The smell immediately vanished. 

Blue Belle Saloon 

The Blue Belle Saloon is located at 224 W. Harrison Ave. Yelp reports that it is permanently closed due to some property tax issues, but it last was a pizza parlor. The saloon started in a tent when the Land Run happened and then in 1899, it became the brick structure that still stands today. The ground floor was the saloon with silent film cowboy star Tom Mix working as bartender from 1902 to 1904. The upper level was a brothel run by a woman known as Miss Lizzie. Miss Lizzie was considered a great businesswoman and philanthropist in the town, but she came with a very dark side. She was a trafficker and several of the girls in her establishment weren't there by their choice. And when we say girls, we mean girls. As young as thirteen. What Miss Lizzie would do is approach a family in need and offer to help them out, but this came with a heavy price. A daughter would have to go with Miss Lizzie. At some point, one of the women at the brothel was murdered by a patron. There are claims this is the most haunted place in Oklahoma, so its unfortunate that it sits empty now.  

People claim to hear disembodied female voices and singing. Disembodied footsteps are heard coming from empty rooms. Staff and guests report objects moving on their own. There are several apparitions that have been seen. One is a cowboy attired man who sports a black hat. He likes to hang out at the bar. The madame Miss Lizzie has been seen in the rooms upstairs, as well as two of the working girls. People have named them Estelle and Claudia and Claudia is believed to be the one who was beaten to death by a client.

The Old Santa Fe Depot

The Guthrie Depot was the Old Santa Fe Train Depot. Today, it is a private wedding venue owned by Adam and Abigail Ropp. There was an original wooden structure built in 1887 that sat here until a flood destroyed it. The brick Santa Fe Depot was completed in 1903. Nine lines of railways were coming through in 1904 and the finest restaurant in town was opened named the Harvey House. Many Harvey Houses had hotels too, but not this location. It did have the famous Harvey Girls though. Their living quarters were on the second floor and they had a Harvey Matron. She monitored everyone coming and going on the stairs. The station closed to passenger rail service in October of 1979. The building was boarded up and sat empty until the late 1990s when it was restored. There are several spirits here. One is called the Upstairs Woman. People claim to see a spectral woman looking out from the second-floor windows. She is usually in a period dress, but other times she is wearing the Harvey Girls waitress uniform. So maybe there are two female apparitions here? Fred Harvey's wife loved the Guthrie Depot. Her name was Pearl and some people believe she may be one of the ghosts. Chairs pull out on their own and drinks mysteriously show up on tables. 

There is a basement apparition too. In 2008, the Mid America Paranormal Science Team investigated the tight basement area. Within minutes of setting up equipment, they captured video footage of a torso-up apparition that leaned over before moving directly into a wall. 

The Pollard Theater

Most theaters are haunted and this one claims to harbor five spirits, but there is a good reason for that that has nothing to do with theatrical productions. This started as a large wooden dry goods store, built shortly after the Land Run of 1989. The building was rebuilt with brick and native stone after a fire in 1901 and reopened as the Patterson Furniture Store. Now as a furniture store, it was responsible for building coffins and thus, it served as the local funeral parlor. ​In 1919, George A. Pollard purchased the building and converted it into a vaudeville house. He ran it for a year until he was elected mayor and he handed it off to other management. Silent films were also shown until 1929 when Talkies started and at the time, a man named Al R. Powell was leasing the theater and so he reconstructed the building, adding a large stage and orchestra pit, hand-painted wall murals, vita phone talking picture equipment, a grand marquee with room atop for an orchestra, and seating for 800. The theater was called The Melba at that time and was Oklahoma's first all-sound motion picture theater. During the depression, Powell would accept an egg as admission-eggs were in short supply then-and he made a business of boxing them for sale in the theater. The Powell family operated the theater until 1986. At that time, it was brought back to its roots as a theater for stage productions. Students from Guthrie High School did a lion's share of the work converting the 48'x18' movie stage to the current 50'x50' theater stage and adding the proscenium arch, installing new seats and ensuring handicapped access. Riggers from San Antonio built a 14-line counterweight system for hoisting scenery and the stage roof was raised 22 feet. 

Much of the old Melba was preserved, including the 1920's murals that adorn the auditorium and the original tin ceiling and wrought iron chandeliers in the lobby. The Pollard Company was the group that formed and consisted of performers, directors, designers, carpenters, costumers and painters. Today, they provide plays, musicals and concerts. 

Oklahoma Paranormal Research & Investigations investigated with Fox News 25 in 2003. The psychic in the group reported, "I noticed while in this area that part of the original wall between buildings abruptly stopped. I felt drawn to the area, but could not understand the connection with the partial wall other than to say it had some significance. I then walked into the small tool closet and saw an elderly gentleman sitting on one of the bar stools in the room.   He did not say anything, nor did he appear to try to communicate. I believe we may have frightened him as he immediately disappeared within seconds after I entered the small room. I walked through the halls of the dressing room area when a bit of movement caught my eye from within one of the rooms.  It was then that I saw a lady with dark hair sitting at one of the dressing tables.  She simply smiled at me and quickly disappeared." The Admin Area/Old Housing Rooms featured, "Several of us witnessed the bathroom door opening on its own (could not be re-created) and unfortunately, of the three video cameras present, not one captured it on film. A large crash was also heard in this area, and the source was not able to be located. Erik also heard an audible male's voice saying "hello" while in this area. It was in this area that I came across a small boy between the ages of four and five.  He was very shy at first and insisted on playing games with us. He showed me his red ball and showed me that at one time while he was playing, he had bounced his ball down the stairs and had gone running after it only to fall and injure himself. He did not specify to me if he was killed from the fall, but only that he was injured.  He later revealed his name as being Issac and said that his mother was there with him."  

Guthrie is a charming small town that also has a ghost tour. There do seem to be several haunted locations here. Are the Black Jail and these other locations haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 658 - Vortex 29

Moment in Oddity - The Venezuelan Poodle Moth (Suggested by: Ruth Dempsey)

Deep within the misty rainforests of the Gran Sabana region of Venezuela, a creature exists that blurs the line between insect and stuffed animal toy. It was discovered in 2009 by zoologist Dr. Arthur Anker. The scientist gave the moth the playful description of 'Venezuelan Poodle Moth'. The cute, captivating creature looks less like a typical insect, and more like a miniature, winged mammal covered in a dense coat of snowy, cotton-like fluff that you want to cuddle. Its large soulful black eyes and beautiful arched, feathered antennae give it an eerily endearing expression, capturing the imagination. Because scientists have yet to officially classify it or observe it extensively in the wild, this mysterious lepidopteran remains an enchanting biological enigma that certainly is adorably odd.

Vortex 29 

As we have found from our episodes featuring ghost towns and locations in the desert of California, Nevada and Arizona, the desert is a strange and mysterious place. There is a home in Desert Center, California that seems to be sitting on a vortex created by the convergence of three deserts. The owner of this home is a woman named Daphne Minks and from the moment she stepped inside of it, she knew she wasn't alone. As she set about repairing and renovating the house, she felt as though unseen entities were helping her. She named this home Vortex 29 and she joins us on this episode to share her experiences.

Interview with Daphne. We talk Satanic Panic, West Memphis Three, a vortex in the desert, having your home become a paranormal film location, having entities help you with renovations and how the house protected her against a couple of men who tried to bamboozle her.  

We have found the desert to be a strange place, so it isn't surprising that Desert City has some quirks and that this particular home seems to be quite active. Hopefully Season 2 goes better for Daphne and reveals even more about the entities at Vortx 29. Is Vortex 29 haunted? That is for you to decide. 

 

HGB Ep. 657 - Haunted County Durham

This Month in History - Emily Warren Roebling's Birth

In the month of September, on the 23rd, in 1843, Emily Warren Roebling was born in Cold Spring, New York. She grew up in a large, supportive family where her parents valued higher education for both their sons and daughters. Emily was encouraged to push against 19th century norms by obtaining a higher education studying science, mathematics and literature. She would grow up to play an indispensable role in the creation of one of America's greatest architectural marvels, the Brooklyn Bridge. In 1872, her husband Washington Roebling, became bedridden with decompression sickness. Washington was the chief engineer of the Brooklyn Bridge project and Emily stepped forward as his vital link to the construction site. She did not merely carry messages; she mastered complex higher mathematics, material science, stress analysis, and cable construction to effectively communicate with contractors, engineers, and day laborers. For more than a decade, Emily managed the project's daily operations, inspected materials, dealt with competing politicians, and defended her husband's position as chief engineer. Her profound dedication and engineering competence were so widely recognized that she was given the honor of being the first person to cross the completed bridge on horseback in 1883, carrying a rooster as a symbol of victory.

Haunted County Durham (Derr um)

County Durham has a deep mining and farming heritage and is located in the northeast part of England near Scotland. This is the only English county prefixed with the word "County." The history spans so many eras that are reflected in the architecture, from Roman conquest to the Anglo-Saxons to the powerful medieval palatinate ruled by Prince Bishops. And all along the way, spiritual residue was left behind. Join us for the history and hauntings of County Durham. 

Durham is a town of quaint cobbled streets lined with boutiques and restaurants. Towering above it are two of its most distinct buildings, Durham Castle and Durham Cathdedral. Both have stood for nearly 1,000 years. Winding through Durham is the River Wear (we're), which hugs the city on three sides. The Roman Empire occupied County Durham starting in 71 AD. After that, the Romans built strategic military roads and Fort Vinovium, known now as Binchester and Fort Longovicium, now known as Lanchester. These supported the infrastructure and garrisons of Hadrian’s Wall, which was built starting in 122 AD under Emperor Hadrian. The Romans withdrew in the 5th century and County Durham became part of the Anglo-Saxon kingdom of Bernicia, which lasted for four centuries, eventually becoming the Kingdom of Northumbria. It was during this time that Christianity arrived, as did St. Cuthbert. He became one of England's most venerated saints. When the Vikings invaded Northumbria, Lindisfarne monks fled with the body of St. Cuthbert in 995 AD, and settled at a high peninsula called Dun Holm after a vision. This would be the beginning of Durham. And while we love stories of supernatural visions, historians poo poo this fanciful story by pointing out that the area was readily defensible and the Earl of Northumbria granted them the land. The Normans conquered in the 11th century and William the Conqueror built Durham Castle in 1072 AD to secure the northern border against Scottish invasions. After the Normans left, the county was governed by the Bishops of Durham as a county palantine (pal uh tine). Palantinates emerged in England after the Norman conquest and this arrangement gave Bishops or Earls the power that the King had, but just in one small area. County Durham was unique in that the power of this arrangement endured until 1654 when Durham got parliamentary representation. The county took part in northern uprisings against the English Reformation. The region transformed through coal mining, shipbuilding, and the opening of the pioneering Stockton and Darlington Railway in 1825. Today, it's a great spot for tourism.

Durham Castle

Durham Castle sits atop a hill overlooking the medieval city of Durham. The River Wear (Wee-ar) circles around the castle. Construction of the castle began in 1072 and there are differing accounts on whether parts of it were originally made from wood or stone. 

As was the case with many castles built at this time, wood was an easily sourced material and many parts of a castle were built from it and then later replaced with the more durable stone. William the Conqueror ordered the building of the castle. He was William I, the first Norman king of England, and he had descended from Viking raiders and been the Duke of Normandy. He was the victor at the Battle of Hastings. This battle began the Norman conquest of England. The castle was built six years after that conquest was complete. William the Conquerer ushered in the medieval era and introduced modern building techniques for castles. A main characteristic of Norman castles was the use of a motte, which was a large man-made mound of dirt and stones, and a bailey, which were inner and outer fenced in areas. Many times, the outer bailey was at the bottom of the mound. The day to day activities took place in the bailey, while the castle keep was built atop the motte. William the Conquerer died in 1087 in an unusual way. He was sitting atop his horse watching a Norman village burn when his horse was suddenly startled and reared up. The horn of the saddle struck William in the abdomen with much force. It was hard enough to cause internal injuries and William bled to death  internally. It took several days for him to succumb to the injury. The coffin that was built for him was too small and he was stuffed inside. Legend says that his putrifying body split open. Many centuries later, in 1562, grave robbers stole what was buried in the coffin, leaving only a thigh bone.

Supervision of the construction of the castle was under the Earl of Northumberland (nawrthuhmberland), Watheof. His supervision ended in 1076 when he rebelled against William and was executed. Walcher (waw lchur), the Bishop of Durham, took over control of the castle  and was given the title of Prince-Bishop of Durham. This title remained until the 19th century. It was the only title of its sort and made Durham unique in England. 

Walcher was in charge when many of the buildings of the castle were constructed. The castle today has a gatehouse, two chapels, a Great Hall, kitchen, a courtyard, the Black Staircase and another large building known as the Northern Range with several rooms that was built in the 12th century by Bishop Le Puiset (Pwee zeh). He more than likely built it as two large halls that were later subdivided. One of the chapels and the bell-tower were built by Bishop Tunstall in the 16th century. The Tunstall Chapel is gorgeous with stain glassed windows and carved wood. Durham Castle was crucial to protecting the border with Scotland and quelling English rebellions. The Historia Regum states that the castle was needed "to keep the bishop and his household safe from the attacks of assailants." The Palace Green that runs between the cathedral and the castle was once the old marketplace and originally had several wooden houses built there. Bishop Flambard had the houses taken down during his time to prevent fires. In 1837, the castle was donated to the University of Durham. It was named University College and the castle was restored by architect Anthony Salvin who followed the plans of the original keep. The restoration was completed in 1840 and now provides accomodations for students. More than just students reside here though. It would seem they are joined by the Grey Lady. She is reputed to be the spirit of Isabella Van Mildert. She was the wife of one of the bishops who served during the 17th century. The story goes that she was coming down the Black Staircase when she suddenly fell and broke her neck. Witnesses, many of whom are college students, claim to see a ghostly woman that appears to be grey, floating down the staircase.

There also is reputed to be a ghost from more modern times. Frederick Copeman was one of the university's first students and he had big dreams and expectations. Unfortunately, he did not do well on his final exams. He flunked them all. He was devastated. He climbed to the top most part and threw himself off. He is now seen around the castle grounds and paces the upper rooms. The Grammar School that sits along the Palace Green is reportedly haunted by a young pupil that was killed when one of the school masters threw him from a balcony. 

Durham Cathedral

Durham Cathedral is directly opposite from Durham Castle. The Durham Cathedral started off as The White Church, which was a wooden structure built to house the relics of St. Cuthbert. Upon entering the Cathedral, there is a grotesque knocker that provides comfort and protection against evil to those who touch it. 

The Galilee Chapel is at the Western end of the Cathedral and was built in 1170 and looks different from the rest of the cathedral. This started as a Lady Chapel dedicated to the Virgin Mary. This has pointed arches and slender columns. This was renovated in the 15th century with a new roof and windows. St. Bede (Bead) has this as his final resting place as he was moved here in 1370. He was a Benedictine monk and scholar. The Nave is the main room of the cathedral and has these giant stone pillars measuring over 22 feet high, supporting the nave’s vaulted stone ceiling. The famous Rose Window is here. All the stained-glass windows had to be replaced after Cromwell ordered them smashed during the 17th century civil war. The Quire is where daily worship takes place. It is just behind the crossing of the Nave. In 1640, the Cathedral suffered significant damage when Scottish soldiers burnt much of the wood. Bishop John Cosin commissioned George Clement in 1665 to create new quire stalls that are gorgeous. They feature Gothic canopies with slender supporting columns adorned with elegant scrollwork. Behind this is the organ with red and gold coloring, built by Father Henry Willis and a staggering 5,746 pipes. The South side of the choir has the tomb of Prince Bishop Thomas Hatfield with the Bishop's throne above that. The Gilbert Scott Screen looks out of place since it clashes with the Romanesque design, but the construction from marble and alabaster is gorgeous. The building originally started to house and honor St. Cuthbert and he remains here in The Shrine of St. Cuthbert, buried beneath a stone slab. He wasn't always at peace here. 

In late 1539, King Henry VIII's commissioners were ordered to dismantle the shrine and they stripped it of the gold, silver, and jewels. But when they discovered Cuthbert's body in its priestly garments not rotted, they reinterred him. The Chapel of the Nine Altars was built between 1242 and 1280 and actually has three altars in it today. There is a wooden Pieta on display.

Lewis du Beaumont was a poorly viewed 'Prince Bishop' of Durham and was appointed because of his relation to the queen. He died in 1333. Some of the vergers in the Cathedral called him the Evil Bishop because he was so "rubbish" (illiterate, lazy, spent all of the cathedral's money.) Yet he was buried in a prime space in front of the high altar steps. His grave is marked by a large blue marble slab. Such was the disrespect for him, that they chipped away at the decoration of his tomb over time and now his tomb is hidden by a large wooden board and a large rug. 

An interesting piece of legend about the Durham Cathedral is that a secret passage runs from the Cathedral to Finchale Abbey and that the journey through that passage is a dangerous one. In fact, it is apparently so terrifying that no person is able to make the trek and live to tell about it. 

Durham Castle and Cathedral were awarded the status of World Heritage Site in 1986. And then there is the Sanctuary Knocker, which is a famous bronze knocker on the north door with a grotesque face that was designed to ward off evil spirits from the holy grounds. If criminals touched it, it allowed them 37 days of protection in medieval times. Spirits here include the Jumping Man with local folklore claiming that this was a man who jumped from the top of the cathedral and survived, but then he fell and died on a second attempt when his target was accidentally moved. His confused figure can sometimes be seen repeating the fatal leap in ghostly form. Another legend connected to the cathedral, and specifically to St. Cuthbert, is this story about a mist that showed up during World War II in May 1942. German bombers had targeted Durham. Witnesses claimed a miraculous, localized fog created by St. Cuthbert, rose from the river and completely hid the building, saving it from destruction.

Dun Cow Pub

The Dun Cow is a historic pub located at 37 Old Elvet and is said to be the oldest surviving pub in the town. The building dates back to the late 1500s. A story is told that when those Lindisfarne monks were searching for a resting place for the body of St Cuthbert, they came across a milkmaid looking for her lost cow. She directed them to Dun Holm or Durham and so the pub is named after the story, Dun Cow. 

This pub is said to be haunted by the notorious 17th century serial killer Mary Ann Cotton who killed 11 of her 13 children and three of her four husbands. Mary Ann grew up in Durham and became a nurse and a dressmaker. She married for the first time in 1852 and had eight or nine children with him. Everybody in the family, but one daughter, died from gastric fever, believed to be arsenic poisoning. She married one of her patients and he ended up dead. Mary Ann was collecting insurance money all along the way. She killed her mother and then the daughter who had survived. She found work for a widower named James Robinson and soon his children were succumbing to gastric fever. The two married and had two children and one of those children died. Robinson threw her out. Mary Ann married another widower and well, yeah, he died too. And two more children. This woman was poisoning everybody with arsenic. She was hanged for her crimes. The executioner went to the Dun Cow Pub afterward for a pint and apparently, Mary Ann Cotton followed him there. She also apparently haunts her former home in another town too. She's probably mad at the executioner cause he bumbled her hanging with the trap door not high enough to break her neck. He had to push down on her and it took 3 minutes for her to die. 

Barnard Castle

Barnard Castle is a market town named for a ruined medieval castle that it is built around. The castle was built in the 12th century and passed down through the Balliol family until Richard Neville became the owner. King Richard III inherited it and it fell into ruin after his death. 

In the 18th century, the town was a center for hand-loom wool weaving and in the 19th century, the spinning and manufacturing of shoe thread. Visitors and locals report seeing the spectral figure of Lady Ann Day who was a 16th-century noblewoman. Legend says she either plunged to her death while fleeing soldiers or threw herself from the battlements after her lover was beheaded. Her body was swept away by the swift current of the River Tees and never recovered. People see her ghostly figure tumbling from the castle's high tower. Some people hear a heart-rending scream as she falls. Visitors to the medieval Round Tower often report a sudden, heavy feeling of inexplicable dread.

Lumley Castle

Lumley Castle is a 14th-century quadrangular fortress built in 1389 by Sir Ralph Lumley with Norman and Gothic elements. This became a family seat and a defensive stronghold. Sir Ralph plotted against King Henry IV and when he was found out, he was executed. 

The castle became a bishop's residence and then a university hall. In 1976, it opened as a four-star luxury hotel. The interior features rich wood-paneling, ornate tapestries , regal suites and grand fireplaces. The opulent Knights Restaurant serves up elegant dining, while the Library Bar is a cozier restaurant with an a la carte menu. The ghost here is Lily of Lumley. She was the wife of Sir Ralph Lumley who was murdered by two priests after she converted from Catholicism to Protestant. They threw her body down a well to hide it. Her spirit is rumored to float up from the well and wander the corridors, rooms, and grounds of the historic fortress.

Jimmy Allan - The Gypsy Piper

Under Durham Castle is Elvet Bridge, which is said to be haunted by Jimmy Allan, the Gypsy Piper. Jimmy Allan was known by many names; Jimmy, Jemmy, Jamie, James, The Duke’s Piper, the Piper of Northumberland, and The Gypsy Piper. Just as he went by many names, he was also known as a musician and a friend of the aristocracy, a thief, a bigamist, and a deserter. 

Jimmy’s parents were thought of around Northumberland as Gypsies, although they did not self identify with that label. Jimmy’s father Will was a tinkerer and he was also very good at playing the bagpipes. Jimmy’s mother Betty kept the home and looked after their six children. Jimmy was the youngest and he was born around 1734. Jimmy was taught to play the bagpipes by his father and quickly made a name for himself with his prodigious musical abilities. He began to travel Northumberland playing when he was a young man. He first played for the Duchess of Northumberland in 1746 or 1747 (exact date unknown). She was so impressed that she made him her official piper. In fact, the Duchess was so fond of Jimmy’s playing, she procured special pipes for him from Edinburgh that were made of ivory and decorated with silver chains. He played on these pipes at the coronation of King George III. The Chamberlain of Alnwick appointed Jimmy to the prestigious position of the town waits (musician). But he was soon fired from that post and from his job at King George’s castle when he committed theft. Jimmy Allan was married three times during his lifetime and two of those marriages were simultaneously, which made Jimmy a bigamist. Jimmy also enlisted in the army only to subsequently desert several times. In 1803, in Gateshead, he was convicted again of theft for stealing a horse and was sentenced to death. King George stayed his execution and remanded him to live on Botany Bay, which was a penal colony in Australia. But before he could be moved to Australia, he died in the Durham’s House of Corrections beneath the Elvet Bridge on November 13, 1810. His body was buried in St. Nicolas’s churchyard in Durham City. Nine months before he died, there was a petition for his release that was presented to King George. However, the King was too sick to sign it. His son, the Prince Regent, signed the document after the King’s death, but it arrived four days after Jimmy Allan had died. His famous pipes were given to two gentlemen in North Shields. 

That was not the end of Jimmy the Gypsy Piper though. He would continue to play his infamous bagpipes in the afterlife and the living would hear them. Jimmy favors the Elvet Bridge and many times people have reported hearing the haunting sounds of a bagpipe from underneath and around the Elvet Bridge.

Ceddesfeld (Seddes feld) Hall

Sedgefield is a historic market town and civil parish in County Durham. This was a hunting center during the 1800s. The first parsonage in Sedgefield was built in 1791. It was headed by Reverend John Gamage. One of the parsons of Sedgefield died unexpectedly one week before the Parson's tithe was due. This was a tax consisting of one tenth ‘tithe’ of a crop, a herd, or the harvest from a woodland. As time went on, cash payments replaced actual crops. His wife was dismayed because they really needed the money, so she hatched a morbid plan. She made a pickling solution from brine and brandy and she put his body in it to pickle him, thus preserving his body and delaying decomposition. Then she propped him up in the Parsonage window, so that passers-by would still think he was alive and bring their tithe. After she had collected all the tithes on his behalf, she announced that the parson had died. The pickled parson wasn't happy about his wife's deception and strange ghostly things started happening at the rectory. For almost 50 years the parson haunted the place until a major fire destroyed the building. Ceddesfeld Hall now sits on that spot. It was a new rectory for a time and is now a community center. 

The Pickled Parson's phantom is said to still haunt Sedgefield and roams the grounds between Ceddesfeld Hall and St. Edmunds Church.

Crook Hall & Gardens 

Crook Hall is the only open hall in County Durham. The main house is believed to have been built in 1217 and was known as the Manor of Sydgate. It is one of the oldest inhabited houses in the area. The house was granted to Peter del Croke not long after and the current name Crook Hall is in honor of him. John Copeland lived at the Hall from 1340 to 1372. From 1372 to 1657, it was owned by the Billingham family. Thomas Billingham piped water from a spring to the Hall in 1450. In 1615, Cuthbert Billingham cut off that water supply to the area and diverted it to his own mill but he was later forced to restore the pipes to the town. The current building mainly survives from the 14th century and represents three eras: The 14th century, the Jacobean Era and the Georgian Era. The Medieval Hall is the surviving section from the 14th century. The Mikletons built on an extension that is on the other side of the Screens Passage around 1657 during the Jacobean Era. The Hoppers built the main block in 1736 during the Georgian Era. The Manor House was built from sandstone and has a Welsh slate roof. The hall is 14th century sandstone and brick. The buildings on the property include two barns, a coach house, granary and farm house. There is the Main Hall and then the Great Hall that is sparsely furnished with just a table and chairs. Most doors to the hall have been closed in. The fireplace and minstrel's gallery remain. On one end of the table, there is a niche set into the wall. One opening from the Screens Passage leads to a narrow tunnel and the other side leads to a sitting room furnished with artifacts from the history of the Hall. A staircase leads to the minister’s gallery. An ancient set of stairs has been closed in so they appear to go up to the ceiling and stop. To get to the top floors there is a tower staircase. The gardens are constantly noted as being spectacular and contain a Secret Walled Garden, Shakespeare Gardens and maze. and sit across from the River Wear with a view of the Cathedral and encompass four acres. Reverend Hopper Williamson leased the property from 1834 to 1858 and the poet William Wordsworth visited the house often when Williamson lived there. 

The Fowler’s owned the house starting in 1859. They lost the property in the 1920s during the Great Depression. The halls fell into disrepair at this time, but in 1979, the Hawgood family moved to Crook Hall and restored the home and grounds. They lived there until 1995. 

At that time, Keith and Maggie Bell purchased Crook Hall  and they still own the property. They realized that it cost a lot of money to maintain the property and they opened it to the public creating special areas like the Tea Room. Crook Hall has been fully restored. The Hall is open all year from Sunday through Wednesday. They have tours, afternoon teas in the gardens and are available for private events and weddings. They also have special events ranging from theatrics, Halloween festivities and traditional English Christmas. The property plays host to more than just the living. Several spirits are here, the most famous is, of course, the Lady in White. The White Lady at Crook Castle is said to be the niece of the tempestuous Cuthbert Billingham (the same one who cut off the water supply to the town). No one quite knows why she haunts the house but she is said to glide down the stairs and then disappear on St. Thomas Eve, December 20th. Christmas seems to be a favorite time for hauntings. One year, a feast was set out in the hall and there was a loud crash. Everything had been overturned or broken and a glimpse of the White Lady was seen as the guests went to see what had happened.The stairway that rises to the ceiling is a spot where she is seen running up quickly and then disappearing into the ceiling as well. She seems to be a residual haunting because she is silent and never talks to anyone, nor acknowledges anyone.

As mentioned earlier, there is a nook in the corner of the Medieval Hall. This nook is rumored to be haunted. A soldier was murdered here and the means by which he was killed was unusual. He was bricked into this nook. People feel cold spots near here or the rush of a cool breeze that seems to slip past them. The soldier's ghost likes to tap people on the shoulder.

Another bizarre haunting experience is the sound of disembodied footsteps on a stairway and what makes this really creepy is that the stairway no longer exists. The Bells were skeptical when they heard stories about their new home being haunted. They became believers when they heard those very footsteps themselves. Maggie Bell wrote on This is Durham, "Many visitors have also had strange experiences at Crook Hall – including one who saw children playing on the gallery an hour after the last child had left the premises. Another visitor rang from the coach he was traveling home on to report that he had seen an old man in bedclothes asleep in a chair before he left. Other people on his coach had also seen the man."

Is Durham County truly one of the more haunted areas in the UK? These various locations and experiences make that premise seem to be true. Does the Gypsy Piper still play his bagpipes in death? Is Durham Castle haunted? Is the beautiful Crook Hall hosting spirits from the past? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 656 - Haunted Beaufort County, South Carolina

Moment in Oddity - The Chicken Church of Java (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

Gereja Ayam (guh RAY juh, I am), also known as the "Chicken Church," is a bizarre, bird-shaped structure nestled in the hills of Magelang (Mah guh long), Central Java, Indonesia. It was built in the 1990s by a Christian man named Daniel Alamsjah (Ah lams YAH), who claimed he received a divine dream instructing him to construct a holy house of prayer in the shape of a dove. Despite his original intentions, the massive concrete building ultimately resembled a giant chicken hen, earning the building its famous local nickname. Alamsjah (Ah lams YAH) designed the sanctuary to be fully inclusive for people of all faiths to pray, and he even operated a rehabilitation center on-site before financial troubles forced him to abandon the project in 2000. Left to decay in the jungle for years, the structure went viral online around 2015 due to its proximity to the famous Borobudur (burr-OH buh DOOR) Temple, which is the world's largest Buddhist temple. Since its inception, the dove inspired house of prayer, 'Chicken Church', has turned into a thriving tourist attraction. The structure is complete with underground prayer rooms, a view-point in the crown, and a cafe in the rear of the **cough** chicken. Churches congregate in all sorts of buildings, but a church that was designed to look like any type of bird, certainly is odd. 

Haunted Beaufort (BEW-fert) County, South Carolina

Beaufort County is a typical southern coastal area with old live oaks dripping with Spanish moss and antebellum architecture. The county incorporates 68 islands that include Port Royal Island, Fripp Island, St. Helena Island, Lady's Island, Parris Island and Hilton Head Island. These are part of the Sea Islands that stretch from South Carolina to upper Florida. Beaufort County sits in the heart of the Lowcountry and Gullah Geechee culture and Civil War sites and historic buildings are very much a part of the area and this has led to ghost stories. Join us for the history and hauntings of Beaufort County, South Carolina.  

Our listeners are probably familiar with many of the legends and superstitions of the South and the Gullah Geechee people. The Gullah Geechee are a distinct African American ethnic group living mostly along the coasts of the Carolinas and are descended from people brought over in the slave trade from West and Central Africa. They are best known today as the creators of sweetgrass baskets and they have their own distinct Creole language. Their burial customs have been adopted by others in the South, such as covering mirrors or turning them over when someone dies and at the grave, bottles and dishes are smashed to break the chain of death in the family. To protect themselves from evil spirits, the Gullah put folded newspaper inside their shoes because the spirit must read every word before they can control them. Same idea with a broom by the door. Evil spirits have to count the bristles before they can enter the home. General Southern folklore adheres to painting the underneath of a porch roof with haint blue and they sometimes include painting the trim and shutters the same. The South believes in opening a door after someone dies so that the spirit is set free. And speaking of doors, it is unlucky to open the back door for the first time entering a house because only the front door is protected from evil. 

The county seat of Beaufort County is Beaufort, which is part of the largest municipality in the county, Hilton Head Island. The city actually sits on Port Royal Island and was chartered in 1711, making it the second oldest city in South Carolina, right behind Charleston. 

But long before that, there were several small indigenous tribes in the future Beaufort County, the Coosaw, Yamasee, Orista, Escamaçu, Edisto, Wimbee, and Kussoh. Spanish Captain Pedro de Salazar explored the area between 1514 and 1516, and both the Spanish and French would found settlements, Santa Elena and Port Royal Sound, during the 16th century. But these failed. The British would have better success with the city of Beaufort. They named it for Henry Somerset, 2nd Duke of Beaufort. Ship building would be a main industry with slavery running a close second. Ironically, the Union would occupy Beaufort during the Civil War and it would become a haven for runaway slaves. Beaufort is now a popular tourist spot as it is surrounded by natural beauty. The islands here all have their own legends and ghost stories and we are going to touch on a few of them.  

Hilton Head Island

The island was first sited over 350 years ago by William Hilton. When he landed, he found the Yemassee tribe here, which had migrated from Florida. He also found these mysterious shell rings that no one has ever been able to figure out the significance of. These rings measure up to 240 feet across and as much as 9 feet high. 

John Bayley was granted several of the islands here and they were called Bayley's Barony, with the future Hilton Head being named Trench's Island. Alexander Trench collected the land lease fees and was a property agent for Bayley. John Barnwell was the first settler to come in 1717 and he established a plantation. Another planter named William Elliott arrived in 1790 and he established Sea Island cotton, which produced record crops. Many more settlers would come and they would build the Zion Chapel of Ease and Cemetery. On November 7, 1861, the Island became the scene of the largest amphibious landing by U.S forces until D-Day. The Union landed with more than 12,000 soldiers and they captured both Fort Beauregard on St. Philips Island and Fort Walker on Hilton Head Island. After this, formerly enslaved people were granted land and they built a small self-governing town that attempted to grow the Sea Cotton. Unfortunately, the boll weevil would destroy the crops and Hilton Head was mainly abandoned for a long time. The 1950s would bring tourism and the first resort was built and in 1983, Hilton Head Island was incorporated as a town.  

Zion Chapel of Ease

The chapel that used to be here no longer remains, but its churchyard is still here and features the Baynard Mausoleum. The chapel was built in 1786 and was connected to the Episcopal St. Luke's Parish. It was tough for islanders to get to the church and so these Chapels of Ease were built to give congregants a local place to worship. 

There are four Revolutionary War patriots buried within the cemetery. Charles Davant is one of them and he was killed near the chapel in 1781 by Captain Martinangel’s Royalist militia. Davant had been a planter and he was the only military casualty for Hilton Head Island during the war. After being shot during a patrol, he managed to ride his horse back to his plantation, known as Two Oaks, where he died from his wounds. The Captain would get payback when the Bloody Legion assassinated him near Christmas in 1781 while he lay sick in his bed. The chapel’s first permanent priest was Reverend Philip Mathews who arrived in 1811 and served as the St. Luke’s Parish rector until 1828. Union troops occupied the chapel in 1862 and by 1868, nothing of the Zion Chapel of Ease remained other than its cemetery. The cemetery contains thirty-four markers, including the Baynard Mausoleum, and two cast-iron fences. Many of the markers are marble tympanum headstones with a willow and urn design and some of these gravesites also include a footstone. Five of the gravestones within the cemetery are marked by the carver’s name or initials. Three of these stones were carved by members of the White and Walker families, who were prevalent stone carvers in Charleston from the 1790s to the 1870s.

Baynard Mausoleum

The Baynard Mausoleum was built for the family of William E. Baynard in 1846. This is the oldest remaining structure on Hilton Head Island. Baynard was born on Edisto Island in 1800 and inherited Spanish Wells Plantation from his father and he purchased Muddy Creek from his uncle's estate. He did really well with planting Sea Island Cotton. 

William married Catherine Scott and they had eight children. He died in 1849 at what is today called the Baynard Ruins, but had been the Braddock's Point House. How he came to own this property is a matter of legend. The house had been built by James Stoney in 1793 from tabby and was once a grand antebellum plantation overlooking the Calibogue Sound. Braddock's Point Plantation had been in the Stoney family for four generations. Stoney challenged Baynard to a high stakes poker game and he ended up betting the title to Braddock's Point. He lost the hand to Baynard, who became even wealthier with this new property. Baynard was only 49 when he passed. His funeral was at Zion Chapel of Ease and the funeral procession featured a black-draped wagon-hearse followed by Baynard's formal black carriage and other carriages carrying family and friends. It was the most impressive funeral cortege ever assembled on the island. Catherine followed him five years later, she was only 42. She had actually been five months pregnant when William passed. Neither of the Baynards are still in the mausoleum as vandals broke through the once beautiful marble doors and threw the caskets into the marsh. That procession has fed into ghost stories. Islanders claim to still see a shadowy procession making the same long winding trip to the cemetery on some nights, particularly when stormy and foggy.

The Blue Lady of Hilton Head Island  

The lighthouse on Hilton Head Island isn't a beautiful work of architecture. It is a 95-foot skeletal iron tower. The lighthouse is known as both the Leamington Lighthouse and the Hilton Head Island Rear Range Lighthouse and was completed in 1880. This is one of only a few surviving lighthouses in the state. The site still has the vintage brick oil house and a water cistern. 

Adam Fripp was the lighthouse keeper in 1898 when a devastating hurricane hit the island. On August 31st, this second hurricane of the 1898 season hit the southern end of Hilton Head Island. Port Royal received over 10 inches of rain and Savannah was heavily damaged. Fripp dedicated himself to keeping the light going, but it proved too much for him and he had a heart attack. His daughter Caroline was with him and she managed to get him to the lighthouse keeper's cottage. She then took on the job of keeping the light going, while also running back to the house to check on her father. He didn't make it and Caroline was left heartbroken. Some stories claim she died of exhaustion a few days later. Another story says she fell over the railing of the lighthouse in the storm. Website after website and even the New York Post claim that on rainy, windy nights, Caroline can be seen wandering the grounds of the original lighthouse complex wearing the same blue dress she died in. So she is known as The Blue Lady. The light keeper's quarters were moved to Harbour Town in the 1960's and stories claim the Blue Lady haunts this location too. The only probelm is, we couldn't find a lighthouse keeper named Fripp. And that's a famous name in the islands as there is a Fripp Island. Paul Schwarzer was the lighthouse keeper from 1891 to 1905. So he didn't die during the hurricane - which we made sure actually happened. So who is this Blue Lady? We'll never know.

St. Helena Island

Like Hilton Head, St. Helena Island was claimed by the Spanish, colonized by the French, reclaimed by the Spanish, and then Britain occupied the island until the American Revolution. The Union victory at the Battle of Port Royal enabled freed slaves to take over land abandoned by white landowners. 

In 1862, abolitionists provided donations to set up the first school for blacks in the Southern United States and this became Penn School, which grew into a 50-acre campus with multiple buildings and in the 1960s, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. made several visits to the campus and he composed his “I Have a Dream” speech while staying at one of the cottages onsite. the Penn Center is now part of the Reconstruction Era National Park. A welcome center and museum offers tours and exhibits. At the southern tip of the island is Land's End.

St. Helena Chapel of Ease

These are just ruins today. This was another Chapel of Ease in Beaufort County. It was built from tabby between 1742 and 1747 and served the members of the Parish Church of St. Helena. Most locals referred to the church as the White Church because the oyster shells and lime caused the structure to appear to glow white. 

On November 4th, 1861, Sunday services were interrupted when a messenger brought Captain William Oliver Perry Fripp news of the impending invasion of nearby Beaufort by Union troops. The planters left the area during the Civil War and the church was used by Northerners who came to help the freedmen and by 1868, Methodist freedmen were worshipping there. A forest fire in 1886 damaged most of the structure and it was abandoned. The chapel is said to host disembodied prayers and singing.

Fripp Mausoleum

The Fripp family were early colonists here and they had built and upkept the chapel. Their mausoleum still stands in the cemetery and contained the remains of Edgar Fripp and his wife Eliza. The mausoleum was built by Charleston stone-cutter W.T. White. 

Union soldiers broke open the mausoleum during the Civil War, looking for treasure. That door remained damaged for awhile and it was decided to brick up the entrance. And here we find a legend. Workmen started bricking up that entrance and returned the next day to finish and they found most of the bricks removed from the entrance and stacked up next to the mausoleum. They believed a ghost had down this and they left the job unfinished. The door remains only half-bricked up and the vault is now empty. A ghostly form of a woman wrapped in a white veil has been seen walking through the cemetery. She is sometimes seen carrying a child.

Lands End Light

As one drives out to Land's End, heading towards Fort Fremont, one will pass the hanging tree. Stories claim that runaway slaves were lynched on this tree to serve as a warning for any slaves thinking they might try to escape. 

Some people have claimed to see something strange when they come out to the hanging tree at night. They park, turn off their headlights and then they see a light in the distance that looks like a flashlight beam or a lone headlight. As this light gets closer, it gets larger and larger, but seems to get dimmer. If it speeds by, it leaves the witnesses feeling a burst of static electricity. This phenomenon is said to be reliable and appears almost nightly. No one knows the cause, but there are those that think its an optical illusion caused by cars down the road. A legend does claim a school bus slammed into the hanging tree killing several children, but there is no documentation for that. Others claim the light is caused by the souls of the slaves hanged from the tree. The Land's End Light has been responsible for a couple of deaths in the past when people have tried to chase down the light. 

Fripp Island

In the 17th century, King Charles deeded the island to Captain Johannes Fripp and so the island was named for him. He had defended Beaufort from the Spanish and the French. The Fripp family established Sea Cotton plantations before the Civil War. 

In 1854, severe storms and ocean breaches split the original landmass into three separate islands: Fripp, Pritchard’s, and Capers. By the 1820s, the island was primarily used as a private hunting and fishing preserve. In 1960, developer Jack Kilgore discovered the isolated land and planned a private island community and it now is a spot where tourists like to vacation. There are many legends connected to this island as pirates liked the secluded nature of the island and its tidal creeks. 

The Lovers of Fripp Island Beach

This legend is connected to Blackbeard. He had managed to orchestrate a blockade of Charleston for a week in the spring of 1718. Several townspeople were taken hostage, as were people from plundered ships in Charleston Harbor. 

One of these ships was the Crowley and aboard that ship was a beautiful young woman. Blackbeard was captivated by her and he took away with him to Fripp Island. Blackbeard tried to whoo her, but she wasn't interested. She told him that she loved another and was betrothed to this other man. This angered Blackbeard and he sent some of his men to kill the man, with orders to bring back his hand. The hand was presented to the girl and she was so distraught that she threw herself into the sea and drowned. On the nights of full moons, two figures can be seen frolicking on the beach together and people believe that these are the lovers reunited in the afterlife. 

Port Royal Island

The sound was named Port Royal in 1562 by the French Huguenot Jean Ribault (Ree bo). He established Charlesfort just to the south of Port Royal Island and left 30 men there. That didn't last long as the settlers killed their leader and returned to Europe the following year. 

The Spanish occupied and in 1670, the British laid claim to Carolina. They were out with the Revolution and during the Civil War, Port Royal was used as a Union coaling and repair station after the Union won the Battle of Port Royal. The city of Beaufort is on this island. The island is mostly agricultural today. There are plenty of things for tourists though too with restaurants and shopping and iconic movie locations for films like Forrest Gump, G.I. Jane, The Big Chill, The Fugitive, Forces of Nature and The Prince of Tides.

Old Beaufort Arsenal 

The city’s Visitor Center is housed in the old Beaufort Arsenal, built in 1798. The building was designed by Colonel Thomas Tailbird and constructed from tabby-and-brick and painted yellow. Many visitors ask about the re-enactor seen passing through the gate. The staff have to explain that they don't do re-enactments. Apparently there is a leftover soldier from the Civil War who likes to nod to visitors before disappearing. 

Haunted House at 810 Ribaut (Ree bo) Road

This was shared by the Beaufort District Collection from a woman named Cora Newcomb in January of 2007, "One thing you may find interesting about the house [810 Ribaut (Ree bo) Road] – we thought the house was haunted. Not a bad ghost. None of our animals liked to go up the stairs. Our dog would not go up the stairs unless we were at the other end telling him it was okay. Even if they did go up the stairs, they would go around the edge, they would not go not go straight up the stairs. So this made us think there must be ghost in the house because the dog could obviously get up the stairs easily, but he just wouldn’t do it unless we said it was okay. Sometimes right in the middle of the stairs, it would be kind of cold. So we thought it was a ghost. Usually people who have ghosts in their houses say that when they are packing up to move or are doing something that is disruptive to the ghost, that is when they will show themselves. So, we were packing up all our belongings to move and one night I was walking down the hallway on the second story to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night when there appeared to be kind of white, misty shape in the hallway. I really wasn’t paying that much attention to it because I was half asleep, but I noticed it and I walked through it and after I walked through it and was in the bathroom, I was like, 'Did I just see a ghost?' It was definitely something misty and white in that hallway." 

Joseph Johnson House or The Castle

The Castle is one of Beaufort's most celebrated historic homes. The home was built in 1859 by Dr. Joseph F. Johnson and constructed from brick and covered in a faded plaster. There are seventy-nine windows so this home had a lot of light and ventilation. 

The style is Greek Revival and Italian Renaissance with six massive columns along the front veranda. The interior had twenty-three rooms and eight fireplaces. The nickname "The Castle" comes from the fact that the Beaufort River flows alongside the property, creating a moat effect. The Johnson family moved into the house in 1861 when it was still incomplete as the Civil War was under way and decorative features were blocked by the Union. The Union used the house as a headquarters and military hospital with the summer kitchen being utilized as a morgue. There is a really weird legend connected to The Castle about a dwarf named Gauche (gowsh). His spirit is said to wander the property. The backstory is that he arrived with Jean Ribaut (Ree bo) and his Huguenots in 1562. He apparently had been a court jester seeking a new life. His life ended here from either brawling with other colonists or he died of disease. However, the Danner family said that the restless spirit of Gauche (gowsh) himself had told them that he was killed with a pike in a fracas near the Danner’s home, which was The Castle. Lily Danner was the daughter of Dr. Johnson and she had inherited the house. Gardeners claimed to see the spirit and Dr. Johnson himself saw this short statured person walking outside the home. Lily Danner reportedly saw the ghost of Gauche many times when she was a child. She said he would join her at tea parties that she held for her dolls in the basement. The spirit was described as being dresses in colorful jester’s garb. The ghost tapped out coded messages in 16th-Century French and, according Lily " … always swears and uses words the same way. He has no opinion of anyone. He called one of the family members a hellion one night." 

House guests have reported that Gauche (gowsh) is somewhat of a poltergeist, moving furniture and opening and closing doors at night. Mysterious bells are also heard. It is also legend that Gauche leaves his red hand prints on the windows of the home. The Danners had to find someone who could translate Gauche’s archaic French so they could communicate with the ghost.

The Beaufort District Collection shared, "In a June 1940 interview in Harper’s Bazaar magazine, however, a 'Mrs. Danner' (no first name given) attested that Gauche himself was never really visible, but that it was 'only by table tipping that we find him. Whoever taps, it’s always the same person who answers.' The ghost taps out coded messages in 16th-Century French and, according to Mrs. Danner, '...always swears and uses words the same way. He has no opinion of anyone. He called one of the family a hellion one night. She never listened in after that.' Mrs. Danner’s brother called Gauche 'a rough little customer.' The Danners had trouble understanding Gauche at first. Only by writing down the tapping code and finding someone who could translate Gauche’s archaic French could they eventually communicate with the ghost. In Tales of Beaufort, Nell S. Graydon told of how Gauche spoke out (in English) to a Castle house guest one stormy evening. Here is a transcript of that conversation:

GAUCHE: This is Gauche.
GUEST: What are you doing here?
GAUCHE: I live here — in the cellar.
GUEST: Why?
GAUCHE: It reminds me of my English home that I will never enter again.
GUEST: Will you let me see you?
GAUCHE: No, I do not show myself to fools."

The home stayed with the Johnson lineage until 1981. Then I found these stories. In 1969, according to a Beaufort Gazette newspaper article, "At 6:00 p. m., November 8, 1969, Mrs. Howard Danner of East Street opened her oven to remove the roast her maid had placed there that afternoon. The oven was empty, and there was no trace of the roast anywhere in the kitchen! Mrs. Danner had just taken the maid home and had left the house door unlocked for that short time. According to the report of Beaufort city police officer G. D. Smith, 'Either a very hungry person entered the house while Mrs. Danner was gone or it may be surmised that the ‘Ghost of the Danner House’ (that is, Gauche, the Huguenot Ghost) became hungry and absconded with the practically cooked roast, being unable to withstand the temptation and waiting for it to cook.' The roast thief — spectral or human — struck again the following night at the 707 North Street home of Mrs. Isiah Thomas. Mrs. Thomas, unlike Mrs. Danner, had taken the precaution of locking her door leaving her roast unattended. When she returned from a visit with nearby relatives, her supper was missing, too! L. H. Martin, the police officer reporting this incident, wrote, 'when (Mr. and Mrs. Thomas) returned hungry and ready to feast on the roast, the roast was gone.' There had been no evidence of forced entry." 

Wigg-Barnwell House

The house was built for Sarah Reeves Gibbes as a wedding gift in 1816 by her brothers. She married William Wigg Barnwell and thus the name. Philadelphia artisans designed the three-story square house that features a two-story veranda on the front with slender classical columns. 

Sarah was the great-granddaughter of Tuscarora Jack Barnwell who was the leader of the bloody 1711-1712 expedition against the Tuscarora Indians of North Carolina. And yes, that last name means she was a cousin of her husband. During the Civil War, this was a hospital and so people have seen the ghosts of soldiers outside the house and the interior features strange noises. There is also a story that the home was apartments for awhile and a young woman was murdered inside and her ghost still hangs out here. We couldn't find any evidence of a murder. 

John Mark Verdier (vair dyay) House 

The house was built by John Mark Verdier (vair dyay) in the 1804 and is also known as the Lafayette Building. He was a wealthy planter and he enjoyed entertaining the town. The interior of this house had a new style to us. It's called Adam style and was named for Scottish architect brothers Robert and James Adam. 

This is a neoclassical style with a single uniform scheme and simplified the rococo and baroque styles. The Adam style in this house was modified with a center hall and a drawing room on the right and dining room on the left. There were two additional rooms behind this and a divided stairway leads to the second floor that had a large ballroom. That ballroom eventually had the first telephone installed in Beaufort. The mantels were carved with allegorical figures, sheaves of wheat and fruit and flowers. During the Civil War, it was used as a headquarters. Verdier died at the age of 71 in 1857. Heirs of Verdier owned the home until 1940 when it was bought by a committee for the Preservation of the Lafayette Building. That committee founded the Historic Beaufort Foundation in 1967 and they use it as their headquarters. People can tour it as it is also a museum. Staff and visitors report ghostly sounds of ringing phones, cold chills and objects move about on their own. Ghost lore claims that Verdier's son died in a violent duel and that he haunts the house as well. The Beaufort District Collection Connections found a letter from a woman named Claudia Stuart who wrote her brother of this duel that was held near Beauifort at Pigeon Point. She wrote, "A very tragical affair came off there last week. John Verdier the son of old Mr. John Verdier whipped on one of George Cuthbert’s negroes, and sent by him a very impudent message to his master. George went over to Verdiers place and had a fisticuff, in which Verdier was worsted. A few days after he sent to George Cuthbert and dared him to meet him, armed at Pigeon’s Point. G.C.  went there with a double barrel gun and a pair of pistols. J. V. advanced with his pistol aimed at G.C. who told him that if he/Verdier/advanced another step, he would shoot him with his gun. Verdier continued to advance and G.C. shot him in the leg; he fled but immediately aimed at George again who shot him a second time in the body. Verdier is now lying in an almost hopeless state. Upon examining his pistol it was found not even loaded. What could have possessed him, who can tell!"

The Sea Islands are beautiful and full of history. Beaufort County is just a small section of these islands and clearly seems to have some strange things going on there. Are these places in Beaufort County haunted? That is for you to decide!