Moment in Oddity - The Tower House (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)
The Tower House Sanctuary in Saugerties, (saw ger teez) New York, stands as an extraordinary architectural anomaly, clashing with the traditional notions of home design through its whimsical, hand-sculpted layout. Crafted over fifteen years by late Muppets set designer John Kahn, the five-story circular tower lacks traditional flat surfaces, featuring continuously curved interior walls wrapped around a grand central column made from whole tree trunks. It is fundamentally unusual not just for its materials, which include a mix of stone, timber, slate, and copper—sought out and repurposed by the artist, but for its eccentric design choices. Including custom-engineered windows modeled after ship steering wheels, an exterior fifth-floor catwalk offering 365-degree forest views, and a master bathroom where the toilet sits on an elevated center stage facing a panoramic window view. Blending the boundary between a livable residence and a massive outdoor sculpture, this fanciful, fairy-tale fortress defies standard engineering norms to create a living space that feels entirely free of the rules of conventional architecture and it certainly is odd.
Mort's Cemetery Critters/Ghost Animals
On this episode, we are going to share several stories that feature ghost animals or what we are lovingly referring to as, Mort’s Cemetery Critters! We're digging up tales of animals that refuse to stay dead. We've got phantom dogs, spectral cats, haunting horses, ghostly chickens and even undead camels. We often wonder if animals are more than just physical beings. Do they have a soul like we do and can they go on after death? Try not to get eaten, or pecked, or licked to death by something that's been dead for 20, 50 or 100 years as we share these stories of ghost animals.
Mort: Frankly, I have enough trouble keeping the two-legged variety in their graves. The four-legged ones are just showing off. And let me remind everyone that I work in a cemetery, not a petting zoo.
There are numerous legends of the Old West and many of these are ghost stories. There are tales of dead gunslingers, sheriffs, bank robbers, gamblers and prostitutes whose spirits remain and haunt various locations dating back to the Old West. This is true of many of the animals of that time period as well. Here are three stories featuring ghost animals of the Old West. In April of 1860 an advertisement appeared in California requesting: “Young, skinny, wiry, fellows not over the age of 18, Must be expert riders, willing to risk death daily. Orphans preferred.” This was the beginning of the Pony Express. Mail before this time traveled West by wagons and stagecoach because the railroads and telegraph lines stopped at St. Joseph, Missouri. The trip could take months for the mail to be delivered. Sometimes the mail never did arrive. A new system was needed and the Pony Express was the answer. As the ad highlights, riding for the Pony Express was dangerous. The terrain was rough and there was always a danger of severe weather or Native American attacks.
One hundred and eighty-three men were hired as riders. Most of them were in their twenties and they all weighed under 125 pounds. They were paid 25 dollars a week to ride 75 to 100 miles at which point another rider would take over. The switching of riders would take place at Pony Express stations run by Central Overland California and Pikes Peak Express.
One hundred of these stations dotted the Pony Express Route, which ran 2,000 miles from St Joseph, Missouri to Sacramento, California. The company bought 400 horses for the riders to use. The horses consisted of Morgans, thoroughbreds, pintos and mustangs and they were saddled with lightweight saddles. Each horse would carry around 165 pounds and travel at 10 miles per hour. That weight included the rider, a special saddlebag called a mochilla that could hold 20 pounds of mail and was padlocked, a water sack and the rider's revolver. A rider would travel from one station to the next and trade out horses. The Pony Express ran for 18 months and 35,000 pieces of mail were carried for 650,000 miles. Only one sack of mail was lost. One of the Pony Express stops was located five miles northeast of Hanover, Kansas. It still stands today and is named Hollenberg Station. It was built along Cottonwood Creek in 1857 by Gerat H. Hollenberg. The station had six rooms and he set it up as a tavern, grocery store and unofficial post office. When it became a Pony Express station three years later, it was the largest stop along the route. When the Pony Express shut down after the telegraph bankrupted it, most of the stations fell into disrepair. The townspeople of Hanover decided to save their station and it is now located on a state historical park and operates as a museum and visitor’s center.
But this does not seem to be the end of the Pony Express run for riders or for the horses. Visitors and staff members claim to see disembodied riders and horses making their way along the former route. One rider still has the arrows in his back and is seen lying on the floor bleeding and in agony. Strange sounds are heard and cold spots are felt at the station. But the most prominent supernatural occurrence that has been heard time and time again is the sound of pounding hooves, followed by the call of the riders for their horses.
Then there is the legend of Stampede Mesa. There was a cattleman named Sawyer who was driving 1000 head of cattle through Crosby County Texas. He was taking the herd to the railway in Kansas. In order to get there, he had to cross over another man's land, a man who was not pleased to have a huge herd of cattle coming through his property. To make matters worse, the man had his own cattle and soon, several of Sawyer's mavericks were mixed in with the other man's cattle. A storm was cresting on the horizon and Sawyer knew he needed to get his herd to a safe place, but the man insisted that he get the cattle separated properly. Sawyer said he would take care of it the next day. The man was enraged and informed Sawyer that he would stampede the herd. Sawyer responded by pulling his gun and telling the man to run or he was dead. The man walked away and Sawyer drove the herd over to a mesa top that had water and grass. He stationed two of his men to guard the herd through the night. The angry landowner was not done with Sawyer and he slipped passed the guards. He got behind the herd and pulled out a blanket and a gun. He waved the blanket while shouting, then shot his gun into the air. The herd stampeded in terror and ran off the mesa edge. Seven hundred of the thousand cattle fell to their deaths. Sawyer rounded up the rest of the cattle and then went with his men to get the landowner.
They captured the man and blindfolded him. They grabbed one of his horses and brought them both to the top of the mesa. They loaded the man onto his horse and drove them both over the edge, just as the cattle had been driven over the edge. The mesa was called Stampede Mesa after that time.
Barbed wire would stop cattle drives from crossing over property in the future. A forest ranger from Texas wrote a song about the legend in 1948. The song details a cowboy in Hell doomed to chase the Devil’s cattle for eternity. Fifty performers have recorded the song, putting their own twist on it. We know it mainly today as "Ghost Riders in the Sky." And it inspired the Doors to write "Riders in the Storm." Cattlemen who have taken their herds to Stampede Mesa, which is located eighteen miles southeast of Crosbyton in Blanco Canyon, claim that their cows stampede in a panic without reason. People claim that when a storm gathers over the mesa, the ghost of the landowner is seen. He is blindfolded on horseback and chasing a phantom herd of cattle across the sky. The sound of a stampeding herd is heard often and the earth feels as though it is rumbling.
The third story features camels in the Old West. Henry Wayne was the Quartermaster Major in 1848 and he suggested to the War Department that they start using camels for military purposes. They were great pack animals that could endure harsh conditions on the frontier. Camels could carry twice the weight of what horses and mules could carry.
Two years later, Secretary of War and Mississippi Senator, Jefferson Davis, tried to persuade the Senate to look into the use of camels for the U.S. Army. They initially voted the idea down. Eventually, in 1854, the Senate passed a bill to appropriate $30,000 for an experiment using camels. Seventy-two camels were brought into the country in 1857 and they were moved out into the southwest where they carried supplies. Things were fine at first, but soon the soldiers were tired of dealing with the animals. The camels proved to be temperamental, they scared the horses and they wandered off at night. By the time the Civil War broke out, camels were falling out of use and most had been auctioned off or set loose in the desert. For years after that, people would see camels roaming in the desert, especially in southern Arizona. Along with these real sightings, a number of legends and tales began regarding these wild camels. The most popular is the tale of a camel known as the Red Ghost. A woman was found trampled to death with clumps of reddish fur next to her body in 1883. There were large hoof prints nearby too, but nobody could figure out what had happened to the woman. A few days later, a large beast burst into the tent of two miners. They didn't see the creature, but reddish fur and large hoof prints were left behind. People eventually realized that there was a camel on the loose in their area. One day, a man saw the camel running through a ravine and he could have sworn that it carried a man on its back. The rider appeared to be dead. Prospectors saw the camel too and noticed that something fell off its back. They found a human skull on the ground. People started calling the camel "Red Ghost,” and it continued carrying its headless rider.
A farmer managed to kill the camel in 1893 and while it still carried a saddle, the dead man who had been on his back was gone now. Legend claims the rider had been a timid soldier who had been tied to the beast's back to get him to learn how to ride it and that the camel took off and the soldier being unable to free himself, had died of exposure on the animal.
By the early 1900s, the Camel Corps were almost completely gone. In April 1934, the Oakland Tribune reported: "The Last American Camel Is Dead.” That camel was known as "Topsy” and after she trekked across the desert of Arizona into California, she was taken to Griffith Park to live. She later became crippled and the zoo keepers were forced to put her down. But camels went on to still be seen in the desert. Only these camels, were no longer alive. One of these ghost camels belonged to a prospector named Jake. He hit it big brought his camels into town, laden with gold. He sold his ore and headed to the saloon. Jake was careful not to give away where his strike was, but a man named Paul Adams followed him back to the spot. Adams murdered Jake while he slept and then one of the camels went mad and attacked him. Adams was nearly killed, but he managed to get his gun back and aimed it at the camel. The camel bit him viciously and Adams fired. The camel dropped dead. Later, Adams tried to find the mine. Jake had fooled him by camping in a different spot. Adams came running into town one night, terrified. He screamed to anyone who would listen to him that he saw a ghostly Jake riding the spirit camel and that they had come after him. Of course, once he had said that, he knew he was in trouble. Everyone wondered how Jake and the camel could be ghosts. Jake and his brave camel are said to still roam the desert.
Dogs can be pretty protective animals and death does not necessarily change this fact. A woman named Kathleen knows this to be true. In the 1960s, Kathleen's mother was a single mother struggling to raise five kids. The family needed an affordable place to live and they found the perfect place in the form of a rundown farmhouse in British Columbia.
The history behind the house was that it had been owned by a Japanese family, but they lost it during the war when they were sent to an internment camp. The only drawback to the house was its proximity to an asylum for the criminally insane. Kathleen was twelve when they moved into the house and she and her siblings worried that someone would escape and come attack them at the house. One day, a beautiful white dog came up the road of the property. The dog's white coat was whiter than white. Impossibly white and clean is what Kathleen thought. The family already had a dog, but the children were excited to have this friendly visitor and they hoped to keep the dog. It acted somewhat odd. When the children tried to touch it, it would back away. Almost as though it were afraid to be touched. It was inquisitive and did not run away, but it never let anyone touch it. There was a collar and tag around its neck, but no one could get close enough to read it. The kids decided to leave some water and food on the porch for the white dog since it had decided to hang around. Kathleen sat up watching television alone and eventually fell asleep on the couch. She was awakened at 2am by the barking of the family dog. It was barking very loudly. The white dog was still on the front porch and Kathleen heard it give off a deep guttural growl. Kathleen began to walk to the door to see what was wrong with the dog. She was immediately struck with fear when a large shadow fell across the front door window. She at first thought it was her own shadow, but when she moved her head, the shadow's head did not move. The moon was full and made it hard for her to see, but she knew that some strange man must be at the door. He loomed much larger than the door.
Kathleen was struck by a fear she had never known before. And what made her blood run cold was the realization that whoever was at the door could probably see her perfectly. She was frozen to her spot. She could still hear the white dog growling outside and then she heard it start barking in a ferocious manner. She could hear the dog jump forward and the shadow of the man moved abruptly.
Kathleen ran to her mother's room and pushed aside the curtains so that she could see into the front yard. She could see the dark figure running up the walk with the white dog chasing after him. It glowed white in the moonlight.The next morning, the white dog was nowhere to be found. Kathleen searched the property and beyond, but found no trace of it. None of the neighbors owned such a dog and none of them had seen the pup. And it never returned to the house. She also noticed that it had not touched the food and water they had left out for it. It was gone as quickly as it came. Her mother remarked that the dog must have been sent by God to protect them. The family never found out who the stranger at the door was and they assumed that the white dog was either an angel or a protective ghost.
Pond Square is located on the site of a former pond in Highgate Village in London. That pond was filled in in 1864. Pond Square is within walking distance of Highgate Cemetery and the most popular pub in Highgate, The Flask, borders the square. The trees are ancient and towering and the landscaping is lush. No one would ever expect this to be home to the ghost...of a chicken!
Sir Francis Bacon was born on January 22, 1561 in London, England and would go on to become a lawyer, statesman, philosopher and scientist. Bacon is credited with being the father of empiricism because he argued for an empirical and inductive appraoch to experimentation. We know this today as the Scientific Method. Bacon eventually would go on to be knighted by King James I for his work. One of the areas of research he worked on is in the use of freezing to preserve meat. It would be this area of experimentation that would eventually kill Bacon. Chemical changes in foods like fruits, vegetables and meats causes the tissue to deteriorate and spoil. Lowering the temperature of food slows microorganism growth. In Bacon's time, scientists did not know about microscopic organisms, but they obviously understood that food spoiled over time. In April of 1626, Bacon was riding with the King's physician, Dr. Winterbourne, through the snow in Highgate. As they road along, the freezing temperature seemed to inspire Bacon to try an experiment. He reasoned that freezing flesh, might keep it from rotting and then the food could be thawed out and eaten. He asked to stop along the way so that the men could purchase a chicken. They found a peasant woman at the bottom of Highgate Hill and purchased the bird from her. The men slaughtered it and then plucked it. Bacon was just starting to stuff the chicken with snow, when the doctor pointed out that his fingers would be frozen by the snow and so some gloves were borrowed from the coachman.
According to a letter written to King James from Sir Francis Bacon, the experiment was a success. He noted the practicality of freezing in preserving food for warfare or famine. There was just one problem, Bacon had caught a horrible chill that made him terribly ill. He was taken to nearby Arundel House. He was placed in a damp bed that made his condition even worse.
He managed to write a letter to his absent host Lord Arundel and it read, "My very good Lord,—I was likely to have had the fortune of Caius Plinius the elder, who lost his life by trying an experiment about the burning of Mount Vesuvius; for I was also desirous to try an experiment or two touching the conservation and induration of bodies. As for the experiment itself, it succeeded excellently well; but in the journey between London and Highgate, I was taken with such a fit of casting as I know not whether it were the Stone, or some surfeit or cold, or indeed a touch of them all three. But when I came to your Lordship's House, I was not able to go back, and therefore was forced to take up my lodging here, where your housekeeper is very careful and diligent about me, which I assure myself your Lordship will not only pardon towards him, but think the better of him for it. For indeed your Lordship's House was happy to me, and I kiss your noble hands for the welcome which I am sure you give me to it. I know how unfit it is for me to write with any other hand than mine own, but by my troth my fingers are so disjointed with sickness that I cannot steadily hold a pen."
John Aubrey wrote of the event in his book Brief Lives, "The Snow so chilled him that he immediately fell so extremely ill, that he could not return to his Lodging ... but went to the Earle of Arundel's house at Highgate, where they put him into ... a damp bed that had not been layn-in ... which gave him such a cold that in 2 or 3 days as I remember Mr Hobbes told me, he died of Suffocation." That's right, Sir Francis Bacon died of pneumonia caused by his experiment. And this is where our ghost chicken comes into the story.
Ever since the death of Bacon, there have been frequent reports of a phantom white bird, generally resembling the look of a plucked chicken, appearing in Pond Square. The ghostly chicken then runs around the square in erratic circles, flapping its wings.One story is told about a man named Terence Long. The year was 1943, and he was crossing Pond Square late one night. He was suddenly startled by the sound of carriage wheels rumbling along near him and the beat of several horse hooves. It was as if a carriage was riding right past him, but he couldn't see it. Then there was a weird and very loud shriek. A ghostly chicken suddenly appeared before him and ran around the square before it vanished. A motorist had a car breakdown in the 1960s near the square. He got out to look under the engine when he spotted the apparition of the chicken flapping around the square. It disappeared shortly after he saw it. A couple was sitting in the square in the 1970s for a little make-out session when they were suddenly interrupted by something dropping down onto them and then landing on the ground. They realized it was a chicken and were terribly freaked out when the chicken disappeared.
There have not been many sightings in our more recent times. Was there really a ghostly chicken running around Pond Square for a few centuries? Isn't it ironic that the Scientific Method makes it hard to prove any kind of supernatural events and this ghostly chicken seems to have resulted from an experiment conducted by the father of the Scientific Method?
The Crescent Hotel had a resident cat named Morris and he was considered an important member of the staff. One can find Morris' grave in the garden area. There is a granite tombstone with an etching of a cat at the top that records his date of birth in 1973 and date of death in 1994. In the lobby of the hotel is a memorial plague with a tribute to Morris that reads, "In Memory of Morris, the Resident Cat at the Crescent Hotel. He filled his position exceedingly well. The General Manager title he wore, was printed right there on his own office door. He acted as greeter and sometimes as guide. Whatever his duties, he did them with pride. He chose his own hours and set his own pace. The guests were impressed with his manners and grace. Upstairs and down he kept everything nice. They might have had ghosts, but they never had mice. Due to the fact he was growing quite old, he'd doze by the fire when the weather got cold. His years were a dignified twenty and one, when at last he retired his nine lives were done. He filled his position exceedingly well, the Resident Cat at The Crescent Hotel." Based on the picture featured on the plaque, Morris was an orange tabby cat, but a woman named Laura from Kansas City, Missouri had an experience with a ghost cat at the Crescent Hotel in 2001 that was black in color. She went to the hotel with a group of college friends. They drove from Kansas City to Arkansas. She said, “I grew up an hour away from Eureka Springs, so I had been down to the Crescent Hotel several times. My high school boyfriend had an experience and freaked out and still will not go down there to this day. That was fifteen years ago.” When she told her college friends this, and they wanted to go, so they went down for a long weekend. They took Laura's dog Little Bear with them. He was a thirty-pound mutt about the size of a cocker spaniel, but looked like a Labrador.
As the group of college friends slept, the tags on Little Bear’s collar jingled, and she growled. She was a pretty easy going dog, so Laura was slightly alarmed. She looked toward the vanity where Little Bear was staring. “I saw a black cat sitting on it,” she said. “I saw her in the mirror, but she wasn’t sitting on the vanity. It was on the other side of the mirror.”
Laura rubbed her eyes, thinking she was seeing things. She was even more amazed by what she saw next. “The cat walked out of the mirror, jumped on the seat of the vanity, and walked through the wall. As the cat stepped out of the mirror, Little Bear started barking. My dog went nuts and woke up everyone else. That’s when I realized I didn’t dream it.” Unfortunately, none of Laura's friends woke up in time to see the ghost cat. Laura said, “They didn’t see it. I saw it, so I was the one who was terrified. I’ve been down there since, but I haven’t stayed there. Since this experience with the cat I decided I didn’t want to stay there again.” Most reports of a ghost cat at the hotel feature Morris. His unseen spirit has been felt winding his body through the legs of guests. Occasionally, guests claim to feel as though a cat has jumped onto a bed or their lap. His apparition has been seen padding down the hallways. Visitors claim to see him sitting in his favorite easy chair and he walks in the garden where he is buried as well.
A sad fact about our world is that there are many domesticated animals that have been left abandoned. Thousands of these animals are dogs. One of these stray dogs was named Brownie and he made Daytona Beach in Florida his home. He was so attached to that place that even after he died, his spirit has continued on there.
Brownie wandered into Daytona Beach in 1940. He wandered Beach Street for several days and finally picked a spot outside of the Daytona Cab Company to lay his head down at night. The owner of the cab company was Ed Budgen and he took Brownie under his wing. The friendship began with a shared sandwich. He built him a doghouse from cardboard that eventually was upgraded and expanded and Ed added a collection box to help with feeding and caring for the dog. Local business owners would share their scraps with Brownie as well and soon the city had basically adopted the animal. The police force also took Brownie in as an honorary officer. He would join them on their nightly rounds, accompanying them down dark alleys and sniffing out any trouble. It wasn't long before Brownie caught the attention of the entire country. National magazines and newspapers started writing stories about Daytona Beach's Dog and when tourists came to town, they would seek out Brownie so they could get a picture taken with him. At Christmas, Brownie would receive gifts and cards from all over the nation and Ed's wife Doris took to sending thank you cards along with a picture of Brownie after receiving the gifts. Unfortunately, as we all painfully know, the lives of dogs are far too brief and although Brownie had a long life for a large dog, he did pass away in 1954 from old age. A funeral was held and seventy-five people attended. Riverfront Park, which was across from the Daytona Cab Company provided a spot to lay Brownie to rest and his collection box had enough money to provide a headstone. It features the dates 1939 to 1954 and reads "A Good Dog" with a carving of Brownie's likeness in the granite. The entire nation mourned at his passing.
But this was not the end of Brownie's presence in Daytona Beach. His spirit seems to have continued on. Dusty Smith is the founder of Daytona Beach Psychical Research Group and he went to visit Brownie's grave. He gazed at the headstone and wondered aloud if people came to visit Brownie and if people brought him flowers or dog biscuits.
He decided to make it a point to visit the grave. He decided to head over to a bench one day and he invited Brownie to come sit with him. He soon felt a warmth sitting next to him on the bench. Some people ran up shortly after and Dusty felt the warmth slip away. he pulled out his camera and snapped a picture next to where he had been sitting and captured an orb that had the clear head of a dog within it. It seemed that Brownie joined him on the bench. The ghosts of dogs have been caught in many pictures. A retired Scotland Yard inspector named Arthur Springer was taking a photo at a tea party in 1916 and caught the blurry image of a dog standing next to a woman who was seated at a table and holding a cup of tea. In 1926, Lady Hehir was visiting a spot that had been a favorite for her two dogs, Tara and Kathal. Kathal was a Cairn Terrier and she had passed away six weeks earlier. A friend took a picture of Lady Hehir standing next to Tara who was a large Irish Wolfhound. When the picture was developed the head of Kathal was peering over the backside of Tara.
A boxer named Preston likes to go trick or treating. This is in the Belmont Hillsboro neighborhood in Nashville. The legend claims that Preston saved a child from being hit by a car when he went trick or treating with a group of children. Preston took the hit himself. His body was never found, but people claim to see his ghost around the neighborhood. Some people claim to feel something nudging them back toward the sidewalk if they get too close to the street.
A person on Reddit wrote, "I have a few actually. We had two dogs and two cats. One of our cats got sick, had a fever and decided he wanted to sleep in the bathtub. Probably because it was cool? Idk, but that's where he wanted to be for a weekend before I could take him to the vet. Sadly, he died in the car on the way to the vet. About a week after he died I was sitting in my office near the bathroom when I heard my dog bark. It was a happy bark like my husband was home. Suddenly both dogs and the other cat came running down the hallway and dove into the tub. They tore down the shower curtain but all 3 of them were in the tub. My dogs hate getting a bath. They have never willingly gone in the tub but they were happy and wagging. The only way I can explain it is that my cat came to say goodbye to his buddies and they were overjoyed to see him. Years later after the other cat died, I saw him and so did the dogs. I was watching TV when he ran by. It wasn't even shocking at first because that's just what he did when he had the zoomies so it didn't seem out of the ordinary until it hit me that the cat had died weeks ago. The dogs chased him into the kitchen so I know they saw him too. But of course when I went into the kitchen, all that was there was two dopey dogs. Last story might get long so I apologize in advance. My dad and stepmother had a mastiff. Dad had passed 5 years prior to stepmom. Stepmom was very depressed and wasn't taking care of things like she normally did. We found out she had cancer and she was placed in home hospice care. My sister called a "house call" vet to come see the dog. He could barely move and was in pitiful shape. The vet said that the dog had horrible hip displasia, a bad skin infection , and was in a lot of pain. We didn't want to tell stepmom, she was dealing with too much already. So the vet gave us meds to keep the dog comfortable until stepmom died. They were both in hospice care at the same time. The day after stepmom passed, the vet came back to put that poor dog out of his misery. The following day, we began the task of cleaning up the house to sell it. I washed the windows in the living room, ran the vacuum, just small things to keep busy. When my sister and I came back the next day, there was a giant paw print on the inside of one of the windows that I had just washed the day before. My sister razzed me "ya missed a spot" I laughed it off thinking she must be right. A few months later we had an estate sale at the house. I was in the back yard when a customer pulled up. She got out of her car and said "what a beautiful mastiff! What's it's name?" I was dumfounded. My sister asked "where did you see a dog?" The lady answered "laying on your front porch, cant miss it, it's huge!" When I went to look there was no dog there. My sister told the lady "oh, must have been the neighbor dog who decided to go home." But we both knew, he was there. So in answer to your question, yes, animals have souls, and do come back to visit."
WiseOldChicken on Reddit wrote, "When my black lab, Rudy, died, we had him cremated. When I went to pick up his ashes I decided to walk home. In the shop windows I noticed the reflection of a dog and it appeared to be following me. I stopped and turned around but there was no dog. As I turned to continue home I saw the reflection clearly in a glass window. It was Rudy."
SquishyGerbil wrote on Reddit, "I got another that is my mom's story. My grandma was dying and they had to get to her to say goodbye . We live in illinois she was in Wisconsin. My mom went to pick up her brother. While she was there his dog had a seizure and passed away. (Shit timing I know ). So they had to race to Wisconsin to say goodbye. When they got there my grandma was out of it. She asked my uncle why his dog was running around the hospital room and she was laughing. She didn't even know he had a dog or that the dog passed away. She just kept saying Steve your dog is running around the room ! And she passed like an hour or so after that."
Sir William Martyn built Athelhampton House in 1485. The family had an unusual pet, an ape. A chained ape was even featured on the family crest, paired with the motto: "If you look at Martin's ape, Martin's ape will look at you." A legend claims that a heartbroken daughter went into a secret room intending to end her life. The ape had followed her into the room and became trapped where it eventually passed away. Visitors to the house claim to hear the ape scratching at walls, and some have even seen him swinging from the ceiling.
