HGB Ep. 601 - Haunted Pretoria

(Suggested by Celia V.) Right off the bat, we do want to acknowledge that there is some controversy over the name of Pretoria. Many believe that it should be called Tshwane (pronounced: chwaaney), which is the main metropolitan municipality there. Tshwane is the Setswana word for the Apies (ah pees) Rives. 

Our listener Celia hails from South Africa and she wrote us about an experience she had at a historic museum located in the capital city of Pretoria. It's an awesome ghost story and we wondered if there were other haunted locations in Pretoria and sure enough, we found some! South Africa has only come up on the podcast one other time in all these years, so it was definitely time to revisit this country that has a history marked with turmoil because of apartheid and the ensuing massacres and uprisings and the struggle to transition to independence and Democracy. Ongoing challenges continue, but this is also a country of natural beauty in the landscape and its varied wildlife. The architecture is also diverse, represented with indigenous styles and contemporary styles, but also the historic styles of Victorian and Colonial. Join us for the history and hauntings of Pretoria, South Africa! 

Pretoria is the administrative capital of South Africa and was founded in 1855 by Marthinus Wessel Pretorius who named the town for his father, Andries Pretorius. His father had been a prominent figure in the Voortrekker (Fourtrekker) movement. Voortrekkers (Fourtrekker) wanted to form their own independent republics, free from Britain - just like America - and the settlers were mostly Dutch-speakers known as Boers or Afrikaaners. Boer is the Dutch and Afrikaans word for farmer. They migrated in large ox-wagon trains to the interior of the country. Marthinus bought two farms named Elandspoort and Koedoespoort and they became the foundation of Pretoria. The city straddles the Apies River making it an attractive spot for settlers. Pretoria became the capital of the South African Republic in May 1860. The conflict between Britain and the Boers would continue, culminating in the First Boer War, which began in 1880. Britain wanted to annex the Transvaal Republic and the Boer War was the resistance to this. The Republican forces, which were the Boer forces laid siege to the city of Pretoria in December 1880 and again in March 1881. Britain decided they no longer wanted to be bogged down in war, especially with it looking like they would need substantially more troops, so they called for a truce and a peace treaty was signed in August of 1881 known as the Pretoria Convention. 

There was a tentative peace for years, but then gold-bearing ore was found 30 miles outside of Pretoria and Britain was suddenly interested in imperialism in the region again. Despite throwing in the towel during the First Boer War with no hope of winning, Britain would again be at war with the Boers in 1899. There would be heavy casualties, but Britain would ultimately win this one as they went with Scorched Earth tactics that convinced native Africans to join forces with them if they wanted to eat. The Boers vowed to fight to the bitter end, but eventually did surrender in May of 1902 and they signed the Treaty of Vereeniging.  

The Union of South Africa was established in 1910 as the colonies of Orange River, Natal and Cape united with the Boer Republics of the ZAR. Pretoria became the administrative capital at that time. South Africa is a little different in that their three branches of government are not all in the same city and each has its own capital. Cape Town is the legislative capital and Bloemfontein is the judicial capital. On October 14, 1931, Pretoria achieved official city status. South Africa became a republic in 1961. In 1948, a system of racial segregation began in South Africa known as apartheid. People were classified in four groups: white, black, coloured and Indian. These groups were restricted in where they could live and where they could work and basic civil rights were denied to non-white groups. They didn't have the ability to be involved in government and couldn't vote and their access to healthcare and education was limited. Pass Laws required black South Africans to have passports for their own country, in order to get around. And really, we can't put it hat way - their country - because they weren't allowed to have South African citizenship. Leaders like Nelson Mandela were imprisoned. Blacks protested against the government and people around the world joined them. This would continue until 1994 when apartheid ended and everyone was allowed to vote and a democratic government was established. Nelson Mandela was elected as President. 

Erasmus Castle

Erasmus Castle is also known as "Die Spookhuis," (Dee spoke house) which translates to "The Haunted House." It doesn't look anything like a haunted house. The architecture is the Victorian stick-style with a grand entrance and distinctive tower and it's painted white with brown and green trim. There are also Art Nouveau, Edwardian and Neo-Gothic elements. The mansion was designed by Frans van der Ben and was built for Jochemus Johannes Petrus Erasmus and his wife Johanna. The Erasmus family was powerful and owned a lot of land. 

Construction began in 1892 and took until 1903 to be completed with the interior featuring Oregon pine floors. Heirs to the Erasmus property were compelled to sell to the Pretoria Municipality in the 1960s, but this fell through and the house was acquired by Armscor, which is the arms procurement agency for the South African Department of Defence. This is a private ownership, but they do offer public tours. The house has on display artifacts that were discovered in a cave on the property that are pre-colonial and even some turquoise beads from ancient Phoenicia dating to 2500 BC brought over by traders were also discovered in the cave.

There are spirits in the house. For a period of time, the house sat abandoned, but that didn't keep there from being reports of strange noises coming from the empty house. There were also lights on in the empty house at night. Disembodied footsteps have been heard and the apparition of a woman in Victorian dress, usually a nightgown, has been seen looking out a window or walking through the garden. People have also seen the spirit of  Jochemus Erasmus. People claim it is him moaning at night. The Erasmuses had a three-year-old child named Enslin who passed away in 1917. She was buried in the family cemetery on the property under a tombstone that reads "our little sunbeam." The ghost of a young girl has been seen in the house and it's believed this is Enslin.

Die Ou Raadsaal

Die Ou Raadsaal (Dee ow rrrod saul) translates to "The Old City Council." And indeed this is the former parliament house where the Old Boer Republics assemblies would meet. This is found in Church Square, which is bordered with magnificent architecture. Before his trial, Nelson Mandela made a three hour speech from the dock here proclaiming, "During my lifetime I have dedicated my life to this struggle of the African people. I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons will live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal for which I hope to live for and to see realised. But, my Lord, if it needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die." A statue of Paul Kruger is here as well. Kruger was a leader in the fight for South African independence and was elected president after the First Boer War and has become a tragic folk hero. He was re-elected president three more times, but would leave the country as it became obvious that Britain was going to win the Second Boer War. He spent the rest of his life in exile, dying in Switzerland. His body was returned to South Africa. A little fun fact: the Krugerrand gold bullion coin is named for him and has his likeness on it. And for many years, these coins would show up inside Salvation Army buckets across different cities in America. They've become a recurring tradition in some locations and they're worth thousands of dollars, so its a generous donation.

The building was designed by architect Sytze Wierda in the Renaissance Revival style. It stands three stories and features a Republican coat of arms in the second-floor pediment with the motto "Unity is Strength." The exterior is plastered brick painted to look like sandstone with a main tower with a statue of Minerva at the top. The interior has lavish stained glass windows and teak desks and Moroccan leather chairs. The building was finished in 1891 and had telephones added the following year. Electric lighting came in 1896. A paranormal phenomenon that occurs regularly in the building is the sighting of an orb of light in the main chamber.
  
Melrose House Museum

The Melrose House Museum was built in 1886 for Pretoria businessman George Jesse Heys. He named it for the Melrose Abbey in Scotland. This is a Victorian and Edwardian mansion designed by W.T. Vale that stands three-stories and features turrets, Dutch gables, stained-glass windows and other architectural details like gable capping and decorative plaster work. The house has a claim to fame that dates to the Second Boer War when Lord Roberts requisitioned it as the headquarters for the British forces after Pretoria was invaded in June 1900. Lord Kitchener continued to use it as a headquarters until the war came to an end and then on May 31, 1902 the Treaty of Vereeniging was signed on the dining room table of Melrose House. George Heys returned to his home after the war and later died in 1939, leaving the property to his family who later sold it in 1968 to the Municipality of Pretoria for use as a museum. The famous treaty table is still there and the house has been completely refurbished. 

And it apparently is haunted. The Phoenix Paranormal Team has investigated here and they got EVPs in the attic featuring someone speaking in an African language. There is a feeling of static electricity in the attic that makes people feel off balance. There is the smell of cigar smoke in the billiards room and there are disembodied footsteps heard. Some of the investigators have been pinched and pushed by something unseen. Mrs. Heys may be one of the spirits here and seems disgruntled that her morning room had been full of soldiers. Her apparition is seen closing the curtains and sitting in the room doing her needlework.

Sammy Marks Museum 

The Sammy Marks Museum is the location that was suggested to us by Celia and she sent us a very detailed email and she had an amazing paranormal experience there as a kid. First let's talk about the man for who this museum is named. Samuel Marks was born in Lithuania in 1844 and his parents eventually emigrated to England to escape the persecution of Jews in Russia. While in England, he heard about discoveries of diamonds in Kimberley, South Africa, which is the capital of the Northern Cape. Marks arrived in the Cape in 1869 and was followed shortly thereafter by his cousin Isaac Lewis. The two cousins formed the partnership of Lewis & Marks. Marks had brought a case of silver knives and he used those to peddle in the rural districts of the Cape. The partnership moved on to supplying miners and with more money, they were able to relocate to Kimberley to get involved in the diamond business. Celia shared this fun fact: The Kimberley Mine is the deepest hand-dug excavation in the world that can be seen from space. The diamond mines in Kimberley would develop innovative underground mining techniques and revealed that diamonds weren't just found in rivers, but also were deposited in volcanic pipes. In its lifetime, the Kimberley Big Hole Mine yielded almost 3 tons of diamonds and is also where the world's largest octahedral diamond was discovered.

The cousins found diamond trading to be very lucrative. The Lewis & Marks business interests expanded to a distillery, a canning factory and a glass factory. Marks was also a pioneer in using steam tractors in farming and he sponsored the establishing of flour-mills and brick and tile works. Sammy eventually moved to Pretoria in 1881 and he became friends with President Paul Kruger, a relationship that would would become very close and lasted their lifetimes. Marks suggestion to his friend that he build a railway line from Pretoria to Lourenço Marques (now Maputo) and this was completed in 1895 and provided a crucial trade route. One thing Sammy was good about was he kept his dealings neutral with both the Boers and the British. He even played a considerable part in the peace negotiations to cease the Anglo-Boer hostilities. After the war, he donated a cast-iron fountain to the city of Pretoria. It was shipped from Scotland in sections and can be seen today at the Pretoria Zoological Gardens. Sammy was also fluent in five languages.

In Pretoria, Marks bought the Zwartkoppies farm, which measured 1910 acres and he built his Victorian mansion there, which was completed in 1886. The mansion had 40 rooms and featured ornate ceilings with the billiard room showcasing paintings on the ceiling done on silk and pasted on. Marks moved his wife Bertha and their children into the mansion. She was 19 years his junior and the couple would have 9 children. Only six of them survived into adulthood. The baby of the family was Dolly and she weighed less than two pounds at birth, but she ended up living a full life and passed away at the age of 96. Bertha was a prize winning poultry farmer and the grounds hosted guinea fowl. There were also antelope on the property and there were nine English swans on the lake on the property. Bertha was also fond of roses, so Sammy ordered roses from a nursery in Kent and by 1906, there was a formal rose garden on the property. Other gardens were added as well. There were orchards featuring pear, peach, apricot, and plum trees. Several flower beds were planted and these were flanked by pruned hedges. Behind the kitchen there was a herb garden and these herbs were not only used for culinary purposes, but also for medicinal purposes.
And as was popular during the Victorian era, there was a hedge maze. The central feature of the property was the flagpole garden with a flagpole measuring 88.5 feet and Marks raised the national flag every morning on that pole. During the war, he would change the flags favored by the soldiers present in the surrounding area at a particular time. The base of the flagpole is adorned with flower beds and gravel paths, surrounded by a wide circle of lemon trees. There was a large lawn for playing cricket and football, as well as croquet. A beautiful pergola of vines flanks the croquet court. Today, visitors may partake in the sport as a part of the tour.

The property also had a stable and coach-house that accommodated five carriages and fourteen horses. Mr Marks had various vehicles for transport, each with its own purpose from an ox-wagon to a Landau, which was a luxury four-wheeled carriage often drawn by four horses. There was a cow-house which served as the centre for the dairy activities. Two cottages were also built to accommodate the farm manager and the head dairyman. A wine-cellar was also built in the 1890s. It was partially sunken to provide a cool and dark environment, which ensured that the wine kept well. Close to the wine-cellar was a corrugated iron structure, with a large steel water tank propped up on a wooden structure. This was used as a wash-room for the servants and the tank served as a household reservoir. Water was drawn from a well with a steam operated pump. The family furnished the home elaborately and today, 98% of the household contents in the museum, originally belonged to the Marks family.  

Throughout his life, Marks contributed to Jewish communities throughout the country and one of those things was donating all the bricks for the Old Synagogue, which was built in 1898. He also paid for the electric light installation and chandeliers and settled the synagogue's mortgage in 1906. Sammy passed away in 1920 and his wife Bertha lived in the house until her death. Some of the children continued to live in the house and when the last one passed away in 1981, the house sat vacant for awhile. In 1984, an agreement was reached with the National Cultural History Museum for the government to buy the contents of the house and then they rent the house from the family trust. The government restored the property and opened the Sammy Marks Museum. 

Sammy was very connected to his Jewish roots and he wanted his children to continue on that path so when his favorite child Gertrude fell in love with a Christian boy - the poop hit the fan. She had apparently gone to England for studies and that is where she met this boy when she was 16-years-old. Gertrude wrote her father a long letter explaining that she had met the love of her life and was going to marry him and convert to Christianity. Sammy was livid and he immediately brought Gertrude back home and told her she wouldn't be marrying her love. Gertrude was heartbroken and she never courted any man or married. She is buried at the farm. Another one of Sammy's kids was Joseph and he was totally into farming. He wanted nothing to do with business. He had everything in his room decorated in the color green. He took care of the farm after his father's death, but he had no sense when it came to decorating. He hated the decorative patterns on the wall, so he painted over them and it caused a lot of damage, which the museum is still working to rectify. They are having to remove six layers of paint that has almost destroyed 171 years of art.

Celia wrote of her experience at the museum, "I was 11 or 12 when we went on a school tour to the Sammy Marks Museum where I saw my first ever ghost." Celia had said that they possibly had an experience in the wine cellar. She wrote, "This is where the first strange occurrence may have happened during our school tour. It was rather dark and chilly, and as we left there was a bottle on the floor that rolled towards our group as we left. No one really thought anything of it, and one of my friends actually stopped to put the bottle upright. Of course, it could have been gravity, or..." She continued, "When walking through the front door, one is transported back to the Victorian era. To the left is the grand teak staircase, with a tiny closet underneath where sports equipment is stored. In the foyer is a little love seat wrapped around a pillar. The tour took us through many rooms, not all of which I can remember. There was a large kitchen with much of the original utensils and equipment still intact. The dining hall has the crockery and silverware laid out for a five course meal. The fine bone china is emblazoned with a monogram of the entwined letters S and M, and a smaller B in the center. This was quite a status symbol in the day, and was used mainly for entertaining guests. The children had a separate dining hall where they ate with the governess. If I remember correctly, the children were allowed to join the adults on certain occasions after their twelfth or thirteenth birthday.

The playroom and nursery still has many of the children's toys and games. I was impressed with the good condition these were still in. The tour guide told us not to touch anything as many of these items were a hundred years old. One of the boys remarked with awe that it was as old as his granny. Our school principal who was on the tour with us couldn't keep her giggle in and that got all of us laughing. By the way, our principal was about the same age as his granny at the time. As the Marks children grew up, the boys were sent to boarding school in England at the age of eight. They were expected to learn skills that would enable them to take up a profession or join one of the family enterprises. Women were not expected to be educated to the same level as men at the time, but the girls were educated by a governess until the age of twelve. Languages were important to Mr Marks and they were taught French, German, and English.

Mr Marks encouraged the children to take up music as well. In the music room the original Bechstein grand piano can be found, with well worn shiny ivory keys. Later, we were told that sometimes visitors could hear music being played on the piano, although when investigating, no one was in the room. We were also taken to the grand billiard room. This is where Mr Marks and his guests were said to enjoy cigars and games after meals or to discuss business. I was later told that Bertha enjoyed a game of billiards too from time to time. I was awestruck by the beautifully painted ceiling panels. If I remember correctly, they were painted on silk by an Italian craftsman who also resided in Pretoria. This same painter decorated the rest of the walls in the house. Our tour guide told us that one of the sons whom she referred to as 'naughty Joe' had painted over these patterned walls, causing much damage to the original layers. The restoration of the murals is an on-going process as funds are made available. The layers of paint are painstakingly removed by scalpel until the original pattern is exposed.

Off to the side of the billiard room is Mr Marks' study and library. He has a large collection of historical books with speeches of 19th century British politicians, including some business related books on mining, farming, irrigation, and iron manufacturing. Bertha enjoyed reading contemporary novels, and there were some books that likely appealed to the children, like Rudyard Kipling's The Jungle Book. The study desk was an ornate brobdingnagian thing, with hidden drawers where he kept some important notes that were not to be seen by the servants or even family members. We were shown the bathrooms and bedrooms. A fact that I found interesting was that most doors had their handles placed lower than normal. This was so that when a door was opened by a servant, they would reach down and already be in a bowing stance, ready to curtsy or bow to the ladies or lords of the house. 

Then we came to a particular guest room. Right throughout the tour we were repeatedly reminded not to touch anything, or sit on any furniture. There was a bearded man lying on the bed who sat up as our group entered that room. He seemed rather bored and ignored us. I kept my mouth shut, although I was dying to ask the man why he was allowed to sit on the bed and none of us. As the guide was talking, she mentioned that a friend of Mr Marks, John Murray, had passed away in that room. I blurted out "Is that him?" and pointed to the man. The tour guide became dead quiet and wide-eyed. After a silence that felt like minutes she ushered us outside with a pale face. Our tour guide then handed us over to another guide who took us to the lawns for a game of croquet. I didn't notice when the lady returned, but she was talking with my teacher and principal. They beckoned me over and the woman frantically asked if I had ever been to the museum before. I told her no, which was true. She then showed me a picture and asked me if I saw the man who was in the room. Without a pause, I pointed at the image of the bearded man who was standing with a group of people. I swear the woman nearly fainted. After enjoying a game of croquet and a picnic, our group was back on the bus on our way to school. My teacher and principal were rather quiet and at times I saw them glancing at me. When my mother came to pick me up after school, she and I were taken to the principal's office with my teacher. I was terrified. I used to be quite a rebel, but I thought I had behaved well during the outing. Apparently they wanted to explain to me that I had seen a ghost and that I should pray and not be afraid.

Well, needless to say, I was elated. A real ghost! I suppose this is where my fascination started with haunted places and spirits. I went back to the Sammy Marks Museum 10 years later when I could drive myself. My mother refused to ever take me back there. Unfortunately, I never saw Mr Murray again. I have been to a few haunted sites in South Africa, but I never saw anything ever again. Never felt any cold spots or heard any noises at any of the locations I visited."

Pretoria has a lot of history and the Sammy Marks Museum seems like an extraordinary Victorian mansion and Celia certainly had an amazing experience. Are these locations in Pretoria haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 600 - Magick vs. The Nazis

The plan was named Operation Cone of Power. Sounds militaristic. Possibly some kind of intelligence operation. Certainly had to be official. It was the summer of 1940 and Britain was bracing itself for a full-on invasion from German forces. A team of witches came together, lead by the Father of Witchcraft, Gerald Gardner, and worked their magick to push back against the Nazis. And as history documented, the Nazis never were able to invade Britain. Some may say it was the Luftwaffe's failure to defeat the Royal Air Force in the Battle of Britain that kept the Germans from taking Britain, but one really has to wonder, was it the witches? And what in the world did James Bond creator Ian Fleming have to do with all of this? Join us for this fascinating journey into a little known piece of World War II history!

Listeners are probably pretty familiar with the fact that the Nazis, especially the core group that surrounded Adolph Hitler, were believers and practitioners of the esoteric. Robert Somerlott wrote in his 1971 book, Here, Mr. Splitfoot, An Informal Exploration into Modern Occultism, "From the beginning the whole Nazi system was overlaid with mysticism and mythology, and when the tide of war turned against Germany, the esoteric beliefs of its leaders became ever more apparent. Diaries, captured documents and the transcript of the Nuremberg trials abound with references to peculiar creeds and techniques; yet we are now seeing only the top of the iceberg, and we can only guess the magnitude of what lay below the surface." At the same time that Germany was fighting its way to world domination, it was also collecting sacred artifacts and seeking secret and ancient knowledge. An example of this is the Altar of Zeus, which had been excavated by German archaeologist Carl Humann (Hoo mahn) and brought to Berlin from Pergamon, Turkey and reassembled in the Pergamon Museum in 1930. This was also called the Seat of Satan and the chief architect of the Nazi party, Albert Speer, would draw great inspiration from the altar as he designed the parade grounds in Nuremberg. Hitler himself carried a copy of Ernst Schertel's book "Magic: History, Theory and Practice." There had been several assassination attempts against Hitler that were unsuccessful and he saw this as an indication that he had providence behind him and so he would fail at nothing. One of his top officers was Heinrich Himmler and Himmler was fascinated with the esoteric and witchcraft. Himmler was one of the most powerful Nazis and he was the architect of what the Nazis called "The Final Solution." He grew the SS and looked at it as being way more than a military order. This was part of an ancient Germanic clan practicing pagan rituals and such. He founded his own pseudo-teutonic cult at Webelsburg Castle. Rudolf Hess was a big believer in astrology and he would use it to help him choose the day he would make a mysterious flight to Scotland we'll talk about later.

Now, this certainly isn't to say that the Nazis were driven primarily by occult beliefs and goals and practices. That would not only be an oversimplification, but also gives a distorted view of occultism. But we think it adds an interesting angle when analyzing Operation Cone of Power. With the Nazis embracing bits of the esoteric, it only made sense to fight fire with fire. If the Nazis were trying to use magick to win, then magick needed to be used to fight them. 

Let's set the scene for where we are during World War II. In May of 1940, the French seaport of Dunkirk was evacuated of the British Expeditionary Force and Allied troops. The evacuation via naval vessels and hundreds of civilian boats continued through June 4th. The Blitzkrieg against France by the Nazis was about to come to an end with the Fall of France. Paris was captured on June 14, 1940. Shortly after that, Germany set its sights on Britain. The Luftwaffe (looft vaa fuh) began its barrage from the air in July with the Battle of Britain. Hitler had named this Operation Sea Lion. Their goal was to soften British forces and open it up for invasion by the German Army. That army was in control of the French ports that were just across the English Channel. The situation was dire and Hermann Goring had told Hitler that the Luftwaffe would smash the British air defenses in four days. (Side note: For listeners who hadn't heard about this on a previous episode, Diane has an ancestor named Kurt Student who was the second in command of the Luftwaffe and he created the Fallschirmjäger (Fall shirm yaegar), which were German paratroopers.)

Enter, the Father of Witchcraft, Gerald Gardner. Gardner was born into a wealthy timber magnate family in 1884 in Lancashire. He was a sickly child who grew up in Madeira (Mah Deer Ah) as it was hoped that the climate there would help with his asthma. Education was hard to come by, so he taught himself to read. In 1911, he moved to Malaya, which was part of Singapore that was under British rule, to work as a civil servant. While there, he learned of the native people's magical practices and he studied them. He joined the Rosicrucian Order Crotona Fellowship in 1936 and through them met a group of pagan witches that practiced in the New Forest in Southern England. This was the New Forest Coven and he took parts of their practices to work out his own tradition, which he named for himself, Gardnerian Wicca. This would be the earliest created tradition of Wicca. 

When Gardner was initiated into the New Forest Coven, the Witchcraft Act of 1735 was still in force and this made it illegal to conjure spirits, cast spells or claim to predict the future. So it was a criminal offense to be part of a coven and everything had to be done in secrecy. Gardner was really excited about all that he was learning, but he was warned that if he wrote about any of this, he was in danger of being jailed and his High Priestess forbade him from doing that. Gardner wrote of this, "Anyhow, I soon found myself in the circle and took the usual oaths of secrecy which bound me not to reveal any secrets of the cult. But, as it is a dying cult, I thought it was a pity that all the knowledge should be lost, so in the end I was permitted to write, as fiction, something of what a witch believes in the novel High Magic's Aid." 

Gardner had served Britain as a civil servant and he was very loyal to his country. When the Nazis began to threaten his homeland, he knew he needed to do something or soon he and the other members of his coven would fall under Nazi domination. The 55-year-old Gardner became an air raid warden and offered his home as a headquarters for Air Raid Precautions. He also had a large collection of firearms that he gave to locals and he taught himself and a group of friends how to make Molotov cocktails and they set out to make dozens of them. But Gardner believed that there something else that could be done that had nothing to do with arms. Gardner believed they could use magick to cast a spell that wouldn't just stop the Nazis, but actually target Adolph Hitler personally.

Gerald Gardner wrote about the ritual that his coven conducted on August 1, 1940 in his 1954 book Witchcraft Today. This was on the eve of Lammas Day or Lughnasadh (Loo Nah Saw), which is one of the Greater Sabbats in Wicca and is a pagan harvest festival. The ritual took place just outside of the town of Highcliffe-on-Sea on England’s southern coast in a clearing near a former hanging tree called the Wilverley Oak that is nicknamed the Naked Man. Today, that is just a ravaged stump said to be haunted by highwaymen and smugglers who had been hanged from it, but the pagans believed the area would give their spells more power. Now, the coven had to be careful because generally, a ritual involved a bonfire. But if they lit up a huge bonfire, the enemy would see them. And they also didn't want to get the attention of the Air Raid Wardens. So they improvised and used a lantern that they shuttered. They stripped off all their clothes to get skyclad (naked) and prepared to move around the lantern in a spiraling pattern to get themselves into an ecstatic state. 

Operation Cone of Power was about to be underway. This was named for the actual ritual, which was "Raising the Cone of Power." That cone of power was to be generated from cosmic energy and then focused into a pin point against something. And that something was going to be Adolph Hitler. Gardner wrote, "[The] witches did cast spells, to stop Hitler landing after France fell. They met, raised the great cone of power and directed the thought at Hitler’s brain: 'You cannot cross the sea,' 'You cannot cross the sea,' 'Not able to come,' 'Not able to come.' Just as their great-grandfathers had done to Boney and their remoter forefathers had done to the Spanish Armada with the words: 'Go on,' 'Go on,' 'Not able to land,' 'Not able to land.' 

What he is referencing there are two events that happened previously where magick was used to defeat an enemy. The first happened in 1588, when the Spanish Armada numbering 130 ships was sent by King Philip II of Spain to invade England. It was said that the English Navy and bad weather caused the armada to be scattered, but witches claimed that a ritual they performed turned the weather. And one of the people that was part of the ritual was the vice-admiral of the English fleet, Sir Francis Drake. He joined the coven on a headland called Devil’s Point near Plymouth to perform the ritual. And interestingly, the Protestants claimed it was a Protestant Wind that defeated the Spanish. Legends actually claim that on foggy days at Devil’s Point, the disembodied chants of Drake and the witches can still be heard. So perhaps it actually did do something. Then in 1805, Napoleon called off his planned invasion of England. Historians claim it was continental threats and the more dominant Royal Navy that were the actual reason. But Gardner was sure that magick had been successful and it was going to work again.

Now maybe magick had nothing to do with it, but Operation Sealion never came to fruition. Gardner wrote, "I am not saying that they stopped Hitler. All I say is that I saw a very interesting ceremony performed with the intention of putting a certain idea into his mind...and though all the invasion barges were ready, the fact was that Hitler never even tried to come." And we have to take Gardner at his word because there are no other sources that documented this event. People trusted this account until this weird character came forward in the 1970s with grandiose claims. His name was Amado Crowley and he claimed to be the son of British Occultist Aleister Crowley.

Aleister Crowley is probably one of the most famous occultists if not THE most famous occultists in all the world. Regardless of one's opinion, Crowley was definitely very influential when it came to the occult and magick. He lived an incredibly decadent lifestyle and even referred to himself as the Beast666. He was born in England in 1875 and despite being raised by an evangelical pastor, he had an aversion to Christianity. He took on the name Aleister early in his life and after inheriting a huge sum of money from his father, quit school and began to travel the world and try his hand at mountaineering. Crowley eventually attempted climbs on both K2 and Kanchenjunga. He joined the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn in 1898and began practicing magick and going into trance states. During some of these states, he met with an entity that called itself Aiwass and this being dictated The Book of the Law to Crowley in 1904. He founded a new religion on this that he called Thelema, with one of its main premises being "Do what thou wilt shall be the whole of the law." And Thelema actually means "will" in Greek. Crowley was also involved with the Ordo Templi Orientis, which was a German mystical group. By the end of World War I, Crowley was dubbed by the British press as the "wickedest man in the world." The money ran out for him and in 1947, he died penniless and living in obscurity.

Aleister had relationships with several women and fathered five children. None of them had the name Amado. And Aleister kept incredibly detailed journals about his life and work and nowhere did he mention having a son named Amado and he never mentioned what Amado was about to claim. Amado claimed to be the spiritual successor of his "father" and he said that Gardner didn't conduct any kind of ritual like this Operation Cone of Power. He said that it was actually his father who had conducted a ritual and Gardner had based his narrative off of that. 

This event, Amado claimed, took place in May 1941 and it was performed in Ashdown Forest, Sussex. And there wasn't a bunch of naked witches dancing around a lantern, this ritual involved Canadian soldiers and was an actual intelligence operation. And this wasn't being done to put forward some kind of mystical assault on Hitler's brain and cloud his judgement and such, this was a plan to lure Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess, to Britain. A detachment of Canadian soldiers were dressed in robes and they had this dummy that they dressed in a Nazi uniform and put on a throne and then they made this model plane and moved it down a wire between a church and a tree. And indeed, on May 10, 1941, Hess took off from Germany in a Bf-110 fighter aircraft heading towards Scotland. The plane became lost and ran out of fuel and Hess found himself in trouble. His only option was to bail from the plane, but then he would be behind enemy lines. He grabbed a parachute and ended up in South Lanarkshire and British authorities captured him. Hess claimed he was flying for a meeting to negotiate a peace treaty, but nobody believed that and to this day, no one really knows what he was up to. We do know where he ended up. He spent the rest of his life in Berlin's Spandau Prison after his conviction on war crimes at the Nuremberg Trials. Amado said that it was his father's ritual that brought about this outcome. 

But Amado wasn't done there. He claimed that British intelligence was involved in the plan and that it was called Operation Mistletoe. And it gets even crazier with Amado claiming that the architect of the plan was none other than Ian Fleming. Yes, THAT Ian Fleming that created James Bond. Amado claimed that Aleister was the one who convinced the British Intelligence that the Nazis were superstitious enough, that those beliefs could be exploited. He wrote to the Director of Naval Intelligence in 1941, "If it is true that Herr Hess is much influenced by astrology and Magick, my services might be of use to the Department in case he should not be willing to do what you wish."  

Ian Fleming was, indeed, a member of Naval Intelligence for Britain. Was Operation Mistletoe a real thing? It's hard to get to the bottom of that because these plans were secret and involving the occult in military plans certainly would not be something they would really want out there. Fleming hired Astrologer Frau Nagenast to meet with Hess and provide him with astrology charts. Several of these charts pointed to May 10th being a perfect day for Hess to make his trip to Scotland. This would help intelligence to lay a trap for him. So that clearly all seems to be non-esoteric. And yet, the elements were in favor of Fleming and his crew and Hess DID become lost. You can't plan that. Then Fleming and Crowley planned that occult ritual in Ashdown Forest and they invited two German SS officers, codenamed 'Kestrel' and 'Sea Eagle' to join them. The invite came through the Romanian Mission in London. The officers agreed to come and as they watched the ritual, they decided that this group definitely were members of the Order of the Golden Dawn. They told Hess that the group had told them they wanted to take over Britain after peace was established with Germany. So now it makes sense that Hess would be willing to travel to Scotland for peace talks and he probably thought he could even get support in fighting Soviet Russia. To seal the deal, British Secret Service agents made up fake links in the banking and commercial world between some of the members of Flemings' group and people Hitler and Hess would trust. This would help Hess believe that the Duke of Hamilton really did have a Peace Party in Britain. Rickatson Hatt was the Press Secretary of the Bank of England and he probably was the one who passed false information about the Duke having this Peace Party to someone close to Hess and this really sealed the deal for Hess. He had been convinced that the RAF in Scotland would not fire on him and would allow him to land safely. Hess probably chuckled to himself as he boarded his plane that Churchill would soon be ousted from power. 

This really is fascinating to see how an elaborate plan was combined with the occult to rope Hess into a trap and possibly even convince the Nazis that they could be attacked by British witchcraft. But...just as we pointed out that Aleister Crowley's journals didn't mention a son named Amado, they also don't mention any wartime rituals or that Crowley worked for Intelligence. Crowley did indeed offer his services to the Naval Intelligence Division in September 1939, but apparently was turned down. Or that's what they say - wink, wink. And we imagine those classified documents will never be declassified. 

It makes sense that Gerald Gardner would want to make claims that a group of occultists did their patriotic duty to help the homeland because at the time, neopaganism was getting a bad name and being associated with Satanism. There were claims that a couple participants even died after the ritual due to exposure and exhaustion. Professor Sabina Magliocco, an anthropologist and folklorist at California State University, Northridge wrote of this," It tells us something about what [those] witches wanted to be true. It’s about the power of witches to do something that is nearly impossible. It is also about the patriotism of these witches, and it also talks about the power of witchcraft to channel the energies of the earth, of nature, through their bodies, to create this Cone of Power."

Author Mary Norton wrote "The Magic Bed-Knob" in 1943 and "Bonfires and Broomsticks" in 1947. The childrens' books are set in World War II Britain and feature three children who are evacuated from London and sent to live with a woman named Miss Eglantine Price, who also happens to be a witch. Her goal is to find a powerful spell called the "Substitutiary Locomotion" that she thinks will aid the British war effort against the Nazis. Those books became the 1971 Disney movie "Bedknobs and Broomsticks." It seems pretty obvious that Mary Norton was inspired by something. Was it occult rituals conducted in Britain to help defeat the Nazis? Did Operation Cone of Power and Operation Mistletoe actually take place? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 599 - Fort Ontario

Moment in Oddity - Megaflash (Suggested by: Duey Oxberger)

Central Florida is known as the lightning capital of the United States. But back in October of 2017, there was an extreme light show which is known as a Megaflash. Megaflashes are storm cloud discharges that are classified as stretching 60 miles or more. They typically occur over hotspots like the Great Plains where multiple storms cluster together. This particular strike was only recently able to be fully measured with recent scientific data analysis collected by a geostationary satellite. The measurements found the 2017 strike to be 515 miles long, covering the states of Texas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kansas, and almost all the way to Kansas City, Missouri. The length of time of the strike clocked in around 7 seconds. Lightning occurs when electrons pool in one region of a storm cloud, creating an ionized path in the air between where ions flow from negative to positive charges. A professor of geographical sciences at Arizona State University commented, "It is likely that even greater extremes still exist, and that we will be able to observe them as additional high-quality lightning measurements accumulate over time". With the proof of lightning being able to strike such a far distance from the original storm cell, it's always recommended to take shelter any time thunder is heard. And although lightning can be beautiful, it can also be quite scary and destructive, and a lightning bolt spanning nearly five states, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Double Eagle II Balloon

In the month of August, on the 11th, in 1978, the Double Eagle II balloon made the first transatlantic flight. Unlike modern hot air balloons, the Double Eagle II  was propelled by helium gas. Its pilots, Ben Abruzzo, Maxie Anderson and Larry Newman managed the balloon's ascent and descent by releasing helium gas and by utilizing ballasts. It departed Presque Isle, Maine on the 11th and successfully landed in Misery, France on the 17th. The balloon measured 112 feet high and 65 feet in diameter. The gondola that the pilots rode in was named "The Spirit of Albuquerque", recognizing where the three pilots came from. Interestingly, the gondola featured a twin hulled catamaran for emergency floatation. The entire flight took 137 hours and 6 minutes and the distance that was covered was 3,233 miles. In 1977, the pilots had attempted the same transatlantic flight but were  unsuccessful in that venture. This event in aviation history was marked as the first successful transatlantic manned balloon flight. 

Fort Ontario (Suggested by: Katherine McManus)

Oswego, New York was a bustling port in the 1800s, but long before that, there was Fort Ontario. The Fort represents over 260 years of history from its beginnings as an earthworks fort to a brick and mortar one and it has had a significant role in several conflicts. The structure was destroyed and rebuilt four times. There was a time that it was a huge general hospital as well as a safe haven for refugee Jews fleeing Europe during World War II. Today, the Fort is a living museum with costumed guides that lead all varieties of tours, including the ghost ones because there are several spirits here. Join us for the history and hauntings of Fort Ontario!

Indigenous groups followed the retreat of the glaciers and were in the Oswego, New York area for thousands of years. The Iroquois would be the last significant Native American group to be here, having come from the Mississippi River region. The first Europeans arrived in 1615. This was an attractive region because there was Lake Ontario and the Oswego River. This would make for a great port eventually, but in those early settler years, it was the fur trade that took hold and the British and Dutch established a settlement in 1722. The French and Indian War erupted in 1754 over control of the Ohio River Valley. The British had a supply route between Albany and Oswego that they needed to protect, so they built five forts with three of them being in the Oswego area: Forts George, Oswego, and Ontario. By 1796, the British were moving out of Oswego and replaced with settlers from New England and eastern New York. The Erie Canal opened in 1829 and this fired up Oswego's economy and that lasted through until the 1870s. The boom wouldn't last, but many stately historic homes were left in its wake and remain today in a town that embraces it historic roots.

As mentioned, one of the forts the British erected to protect their supply lines was Fort Ontario. This was situated to guard the east end of Lake Ontario. This first fort was named the "Fort of the Six Nations" and was destroyed during the Battle of Fort Oswego in 1756. The British rebuilt it in 1759.  The policies that the British put into place after the French and Indian War, left the Native Americans in the area dissatisfied and they rebelled in 1763 leading to a conflict named Pontiac's Rebellion that lasted over two years. The peace treaty that was signed between the British and Pontiac took place at Fort Ontario on July 25, 1766. There would be peace for the fort until the American Revolutionary War. This would be a British strong hold until the 3rd New York Regiment destroyed the fort in July of 1778. The British abandoned it for a few years and then rebuilt it in 1782 and they would hold the fort through the rest of the war. They continued to keep it until 1796. Jay's Treaty of 1794 settled outstanding disputes over British occupation of forts and so they turned the fort over to America. 

America occupied the fort and it would see battle again during the War of 1812. The British destroyed the fort in 1814. So we now have Fort Ontario being destroyed three times. The fourth fort would be the one that stands today. The Americans rebuilt the fort after the war and added some new construction. The fort was mainly used to control smuggling, but it would be involved in war again when the American Civil War started. Oswego was pretty far north, but there were worries that Canada and Britain would help the Confederacy. Improvements to the fort included adding a west and east guardhouse and timber and earth walls were replaced with masonry. No major military action took place at the fort and after the war, it housed Company F, 42nd Infantry. Most of these were men wounded in the Civil War who reenlisted. Much of the fort fell into ruin during and after this period. 

In 1906, the Brownsville Incident took place in Texas. The 25th Infantry of Buffalo soldiers had been stationed at nearby Fort Brown. Jim Crow Laws were in full effect and so the town had segregated areas for blacks and whites. A white woman reported a rape on August 12, 1906 and the Mayor and a Major from the fort, issued an early curfew for the soldiers to prevent any trouble. A bartender was killed the following night and a police lieutenant was wounded and residents of Brownsville blamed the black soldiers who had actually never left their barracks that evening. When word of the incident reached President Teddy Roosevelt, he discharged without honor the entire regiment of 167 men. It would be what most historians consider the greatest mistake of his presidency. There was no military trial and a Texas court cleared the soldiers, but the President never reversed himself or apologized. Journalist John Weaver would reignite interest into this in 1970 and the U.S. Congress conducted and investigation of their own and in 1972, Congress reversed Roosevelt’s order of dismissal and made restitution to the soldiers. 

Shortly after the Brownsville Incident, a regular army infantry battalion of three hundred Buffalo soldiers arrived at Fort Ontario. As we've shared on previous episodes, the all-black regiments got their nickname from Native Americans who said the soldiers fought like the Great Plains buffalo and their hair reminded them of the mane of the buffalo. The regiments would be legendary for their skill in fighting and their bravery. This was the first of the group to be stationed east of the Mississippi River. The practice of segregating military unit wouldn't end until the Korean War in 1951. This would be a significant chapter in the Civil Rights Movement as it was believed that the soldiers would be safer in Oswego, which was a place that had been a hotbed of abolitionist movement and had an active Underground Railroad during the Civil War. But here in 1906, the civilians of Oswego didn't want the soldiers there. The Secretary of War at this time was future president William H. Taft and he wrote, "Sometimes communities which objected to the coming of colored soldiers, have, on account of their good behavior, entirely changed their view and commended them to the War Department. The fact is that a certain amount of race prejudice between white and black seems to have become almost universal throughout the country, and no matter where colored troops are sent there are always some who make objections to their coming."

There would be a fight with cabinet members and inside the War Department as declarations were made that the War Department knows no color line. And while many members of the Oswego community resented the soldiers being sent there, the Buffalo soldiers conducted themselves with honor. And this thing happened. The residents realized that it was good to have the regiment there. These men had just arrived from the Phillippines and they needed stuff like warm clothes. They spent their money in the community. And they participated in the community events like funerals and sporting events and their orchestra performed regularly for the community. And when the garrison left in 1911 it was written, " It has been estimated that when the colored battalion was at Fort Ontario there were over 100 colored women in this city and they were certainly gorgeous dressers.  Violet bonnets and flaming dresses are in the minority now and the merchants in retail business miss them, for both soldiers and the others were good spenders and bought only the best." 

World War I would breathe new life into the fort. It was repurposed as a military hospital, known as General Hospital No. 5. The Secretary of War ordered for 30 new buildings to be built on the property and this was completed in January 1919. This made Fort Ontario one of the largest army hospitals in the country and it was the best equipped. Medical personnel started arriving in 1917 and most were recruited from the New York Homeopathic Medical College and Flower Hospital in New York City. There was not only the main general hospital, but two field hospital units, two ambulance companies and two base hospitals. Ninety percent of the patients here came from overseas. About 200 patients would die at the hospital.

By 1921, the fort was back to being an infantry base and the 28th Infantry Regiment was stationed there. They were replaced in 1933 by the 2nd Brigade of the U.S. 1st Infantry Division. A golf course was added to the property and the buildings were all restored. When World War II started, new buildings were added to the fort and in 1940, this became an induction center for new conscripts. That was just for a little while and then several National Guard anti-aircraft units used the fort as a base. Then black military police were trained here. There is this excerpt from George and Carol Reeds 1999 book Fort Ontario: Guardian of the North:

Fort Ontario would take on one of its most significant purposes in its long history during this time. It would become a safe haven for the Jews that were fleeing the concentration camps of Europe. From August 1944 to February 1946, this would become home for 982 Jewish refugees. When an international effort was started to remove refugees from war zones and send them to safe camps in other countries, the United States didn't step up. The Allies noticed and they began to ridicule the US, so President Franklin Roosevelt announced a plan to establish a free port at Fort Ontario and he used the term "port" because "camp" had such a negative connotation. After the war was over, the Jewish refugees had to stay at the fort because there were disagreements concerning whether or not to allow them to become United States citizens. In January 1946, the decision was made to allow them to become citizens and this would be the first time that a large number of undocumented people were granted asylum in the US. The refugees were allowed to leave Fort Ontario in February 1946.

After World War II, the Army shut down most of the fort, but some buildings are still used today by the Army Reserve. The fort was restored and in 1949 became the Fort Ontario State Historic Site. In 1970, it was added to the National Register of Historic Places. What is left of the fort is the main fort that was built in 1840 and designed as the typical pentagonal plan with five bastions that had heavy cannons mounted en barbette. Howitzers were mounted in casemates built into the ramparts of the bastions and there were holes to allow rifle fire. The parade grounds are still here and there is Officer's Quarters #1, which was built between 1842 and 1844 and featured two six-room apartments for use by officers and their families. There was a parlor in the front and bedrooms in the back. The second floor had more bedrooms and the third floor was for servants. There is the Powder Magazine, which has interpreters that demonstrate how kegs of gunpowder were stored here. There are also two guardhouses by the entrance of the tunnel to the main entrance. The Enlisted Men’s Barracks was built in 1842 and most of the garrison was housed here. It featured a large kitchen, mess halls and a workshop on the first floor and two barracks rooms on the second floor. The Storehouse was built between 1842 and 1844 and not only had room for storage, but also had the fort jail with four cells. And there in Officer’s Quarters #2, which was built Between 1842 and 1844, and was similar to OQ1. However, from May 1868 to April 1869, two of the first floor rooms were used as the Post Headquarters, while other rooms were used as offices for various departments. 

Some fun facts about dogs at the fort. An Airedale puppy named Wow became the mascot of the fort in 1917. A little uniform was made for him. This started a rivalry between barracks. Another pup named Dynamite got his own uniform representing another barracks. A knitted olive drab jacket was added to his uniform in the winter. Competitions for best dressed barracks mascots were held. Other dogs were named Shrapnel and Kaiser. 

There are at least 77 people buried on the property. There was definitely death here. Fort Ontario offers ghost tours, so the historic site clearly embraces their ghostly reputation. Paul Lear was the historic site manager at Fort Ontario when he spoke with Krystal Cole for Spectrum News 1 in 2023. He said, "One of the legends is every time there is going to be a war, a ghostly figure appears at Fort Ontario." Lear explained that ghost stories have been told about the fort since the early 1900s. These stories usually are about a soldier seen in a red coat, white britches and white cross belts. This figure quite possibly could be one of the main spirits seen here who is simply referred to as the Post Ghost. This is believed to be George Fikes who was a member of the King's Royal regiment of NY. He died on November 30, 1782 and he was buried on the post, so there is a gravestone for him and a legend claims that if you step over the gravestone three times, you'll have good luck. And supposedly he will show himself as well. When the garrison has been in trouble, he has made appearances as Paul Lear mentioned. Soldiers on guard duty throughout the decades have reported interacting with Fikes. One of these men was so frightened by the encounter that he ran away from his post and was court-martialed. Fikes is said to walk the ramparts and grounds at night with a red lantern and many times he is just a shadow figure that seems to absorb all the light around it. He hangs out in rooms at the officer's quarters. There is an actual marker at the site that shares all of this. 

Caroline Lamie was an office manager at Fort Ontario and also is part of a paranormal investigations group and she claimed to see plenty of paranormal activity. Or hear it. She had heard disembodied footsteps and many times it would be above her, so she would go up to the next level and find no one up there. She would also hear furniture being dragged and when she would go to the source of the sound, it wasn't just that the furniture hadn't moved. There was no furniture. Lamie has been told by visitors that they have seen soldiers walking around and these are not employees. She has participated in ghost hunts where EVPs have been captured featuring a cat meowing and the voice of a little boy. This ghost cat also brushes against legs and people will feel something like fur against their legs. The little boy has also called for the cat. Lamie said, "Gentleman was in here and he captured the picture of the little boy standing over here. And that night, the group that was in here ghost-hunting got kids giggling in the building next door to where the photo was taken."

Lamie told the Haunted History Trail of New York State the following stories. Some maintenance guys were doing some work in 2016. Their names were Izzy and Brian and Izzie asked Brian, "Hey, who were those two guys that just ran through here?" And Brian answered, "Nobody just ran through here." A ghost with a red cap is often seen. That goes back to the French and Indian War. A man wearing a brimmed hat has been seen in the cemetery. She was working on a window in one of the Officer's Quarters when she heard a woman humming. She was the only woman in the building. Lamie has also several times unlocked and opened a building first thing in the morning and heard an audible "Hi" or "Hey." There was a stern sergeant who once lived in Q2 and many times, little girls have stood outside and refused to go inside because there was a mean man. And she has had times when people have told her that they really liked the way a certain re-enactor was dressed and Caroline will be like, we don't have anybody dressed up today. 

Past and Present Paranormal investigated in 2016. They asked if there was anyone there willing to speak with them this evening and then they asked soldier or civilians and the Spirit Box replied what sounded like "Creepers." One of the investigator was named Xenia and she decided to go into one of the small closets in the Officers' Quarters and just as she was about to enter it, a voice is picked up by the mic on the video recorder saying "Lea," which was Xenia's middle name. Coincidence? After she went in, the Spirit Box said, "Dark." When she asked who was in there with her, it said "Children." The hair on her arms stood up while in there. She asked," Will you talk to me and the Spirit Box answered no. She asked if they used to hide in the closet and who they were hiding from and the eerie answer was "Them." They asked, "Did you die here?" and there were two responses. One answered, "Don't know" and the other was "During war." They moved to the Enlisted Bunkhouse and asked if anyone wanted to speak with them and got a clear "Me" through the Spirit Box. Later they got the name David.  

Paranormal of Watertown investigated in 2022 and they were in a tunnel with an audio recorder and asked if there were any soldiers with them, if they could tell them what regiment or unit they were part of and there was a very clear EVP, "Can't move." In the Soldier's Barracks they turned on the Spirit Box and set up a REM Pod. They asked the spirits to touch the REM Pod once for yes and twice for know and across the Spirit Box came "Turn that...off." They asked if women were allowed up there and there was a clear, "No." In Q2, they got some cat balls to go off and when they asked for a spirit to touch them again, the Spirit Box said, "The Light." There was a sign that mentioned a Lt. Michael Hagarty and so they asked if he was there and a cat ball lit up. They captured an EVP here as well with a clear, "Get out." Are you glad we can acknowledge you and hear you speak and the Spirit Box said, "What?!" In the casemates, they captured an EVP asking, "Who's down here?" Later, they also got an EVP asking, "Who's there?" That was really clear and loud.

The town of Owego has a couple of other haunted locations, so there is actually an independent ghost tour there. One of those locations is the Old City Hall that has a story about a convict named Horse housed at the jail that claimed to be haunted by demons every night. The first citizen of Oswego was Alvin Bronson. He worked as the military storekeeper at the fort and was once held prisoner by the British. They took him onboard their flagship and he was sitting in a rocking chair. He lived to 98 and loved to rock on his porch and people claim that he still sits in his rocking chair on the front porch of his former home. Luther Wright built his mansion in 1848 for his family. That mansion is today a bunch of apartments called Apts On Fifth. It was renovated by Sal Vasapolli in 2021 and he saved it from being a nuisance property run by a slumlord. Hopefully Luther likes what he did because he is still haunting his former home. People claim to get an unearthly cold chill in the solarium. At one time, tenants discovered wooden cells, cages, and a large table in the basement leading people to wonder what had gone on at this property at one time. A female spirit is known as the Seneca Hill Ghost and she is seen running up the hill to what had once been her home that burned down with her baby inside. She is most often seen by motorists and they describe her wearing a nightgown. Sometimes she is holding the hand of a six-year-old girl. The spirits always vanish at the crest of the hill.

The Richardson Bates House is a gorgeous Victorian mansion that features opulent interiors. The Oswego Historical Society took over the care of the house in 1947 and opened it as a museum. The Richardson-Bates House was built for attorney and mayor Maxwell B. Richardson who was a lifelong bachelor, so he moved into the house with his mother and divorced sister. The house was designed by Rochester architect Andrew Jackson Warner in the Italianate style and completed in 1872. An addition was added to the house by Oswego architect John Seeber and this was completed in 1889. The interior featured Renaissance Revival and Egyptian Revival furniture and décor. Ninety percent of the furnishings are original to the family. Maxwell's nephew was the sole heir, so he inherited the house in 1910. The Bates part comes from him as his name was...wait for it...Norman Bates. He lived here with his wife and four children. The whole family had been very active in the historical society and so that is why the house was donated by Norman's children to the group. A story about the house is about a little girl who told her parents that she needed to say goodbye to her friend. They watched her wave to nothing and when they asked who she was waving to, she answered "The boy I was playing with." She was the only child in the house. 

Oswego has a history reaching back a couple centuries and the fort has been witness to most of it. No one has ever come away from a ghost hunt without some kind of evidence. Are the red blobs captured in pictures or seen on the hills, ghosts reaching back from the past? Are there soldier, female and child spirits hanging out here? Is Fort Ontario haunted? That is for you to decide!  

HGB Ep. 598 - Brown Palace Hotel

Moment in Oddity - Diesel the Donkey (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

There have been many instances in nature where one species of animal is orphaned and raised by another species. However, that type of situation can be a bit more rare when it comes to animals that live in a herd or flock. In the spring of 2024, a bow-hunter named Max Fennell was out in the wilderness when he came upon an unexpected sight that he captured on film. He spotted a herd of at least twelve Roosevelt elk on a hillside. That was not the least bit unusual for the area, however what was strange was that one of the members of the herd looked a bit different. This unique fellow was actually a donkey named Diesel. Five years prior to Fennell's discovery, the Drewry family had been out camping with their pet donkey near Clear Lake, California. Diesel had spooked and ran away. The distraught family searched for their friend, but despite seeing hoofprints and trail camera footage of their four legged family member, they were unable to locate him. The Drewry's were overjoyed at seeing Diesel thriving with his adoptive family despite missing having him at home. They decided to leave him be, to live his best life as an elk. We like to watch different species of animals living in peaceful coexistence, but a donkey living with a herd of elk, certainly is odd. 

This Month in History - Storming of the Bastille

In the month of July, on the 14th, in 1789, Parisian revolutionaries and mutinous troops stormed the Bastille. The Bastille was a royal fortress and prison in Paris, France. The populace were agitated over economic hardships and were frustrated with the monarchy. Fears that King Louis XVI was about to arrest France's newly constituted National Assembly led to the uprising. A mob approached the Bastille with demands for arms and ammunition. The guards resisted and the revolutionaries attacked, seizing the fortress which represented the monarchy's oppressive power. Approximately 100 of the revolutionaries lost their lives as well as governor Bernard-Rene de Launay and some of the guards. It was a fierce battle. The event was a culmination of many years of discontent by the people and is considered the starting point of the French Revolution. It began a decade of radical social and political change signalling the end of the old regime. Bastille Day is now a national holiday in France, commemorating the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille. 

Brown Palace Hotel (Suggested twice by Tim Kemble, Vicki Luther and David Law)

The Brown Palace Hotel and Spa is an iconic landmark in Downtown Denver. The hotel has stood for over 130 years and was one of the first atrium-style hotels ever built and was fire-proof. She was affectionately nicknamed The Grand Dame of Denver and she has stood as a sentinel in the downtown area, watching over the history that has unfolded here. The Brown hosted celebrities, Molly Brown, several Presidents and even the Beatles. And rumors claim that she hosts spirits as well. Several of them. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Brown Palace Hotel.

Let's set the stage. This is an excerpt from a September 1956 House and Garden article by Lucius Beebe: "Above and beyond its celebrity as one of the great hotels of the nation, the Brown possesses an even greater asset than culinary citations and the presence on its register of the names of the mighty and affluent. This is its sense of continuity, of being inseparably joined to the past. The Brown is from the old times, the good times, when all the country was young and there were those still living who could remember the Long Hunters and the Mountain Men. Over the shoulders of the young men in Brooks suits and sport jackets at the Ship Tavern, there are shadowy figures in fringed buckskin and raccoon hats with scalp knives at their belts drinking amazing quantities of Taos Lightning and planning ghostly wagon trains that shall set out from Kansas over the Jornada del Muerto, the Route of Death, for Santa Fe. Only the true believers, heirs to the second sight of the Medicine Men, can see them. But they are there." I grew up in the suburbs of Denver and also lived in the heart of Capitol Hill for a few years, so I'm very familiar with the idea that while Denver is a very modern city, it still embraces its Old West history. 

Denver can thank gold for its beginning. A prospector named William Russell lead a bunch of miners north of the Santa Fe Trail into what was then Kansas Territory at the confluence of the Cherry Creek and South Platte Rivers. They found gold there in 1858 and created a permanent settlement they called Auraria. The Colorado Gold Rush was off and running and brought another man who had been a general in the Pennsylvania state militia named William Larimer, Jr. He built Denver City across the river from Auraria. The name Denver came from Kansas territorial Governor James Denver. The two towns would merge as Denver before the Civil War.  

What would become Capitol Hill was originally owned by Henry C. Brown. Brown was born in 1820 in Ohio and his early work was in carpentry in St. Louis. He made a small fortune in California working as a master builder and he opened a sawmill. In 1858, he decided to relocate back to St. Louis and then he heard very promising things about a city named Decatur that was located in Nebraska. Brown sunk most of his money into the town, which went bust, so he went back to Missouri to make money in carpentry again. When he had $2,500 in his pocket, he decided to head to California again, but by the time he and his wife arrived in Denver, she was done with traveling and demanded that they stop. Brown set up a carpentry shop , but eventually decided to real estate was where the real money was at he bought and homesteaded the land that would become Capitol Hill and it was known as Brown's Bluff. It was given that name because people thought of it as a wasteland. Brown had hopes of building neighborhoods and he platted out the land, but settlers soon abandoned the future Mile High City for Cheyenne. Brown continued to believe in his plan.

Brown was right. Denver would be chosen to build the state capitol and Brown's Bluff was the perfect hill for placement. Brown donated the land for the Capitol building and he gave money so that a library could be founded. Soon Denver would be a booming metropolis. There was a triangular block of land bordered by Broadway, 17th Street and Tremont Place, in what would become downtown Denver, that Brown owned and he sold it to some English investors who planned to build a hotel on the plot. People were flocking to the West and Denver was a great stop over point, so places for people to stay were desperately needed. They dug out the foundation and went bankrupt, abandoning the project and leaving behind a hole that was used as a swimming pool by kids. Brown foreclosed on the land and took it back, deciding to build his own hotel there and he did just that, calling it the Brown Palace Hotel. He didn't have an ego or anything. And as we said, the plot was triangular, so the hotel is indeed, triangular.

Henry Brown hired Civil War veteran architect Frank E. Edbrooke to design the hotel and Edbrooke decided on the Italian Renaissance and Romanesque Revival styles. That design took nearly two tons of paper for the drawings and every guest room would face the streets. The hotel was built with an iron and steel frame constructed by Whitehouse & Wirgler Stone Company. Construction began in 1888 and red granite from Colorado and sandstone from Arizona were chosen for the building's exterior. Artist James Whitehouse was commissioned to create twenty-six medallions depicting Colorado animals. These were carved into the stone between the seventh-floor windows. When finished, the hotel stood taller than most everything around it, offering great views, morning and afternoon sun depending on which side of the hotel you were on and the hotel really appeared like a giant ship with a massive prow.

Edbrooke designed an amazing interior as well. There was an atrium lobby with balconies rising eight floors and those balconies had cast iron railings with ornate grillwork panels. The atrium was topped with stained-glass windows. The wall of the lobby were paneled with onyx brought in from an onyx mine in Torreon, Mexico. The Grand Salon, which is known as the Onyx Room now, and the 8th floor ballroom were also paneled in the onyx. There was also an 8th floor dining room that could seat 250 guests and offered panoramic views of 300 miles of the Rocky Mountains. The room was two stories and the windows had stained glass fruit designs at the tops of the windows. The floor also had six private dining rooms and the kitchen was up there as well. Floors and partition walls were built of hollow blocks of porous terra cotta fire-proofing, making this one of the first fireproof structures in America. Each room had its own fireplace. There was steam heat, a huge engine room, a power plant within the hotel, and an ice machine that could make five tons of ice a day. An artesian well provided the hotel with its own water. The interior was furnished at a cost of $400,000, which included fine china and silver, Irish linen, sofas covered in silk, and furniture made from white mahogany, cherry and antique oak. The entire hotel cost $1.6 million to build.

The hotel opened on August 12, 1892 with 400 guest rooms that rented for between $3 and $5 a night under the co-management of William Bush and Maxey Tabor. Bush built and managed the Broadway theater across from the hotel and he had vast experience in managing hotels. Maxey was the son of Augusta and Horace Tabor and learned the hotel business from his dad. It was Tabor's expensive taste that led to the expensive furnishing of the Brown. The hotel also featured eighteen unique storefronts. The first guests to use the dining room were the Triennial Conclave of Knights Templar and they had a 7-course dinner with a wine list of 227 different items that included 28 different champagnes. Brown's wife died in February of 1893 and he moved out of the Sherman Street Mansion that they shared and took up residence at the Brown Palace. The crash of 1893 hit him hard and he wasn't able to pay his bills. This left the managers of the hotel thinking that they were actually going to have to evict him. Brown was saved from that when a fellow carpenter who hit it big in the Cripple Creek gold rush, W.S. Stratton, bought the Brown Palace and he let Brown stay there. In 1894, Brown set his sights on marrying a 22-year-old grocery clerk. He was 74. Surprisingly, the marriage didn't last and they were divorced by 1900. Brown went to San Diego, California and he died there in 1906. His body was brought back to Denver and laid in state in the Capitol. After his death, there was litigation with Brown's son over the deed and the Stratton estate officially bought the hotel in 1907.

Horace Bennett and Associates bought the hotel in 1922. One of those associates was Charles Boettcher and he and his brother Claude bought the hotel when the Depression forced Bennett to sell some of his holdings. Claude guided the hotel through the Depression and two World Wars. In 1937, two murals were added to the hotel lobby by artist Allen Tupper True named "Stage Coach" and "Airplane Travel." When prohibition ended, the Ship Tavern was added to the hotel. In 1959, the Denver Broncos were born in the lobby of the Brown Palace. Lamar Hunt was starting a new football league called the American Football League and Bob Howsam agreed to meet him at the hotel to finalize a plan for Howsam to own the Denver franchise. The AFL and NFL would eventually merge into the game of football we know today. Also in 1959 came an expansion to add more rooms and this was in the form of a 22-story annex across Tremont Place that offered 231 rooms. Eventually this annex became a Comfort Inn and today are a Holiday Inn Express. The Boettcher name was associated with the Brown Palace for fifty years and then it was sold to Associated Inns and Restaurants Company of America in 1980. Rank Hotels of North America took over management in 1983.

Guests who came to the Grand Dame of Denver were Frontier and Alaska gangster Jefferson “Soapy” Smith, Louise Sneed Hill, Margaret “Molly” Brown, Andrew Carnegie, Thomas Edison, Peter Lorre, Jane Russell, Red Skelton and Charles Lindbergh. The first president to visit was Teddy Roosevelt in 1905. Incidentally, only three presidents that have served after Teddy have not visited the hotel. Every other President has been a guest. The Beatles were coming to Colorado to perform at Red Rocks Ampitheater, which is THE best placed to see a concert, period. Fight me. That's why so many groups have released live albums that were recorded at Red Rocks. Anyway, when the Beatles arrived at the Brown Palace on August 26, 1964, pandemonium ensued. There is fun story about a character who stayed here named Lord Ogilivie shared in Corinne Hunt's 1982 book "The Brown Palace Story." (Pg. 45)

Interesting guests would show up in the lobby during the National Western Stock Show every year: the champion bulls. Crow Holdings acquired the Brown in 2014 and today it is owned by Crescent Real Estate LLC and is managed by Marriott. Today, the Brown is officially known as The Brown Palace Hotel and Spa, Autograph Collection and features not only the spa, but afternoon tea, the Molly Brown Suite Experience, the Eisenhower Suite, a French restaurant, live jazz in the atrium lobby and honey bees that produce honey for spa products and fresh jars of honey. There are tours offered that include ghost tours and the hotel is rumored to be haunted by several spirits. 

Let's talk about one reason we might have a haunting going on here. Murder. The Brown Palace had a bar called the Marble Bar in 1911 and it was the scene of a double murder and as is the case with many murders, this was all over a woman and jealousy. First, we'll introduce our characters. There was Sylvester Von Phul who everybody called Tony. He was a big athletic guy measuring over six feet and weighing 220 pounds. His features were handsome and he easily caught the ladies' eyes with his deep set blue eyes and pompadour hair. Tony was 34-years-old in 1911. There was Frank Henwood who had only been in Denver a short time. He was a friend and business associate of a man named John Springer. Frank was an impeccable dresser and thin and had traveled the world. He was divorced with two daughters and 35-years-old in 1911. Isabel Patterson Springer was born in Kansas in 1886 and was a social butterfly who worked her way up to elite socialite. She was married to a traveling shoe salesman and divorced him in 1907. Only a few weeks after that divorce, Isabel married Colorado businessman John Springer, who was very powerful and very rich. He was forty-seven and she was twenty-seven, so she made the perfect trophy wife. And she fit the bill being both beautiful and vivacious. Isabel loved to throw parties, especially at the Brown Palace, and everybody was always eager for an invite.

Isabel was young and unsatisfied in her marriage to Springer who was often away on business, so she took up with both Tony Von Phul and Frank Henwood. She had met von Phul on a trip to St. Louis and after she left, she started writing him some very steamy letters. The two met up in Hot Springs, Arkansas where Isabel went to recover from a surgery and the two were seen doing the party circuit together. Isabel had met Frank at her husband's office and the three all started hanging out as friends. Things crossed the line at some point and Frank would visit Isabel at her and John's 12,000 acre ranch outside of Denver when John would be out of town. Isabel couldn't decide between the two men. At what point they found out about each other, we don't know but apparently von Phul started threatening Isabel that he would start sending her letters to him, to her husband one at a time, unless she dropped her husband and Frank for him. Isabel turned to Frank for help in getting back "some foolish little letters." Frank agreed. He wasn't about to let von Phul blackmail Isabel.

The Springers had a suite at the Brown Palace and Isabel and Frank met there. This was easy to do because frank also had a room at the Brown, Room 715. Isabel again asked for Frank to get moving on getting the letters back. He told her that he wanted her to write a note to von Phul telling him that things were over, but she refused. Frank persisted and a letter was indeed typed up. Isabel had summoned von Phul to come from St. Louis and when he arrived, he checked into the Brown Palace and was given Room 524. he asked later to be moved to Room 603 next to the Springer's suite. When he checked in, he was given the Dear John letter, which told him it was over and that Isabel was sending someone to have a final talk with him.

Henwood made an appointment with von Phul to meet that evening, May 23rd, 1911 at 5:30 in the afternoon. Before that meeting happened, Frank found out that von Phul and left to meet up with Isabel and her mother at a department store. Frank met up with him at the store and encouraged him not to make a scene and got him to get into a car with him to go back to the Brown and things got very heated in the car and Frank joined von Phul in his room at the Brown. Henwood insisted that Tony return the letters to Isabel and von Phul punched him in the face. Then von Phul hit Frank with a shoe tree and he pulled a revolver from his pocket and threatened to kill Frank. Frank left the room. Isabel later told Frank that von Phul  had punched her and that he had done it twice more in the past. She also said that von Phul said he was going to kill her husband John. So Frank Henwood got a gun. 

The next evening, May 24th, Frank and von Phul met up at the Marble Bar in the Brown Palace. Von Phul asked a friend to change places with him so he could be near Frank because he had already licked him twice and might want to do it again. Frank would claim that von Phul said to him about John Springer, "I'll go upstairs and drag the gray-headed expletive out and show him who is the master here." Frank got in his face, and von Phul knocked him down and then reached in his pocket. Frank thought he was grabbing a gun and he pulled his gun and fired at von Phul. He not only hit von Phul twice, but he shot two other men. The bartender was hit in the leg and an innocent bystander named George Copeland was fatally wounded. Tony died of his wounds the next day.  

Frank wasn't tried for the murder of von Phul, but rather the unintentional killing of Copeland. This was done so that Frank couldn't claim self-defense in killing von Phul which would have made Copeland's death just negligence. The prosecution really wanted Frank to be convicted, so they thought this was best and it worked. Henwood was found guilty of first degree murder and sentenced to death, but this was commuted to a life sentence by the state pardon board. Then in May 1922, Isabel's husband John made a personal appeal to the Colorado governor to pardon Henwood and he agreed to do it. So Henwood was released from prison the prison in Canon City as long as he promised to never return to Denver. John Springer divorced Isabel and said she could keep his last name, but he forbade her to ever return to Denver. She moved to the East Coast to try becoming a model, but got addicted to opium and overdosed in 1917 at the age of 31.

Employees and guests claim to hear a ghostly orchestra on occasion and the full-bodied apparition of a waiter in a period uniform has been seen near the service elevator. A ticket salesman in an old uniform is seen walking around in the lobby. The sounds of children playing and the crying of babies is heard when there are no children around. Lights turn themselves off and on. A spirit wearing what looks like train conductor clothes from another time has been seen near the entrance and if he is approached, he floats down to the ground floor and disappears. Incidentally, we have mentioned in other episodes that there are tunnels that run under ground in Denver and some of these tunnels are reputedly under the Brown palace.

Night watchmen claim to see Henry Brown's ghost in the wee hours of the morning pacing the hallways. The spirit is seen walking through the walls  of the Churchill Cigar Bar in the hotel. The main dining room was once known as the San Marco Room and there was always live music. One of the main musical groups that played here were the San Marco Strings. An employee was working one night when he heard muic coming from the dining room and he was confused because it was closed. When he looked inside, he saw a formally dressed string quartet playing. He went inside and approached the group and told them, "You're not supposed to be in here." One of the men calmly replied, "Oh, don't worry about us. We live here." The musicians then disappeared.

Room 401 houses the spirit of an unfriendly male. Women are often touched by something unseen when in the closet of this room. A former owner's wife was named Edna and she is blamed for lights turning off and on by themselves. She also may be the elderly female spirit that wears a long black dress and complains that the heat isn't working in her room and then vanishes when the maintenance guy comes to fix things. A bellhop from a time gone by likes to swipe newspapers from doorways. He is also seen walking through walls. Rooms were never rented by the hour, but a ghost of a lady of the evening has been seen. She may wander over from buildings across the street because there had once been a gambling hall and brothel over there that patrons of the Brown Palace could get to via a tunnel going under the street. 

Louise Crawford Hill lived in Room 904 for thirteen years from 1942 to 1955. Louise was born in North Carolina in 1862 and she arrived in Denver in 1893. She was determined to climb her way to the top of society and she accomplished this by marrying the very rich Crawford Hill whose father had been a smelter magnate. Louise created the first social register in Denver and called it "Who's Who in Denver Society." Louise wouldn't include Maggie Brown (Molly) on her list, so Maggie dubbed her "the snobbiest woman in Denver." Crawford died in 1922 and Louise continued to live in their mansion until 1942 when she sold it because she couldn't find any hired help to upkeep it because of World War II. She was mostly a recluse at the hotel and she died there in 1955. Jenna Robbins has given haunted tours of the haunted areas of the hotel for years. She told the Denver Post in 2016, "I was a I-don’t-believe-in-ghosts person, but all it took was an experience I can’t explain in any other way than ‘ghosts must exist’ to change my mind." The paper Westword reported in 2008 what that experience was, "Years later, when Mrs. Hill was but a distant memory, renovations were being done to the top two floors of the hotel — where she had lived — and a hotel historian [Robbins] was giving tours of the floors, telling interested participants about the people who used to reside there. When she got to the tales of Mrs. Hill, which involved heartbreak suffered over a lost love, the hotel’s main switchboard suddenly began receiving calls from Room 904 — which had been stripped of all furniture, lights, wallpaper, carpet and telephones during the renovation. Hotel operators could hear only static when they answered the calls. And when the historian removed Mrs. Hill’s saga from the tour, the phone calls from Room 904 ceased."

A Haunting in Colorado, founded by Alexis Rae, did an investigation at the hotel in 2021 and got "Let go" to come through on a Spirit Box. Alexis said that some activity that entailed an unseen spirit pulling the covers off of people, seemed to start when the hotel started offering ghost tours. She asked the spirits if this bothered them and very clearly through the box came the answer, "It does." Later, a male voice yelled "foot!" There was an "okay" and Alexis asked if they wanted to conversate for a little bit and there was a clear "yes" and then an "excuse me." Another spirit said "Leave me alone."  

The Brown Palace is a modern day reminder of the Old West. The hotel is both elegant and historic with a past rich enough to lend itself to ghost stories. Is the Brown Palace Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 597 - Frederic Remington Museum of Art

Moment in Oddity - Japanese Spider Crabs

Although Diane and I love all critters, we also eat them and one mention of crab makes our mouths start to water. We do not have the opportunity to enjoy crab often, but there is a species of crab where just one single crab could feed us for several meals. This is the Japanese spider crab which is found off the waters of Japan in depths of 50 to 300 meters. The species only moves to shallower waters during the breeding season. They are scavengers by nature and can live between 50 and 100 years. These crabs are known as decorator crabs. They attach various sponges, algae and other items to their bodies to aid in their camouflage to help avoid predation. The Japanese spider crab is a slow moving creature however, happening upon one of these crabs could also elicit nightmares. The tasty delicacy has a carapace that can be up to 16 inches across and their leg spanse can measure up to 12.5 feet, making the Japanese spider crab the largest arthropod on earth and their size certainly makes them odd. 

This Month in History - Transit Visas Issued to Jews (Suggested by: Duey Oxberger)

In the month of July in 1940, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara (shee-oo-nee Soo-gee-haa-ruh) issued transit visas to Jewish refugees. Sugihara was stationed in Lithuania to gather intelligence on German and Soviet troop movements. He witnessed Jewish families seeking escape from Nazi-occupied Europe and began writing visas for Jewish people to travel to Japan in order to seek further refuge in other countries. Sugihara was ordered by his superiors to not issue the visas, but he later stated, "I may have disobeyed my government but if I didn't I would be disobeying God". With his wife's support, Sugihara spent long hours issuing over 2,000 visas. Some articles credit him with saving 6,000 Jewish lives. Some of the visas, however, were never used and recent research has revealed that the actual number of rescues cannot be substantiated. On occasion, single visas were used for entire households as well. In addition to the travel visas, Tokyo required travelers to have a final destination permit to be allowed to travel through Japan. Dutch consul Jan Zwartendijk (Yawn Svart-en-dick) who was also stationed in Lithuania at the time, stamped thousands of Jewish passports to visa-free Dutch Curacao. The fees for the refugees' transit across the Soviet Union was paid for by various Jewish organizations. Once the refugees arrived in Japan, they left for the United States, Australia, Canada and other countries. Some were later imprisoned in Japanese controlled Shanghai until the end of the war.

Frederic Remington Museum of Art 

Frederic Remington created some of the most iconic Western art in the history of America. His art was able to bring the untamed frontier to the big city and today is evocative of the Wild West. Remington not only drew and painted the West, he lived it as well and he loved playing the role of pseudo cowboy. His art is showcased at the Frederic Remington Museum of Art in Ogdensburg, New York, a town where he grew up and would spend time in his adulthood. Even though Remington didn't live in the house that became the museum, it is said he haunts the place. And there is a legend connected to the house that also seems to have left behind a ghost story. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Frederic Remington Museum of Art.  

Ogdensburg is located on the southern shore of the St. Lawrence River in New York. The Iroquoian were some of the first indigenous people here and they were followed by the Five Nations of the Haudenosaunee, which were the Mohawk, Onondaga, Oneida, Cayuga and Seneca. The French were the first European settlers to establish a presence and they built a mission named Fort de La Presentation in 1749. They named the colony New France. Parts of the French and Indian War would take place nearby and after the British won, France ceded its land east of the Mississippi to Britain. The British renamed the fort to Fort Oswegatchie after their Native allies. These allies would be driven out of the area after Britain lost the Revolutionary War by American settlers and they renamed the village Ogdensburg after a landowner named Samuel Ogden in 1796. The village was incorporated in 1817 and became the City of Ogdensburg in 1868. The house that would become the Frederic Remington Museum of Art was built here in 1810 and Remington would begin living in Ogdensburg in 1872.

We should probably talk about Frederic Remington before we share about the museum created in his honor. First a little fun fact, yes, he was related to Eliphalet Remington who had founded the oldest gunmaker in America, the Remington Arms Company, which made the Remington Repeater Rifle. And he was related to famous mountain man Jedediah Smith. Frederic was born in New York in 1861 to Union Army Colonel Seth Remington who was off fighting in the Civil War for the first four year's of Frederic's life. Before serving in the military, Seth had been a newspaper editor and postmaster, so after the war, he moved the family to Bloomington, Illinois because he was appointed editor of the Bloomington Republican. In 1867, the Remingtons moved back to New York. 

Seth had dreams of his son going to West point, but that was never going to happen. Frederic wasn't a good student and being that he was the creative type, he wasn't good at math. He loved the outdoors and was an excellent hunter and swimmer and he was a good horseman. Frederic was also a very talented artist. He started sketching soldiers and cowboys when he was still quite young. His father moved the family to Ogdensburg when he was eleven, so that he could attend the Vermont Episcopal Institute, which was a military school. Rather than push Frederic into a military future, Frederic got the opportunity to have a drawing lesson and he was hooked. Transferring to another military school didn't do anything either to foster a desire for a military life. Frederic spent most of his time drawing caricatures of his classmates. He wrote his uncle, "I never intend to do any great amount of labor. I have but one short life and do not aspire to wealth or fame in a degree which could only be obtained by an extraordinary effort on my part."

So, art it was and Frederic went off to study art at Yale University. While there, he found the style that he would pursue. He loved action and drew men boxing and playing sports. Still life bored him and he wasn't into classical art at all. His first published illustration was a cartoon of a "bandaged football player" and it ran in Yale's school paper, the Yale Courant. While Frederic was at school, his father contracted tuberculosis. As it got worse, Frederic decided to leave Yale and he did that in 1879. His father died the following year. He was only fifty. For a time after that, Remington drifted in life. He meandered through various jobs and proposed to a girlfriend, but her father rejected the offer. Frederic took his inheritance and headed for Montana with the intention of setting up a mining interest and when he didn't have enough money for that, he thought about setting up a cattle operation. He still didn't have the capital for that. But something that would prove to be wonderful for the world of art happened. Remington sat and marinated in the West. He got to see the bison roaming the prairie. He observed the Native Americans of the Plains. He witnessed confrontations between those tribes and the US Cavalry. There were the cowboys and the miners and the horses and unfenced cattle. Remington was getting an authentic taste of the American West of the 1880s. And he was going to share it with the world. 

Remington's first commercially published piece was in Harper's Weekly. The money wasn't rolling in though, so Frederic decided to try sheep ranching in Kansas. That proved to be boring, so he sold the land that he had sunk his inheritance into and he returned to New York to get some money from his mother, only to return to Kansas and lose money on a hardware business. Then he tried being a partner in a saloon. In 1884, he went back to New York to fetch that young woman whom he had wanted to marry earlier. Her father was willing to let her marry Remington now, even though he seemed to be rudderless. So Remington made Eva Caten his wife and brought her back to Kansas. She wasn't thrilled with the saloon business. When Remington showed her his collection of sketches and revealed that drawing was his real interest, she packed her bags and headed back to Ogdensburg. This caused Remington to get more serious about his art and he started selling paintings. He realized that he really could make money doing this and he headed back to New York to reunite with Eva and he went to the Art Students League of New York to refine his skills. Western themes were becoming really popular, so everything was about to sync perfectly for Remington. He was 25 and it was 1886 when Harper's Weekly gave him his first full-color front page. The magazine would send him on various assignments through the years.

In his first year of being a commercial artist, Remington made $1,200 and he told a friend, "That's a pretty good break for an ex cow-puncher to come to New York with $30 and catch on it 'art'." Remington used various mediums in his work and he tried to get the most accurate colors he could to depict what the West really looked like. In 1887, Remington met a man who would become a good friend of his, Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt had just finished writing his book "Ranch Life and the Hunting Trail" and it was going to be serialized in The Century Magazine and he needed over eighty illustrations to accompany it, so he commissioned this young, new artist named Remington. Roosevelt himself was only 29 at the time. The two men became fast friends as they realized that they both loved adventure and the West. The two would remain lifelong friends. As his skill grew, Remington was able to take on more complex works and in 1889 he won a second-class medal at the Paris Exposition. The following year, he held a one-man show and it was at this time that he really put forward a public persona of being a cowboy and spoke like a cowboy and changed up his biography, throwing in a few myths of his escapades in the frontier. Harper's Weekly had him under a handshake agreement and they really embraced the pseudo-cowboy thing, launching a promotional campaign to that effect. 

In his personal life, Remington and his wife relocated to New Rochelle, New York, which would put them closer to New York City in 1890. It was the perfect spot because Remington could still enjoy open spaces and horseback riding, while still having the big city to facilitate his art with publishing houses and galleries. Remington tried to stay active because his success had led to indulgences that added quite a bit of girth to his frame and he would struggle with it for the rest of his life. The house was located at 301 Webster Avenue on a hill known as Lathers Woods, named for Colonel Richard Lathers. Lathers built a few houses on his 300 acre estate as investments. One of these was bought by Remington. The house was designed in the Gothic revival style by architect Alexander Jackson Davis, with great views of the countryside and Long Island Sound. Remington called the estate Endion which was an Ojibwa word meaning "the place where I live." The house had everything the couple needed or wanted except a studio for Frederic. He used the large attic for a while, but eventually retained New Rochelle architect O. William Degen in 1896 to plan a studio addition to the house. Remington would describe the studio to a friend as being "Czar-sized." In this studio, he would create most of his life's work, which included over 3,000 pieces. The studio was filled with items he had collected and he would dress models in genuine pieces for inspiration. The studio has been recreated at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West in Cody, Wyoming.

One of the famous moments in Western history that Remington documented in January of 1891, albeit after-the-fact, was the Massacre at Wounded Knee. He went through the tents of the wounded soldiers and got their stories. They had all thought that this was going to be an easy surrender of Big Foot and his warriors, but Big Foot's group fought back by concealing guns under blankets that they threw off when the 7th Cavalry arrived. An interesting paranormal tangent to this is that the medicine man of the tribe had given the warriors ghost shirts and told them that no bullet would be able to wound them if they wore the shirts. And the warriors believed him. Obviously, that wasn't true and Remington wrote, "Lying on his back, with a bullet through the body, Lieutenant Mann grew stern when he got to the critical point in his story. 'I saw three or four young bucks drop their blankets, and I saw that they were armed. ‘Be ready to fire, men; there is trouble.' There was an instant, and then we heard sounds of firing in the center of the Indians. ‘Fire!’ I shouted, and we poured it into them. Oh yes, Mann, but the trouble began when the old medicine-man threw the dust in the air. That is the old Indian signal of ‘defiance,’ and no sooner had he done that act than those bucks stripped and went into action.  Just before that some one told me that if we didn’t stop that old man’s talk he would make trouble. He said that the white men’s bullets would not go through the ghost shirts. Said another officer, 'The way those Sioux worked those Winchesters was beautiful.' Which criticism, you can see, was professional. Added another, 'One man was hit early in the firing, but he continued to pump his Winchester; but growing weaker and weaker, and sinking down gradually, his shots went higher and higher, until his last went straight up in the air. Those Indians were plumb crazy. Now, for instance, did you notice that before they fired they raised their arms to heaven? That was devotional. Yes, captain, but they got over their devotional mood after the shooting was over,' remonstrated a cynic. 'When I passed over the field after the fight one young warrior who was near to his death asked me to take him over to the medicine-man’s side, that he might die with his knife in the old conjurer’s heart. He had seen that the medicine was bad, and his faith in the ghost shirt had vanished. There was no doubt but that every buck there thought that no bullet could touch him.”

Remington would be referred to as "The Soldier Artist" because of his extensive work with featuring soldiers and cavalrymen and their stories in his work. Frederic spent much of the 1890s traveling through Mexico and the US. He eventually made it to Florida where he discovered Florida Crackers, which were our version of cowboys. Remington wrote of his work, "My drawing is done entirely from memory. I never use a camera now. The interesting never occurs in nature as a whole, but in pieces. It's more what I leave out than what I add." Frederic definitely focused on the outside world of the West. Saloons and dance halls didn't really make it into his work and he rarely depicted women. Most of the females he drew were Native American. In 1895, Remington started working on sculpting. He asked his friend, Sculptor Frederick Ruckstull to teach him how to sculpt and his first armature and clay model featured a cowboy fighting to stay aboard a rearing, bucking bronco, with a stirrup swinging free, a quirt in one hand and a fistful of mane and reins in the other. He entitled it The Bronco Buster and it would be his most popular sculpture. He made $6,000 over three years on the piece.

Remington spent seven days a week in his studio, but he was becoming bored as 1900 rolled around and he longed for a war to get started, so he could be a heroic war correspondent. Frederic lived in this kind of illusionary world where war would be good because as he told a friend he had "done nothing but potboil of late." Frederic had done a self-portrait of himself as a lean cowboy on horseback, but he was far from that and it would prove his undoing. He weighed in at nearly 300 pounds. That year, he bought an island on the U.S. side of the St. Lawrence River that he could use as a summer residence and place to live Crusoe-like, although it had a substantial cottage and outbuildings. He called it "Ingleneuk" and said of it that it was "the finest place on earth." Remington also took to writing novels, but that wasn't as successful, so he focused mostly on sculpture and painting. In 1908, he decided to sell the house in new Rochelle and before he did that, he built a bonfire in the front yard and burned dozens of his oil paintings that had been used for magazine illustration. Apparently, he did this as a statement that he was done with illustration for good. 

At the beginning of 1909, the Remingtons bought 45 acres in Ridgefield, Connecticut and they built a home and studio there. Although the house still stands today and is a National Historic Landmark known as the Frederic Remington House, Frederic didn't live in it for very long. In December of 1909, Remington had to have an emergency appendectomy and his extreme obesity led to complications and peritonitis and he died on December 26, 1909. Eva would survive him by nine years. The house where the Remington Museum is located was built in 1810 and as we said in the intro, Frederic never lived here. He probably was in the house though  as his friend George Hall had owned the house. Frederic's wife Eva was definitely in the house. She lived there with her sister Emma as guests of Hall from 1915 to 1918, when Eva passed away. Most of the items in the museum came from Eva Remington's 1918 estate. These items include scrapbooks, photographs, Remington's library, his easel, his paintbrushes, his hockey stick, his elk's tooth cufflinks and even the cigars that were in his pocket before he died. The Museum opened in 1923 as the Remington Art Memorial. That name changed to its current name as the Frederic Remington Art Museum in 1981. 

There are claims that the museum is haunted and there seem to be at least two ghosts here. Newspapers began reporting hauntings at the museum in the 1940s according to museum director Laura Foster. Frederic Remington is one of those ghosts. His full bodied apparition has been seen and objects do move around as though he is back at work in his studio.

The other spirit is believed to belong to a woman named Elena Ameriga Vespucci. You might recognize the name Ameriga from a previous This Month in History when we talked about America being named for Amerigo Vespucci, an Italian explorer and navigator who called what would become the Americas as the New World. Cartographer Martin Waldseemuller in 1507 wrote on a map of the New World the Latinized form of Amerigo, which was America and later cartographers followed suit. Elena was a direct descendant of Amerigo. She also ended up the the mistress of George Parish because of a card game. This is a legendary story, meaning that some of it may just be lore, but regardless, Elena is a fascinating character. She was raised in a Florentine convent until the age of seventeen. Then she was told that she would be moving on to serve as maid of honor to the Grand Duchess of Tuscany and she was having none of that. There was a secret group that had formed to obtain Italian independence called "La Jeune Italie" and she ran away and joined that group. In 1832, she took up arms and was described as having "great gallantry" and she suffered a severe injury at the hands of an Austrian dragoon. These political activities got her in trouble and she was exiled to France where she sought refuge at the court of France. 

When given the chance to head over to her family's name sake, she jumped and traveled to the United States where she petitioned for citizenship and a land grant. Elena was beautiful and very charming, so it didn't take long for here to insert herself into the political circles of  Washington, D.C. and she got Senator Thomas Hart Benton to petition the Senate on her behalf and he said, "She is without a country, without fortune, and without protection. She asks that we grant her a corner of the land which bears the name of her glorious forebear, and for the right of citizenship among those who call themselves Americans." Congress was actually forbidden to do that, so nothing came of this. 

The Countess of Blessington said of Elena that she was "interesting and original, full of animation…She possesses a certain wild, unsteady energy and cleverness…tormented with a constant desire to excite attention." She was described as "of fine features, symmetrically formed, of the perfect Italian style of beauty, with more of Juno’s characteristics than of Venus’ peculiarities in its excellency.  Her figure was commanding, full, strongly set up, and finely moulded"...her eyes were "wonderfully brilliant," and her hair “black as jet and of extraordinary length and abundance." With all of this in her favor, she decided to follow a suggestion made to her to go to the American people for help in starting her new life, so she visited several major cities in America and it was written , "Her path was strewn with roses, open hands, and confiding hearts." Even though it seemed that Elena would become a national icon, she abruptly left in 1840 and sailed for Europe declaring that she didn't want any money that wasn't a gift. This leads us to believe that perhaps she was told that money given to her was a loan or something. Whatever the case, the "New York Evening Star" did not take this ingratitude lightly and a bitter exposé was written about Elena and she was accused of having an affair with the Duke of Orleans. 

Elena would return to America though and this time she claimed to be Contessa Helene America. She had landed in Boston and started working the social circles there and no one seemed aware that she was Elena. They all fell under her spell once again. At some point she met a wealthy German merchant named George Parish. The two were living in what was described as "immoral intimacy" in Ogdensburg, New York. And here is where we get our legend. How Parish and Elena came to be together seems to be the result of a card game. Elena as Contessa had become the paramour of Martin Van Buren’s playboy son John. John liked to gamble and he and Parish got embroiled in an intense night of poker playing at the LeRay Hotel in Evans Mills, N.Y. John wasn't having any luck and he had lost all his money, so he put Vespucci up as a bet and wagered ownership of her on a toss of his last gold coin. Parish won the toss and he got the girl.

Now we're not sure if this story is true because Parish and Vespucci really seemed to love each other and spent twenty years together. Elena spent much of that time as a recluse because of all the wagging tongues about the two living in sin. The bliss would come to an end in 1856 when George's older brother died in Germany. His brother had been Baron von Leftonberg and now his family needed him to assume the roleand to find a bride. Elena wouldn't fit that bill, so he packed her up and sent her off to France with an allowance. The couple would never see each other again and Vespucci was devastated. She died in Paris in 1866. It was discovered by a man named C. Edwards Lester, while he was researching a book on the explorer Amerigo Vespucci that Elena's family were living in genteel poverty and that her stories about being raised in a convent, her time at the court of the Grand Duchess, her role in the Italian resistance, her intimacy with the French royal family were all just made up stories. She was actually a child that was hard to control whom he wrote had been "the mistress of some dozen men."  

Now how Elena gets connected to the museum is that Parish and her had lived at this house for those twenty years. This was the happiest time of her life and that is why her spirit seems to have come back across the ocean. In 2015, a psychic named Freda Gladle visited the museum and did a walk through with museum volunteer Donna Wright. Wright shared that she didn't believe any full-time spirits resided in the main museum, but she thought that she and Gladle did encounter some residual energy, although it sounds intelligent to us. They decided to try to communicate with the female spirit at the house and they did make a connection. When they asked if Elena had been won in a poker game, she responded very firmly, "I was not won in a poker game." This spirit claimed that she had actually lost money during the poker game and then had to quit because she had no money left. What was interesting about this investigation is that it was dovetailed with a simultaneous Clarkson University study of the air quality. Several undergraduate students, under the guidance of Shane Rogers, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, were investigating the claim that airborne organisms could provoke paranormal experiences.

Frederic Remington lived a larger than life kind of life and so it is no wonder that his spirit would continue on here on this plane of existence. Much of his belongings are located at the museum. Is it possible that he has returned to his belongings? And did Elena Ameriga Vespucci come back here as well? Is the Frederic Remington Museum of Art haunted? That is for you to decide!