HGB Ep. 628 - Lagoon Amusement Park

Moment in Oddity - Sea Themed Pulpits (Suggested by Chelsea Flowers)

Most people have been to a church service at one time or another even if they're not a regular congregant. Those giving the sermons, generally known as priests or pastors, will usually deliver their message from a pulpit. These can be as simple as a raised platform, to very elaborate artistic designs. The ocean holds a strong place in Christian iconography. From the book of Jonah, to the Ichthys fish representing Christ, anchors as a symbol of hope and scalloped shells representing baptism. Churches of the modern day do not typically have ocean related representations such as these, in their place of worship. However, in the 18th century in central Europe, a trend evolved with the creation of some very unique forms of pulpits. They are known as Sea Pulpits, generally consisting of giant fish, whales and boats. Many of the fish and whales styled with giant mouths bearing sharp teeth and the ship styles looking as though they are in the middle of a fierce storm. Their appearance harkens thoughts of the fire and brimstone passages of the Bible. The pulpits themselves are beautiful pieces of art right down to the finely sculpted scales of the fish or wood grain on the ships' hulls. The majority of Sea Pulpits can be found in Poland and Czechia (CHEH-kee-ah), but as to why the popularity of this style of pulpit is concentrated there, it is unknown. But one thing we do know is that maritime sea pulpits, although unique and beautiful, certainly are odd.

Lagoon Amusement Park

Lagoon Amusement Park in Farmington, Utah is one of the oldest amusement parks in America and still continues to thrill children and adults with rides, entertainment and special events. It is North America's largest family owned amusement park and features world record breaking thrill rides. And while it is a place of great fun, it has also hosted some tragedy and death and perhaps that is why several areas of the park have unexplained experiences and ghosts. Join us for the history and hauntings of Lagoon Amusement Park.

As was the case for much of Utah, Farmington was first settled by Mormon settlers, the Haight family, in 1847. They created a farm and built an inn and within a couple of years, they were joined by several other families. These early pioneers called their community North Cottonwood and in 1852 the name was changed to Farmington, which was inspired by the fact that this was a farming town. This became the county seat and a wall was built around the city. Lagoon Amusement Park didn't start in Farmington. The original park was on the shores of the Great Salt Lake was founded by the Denver Rio Grande Western Railroad and was called Lake Park. It opened in July of 1886 and featured a dance pavilion, bowling alley, water sports and mule-drawn merry-go-round. Simon Bamberger was a prominent businessman who came to Utah in 1870. He had his fingers in many businesses ranging from mining to hotels. He started the Bamberger Railroad in 1891 and named it the Great Lake & Hot Springs Railway. This line ran between Ogden and Salt Lake City and reached Farmington in 1895. Bamberger was vice president and co-owner of Lake Park. The same year that the railroad reached Farmington, the Great Salt Lake receded forcing Lake Park to close. Bamberger got an idea. Perhaps the park could be moved to Farmington. He bought most of the original buildings and moved them the three miles to Farmington. The patch of land he chose was, well, a lagoon, so he drained it and then built the Lagoon Resort.

This early rendition of Lagoon had a nine-acre pond and was set up on 40 acres. The dance pavilion was one of the buildings moved. The cupola of that pavilion was designed by architect Richard Kletting, best known as the architect of the original Saltair, which we covered on Ep. 232, and that cupola still is at the park. The Lagoon advertised "Bowling, Elegant Dancing Pavilion, Fine Music, A Shady Bowery and Good Restaurants." In 1899, the first thrill ride was opened at the park. This was an early type of log flume ride called "Shoot-the Chutes." These were sliding boats that went down a ramp and splashed down into water. 

The Lagoon featured live music and dancing and restaurants and in 1900, guests started rowing boats and swimming in Lagoon Lake. Other rides were added over time. The park started its own minor league baseball team that competed in the Inter-Mountain League in 1901 and the Utah State League in 1902. In 1906, a Herschell–Spillman carousel built in 1893 was installed with 45 hand-carved horses. At least that is what the park claims, that it was built in 1893, but that would be impossible since the Herschell-Spillman Company was founded in New York in 1903. They were a premier early 20th-century manufacturer of ornate, hand-carved wooden carousels featuring "country fair" style animals. So the carousel was probably built in 1906 - it is still in the park today. There was also a Cagney miniature railroad. The Cagney Brothers opened their Miniature Railway Company in 1894. They made 15-inch gauge coal-fired steam locomotives, many of which were called "Pint-sized Pufferbellies." They made great amusement park rides. Other attractions included hot-air balloon rides, boxing and wrestling matches, horse racing, roller-skating, swimming, bicycle racing, a zoo, motion pictures, live theater, rodeos, a midway, marching bands, Wild West shows and fireworks. Then came the huge breakthrough, a roller coaster! The first roller coasters are traced back to Russia during the 17th century. Rich aristocrats had these slides built with ice on them and they would slide down them on sleds, eventually adding wheels to cart for year round use. Catherine the Great was a huge fan and had one built on her property. The French had something similar in the early 1800s. But the roller coaster that we all know and love was created in America by La Marcus Thompson. He has been called the “father of the roller coaster” and he created a switchback railway at Coney Island in 1884. Lagoon's original roller coaster, simply named Roller Coaster, still is in use and was built in 1921 from the design of coaster engineer John A. Miller. It was built from wood by the Colorado Construction Company. Its highest height is 57 feet and it has 2,500 feet of track. The ride lasts just under two minutes, and reaches speeds up to 45 mph.

The next big addition for the park involved more water. A million gallon swimming pool was added that claimed to hold water "fit to drink." This was the first filtered public pool west of the Mississippi and opened in 1927. In 1929, came a Fun House and midway shows, rides, and games. All the well known Big Band performers came to the Lagoon to perform including Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, and Glenn Miller.

When World War II started and America joined, the park was shut down and that lasted for three seasons. Along with disuse came disrepair and when it was time to reopen in 1946, the Bamberger family looked around and thought maybe it would be better to raze the whole park. That was when Ranch S. Kimball and Robert E. Freed approached the family and asked if their company could lease the park. Their company was the Utah Amusement Corporation and the Bambergers decided that they would do that. Freed decided to some overhauling and he rebuilt the Fun House and renovated the pool. He also pushed back on a town ordinance that prohibited blacks from using the pool or ballrooms. Freed added rides too in 1951: The "Dodgem Cars" and the "Lakeshore Express" miniature railway. He was really excited to add a Ferris Wheel in 1953. Everything was great that year until a fire ripped through and burned up most of the park. Half of the Roller Coaster was burned and the carousel still has scorch marks. This didn't stop Freed. He decided they would come better than ever and they did. And many of Freed's family members joined him. As a matter of fact, the family formed the Lagoon Corporation and bought the park from the Bamberger family in 1983 and they continue to run it today. In 1956, Mother Gooseland was created between the Midway and the swimming pool and was a themed land with kiddie rides. Today, the kid's area is called Kiddieland.

Lagoon's chief rival, Saltair, permanently closed after the 1958 season and so it was off and running without competition. The 1960s brought many new rides like a mini-car ride, the Space Scrambler, a shooting gallery, a spook house and in 1968, the 300-seat Lagoon Opera House was built and hosted Broadway style productions. The Lagoon was a popular place for music at that time with the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Doors,  the Kingston Trio, Johnny Cash and the Beach Boys all playing the Park. The Beach Boys even mention Lagoon Park in their song "Salt Lake City." 

Then came an ambitious project. The Park decided to add a Pioneer Village in 1976. The Pioneer Village was founded originally in 1938 by Horace and Ethel Sorensen and contained nearly 20 buildings that included a bakery, barber shop, chapel, post office, print shop, schoolhouse and several cabins. These were all moved from Salt Lake City to Lagoon. Some run as the actual shop they are and other buildings are museums full of artifacts. There was also a 2 ft. narrow-gauge "Pioneer Village Railroad" featuring "Old Ironsides" that is no longer at the Park. In 1976, the Jet Star 2 roller coaster was added from Spokane, Washington's Expo '74. In 1983, Colossus the Fire Dragon opened as the first extreme coaster in the park. This has an 87 foot hill with back-to-back double loop and two large helices, which are spiraling turns of at least 360 degrees. People Magazine named this as one of the top 10 coasters in the country in 1984. In 1987, the swimming pool was closed as was the Haunted Shack and the original Fun House. In place of the swimming pool came the $5.5 million, 4.5 acre Lagoon-A-Beach water park, which was completed in 1989. In 1997, Rattlesnake Rapids was added to the Pioneer Village, which is a river rapids ride. The year 1999 brought the park its first attraction above the height of 200-foot called The Rocket, a drop tower. The 2000s would bring many new coasters and thrill rides. The Bat opened in 2005 and is the only inverted coaster at the Park and is tame enough for kids to ride. Wicked opened in 2007 and cost $10 million to build. It is a Zierer tower launch coaster with a zero G barrel roll and it launches riders up a 100-foot tower at 55 mph in 2.5 seconds. Several other cool rides were added, usually around one a year, but it wouldn't be until 2015 that a new crazy roller coaster was added. It's called Cannibal if that gives you any idea. This features a 208-foot elevator lift hill, a 116° beyond vertical drop, three inversions, and a top speed of 70 mph. This is the second steepest coaster in America. In 2023, Primordial opened as a 4D interactive dark ride roller coaster. The ride is inside an artificial mountain and is a shooter game attraction with multiple ride endings. A new themed area entitled The District opened last year with three new rides and 2026 has The Nutcracker coming, which is an S&S Screamin' Swing thrill ride. 

So today, Lagoon features 11 coasters, 5 thrill rides, 2 dark rides, 1 water ride, 14 family rides, 19 kiddie rides and various X-Venture Zone rides that have an upcharge. There is the Pioneer Village and the water park and there had been a zoo, which was under a cloud of controversy over poor treatment and has now been closed. The Park also offers an RV park, a campground, and a walking trail outside the park that stays open all year. Every autumn, the park offers Halloween-themed shows and attractions, collectively known as Frightmares. And most importantly to us, there are ghosts.

There are a couple of reasons that there might be ghosts here. First, the Pioneer Village is full of old buildings and stuff. And then, as is the case with all amusement parks, there have been accidents and deaths. There have been 27 fatalities in total at the Park. This ranks it as number 11 in most dangerous amusement parks in the nation. Henry John Barnes was the first death on August 3, 1907 and he drowned in Lagoon's lake because he was intoxicated. His body wasn't found until the following morning. The lake would feature the most fatalities. Herbert Lee Reeder drowned in the lake on June 5, 1909 when the boat he was in capsized. He didn't know how to swim and his friend was unable to rescue him. In 1912, Emma Youngquist drowned in the lake when she and her boyfriend fell out of their boat because they were changing positions. Albert Fulton drowned in the pool when he struck his head on the bottom of the pool after diving in. Earl E. Logston was killed in a vehicle accident on the Lagoon racetrack on Sept. 5, 1921. Another man died in a car on the racetrack on July 24, 1922. You have to be pretty stupid to stand up on a roller coaster, but two people have died doing that. The first was George Burt who died on July 26, 1924 when he fell 25 feet from the Dipper roller coaster after standing up during the ride. The other was Ernest Henry Howe who died on August 20, 1934 when he stood up and fell out of the Roller Coaster. They apparently didn't have seat belts back then. 

A Tobias Oritz died on July 4, 1925 when he dove into the pool and drowned after hitting his head on the bottom as did Samuel Marler from the same thing on August 14, 1942. Mrs. Luka La Fay Goodfellow died on July 13, 1930 she dies in an accident in the Fun House when she was thrown from the “fun wheel” and struck her head against a post. James Young Hess was an employee and he was repairing scaffolding on Roller Coaster on Sept. 1, 1946 when he was hit by one of the coaster's cars and fell 18 feet, suffering skull, leg and arm fractures. 

Six-year-old Ryan Beckstead was riding the “Puff the Little Fire Dragon” ride at Lagoon on April 30, 1989. The ride operator was new and since nobody else was waiting for the ride she said, "How about another ride?" She hit the button for the ride to go again without noticing that Ryan had already started getting out of his seat. He was tossed out of the ride and stuck in between the tracks. People tried to reach him before the coaster came back around a second time and were ubable to. He was struck and killed. Kilee King was 13 when she died on July 9, 1989 after she fell 35 feet from the lead car of the roller coaster. She apparently had figured out that since she was smaller, she could “get air” by pushing her legs against the seat of the car as it went over a hill. The final time she did this she was thrown out of the ride’s car after slipping out from the safety bar. The most recent death happened on August 14, 2021 when a 32-year-old man fell 50 feet after dangling from the park's Sky Ride. No one knows if it was a suicide attempt or a stunt gone horribly wrong. However, he didn't die at the Park, rather the following day at the hospital.

Here are some of the haunting experiences people have had. Zestyclose_Series123 wrote, "I was a supervisor with the security department in the late 90-early 2000s. It was common knowledge that the top floor of the communications building was haunted. By the way no way you would catch me in the carriage house after the part closed." Different-Zucchini70 wrote, "I heard a story on the radio a long time ago about a security guard went to turn off some lights in a storage area by pioneer village. He turned the lights off and began walking back. He noticed the lights were on again, so he went to turn them back off, but this time he looked inside and saw mannequins moving."  

Ill_External4276 wrote on Reddit, "Hi! I have had a paranormal experience in pioneer village in lagoon amusement park. My dad told me the place where the carriages are is haunted, so when I was a teenager, a few of my friends and I went there and we were being dumb teenagers and decided to take photos sitting in the carriages (totally not allowed) and in almost all of the photos, there were orbs of light around us. The same day, (we were in the area near closing time and there was absolutely nobody else in the village) we all of a sudden heard what sounded like hundreds of voices talking and walking past us. The air was also super thick and musky, almost like we could see particles in the air. What’s so Erie and creepy is that years later, none of us have any of the photos on our phones anymore. There is only one photo left of me and it’s the one that doesn’t have the orbs (and we had over 20 photos with the orbs in them). I still sometimes search my camera roll hoping I’ll come across them but they’ve totally disappeared. This is the only paranormal experience I’ve ever had where I was fully conscious (not falling asleep or waking up from a dreamlike state) so it fully spooked me!"

Dustin Baird said on Facebook, "I was the overnight security guard for several months one summer. You have to trust me when I tell you the stories are real. The place has spirits. I've seen lights in buildings with no power and doors that were closed when I walked by open just after I passed." Laura Bernice said three years ago, "I was there a few weeks ago. I made it to the village 15 minutes before closing so it was mostly empty, the only place open was the ice cream shop everything else was completely empty, I decided to take a look around the Barber shop and I heard a knock on the glass and someone saying "come with me" I turned around and there was no one else but me in there or outside." 

There are claims that there is the ghost of a little girl in the arcade next to Dracula's Castle. This whole area had once been a dance pavilion that had burned down. Employees didn't like to work in the arcade because it creeped them out. They claimed there were ghosts from the fire there, including this little girl. The smell of smoke is detected many times. When closing up, employees would be chasing this little girl around who wouldn't leave. They would hear her giggling and running and sometimes see her and if they managed to find her, they would see that she was burned really bad on part of her body. Employees who actually saw her would usually quit. Patrons claim to feel as though a small child is grabbing their hand and children claimed to have been talking to a little girl in old timey clothes. One woman named Jody shared her experience with the Ghost Box Podcast in 2021. This was back in 1978 when she was 8-years-old and her parents had taken her to the park. They were in the Pioneer Village where there was an old buggy and horse drawn carriages and her parents had walked ahead of her. Jody spied this little girl and the two started playing with each other. She figured that the little girl worked there because she had a pioneer dress on. They played for over 30 minutes together before Jody went to find her parents. They asked her where she had been and she said she was playing with a little girl who work at the park. There was a female employee standing there and she said that the park didn't employ children. She went to call a manager because she assumed the kid was lost. The employee told the manager that Jody had said this little girl had blonde curly hair and a pioneer dress on and that she said her name was Ella. The manager quickly said, "Oh, that's our resident ghost Ella. She's been seen by quite a few people." No one is sure if Ella comes from the fire - we think probably not since Jody didn't say that she was burned - or if she had come with the Pioneer Village.

This area where the carriages are kept seems to be the most haunted area of the park. People claim to hear the sound of horses there and no horses are kept there. And no sound effects are used at this old livery stable. For one group of paranormal investigators, the livery stable gave them their most evidence over more than one visit. They heard disembodied steps on the stairs several times. They heard an audible female voice and they wondered if there was a female employee in there, but they found no one. They heard the voice again and then again. And then one of the female investigators felt a tug on her jacket and she jumped and screamed a bit. A shadowy figure was seen then moving from the side of her into a hearse.

At the Dern House, a security guard said he saw someone walking around in the front parlor after hours through a window. He went and checked the house and the doors were locked and then they checked the house and it was empty. This happened a couple of other times. An employee who was working there years ago when she was 15, said that she and a couple of other employees decided to do a seance in the village in the telephone museum that was stored in an old house. On the right hand side when you enter the museum is an old switchboard with a big picture featuring the women working the switchboards. There are no sound effects in the museum. This group set up their seance in the switchboard room and they aren't being really serious about it and nothing happened. Then they jut sat around talking and all of a sudden the atmosphere changed and the temperature changed. And then there were waves of these sounds the were like multiple voices and sounds like the switchboard was actually working. The sounds got lousder and louder until they could actually see the plexiglass vibrating from the sound. The girls in the group ran out of the house. The boys followed a little later and asked why the girls ran out and they answered, "Didn't those sounds scare you too?" The boys frowned and were like, "What sounds?" When the girls described the sounds the boys were like, "We didn't hear anything like that. It was quiet." Was this some kind of a time-space over lap?

Amusement parks are great fun. These classic parks that continue to update and yet keep some of their nostalgia are some of the best. Lagoon Amusement Park is beloved by Utahans. And while it offers thrills via the rides, is it possible there are some from paranormal experiences? Is Lagoon Amusement Park haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 627 - Kennecott Copper Mine

This Month in History - Houdini Escapable Dive Suit Patent

In the month of March, on the 1st, in 1921, Harry Houdini's patent was granted for an escapable diving suit. During his career, Houdini astonished audiences by escaping from handcuffs, straightjackets, chains and other restraints while being submerged under water. The master magician and escape artist created a diving suit which the wearer could remove easily while being submerged underwater. Diving suits of the time required assistance to both put on and take off the suits. The diving suit that Houdini had created enabled the diver to do so without assistance. Houdini's diving suit consisted of two separate parts with a latch for locking the two parts together in the middle. If a diver disengaged the latch, the two pieces would come apart. This allowed the diver to easily exit the suit, even while submerged, allowing the diver to safely swim to the water's surface. Clearly this type of suit would have been very advantageous to Houdini in performing many of his tricks. Although it is said that he never used this type of diving suit in any public performance. 

Kennecott Copper Mine

The Kennecott Copper Mine in Alaska had been one of the richest copper mines in the world. A thriving mining camp developed around the mine, as was the case during the various gold and silver rushes around the country. And just like those rushes, eventually the town was abandoned and what has been left behind quite possibly could be ghosts wandering through the rusted machinery and crumbling buildings. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Kennecott Copper Mine. 

The McCarthy Road follows where the former Copper River and Northwestern Railway had once had tracks. This rail line was built in 1909 and ran from Cordova, along the Copper River, to Chitina and then east to the Wrangell Mountains. This railway was meant to facilitate the transport of the copper pulled from the Kennecott Copper Mines. The road itself doesn't go all the way to Kennecott. The Kennecott River has to be crossed via a footbridge that was built in the 1990s. Kennecott is an abandoned mining camp that is a National Historic Landmark. The town is named for the nearby Kennecott Glacier, which was named by geologist Oscar Rohn in 1899 after Alaskan pioneer Robert Kennicott. The following year, 1900, two prospectors, Clarence Warner and "Tarantula Jack" Smith were near the glacier when they spotted what looked like a grass-green meadow. This was high up in a location where a meadow couldn't thrive, so they went to investigate and found out that the green was caused by malachite that was also mixed with chalcocite (cal coe site). Now malachite is pretty, but its not really valuable. It was used as a pigment in green paint in antiquity and Spanish superstition claimed that if a child wore a piece of malachite, it would help the child sleep and keep evil spirits away. And apparently it can be protective for all people when it comes to lightning and disease. Pieces of malachite were engraved with the sun during the Middle Ages for health. For Egyptians, the mineral symbolized the power of resurrection, new life and fertility. And through smelting, copper could be extracted, but it was low grade, so not really worth the effort. However, chalcocite is a highly profitable copper ore and samples proved that this find was 70% pure chalcocite. This find would be called the Bonanza Mine Outcrop. 

The claims about the Bonanza Mine were confirmed by a man named Stephen Birch. He was a mining engineer who had gotten financial backing from the Havemeyer Family and James Ralph and he was looking for an opportunity to invest this money. The prospector Jack Smith wrote to Birch, "Mr. Birch, I’ve got a mountain of copper up there. There’s so much of the stuff sticking out of the ground that it looks like a green sheep pasture in Ireland when the sun is shining at its best." 

So Birch started buying up shares of the Bonanza claim and formed the Alaska Copper Company of Birch, Havemeyer, Ralph and Schultz. When summer arrived in 1901, Birch headed to Alaska to map out the claim and to obtain samples for testing and his confirmation of the discovery put the world on notice that this spot in Alaska had the richest known concentration of copper in the world. There were some legal challenges and Birch spent the next couple of years in court, but by 1905, his company was ready to roll. There was just one teeny, tiny little problem. There was no way to get the copper to market. The best way would be by railroad, but most people said that building a rail line from the coast, through the mountains and over rivers was impossible. And if possible, loads of money was going to be needed. In walks the Guggenheim family and J.P. Morgan. Now there is money! The Havemayers collaborated with Morgan and the Guggenheims to form the Alaska Syndicate. The Syndicate was going to do many things. First, it would purchase the Bonanza Mine and then it would also have a majority control of the railroad, steamship transportation and the salmon industry. Alaskans were a very independent people and they weren't crazy about having these businessmen from the East Coast running their affairs. Alaskans started saying, "First [we were] a Colony of Russia, then a colony of Guggenmorgan." There were also conservationists that didn't wanting the land damaged. These battles between conservationists and the mining and railroad interests made their way into the Oval Office with U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt. In the end, President Roosevelt set up the Chugach National Forest in 1908 and the Alaskan Syndicate was able to move forward with their plans.

 So in the fall of 1907, railroad architect Michael J. Heney was hired to build the rail line and his crews worked over the next four years to get it done working in extreme temperatures, like forty below zero, and through some very unforgiving terrain. Stephen Birch had an entire steamship dismantled and hauled through the mountains, piece by piece, and reassembled on the Copper River. This steamship, horses and sled dogs would be used to bring in equipment and supplies and carry out ore before the railroad was completed. The railroad was completed in 1911 and the first train out of Kennecott carried $250,000 worth of copper.

Bonanza wasn't the only mine in Kennecott. There were actually five of them.The other four were Jumbo, Mother Lode, Erie and Glacier. Bonanza and Jumbo were about 3 miles from the town of Kennecott on Bonanza Ridge with Mother Lode on the east side of the ridge and Erie on the northwest end. Glacier was just an open pit mine at the end of the Bonanza, which was only mined in summer.  An aerial tramway carried buckets of ore to Kennecott and then from Kennecott the ore was hauled mostly in 140-pound sacks on steel flat cars to Cordova on the rail line. Miners in Kennecott had to made of tough stuff. Mining conditions weren't good anywhere and even today can be very dangerous. But the wilds of Alaska and the extreme weather presented even harsher conditions. Men came because the salaries were higher here. They would climb up into the mountains and work seven days a week for long hours and only come down off the mountain for holidays or if they were actually going to leave Kennecott. At its height, there were around 500 miners and their families in the company town that was run as a dry town. The company provided housing in bunkhouses, which were painted red because it was the most inexpensive color at the time. There was a real community here with a school for the kids, a hospital that had the first X-ray machine in Alaska and a Recreation Hall where movies were shown and dances were held. Inger Jensen Ricci grew up in Kennecott and wrote, "They had the community dances down in the community hall a lot. In fact, it was almost every Saturday. Everybody came and the children came and danced and then afterwards they had coffee and cake. I can always remember all those  delicious cakes that the women brought." Mildred Erickson Reis wrote, "We had a movie twice a week, Sundays and Wednesdays. And I got to take the tickets, if you took tickets, you got in free, otherwise you had to pay 10 cents. This was fine when I was a little girl, but when I came back up there and was 17 and one of the young men asked me to go to the show with him. The ticket salesman, said, 'Oh, is Mildred with you, well she always pays 10 cents.' I was so embarrassed, I was grown up you know. The adult fare was 35 cents." 

Kennecott wasn't completely isolated. Down the hill was the town of McCarthy and the two towns would join forces for festivities on the 4th of July. Mines and mills would close for the day and the Kennecott Copper Corporation would sponsor a $200 prize to winning team at the annual baseball game between the two towns. McCarthy actually flew in a pitcher from the lower-48 for one game they were so intent on winning. This was a very important game every year! There was ice cream, a big cookout and a little bit of prohibition moonshine.

The National Park Service shares the following story we wanted to pass along, "Many families sought to take short vacations away from Kennecott to explore the surrounding countryside. Visiting George Flowers became a favorite for many of them. A man with a tenacious spirit, he became a lifelong friend of the Kennecott Kids, who still tell stories of his guitar playing and fishing lessons. A share-cropper turned gold-rusher from the American South, Mr. Flowers arrived in Seattle only to be denied passage to Alaska on the steamship because he was black. Not one to bedeterred, he walked to Alaska, arriving long after the gold  rush had ended. By the mid- twenties, he settled at Long Lake where he fished, trapped and may have worked as track -walker for the railroad. After the mines closed he corresponded with former Kennecott Kids who sent him the rare care package of Alaskan necessities. Deborah Vickery House was a kid in Kennecott and she wrote of George, "...we went to Long Lake and lived in a little cabin and fished in the (creek). [George Flowers] cooked fish like no one else. He put it all in the frying pan and cooked it and then turned it all over like it was one big fish cake. It was marvelous, you could eat the whole thing." 

The miners hard work paid off. They had their peak year of production in 1916 with $32.4 million in ore. Through all this success, the Alaskan Syndicate still faced opposition. There were calls that this was a monopoly and the climate in the country was turning against this use of syndicates. The feelings were so intense, that President Taft lost his re-election bid to Woodrow Wilson who promised political reforms that would make syndicates nearly impossible. The Alaskan Syndicate responded by going public in 1915 and forming a new corporation, the Kennecott Copper Corporation. The same people were in charge, but their methods changed with management.

A Kennecott geologist brought the community some bad news in 1925. The end of the high-grade ore bodies was in sight and by the early 1930s, the highest grades of ore were largely depleted. The Glacier Mine was first to close in 1929. The other mines held on for almost another decade with the Mother Lode closing at the end of July 1938. A few months later the Erie, Jumbo and Bonanza were shut down. The families of Kennecott packed up there things and the last train left Kennecott on November 10, 1938. From 1909 to 1938, the Kennecott mines produced $200 million worth of ore, which is $3 billion in today's money. And now, it was a ghost town. 

Ernest Gruening became governor of the Alaska territory in 1939 and he proposed that Kennecott be preserved as a National Park. This recommendation was sent to President Franklin D. Roosevelt on January 18, 1940 and nothing happened with that. So basically, Kennecot was left deserted, but there was a family of three who stayed on as caretakers to try to preserve the town and they stayed there until 1952. And still, nothing was done at a national level to protect the ghost town. There were some businessmen who thought perhaps the tailings left over from the mines could be reprocessed and they plans to transport the ore by plane, but by the time numbers were cruched, it looked like transporting the ore would take away most of the profit. The company that still owned the land decided they wanted to demolish the ghost town because buildings were falling into disrepair and they didn't want to get sued by adventurers who would visit the town, so in the late 1960s, some of the structures were razed. They stopped after that for some reason. In 1976, The Great Kennecott Land Company was formed and it subdivided the land and the ghost town and put it up for sale to private owners. A group of doctors and lawyers from Anchorage purchased the property. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park and Preserve was established on December 2, 1980  and this was the beginning of hope for the crumbling ghost town. In 1998, the National Park Service acquired many of the buildings and land and established the Kennecott Mines National Historic Landmark. They started efforts to stabilize the structures and started the arduous work of restoring the buildings that continues today. They demolished any buildings beyond hope. NPS Archeologists and historians gathered artifacts that are on display in the visitor center. What is still left of the town includes a dairy barn where small cows had been kept, the Recreation Hall which hosts educational and community events, the school house which also served as a church, the rebuilt Kennecott Glacier Lodge, cottages on Silk Stocking Row that had indoor plumbing, the West Bunkhouse that was built in 1917, the Refrigeration Plant that used ammo­nia cool­ing and a mechan­i­cal­ly cooled meat lock­er to keep meat and oth­er per­ish­ables fresh even though most of the time Kennecott was full of snow, the Company Store and Post Office, the ruins of the sawmill and carpentry shop, the Train Depot, National Creek Bunkhouse, the Assay Office, East Bunkhouse, the hospital, General Manager's office, Ammonia Leaching Plant, Concentration Mill, Power Plant, Machine Shop and Electrical Shop.  

When people are walking through the ghost town, they feel as though they are being watched by something they can't see. Park rangers and visitors have all claimed to experience weird things while wandering the ghost town. Disembodied footsteps are heard in buildings. There are disembodied voices and shadow figures. Sometimes the rusted out machinery is heard clanking and creaking. Strange mists float on the air and orbs have been seen and photographed. 

The Railroad Line

As we shared, the Alaska Syndicate would get the Copper River and Northwestern Railway built. It consisted of two rail lines, the Copper River line and the Northwestern line. There were several bridges that needed to be constructed, one of which was known as the Million Dollar Bridge, which was completed in 1910 and was considered to be one of the great engineering feats of all time. The bridge crossed the Copper River between two active glaciers: The Childs Glacier to the west and the Miles Glacier to the east. This bridge was a multiple-span Pennsylvania truss bridge that still stands today, but can no longer be accessed. It was converted into a highway bridge in 1958. An earthquake in 1964 damaged the Million Dollar bridge and some rudimentary things were done to keep it passable. It wasn't permanently repaired until 2004. Workers died while building the railroad. One can only imagine how dangerous it was to build this thing that clung to rock walls, stretched over canyons and spanned wild rivers. It's not hard to believe that there might be ghosts along the line.

The Anchorage Daily News reported, "Over the years, travelers on the road and visitors to the present-day Kennecott historical landmark have claimed they've seen tombstones just off the old dirt path that in places where it parallels the CR & NW, the Old Copper Railroad. Thing is, on the way back from their adventures, these wayfarers have consistently reported that the grave markers are gone, vanished into the still, cool mountain air." 

When a government housing tract was built near the old railroad tracks, construction workers said that they heard the sounds of long-dead miners and they described these as wails. The disembodied sounds of children were also heard. Their tools would go missing, not only from their toolboxes, but right off of their tool belts. The apparitions of workers have been seen along the route of the Copper River and Northwestern Railway. These workers would disappear when approached. Workers were hard to keep and the state decided that building the housing wasn't going to work and they abandoned the plan.

The Kennecott Cemetery

The Kennecott Cemetery is about a quarter mile south of Kennecott and is accessed by an old Wagon Road. The cemetery covers about a quarter acre and has around 50 graves markers. A white picket fence marks the border. Edward Donaldson was the first to be buried in the cemetery in 1908. The final burial was in 1938. The bulk of the people buried here were from families who couldn't afford to ship the body back to their homeland or didn't have any family at all. Some had their families in town who wanted them buried nearby. There were a few people who died from disease, but most met their end in a mining accident. People have claimed to see shadow figures darting around the tombstones. We haven't heard any stories of these tombstones disappearing, but anything is possible. 

Concentration Mill 

The Concentration Mill is a 14-story tall, red-painted wooden building that stands in the center of Kennecott. The mill was built on a hillside so that gravity could be used in the processing of the ore. Shipping ore to Tacoma was expensive and the copper ore needed to be concentrated. The ore was brought to the mill from the five mines via the tramway and it would go through a series of crushers and sorters that used gravity and water to move the rocks around. Waste would be removed and the concentrated ore would be loaded into burlap bags that were then loaded onto rail cars. Construction on the mill began in 1908 and took 10 years to finish. The mill was used from 1909 to 1938 and evolved as new mining processes were developed. Through the years, the NPS has stabilized and restored the mill. A $5.7 million dollar project was completed in 2021. St. Elias Alpine Guides run tours through the town and they are the only way to get access to the mill. 

There are several haunting things taking place here. Phantom sounds is the most prevlent with people claiming to hear the sounds of equipment operating and the voices of miners shouting. The apparitions of workers have been seen inside the building. Debbie wrote, "When I went to the 14-stories mill, I was terrified. I got this unexplainable feeling inside the building. My friends were not affected like I was inside. Never have I felt such so uneasy and petrified.  I could feel the spirits following me. After I left the mine…I no longer felt terrified. The lodge was not haunted to me. I felt nothing. But I will never enter those buildings again. Completely terrified." 

Erie Mine Bunkhouse

The Erie Mine Bunkhouse was built in the early 1900s and is high atop a cliff-side and has had no restoration efforts, but still is relatively intact. How they built this thing, we'll never know, but we can see why they haven't tried to restore it. This is a really hard location to access and the hike there sounds terrifying to me. One of the stories told is about a couple of hikers who were hoping that the grand views at Kennecot would pay off with an Aurora Borealis spectacle. It was early fall and the weather was perfect, so they set out early in the morning for the long hike up the cliff-side. They figured they could camp out in the old abandoned bunkhouse, but when they looked through an open window and saw all the peeling paint and caved-in floors, they decided they would be safer setting up camp outside. The hikers set a couple of alarms so that they could wake up throughout the night to get views of the Northern Lights. The two men had just fallen asleep when one of them woke with a start after hearing footsteps. At first he assumed his partner had gotten up to perhaps relieve himself, but he saw that he was still curled up in his sleeping bag. Then there was the sound of creaking like the sound of wooden boards beneath feet. Could the sound be coming from inside the bunkhouse he wondered? The awakened hiker decided to wake up his buddy and he whispered that someone was inside the bunkhouse. They decided to call out, "H-hello, is a-anyone there?" The footsteps suddenly stopped and they heard nothing further. Neither of the men fell asleep the entire rest of the night and no person ever came out of the bunkhouse. 

The Kennecott Copper Mine is probably the best-preserved example of early 20th-century industrial copper mining. It is a testament to the strength of character that these Alaskan miners and their families must have had. Are some of their spirits still hanging around the ghost town still? Is Kennecott Copper Mine haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 626 - Thistle Hill House

The Moment in Oddity - Security Geese (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

Home security is important. Many of us utilize home alarm services to give us peace of mind that we will be alerted to an intruder. There are various brands at varying price points available on the market. Some people have large dogs for the sole purpose of protecting their property. But what about a flock of geese for your home protection? If you have ever visited a local pond to feed the ducks, you would have been made quite aware if there were geese in the vicinity. Geese are highly territorial animals who will fiercely protect their domain, squawking and chasing any person they perceive as an intruder. Many animal lovers, like myself, have experienced the wrath of a goose that doesn't want you near them. They often will chase, hiss and bite at you. They are alert at night. Although they are diurnal, geese have excellent hearing and vision, and they will often sound alarms at night. The earliest recorded use of geese as a security measure dates back to 390 B.C. in Ancient Rome. Historical accounts state that sacred geese were kept at the Temple of Juno on the Capitoline Hill. They famously honked and flapped their wings, alerting Roman soldiers to a surprise, nighttime attack on the Temple by the Gauls, thus saving the city. Geese have been used to patrol the Ballantine's Scotch whiskey warehouses since 1959. They are also currently used in prisons in Brazil as a supplementary 'goose patrol' to detect intruders or escape attempts. Although using a flock of geese for home security is unconventional, it sounds like a very efficient option, and it certainly is odd.

Thistle Hill House 

Thistle Hill House is also known as the Wharton-Scott House and was built back in the early 1900s in Fort Worth, Texas. This historic mansion goes back to the cattle baron era of the city and indeed, it was home to a cattle baron's daughter. This is a gorgeous and unique home, so its not surprising that previous owners would stick around even after passing away. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Thistle Hill House. 

Fort Worth would attract many cattle barons as it came to be known as "Cowtown."  Four million head of cattle would come through the town and its stockyards in the late 1800s. These barons and the other rich and influential in the city would make Quality Hill their home. Quality Hill was on the west side and sat on a bluff that overlooked Fort Worth and the Trinity River. Some of the greatest architects of the time designed homes for this neighborhood with the latest amenities and manicured landscapes. The neighborhood defined fine living throughout the Gilded Age in Fort Worth. Many of those Victorian mansions that were built no longer remain, but the Thistle Hill House is still here. The mansion looks almost out of place as it is situated in the middle of the city's Medical District at 1509 Pennsylvania Avenue. The Fort Worth Telegram reported on December 31, 1902, "Plans are being prepared by Architect M.R. Sanguinet for the erection of a magnificent residence on the old Zane Certi estate, fronting on Pennsylvania Avenue, which was recently purchased by E.B. Wharton. The house will be built in the old colonial style, which has grown in popularity of late, and is to cost between $25,000 and $30,000. Work has begun on the specifications today and they will be completed before the end of January. Mr. Wharton recently came to Texas from the east. He has extensive live stock interests near Decatur, in this state, and is reckoned a millionaire. He paid $30,000 for the land, which comprises six and one-half acres in one of the choicest residence districts of the city." 

Sanguinet - and we just love that name - had worked in Fort Worth as an architect since 1883 and in 1903, he formed the architectural firm Sanguinet & Staats with draftsman Carl Staats. The firm specialized in steel-frame construction and would go on to build several skyscrapers in Texas, but they also built several mansions. The Wharton-Scott House was commissioned by William Thomas Waggoner for his daughter Electra and her husband Albert Buck Wharton as a wedding present. 

Waggoner had been born in Texas in 1852 and he learned ranching from his father. When he was 18-years-old, his father gave him $12 to drive 5000 steer to Abilene, Kansas and he not only successfully got the herd to their destination, but he sold the herd for a profit of $55,000. He married Ella Halsell in 1877 and the couple had five children, two of whom died as children. When his father died in 1902, he inherited property in several Texas counties. Waggoner was a big proponent for open range and he tried to convince President Theodore Roosevelt to support that by bringing him out to some land he leased from the Comanche in Oklahoma. The men went wolf hunting and while the President had a great time, he didn't support keeping the range open. And like the Beverly Hillbillies, Waggoner was drilling for water on his main ranch and struck oil. He founded Waggoner Refinery in 1911. Cattle weren't the only animals that he specialized in, he also raised thoroughbreds. With his two sons, he founded what would become the colossal Three D's Stock Farm that grew to a million acres. He also built Arlington Downs racetrack that is between Fort Worth and Dallas. They had several horses race in the Kentucky Derby, but no good finishes. Waggoner died in 1934. 

Electra was born in 1882 and she grew up on both the Waggoner Ranch and at the Waggoner Mansion. She was named for her grandfather Electius and Electra, Texas is named after her. The Waggoner Ranch was one of the largest ranches in the United States. She had met her first husband, blueblood Albert Wharton, when she was traveling in the Himalayas and they married in 1902. 

That marriage only lasted 19 years, but it did produce two sons, who seemed to have real marriage issues. Albert Jr. married four times, but his brother lived a very crazy and short life. Tom was married eight times and died of syphilis when he was 25-years-old. Electra loved to spend money and once ran up a $20,000 tab at Neiman Marcus in Dallas in one day. She never wore any outfit more than once and she had one closet filled with fur coats, another with 350 pairs of shoes and another held all her gowns.But she was also kind and when she heard that a favorite salesgirl had gotten sick, she went to her house and cleaned it and prepared her a good meal. Electra married two more times before dying at the age of 43 in 1925. She loved the home her father had built her in Fort Worth. Thistle Hill was built in the Colonial architectural style in 1903 and stood two and a half stories with a sloped gambrel roof made of green tiles and six chimneys. The sides of the house have semi-circular elements above the porticos that have six limestones columns holding them up. The house was built from brick and has cast stone along the corners and above the windows as trim. The interior had a grand staircase, elaborate woodwork and 18 rooms. There was a library, parlor, music room, dining room, sunroom, six bedrooms, attic ballroom and three restrooms. Floors were made from maple, oak and longleaf pine.

Thistle Hill was purchased in 1911 by one of the richest men in Texas, Winfield Scott. Scott was a self-made millionaire from extremely humble beginnings. He was born in 1849 in Kentucky and grew up never learning to read or write. When he arrived in Texas, he worked as a wood chopper along the Trinity River. He worked hard and saved his money and approached some friends to loan him some money to start a cattle business on 160 acres. 

He married Adelia Ann Colley in 1876 and she unfortunately died 2 years later. They had one daughter together named Georgia. In 1884, he married Elizabeth Simmons and they had one son, Winfield Jr. After a very successful cattle drive from Texas to Oklahoma, Scott was able to start buying property in Fort Worth and he got involved in banking opening the Fort Worth State Bank and becoming director of the Fort Worth National Bank. He also was also a major investor in the Mutual Cotton Oil Company of Fort Worth and he was director of the Protestant Sanitarium. All of this made him very well known  in Fort Worth and he was good friends with the Waggoners, which is why he bought their former home. He decided to make some changes - well, a lot of changes - at a cost of $5 million in today's dollars. The Colonial Revival style was changed to Georgian revival by the Sanguinet firm. Ornate features were removed and the landscaping was upgraded with ornamental fencing and brick walls. The interior was renovated too. Scott had been ill for several years and he eventually needed surgery and he wouldn't survive long after that. he never had the chance to move into Thistle Hill. His wife Elizabeth moved into the house with their son Winfield Jr. and she remained in it for the next 26 years. She added a tea house and pergola to the grounds and loved to throw parties. Georgia, Scott's daughter from his first marriage, got into an inheritance battle with Elizabeth after her father's death. The papers made it into a Cinderella against the evil step-mother fight. Georgia eventually won in court and got a fourth of her father's estate. Elizabeth passed in 1938 and her son Winfield Jr., who had managed to squander all of the family's money with a costly divorce with a settlement in the millions of dollars and he also had issues with alcohol and drugs, sold the mansion to the Girls Service League for cheap and they used it until 1968 and then they basically abandoned it and it fell into disrepair. A group of concerned citizens watched as many of the historic mansion in Quality Hill were demolished and they believed that Thistle Hill would eventually meet the same fate, so they formed a committee called "Save the Scott Home." They raised enough money to purchase Thistle Hill in 1976 for $240,000 and opened it as a museum and event space.
 
In 2005, Historic Fort Worth was gifted the property and they worked on restoring the property. They made the house accessible to disabled people, but here was still work that needed to be done with the carriage house and a perimeter wall. With the mansion sitting in the middle of the Medical District, it only makes sense that it would eventually be absorbed into that in some way. In March of 2023, Cook Children’s moved into the mansion and the hospital system has taken over the stewardship of the home after receiving it as a gift from historic preservation non-profit Historic Fort Worth. They turned the former carriage house into a discovery zone for kids.  

And through all of these years, people have reported strange occurrences. Electra insisted on having fresh flowers delivered to her mansion daily and staff at the museum had claimed for decades that they would catch the unexplained whiff of fresh flowers. Her full bodied apparition has been seen wearing one of her many elegant gowns. Guests and staff have reported the sounds of a party coming from the third floor ballroom. Much of this seems to be residual as Electra didn't die at the mansion and she only lived there for a few years. Those parties really must have been something! A different female spirit has been seen wearing a flowing white lace gown and she likes to appear on the landing of the mansion's main grand staircase. She has also been seen sitting by the window in the upstairs changing room. A photographer taking pictures during a wedding, captured a female ghost in a photo. The picture was shared on Facebook and reveals that there is a wedding dress on display in the room and it is to the right of a mirror and in the reflection of the mirror, there appears to be the silhouette of a woman sitting on a pink bench and she is wearing a long period dress. 

Elizabeth suffered from multiple burglary attempts so she brought in a roommate for security. This was someone who worked in Fort Worth as a bank clerk and the Fort Worth Star-Telegram interviewed this person and he claimed that strange stuff happened in the house. After Elizabeth died, he had lived in the mansion alone until 1941 and many times, this big oriental gong on the lower floor would vibrate and make noise all on its own. 

Other people have claimed to see the full-bodied apparition of Winfield Scott Jr. wearing 1940s attire. Many times this was seen by workers who were renovating the mansion. They claimed to see the apparition on the staircase and he was always wearing a grey sweater and white wing-tipped shoes. Staff would report that objects would move on their own. Large cardboard boxes that were really heavy just seemed to move to other spots on their own and one day, workers found all the contents of one of the boxes emptied out onto the floor. In 1997, a group of ghost hunters stayed overnight at Thistle Hill and they focused on the third-floor ballroom. They found an antique rocking chair in the middle of the ballroom with a sheet crumpled up next to it. More than likely a sheet that had once covered the chair. They left it and explored some other rooms and when they returned, they found the chair covered by the sheet. Belongings that they had brought were moved around to different rooms. A bridesmaid was helping to get things ready in the mansion and on her way to the bridal room upstairs, she passed a woman dressed in a long lace gown. This woman nodded at her. A little later, the bridesmaid was talking to the event manager and she mentioned that she thought it was a nice touch to have the actress in the wedding gown hanging out in the house. The manager gave her a funny look and replied that no employees dress in period clothing or any other kind of costume for events. 

Just two-and-a-half miles away is the Log Cabin Village, which is a collection of log cabin homes from actual Texan homesteads dating back to the 1800s. There is also a blacksmith shop and a schoolhouse. Some of the furnishings are original to the homes and perhaps that is why several of them are rumored to be haunted, particularly the Foster Cabin. 

The Foster family had been cotton farmers and enslaved people had built this two-story cabin for them. Logs were fashioned from oak and cedar trees. The cabin was moved from its original spot in 1974. The main ghost here is thought to be Martha Foster who died in the cabin in 1870. People have felt cold spots, smelled the scent of lilac perfume and seen her full-bodied apparition, particularly on the second floor which is the most active part of the house. Managers closed down the upper floor because people were tearing down the stairs in fear and they were worried someone would get hurt. A guide in the house said, "It was very strange. The fire alarm started going off, and it smelled like smoke. We called the fire department, but there was no fire." A Director at the village said she had experiences in the Foster Cabin, but she wouldn't share them because she wants people to focus on the history.   

Thistle Hill House has managed to outlast all the other mansions that had once surrounded it. The mansion stands as a reminder that this spot had once been a place for the rich and influential of Fort Worth. Perhaps that is why the spirits have held onto this location. Some of the ghosts may have come here from other locations that are now lost. Are the Thistle Hill House and the Foster Cabin haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 625 - Legends of the Caucasus

This Month in History - The Sinking of the USS Maine

In the month of February, on the 15, in 1898 The USS Maine sank in Havana Harbor. The USS Maine was a battleship that was anchored at the time of the sinking. The ship was sent to Havana to protect American interests during Cuba's revolt against Spain. A massive explosion in the forward gunpowder magazines destroyed a third of the front of the battleship, causing it to rapidly sink at approximately 9:40pm. The disaster killed 260-266 crew members. The U.S. Naval Court of Inquiry originally determined that the explosion was caused by a mine in the water, but later investigations revealed that the likely cause was internal spontaneous combustion in a coal bunker that was situated near the ammunition magazines. At the time, yellow journalism fueled American outrage and the sinking of the USS Maine was a key contributor to the start of the Spanish-American War later that year.

Legends of the Caucasus

Many years ago, we did an episode about the legends of the Balkans. We thought it would be interesting to go across the Black Sea and explore the legends of the Caucasus. The Caucasus is a region of Eastern Europe and Western Asia that includes the countries of Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan (As er bai jah nee) and Southern Russia. This region is steeped in folklore, mythology, and legends and that isn't surprising because the history here is one of struggle, war, conquest and the precarious victory of independence. Paganism gave way to Christianization and cultural beliefs mixed. Join us as we explore the legends of the Caucasus!

The Caucasus name comes from the Scythian name Croucasis, which means "shimmering with snow." The Caucasus Mountains are a natural barrier between Europe and Asia and contains Europe's highest mountain, Mount Elbrus. The Caucasus region borders Turkey, Iran and Russia and has a centuries old history of cultural rivalries, religious differences and expansionist wars. On this episode, we are going to focus on the three main countries of the Caucasus. Let's look first at their histories.

Georgia History 

The Republic of Georgia has a history of struggling for independence between regional powers and occupation by the Soviet Army, forcing it to become part of the Soviet Union. Georgians call themselves "Kartveli" and trace their ethnicity back to around 500 BC. Much of that early history had the country divided into two regions, one in the east and one in the west. Greeks settled both regions in 300 BC and during the Christian era, the Romans held the western region. During the Arab-Byzantine conflict, Georgia was invaded by the Khazars and what followed was an even furthering breaking apart of the region under several states run by feudal lords. A "Golden Age" (10th–13th centuries) occurred under the Bagrationi dynasty from the 10th to 13th centuries and the country united for the first time. Great leaders like King David IV (also known as David the Builder) and Queen Tamar built Georgia into the most powerful state in Transcaucasia. And things were great for a while, but then the Mongols invaded and subjugated the country. Georgia broke apart in the 15th century and then war devastated the region throughout the 16th and 18th centuries. In 1783, Georgia was seeking protection under a Christian ally and they turned to Russia and signed the Treaty of Georgievsk. This resulted in the annexation of parts of Georgia that became all of Georgia by the mid-19th century. Russian control helped Georgia to flourish until the Russian Revolution and Georgia separated from Russia during the Civil War in 1918. In 1921, Georgia was Sovietized and brought into the USSR officially in 1922. By 1936, it was a separate constituent republic of the USSR and remained culturally distinct and, by the 1980s, it was growing into a strongly nationalistic republic. On April 9, 1991, Georgia declared independence from the USSR. Things were turbulent for the country after that, but today Georgia is still a strong independent country. 

Armenia History

Armenians trace themselves back to the 7th century BC and call their country Hayk (hike), after the legendary founder of the nation, Hayk Nahapet. He was a chieftain who was a mighty archer and led his people out of captivity under the Babylonian ruler Bel. Independence for Armenians would come and go through the years as they were annexed to form a part of Persia in 550 BC and would remain under Persian rule until Alexander the Great absorbed it into his Macedonian empire. Upon his death, Armenia received a lot of autonomy, but paid tribute to the Seleucid (suhloo suhd) Kingdom. After Roman conquest, the nation was allowed to become Greater Armenia and at that time, rose to what is probably its most powerful time. Armenia was very much a mixture of Iranian and Roman influences at this time. But by 66 BC, Armenia was a large battleground. Armenia would go on to Arab domination and then it was under Turkish and Mongol domination. The late 1800s would bring an attack from Kurdish and Turkish forces under orders from Constantinople and 200,000 Armenians were killed. This would just be the beginning of death for Armenians. When World War I started the Ottoman Empire had two million Armenians living within it. The empire wanted to cling to what they had so they adopted a policy of Pan Turkism and the goal was to extend the empire all the way to China and Armenia stood in the way of that. Between 1915 and 1923, one and a half million Armenians were genocided. Parts of Armenia ended up as part of the Soviet Union. Armenia voted for independence in 1991 and the country remains a sovereign nation today. 

Azerbaijan (As er bai jah nee) History 

Azerbaijan (As er bai jah nee) has one of Eurasia's oldest archaic-human habitations and petroglyphs date back to 8,000 years ago. One of the first names for this area of land was Atropatina. The Kingdom of Armenia ruled portions of Azerbaijan (As er bai jah nee) from 190 BC to 428 BC. As was the case for Armenia, empires rose and fell here. Russia and Persia both ruled over the country and it was officially cut in half in the 1800s with Russia taking the north and Persia taking the southern part. Islam became a major influence in the south. Russia moved Armenians into the north to bring more Christianity. A 200 year conflict would follow with the Azerbaijan (As er bai jah nee) people seeking independence. In 1918, the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic was formed. That was brief as the Soviet Union absorbed the country and killed anyone part of building the new republic. The break up of the Soviet Union seemed promising, but old conflicts returned and there was war between Armenia and Azerbaijan (As er bai jah nee) and the most recent conflict with that happened in 2020 with Azerbaijan (As er bai jah nee) getting back its territories. Fun Fact: The world's biggest lake is on Azerbaijan's coastline. 

(Kelly) As one can see from the political histories of these countries, their culture has been influenced by many other countries and cultures through the years including Greece, the Roman Empire, the Byzantine Empire, various Iranian empires, the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union. This culture incorporates a rich blend of supernatural beings, spirits and tales of the afterlife. Early pagan beliefs gave way to religious influences from Zoroastrianism and Christianity and these beliefs mixed over the centuries. There are gods, monsters, good spirits and evil spirits. The pantheon of gods in each of these countries is vast and some were incorporated into their Christian beliefs. 

Georgian Spirits and Monsters 

The first demon that shows up in Georgian legends, goes all the way back to a creation myth in which the head god had a sister that made him really mad, so he cursed her which cause her to become a demon and the two siblings competed. When the creator god made something good, his sister would make an evil thing. So we clearly have a strong duality occurring here. Women were apparently a creation of the Demon as well and they just couldn't resist the demons - or rather - women. So the creator god had all these other lesser gods he had made and they went to hunt down the main demons and all her demonic creations and they drove the evil ones down into the netherworld called Kveskneli (vesk nelly). But the women were left behind. Those early pagans thought of humans as being reflections of the gods and demons in this middle world where we live. Georgia has a variety of evil spirits. Ali (ah lee) were evil spirits described as being Lilith-like that haunted travelers, pregnant women, and infants. They often inhabited remote woods, caves, or ruins, and female Ali can appear as golden-haired women in white dresses. Kadji (kah jee) were demonic beings who lived in ruins and desolate places, often described as magical metalworkers. They gathered in magical tribes and used their powers against humans. There were both water and land Kadjis. The land ones were bad, while the water ones could be benevolent. Female kadjis were beautiful and liked to seduce heroes in myths. Devi (day vee) were these many-headed ogres or giants that lived in the underworld or remote mountains. They liked to abduct people and would hoard treasures. Chinka (chin-kah) were small, devilish spirits that resided in forests and near riverbanks, often pretending to cry like a baby to lure people towards them. Ochokochi (Oh-koh-KOH-chee) were forest deites like a "goat-man" who would attack travelers in the woods. These creatures didn't have hair on their chest, rather there was a pointed bone and this goatman would hug people to kill them. In myths, he often chases the beautiful Queen of the Forest. A disease spreading spirit that appeared as anything but a male was called a Dobilni. A group of early Georgians were called Khevsurian and they would build special towers in their shrines to ward of the Dobilni. Not all of them were bad and were called upon to bless livestock and give easy childbirth.

(Kelly) This next one is right up my alley because this next monster is an evil serpent. It was called Gveleshapi (gveh-leh-SHAH-pee), which kinda translates to snake whale and this creature lived in lakes and rivers and generally was blamed for any water disasters. The Matsil (Mot sill) are evil spirits from the underworld that plague travelers and hunters. The Rashi is a magical winged horse like Pegasus and there are three kinds: land, sea and heavenly, which can breathe fire. 

A Kudiani is a hideous hunchbacked witch that has a tail and these really large teeth. They like to wear disguises so they can deceive humans and bewitch them. They have a leader named Rokap and he calls them all to a special mountain where they hold a festival similar to the European Walpurgis Night. Rokap was evil and he was punished by being chained to a column under the earth and while he is there, he devours human hearts brought to him by the Kudiani. He tries to free himself, but he always fails. There is a forest entity that is similar to the lady in white that is named T'q'ashmapa (Tikashmapa) and she appears as a pale woman in a white dress with very long white hair. She can be very violent when displeased and likes to go after virginal men. If they refuse her, she beats them. The Paskunji (pas-KOON-jee) would be good for going up against the evil serpent  as this is a phoenix-like being who fights serpents. He lives in the underworld and would rise when a hero would burn one of his feathers and he would heal their wounds or transport them to another location. And then there is the Q'ursha (KOOR-shah) which was a legendary hunting dog. 

Ghosts in Georgia and Haunted Locations

The Mgebri (megobari) is like a ghost for the people of the mountain regions of east Georgia. This is the spirit of a male relative who has passed and it will appear to a dying relative and they are the first to greet their dying family member when they pass. They lead the way into the spirit world and the dead person can only enter if the Mgebri is with them. That word is actually a variation on the Georgian word for "friend," so that's pretty cool. The Khevsureti (Khev-soo-reh-tee) Region is a mountainous area of the Caucasus and described as a "land of ghosts and legends." The Anatori Crypts are here and are stone burials that contain the remains of villagers who supposedly quarantined themselves during a plague. Tbilisi (Tuh blee see) is the capital of the Republic of Georgia. There are various areas that are creepy because many places dating to the Soviet-era have been abandoned and stories are told of strange noises coming from these locations. There is a ghost street that becomes utterly silent, almost as though one as entered another world. The birds don't sing here. The Saburtalo District is said to have a witch tree right outside of it. The Svaneti Defensive Towers had a real purpose but seem weird today. They date to between the 9th and 12th century and are these stone towers, built for protection. The mountain people told tales of shadow figures lurking inside and outside of these structures.

Armenian Spirits and Monsters

(Kelly) Armenia has some pretty weird creatures. Demons are generally the Armenian Dev, which is similar to the Iranian Devk and are influenced by Zoroastrian mythology. Devs are spirits of the air, so similar to angels. They also hang out in stony places like old ruins. There is a little spirit that is evil and likes to attack pregnant women and steal newborn babies that is called an Al. This creature is half-human and half-animal with teeth of iron and nails of brass or copper and a cute pointed hat covered with bells, so you can hear them coming. They can become invisible. We're not sure if the bells go silent. The kaj are storm and wind spirits that hang out in temples and in the mountains. They like to steal wheat and wine and can only be stopped by striking them with lightning.

The Kourkik Challaly are magical, fiery, winged horses. The Aralez is a dog-like creatures that can be a good thing to see, especially if on the battlefield. The licks from this entity will clean wounds and they can resuscitate fallen warriors. There is a vampire creature with a weird fetish we would say. this thing, the Dakhanavar, sucks people's blood from their feet. One legend features two men who are traveling that know they are being stalked by the vampire, so they make a bid to outsmart it. They slept with their feet under each other's heads and so the vampire thought they were some kind of being that had two heads and no feet and it got scared and ran away. According to Jonathan Maberry's Vampire Universe: The Dark World of Supernatural Beings That Haunt Us, Hunt Us and Hunger for Us, "The Dakhanavar is ferociously territorial and will assault anyone who tries to make a map of its lands, or even count the hills and valleys in the region, correctly fearing that a thorough knowledge of the landscape would reveal all of its secret hiding places. Even today some travelers in Armenia, particularly those going into the region of Mount Ararat, generally take precautions against evil beings such as Dakhanvar. Often, they put small cloves of raw garlic in various pockets or mash it up and rub the paste on their shoes. At night, if camping out of doors, these travelers build a large fire and toss garlic bulbs into the flames. The combination of garlic aroma and a blazing fire will drive almost all of the world's many species of vampires away."  

(Kelly) There are these elderly female looking beings that dress all in black that creep about at night called Gishervan Merer. That name means "mothers of the night." The myths about them have them usually trying to steal the sun with the goal of causing eternal darkness and killing all the humans. They live in old mills, dried wells, mountain gaps and sometimes in the sea.

The Shahapet are friendly guardian spirits that appear as serpents and lurk in forests, orchards and graveyards. Here in the month of February is when Armenians conduct a ritual that is meant to banish these spirits. This ritual is called Švot-outing or Švotahan and takes place on the final night of February. There is a chant of "Out with the Švot; in with Adar (March)!" and then there is banging on the walls with a broom. They try to sneak back in by changing into cats or someone familiar to the inhabitants. And keeping with serpents, there is a river-dwelling serpent-monster with shape shifting powers called Nhang (nawng). They are similar to dragons and can shape shift into seals or beautiful women. They drown victims and drink their blood. Another sea monster that is compared to Leviathan is the Vishap. A wingless griffin-like creature is the Piatek. And finally, there is the Grogh (grog), which means writer. This ancient spirit records people's lives and keeps track of their good and bad deeds. The Grogh claims the human's soul and does a life review during their final judgment. Armenians open their windows to allow Grogh in when someone is dying, especially if they are in pain.

Azerbaijani Spirits and Monsters

We don't have as much information about the legends of Azerbaijani. The most popular tales incorporate Jirtdan who is said to be a small person or creature that usually confronts Div, who is a giant monster. Jirtdan is brave and witty and is able to defeat Div. Most of Azerbaijani supernatural beings come from Turkish myths. A spirit that lives in forests in Meshe (mesh)Adam, which is also said as Ağac Kişi, meaning tree man. This presents as a hairy creature with a human face and it is very stinky. Many compare this to the Yeti. A monster of the desert is Gulyabani (gool yay bonnie) that appears as a giant with a long beard and reversed feet who eats people. This thing sleeps in forests or graveyards during the day and prowls at night. This is an evil spirit even though it is sometimes depicted holding a rosary. It has haunting eyes and long nails. There is a cyclops monster called Tepegoz (Tep ay goz) that is a destructive being with impenetrable skin, so weapons don't work against it. 

(Kelly) The Caucasus are a beautiful region with a history that is full of strife. The rich culture and diverse influences have made for some very interesting legends of mythical creatures. And there may even be a haunted place or two. Are any of these legends real and are the Caucasus full of spirits? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 624 - Haunts of Fredericksburg, Virginia

Moment in Oddity - Situs Inversus

We recently lost a wonderful actress, Catherine O'hara. While her body of work is expansive, there are some roles that she is best known for. She played Kevin's mother in Home Alone 1 and 2, Cookie Fleck in Best in Show, Sheila Albertson in Waiting for Guffman, Delia Deetz in Beetlejuice 1 and 2 (and who can forget the scene in the first Beetlejuice when she starts singing the Banana Boat Day-O song). She was also the original speaking and singing voice of Sally in The Nightmare Before Christmas, along with so many other memorable characters that she played during her lifetime. But one thing she is not well known for, is the fact that she had situs inversus which was discovered prior to 2020. Situs Inversus is a rare, typically harmless, genetic condition where a person's organs in the chest and abdomen cavity are flipped to the opposite side than a typical human. There are variances to the condition. Situs Inversus Totalis is a complete and total reversal of all thoracic and abdominal organs. While Dextrocardia, is specific to just the heart being located on the right side of the chest. Most affected people live a normal life and are often not aware of their condition unless they have had a chest x-ray, abdominal ultrasound, CT scan or MRI. Situs Inversus affects 1 in 10,000 people. Once a person is made aware of the condition, most decide to wear a medical alert bracelet or necklace in case of a medical emergency. While nearly everyone who has had this opposite organization of organs has lived a healthy long life, it certainly is odd! 

Haunted Fredericksburg, Virginia

Fredericksburg in Virginia has seen a vast amount of American history with roots reaching back to the 17th century. There are centuries old buildings here and blood-stained battlegrounds that lend themselves to paranormal activity. Many locations in the city have ghost stories connected to them. Join us for the history and hauntings of Fredericksburg, Virginia. 

The canal that runs through downtown Fredericksburg is a favorite spot for people to jog and bike along. The canal holds a significant place in the local history, not only as a part of the mill industry, but Fredericksburg found itself in a precarious position during the Civil War as a prominent port that sat midway between the capitals of the North and the South. Two Civil War battles would be fought here. This area of the Piedmont was first inhabited by a Siouan-speaking tribe called the Manahoac. This strategic place for the indigenous people would also be strategic for the colony of Virginia. A fort was established by the Virginia General Assembly in 1676 along the Rappahannock River. The town of Fredericksburg was founded several decades later in 1728 and named for the Prince of Wales, Frederick. George Washington's family moved to a town across the river from Fredericksburg in 1738 and his mother Mary would eventually move to Fredericksburg later. As a matter of fact, her home here still stands and is one of the haunted locations we'll talk about a bit later. Naval war hero John Paul Jones also called this city home, as did President James Monroe. After the war, Fredericksburg lost a chunk of its population, but it still remained a center of trade, finally incorporating in 1879. Today, tourism is one of its key economic engines and GEICO's headquarters is here! Fun Fact: Musician Link Wray invented the power chord of modern rock guitar in Fredericksburg.

The Battle of Fredericksburg

There were two battles in Fredericksburg. The second one is nicknamed the "forgotten battle of Fredericksburg." The more well known first battle took place from December 11th to 15th, 1862 and had General Ambrose Burnside leading the Union forces and Robert E. Lee leading the Confederate forces. This would be one of the largest battles - with 200,000 combatants - and deadliest of the Civil War. 

The Battle of Antietam had taken place before this and Union General McClellan had failed to pursue General Lee so he was removed from command of the Army of the Potomac. When Burnside became the replacement, he knew he needed to come up with an amazing plan to get to Richmond before General Lee. When he surveyed the route, Burnside decided that going toward the lower Rappahannock River was the best idea and then he could cross the river and get into position. There, he would cross quickly and position himself between Lee and the direct route to Richmond. The plan had great promise, but, to accomplish it successfully, speed was essential. General Burnside's group of 100,000 men arrived on November 15th. They found the bridges all destroyed, so they ordered pontoon bridges to be sent, but they were delayed until November 25th, giving the Confederacy time to prepare.

This would prove very beneficial to the Confederate side. Union engineers attempted to assemble the bridges, but Confederate snipers made it hard to get the work done. General Burnside decided to shell Fredericksburg and he hit it with 150 Federal guns. They did a lot of damage and the engineers got back to their work, but eventually the Confederate riflemen started shooting again. 

Burnside needed a new plan, so he sent a regiment with men from Michigan and Massachusetts to row across the river and stop the snipers. They managed to cross under fire and drive the snipers away. On December 12th, Burnside got the rest of his army across the river. They occupied Fredericksburg and Burnside plans to have 60,000 men in Maj. Gen. William B. Franklin’s Left Grand Division to crush Lee’s southern flank. That flank has General Stonewall Jackson heading it up and the initial assault on him is successful. But then both sides suffer heavy losses in what was called the Slaughter Pen. The Slaughter Pen Farm is a 208 acre area on the southern end of the Fredericksburg Battlefield. The Union was gallant, but outnumbered. Burnside had said of his plans, "I wanted to obtain possession of that new road, and that was my reason for making the attack on the extreme [Federal] left." This road that he spoke of had been built by the Confederates to connect the two wings of the Confederacy. Burnside hoped that cutting this road in half would disorganize Lee's side and they could pursue them and cut them off from Richmond. However, the Union was unorganized and orders were misunderstood and Stonewall had a powerful counterattack. The Union put forward only a fraction of what was needed. There were 8,200 Union to 38,000 Confederate. The Federals ended up in an open plain as easy targets and they eventually made there way into the woods, but Lee's best men were there to meet them.  

By 3pm on December 13th, the fighting at the Slaughter Pen was over with 5,000 soldiers dead and neither side had gained anything. Another area on the battlefield that had intense fighting was the Sunken Road. This lane had been a simple wagon road that had been worn down into a trench from all the years of use. It sat at the base of five hills known as Marye's Heights and Confederate General James Longstreet had his group of men here. Fighting at this location began around noon. 

Union General Edwin V. Sumner initiated repeated attacks on the Confederate lines. The Sunken Road that the Confederates were on gave them the ability to beat back each assault as it came and despite seven Union divisions trying to make 14 charges, none of them was able to enter the Sunken Road. Nearly 1-in-3 Federal soldiers became a casualty at Marye's Heights. General Lee was appalled by the carnage and he said, "It is well that war is so terrible. We should grow too fond of it." The armies stayed where they were on December 14th and there was a lull in the fighting. General Lee allowed Burnside to attend to his wounded that day. Burnside told his generals that he wanted to retreat back over the river the following day, but they opposed this decision and said that they felt they should remain in the town and prepare another thrust. Almost as sign, the Northern Lights made an unexpected appearance over Fredericksburg that evening. Burnside knew as he surveyed the damage dealt to his side that this was a Confederate victory. The following morning, he instructed his troops to retreat across the Rappahannock. There were 18,500 casualties with 12,500 on the Union side and 6,000 on the Confederate side. Six weeks after this bitter loss at Fredericksburg, President Lincoln removed Burnside from command and appointed Maj. General Joseph Hooker as commander of the Army of the Potomac. This win gave Lee a big boost and he went on to victory at Chancellorsville in May 1863.

We want to share an interesting side note to this battle Pvt. George Heiser of the 136th Pennsylvania was a prisoner of war after the battle because he refused to leave a wounded comrade. Heiser survived this battle and a stint as a prisoner of war at Libby Prison. He would later participate in memorial parades through the years and opened up a store in Johnstown Pennsylvania and he was very generous letting people take what they needed and paying later, He and his wife would be swept away and killed in the Johnstown Flood in 1889.  

The Second Battle of Fredericksburg took place on May 3, 1863. General Lee had left Fredericksburg for Chancellorsville at this point and left Major General Jubal Early in charge. He was joined by other brigades bringing the Confederate side up to 12,000 men and they had 45 cannons. Major General John Sedgwick was leading the Union and he had a force of 27,000. Sedgwick's plan was to attack both ends of Marye's Heights, but a canal and stream were in the way, so he decided to hit the center. The initial assault was repelled, but a second one drove the Confederates off the ridge and they retreated to Lee's Hill. They tried to make a final stand and were defeated again so they ran southward. There were 700 Confederate casualties and 1,100 Union and the Union held Fredericksburg. Union General Joshua Chamberlain had a real way with words and he wrote many letters home. We want to share this excerpt from one of his letters, "At last, outwearied and depressed..." (Pg. 203) Many historians have wondered why Burnside sent wave after wave of troops up against the stone wall that the Confederates were barricaded behind at the Sunken Road. This had nearly been a massacre. The Sunken Road is the most haunted section of the battlefield. Visitors claim to hear the distant echoes of war cries and sounds of battle. And much like Gettysburg, people see ghostly soldiers marching in formation and even fighting each other and ghostly horses sometimes thunder across the field. 

Just up from the road, Marye's Heights gives a feeling of dread and has the apparitions of soldiers and spectral lights. The smell of gun powder can be strong at times. Cold spots have been reported along the stone wall. Some have claimed that the aurora borealis appearing as the two sides buried their dead in the field was a paranormal event. Away_Meringue wrote on Reddit, "When I moved here from Alexandria in 2018 I felt a very strong supernatural pull. I was coming down the road around twilight and saw a Confederate soldier figure standing under a tree behind one of the old battlefield fences."

Rising Sun Tavern (Suggested by: Kim Harmon)

The Washington Heritage Museums include three of our haunted locations: Rising Sun Tavern, Hugh Mercer Apothecary Shop and the Mary Washington House. President George Washington’s youngest brother was named Charles. When he reached adulthood, he inherited 750 acres of land in Spotsylvania County, Virginia from his father who had died when he was five-years-old. He purchased two lots in what was the county seat at the time, Fredericksburg, and he built a home for himself there in 1761. This was a wood frame, one-and-a-half story building covered with broad hand-beveled clapboards. There was a gabled roof with three tiny dormers and several chimneys. There was a large ballroom that would burn down later and a banquet room with a paneled corner fireplace and built-in cupboard. The home hosted a Peace Ball celebrating the victory at Yorktown in 1781. Charles Washington would live there with his family until 1781 and was sold to a Larkin Smith in 1791 who sold it again in 1792 to Colonel Gustav Wallace. 

Wallace rented the building to John Frasier who opened it as a tavern he called the Golden Eagle in 1793. This operated for 35 years, but John would die just a few months into running the tavern. The post office was also located here. Preservation Virginia acquired the Rising Sun Tavern in 1907 and completed a series of restorations that included the front porch and the original railings from the 18th century bar were found under the plaster and the entire bar was rebuilt. Chair rails, cornices, paneled wood and fireplaces and the unique stairway were all repaired and painted in their original colors. 

The ghost that hangs out here is said to be the first proprietor, John Frasier. Frasier died in 1793 after going upstairs and taking a nap. He has stayed on to watch over the tavern in the afterlife. His spirit is said to move items around, he likes to play with the lights and staff and visitors have all heard his laughter and some even say they have seen his apparition. His disembodied footsteps are heard upstairs. An employee was going upstairs and she heard the disembodied footsteps and she scolded John for scaring her and she felt a tug on her dress. Tricorne hats in the gift shop have been found aligned in the middle of the floor. Wilson was an employee and he said one night they were closing up and they put the bar that they placed across the front door in its place and when they turned around, they heard a loud clunk behind them and the bar had flown off from the door and just landed a couple inches right behind Wilson and his fellow tour guide. He didn't believe in ghosts until he started working here. Some people also claim that John's wife Elizabeth is here too.

Hugh Mercer Apothecary Shop

The Hugh Mercer Apothecary Shop is located at 1020 Caroline Street. The house was built in 1772 as a home and apothecary for Dr. Hugh Mercer. He had left Scotland after the Battle of Culloden and settled in Pennsylvania. While there, he got involved in the French and Indian War and met Colonel George Washington who encouraged him to move to Fredericksburg to open a practice. More than likely because his mother lived there. Mary Washington would be one of Dr. Mercer's patients. He used a variety of remedies including leeches, lancets, snakeroot, and crab claws. The practice ran for 15 years and then Dr. Mercer joined the Revolutionary Army and he died as a Brigadier General at the Battle of Princeton. Preservation Virginia took ownership of the house and restored it and then passed on ownership in 2013 to the "Washington Heritage Museums" group. Docents give guided tours of the first floor and visitors can tour a self-guided tour of the second floor and gardens on their own. Staff has reported some strange things happening in the museum. There is a child ghost here. A guide once saw the single bare foot of a child going up the stairs. 

Mary Washington House

The other museum that is part of this collection had belonged to George Washington's mother. The Mary Washington House is located at 1200 Charles Street. Mary had moved to Fredericksburg to be near her children, Charles and Elizabeth. Her son George bought this house for her in 1772 from Michael Robinson because it was near Elizabeth's home, Kenmore Plantation. The wooden house was originally a three-room cottage with a detached kitchen. There was a bedroom upstairs for guests that is referred to as the George Washington Room. One bedroom downstairs was Mary's bedroom and then she had a room for entertaining. 

Mary would spend the last seventeen years of her life in the house. Her youth had been tough. Her father died when she was three and by the time she was thirteen, her mother and step-father had also passed, so she was an orphan. Mary met the widower Augustine Washington when she was 23 and the two married in 1731. The couple would have six children. Augustine died in 1743 and Mary would never remarry. (This wasn't because she was heartbroken - explain the law at the time.) Before she died from breast cancer in 1789, she got to witness her son lead the Continental Army to victory and become the first President of America. Many famous people visited Mrs. Washington, and a legend claims one of these people was General Lafayette who came by the home seeking a visit with Mrs. Washington during the Revolution and he found her working in her garden. The President-to-be came to this home to receive his mother's blessing before attending his inauguration in 1789. Mary's granddaughter Betty moved into the house with her husband after Mary died. They added a central hall, a fancy parlor with carved woodwork and added additional rooms to the upstairs. The couple had seven children and two of them died in the house as infants. In 1806, the first Presbyterian minister in the town moved into the house and he also ran a boys' school out of it. A north wing was added to the house at that time. He lived at the house for 34 years. The house then was divided into a duplex. Jane Dickenson bought the house and lived in it during the Civil War. She nursed Confederate wounded there. A Union cannonball struck the house in the attic. Dickenson left in 1864 and the house became a hospital for the Union. The bodies of six Union soldiers were buried in the backyard.

Preservation Virginia acquired the Mary Washington House in 1890, saving it from being disassembled and shipped to the 1893 Chicago Columbian Exposition. They restored the house and opened it as a museum in 1900. In 2012, the Washington Heritage Museums would acquire the house. Starting in the 1970s, ghost stories started to be told about the house. Mary never left her final home it seems. Her apparition has been seen tending to the garden. She is sometimes seen sitting by a window and people claim to hear the rustling of a dress. The hem of a petticoat has been seen swishing past a door. It is also thought that there is some activity from formally enslaved people who had worked here and maybe even a couple of boys from the boys' school days.

Michelle Hamilton is the manager of the Mary Washington House and she wrote the book "Ghosts of Fredericksburg." She said of the ghost at the house, "It's very gentle. It is very like a tea drinking spirit in here and usually pulls pranks. Things get knocked off the shelves in the gift shop and papers on my desk get messed up every once in a while. A former employee had her soda bottle turned upside down on her desk. It's just very gentle, very playful and very whimsical. We once heard this giant slamming sound coming from upstairs. I realized I have to be the brave one to go upstairs. I'm like, okay guys whatever you've done you better put it back." She wrote in her book (pg. 21 and 23)

Richard Johnston Inn 

The Richard Johnson Inn is a bed and breakfast located at 711 Caroline Street. John Taylow had been an original signer of the Declaration of Independence and he built the original row house here in 1770. This row house was combined with the row house next to it to make it a larger house. A kitchen house was in the courtyard and there were slave quarters. The inn is named for the man who bought it in the early 1800s, Richard Johnston, who served as the mayor of Fredericksburg from 1809 to 1810. There was no running water or central heat in the house until after the 1930s and by 1970, it was in such a state of disrepair it was only good for use as a warehouse. A man named Hunter Greenlaw bought it in the 1970s and renovated the property into office space, a restaurant and shops. Greenlaw sold it in 1986 to Libby Gowin, who turned the home into The Richard Johnston Inn that it is today. The tradition of running it as an inn continued in 1993 when Susan Thrush bought the property. L&L Hospitality bought it in 2001 and did some modernization and continue to run it today. The house survived the Revolutionary War and the Civil War, only suffering minor fire damage during the Civil War. The inn being over 245 years old, lends itself to ghosts stories and there are said to be multiple spirits here. There is at least one child spirit and it has been heard talking and laughing. The most well known spirit is a former enslaved man named Toby who was tasked with keeping the eleven fireplaces clean. When he is around, people smell the scent of smoke. 

There are stories of Confederate sharpshooters firing from the windows during the Battle of Fredericksburg and there could be spirits connected to that. legatedomitor wrote on Reddit, "The Richard Johnston Inn downtown Fredericksburg is very much haunted. I was in there doing work along with another person. My coworker kept asking who was watching us and following us around. Asked the employee on duty and was advised no one was staying at the inn, the figure pretty much stayed staring and following us until we were gone. Not threatening just very very weird, cold spots randomly in there too."

The Chimneys

It is uncertain who originally owned The Chimneys. Scotsman John Glassell was a local merchant and he is credited with building The Chimneys, located at 623 Caroline Street, and named for the chimneys on either side of the house. He arrived in Fredericksburg in the 1770s and purchased land from Englishman Charles Yates. Some historians believe that Yates actually built the house, which is estimated to have been built between 1771 and 1773. Yates had been a Mason and would've had the skills needed for the meticulous craftsmanship found inside the house. Whatever the case, when the American Revolution started, Glassell headed back to Scotland in 1775 because he was a loyalist and he never returned. He turned the house over to William Glassell who he had given power of attorney. The house was two stories, built in the Georgian style and framed with mortise and tenon joints, secured by hardwood pegs. The hipped roof was designed after the construction of ship hulls at the time and is was supported by three heavy king post trusses. The interior featured a central hall plan with two rooms on each side of the hallway. There was decorative carving on the woodwork of the moldings, paneling and mantelpiece. 

The house changed hands throughout the 1800s and no one knows for sure who started calling it The Chimneys. President Chester A. Arthur's wife, Nell, had lived in the house when she was a child. The president of the Historic Fredericksburg Foundation bought the house in 1966 and rented it out until the foundation turned it into a museum and office space in 1975. A man named William Vakos purchased and renovated it in 1982 and he opened it as a restaurant. In 1985, Robert Mitchell III became the new owner and he held onto it until 2000, when Tommy Mitchell bought it. In 2014, The Chimneys opened as Billikens Smokehouse, a family-owned BBQ restaurant with great food, live entertainment and stunning views. 

Billiken is not a family name, so we had to ask, what is a billiken and the restaurants website says, "The Billiken is believed to be the creation of Ms. Florence Pretz, a Kansas City art teacher and illustrator. In the early 1900s, she dreamed of this whimsical figure and brought it to life. Ms. Pretz initially produced the Billiken as coin banks and statuettes, later expanding to dolls. This charming good luck symbol quickly became a national craze, with its likeness appearing on everything from postcards to hood ornaments. Around 1908, the Horsemen Doll Co. manufactured the Billiken doll, selling an impressive 200,000 units within the first few months. During the Great Depression, the Billiken gained a reputation as a beacon of good fortune. Poems were written celebrating the luck he brought to those who owned him. Described variously as a fairy, an imp, a charm, and even a god, the Billiken’s appeal transcended borders. In China, he is known as the “God of Things as They Should Be,” and he has left his mark in places as far-flung as Alaska and Canada. The Billiken exists to amuse, make you laugh, and bring you luck and happiness. Most importantly, he invites you to ask the timeless question: What is a Billiken?" 

Patrons and staff have claimed to hear strange sounds, they feel cold spots, door knobs turn on their own and rocking chairs rock on their own. The spirit of a young boy is said to haunt the house and he was seen by a woman who was putting her son to sleep. She thought his friend who was laying in the bed with him was over for a sleepover and that her husband hadn't told her about it. She put both boys to sleep and then asked her son who the boy was the next morning. her husband had no idea what she was talking about and her son had no idea who the boy was either. 

There may be a couple of female ghosts as well. One of these female ghosts was seen by a family living in the house in the early 1800s. She was a full-bodied apparition and she was playing a harp in the house. She also joined a little girl sitting at a piano playing, several years later. Author Mark Nesbitt claims to have interacted with the spirit of a former enslaved man named Nicodemus. He was coming through the Underground Railroad in Fredericksburg, but was left behind and died in a fire while he waited for a fellow traveler to return for him. Nesbitt had been accompanied by a medium named Julie Pellegrino and she is the one who relayed this information. 

Chatham Manor 

Chatham Manor is located at 120 Chatham Lane and was completed in 1771. It was designed in the Georgian architectural style and was constructed for farmer and statesman William Fitzhugh. He had named his house for his friend William Pitt who was the Earl of Chatham. The plantation stretched over 1,280 acres and included an orchard, mill, slave quarters, a dairy, barns, and ice house, stables and a race track for horses. Fitzhugh regularly raced his horses here against his neighbors. Chatham had a slave rebellion in 1805. Tired of being abused, the slaves overpowered the overseer and a couple other men and whipped them. An armed posse arrived at the plantation later in the day and they killed three slaves and deported two others. Fitzhugh decided to sell and he sold the property Major Churchill Jones. His brother William inherited the property when Churchill died and he deeded the property to his eldest daughter Hannah Jones Coalter as a wedding present in 1825. Hannah had always wanted to free her slaves, so she set up her will to manumit her 93 slaves. Manumit meant that the slaves were freed, but that there was an arrangement as well. The slaves could decide to remain enslaved in the state of Virginia or they could be freed with enough money to help them get established in another state. They had to leave Virginia if freed. Hannah's relatives sued and claimed the Dred Scott decision meant that slaves couldn't make that kind of decision. A local court said the slaves could be freed, but the Virginia Supreme Court divided and the relatives won. The property was sold to Hannah's younger sister Betty and her husband J. Horace Lacy in 1848. 

Lacy joined the Confederate Army during the Civil War and rose to the rank of major. When the Union came to Fredericksburg, they took over Chatham Manor and forced Betty and the children to leave.

The property served as a U.S. Army headquarters and later became a Union hospital. After the war, the house fell into disrepair and the Lacys had to sell it to pay taxes in 1872. The property had several owners, but no one did anything with it until General Daniel Bradford Devore and his wife Helen bought the manor in the 1920s and they renovated it and made the place into a real showpiece. They added a beautiful English-style garden. In 1931, General Motors executive John Lee Pratt and his wife, purchased the Chatham estate. Upon Devore's death, the estate was willed to the National Park Service in 1975 and now serves as the headquarters for the Fredericksburg and Spotsylvania National Military Park. It sits on only 85 acres now and offers tours of five rooms that were turned into a museum. The property has the distinction of being visited by both President Washington and President Lincoln. 

The ghost story here is about a lady in white. Her story goes all the way back to Fitzhugh's ownership. She was a young woman when she visited the manor. This woman hadn't come because she wanted to, but because her father had sent her away from England because she had fallen in love with the wrong young man. He hoped to break them up. However, the young man had followed her across the ocean and he met up with her at the manor. During their meeting, they discussed eloping. A servant heard the plans and reported them to a guest at the house, General George Washington. Washington agreed to stop the elopement, so when the young woman climbed out of her window, she found Washington waiting for her. The girl was sent back to England and forced into another marriage with a boy from the right side of the tracks with the right bank account. Before she died on June 21, 1790, she vowed that she would return to Chatham Manor each year on the anniversary of her death. Many visitors to the manor have claimed to see the glowing lady in white. She is usually seen wearing a white period dress. She made her first appearance on her death. Legend claims that she actually appears every seventh year on June 21st. She is normally seen walking a path along the river and she seems to be looking or watching for someone.  

Fredericksburg has a history intertwined with the Antebellum period and the Civil War, which seems to feed the paranormal side of things. Are these locations in Fredericksburg haunted? That is for you to decide!