HGB Ep. 448 - Haunted Fayetteville, North Carolina

Moment in Oddity - Siphonophores

Some people have fears about the unknown in the deepest, darkest depths of our oceans. For many, this isn't just the usual apprehension surrounding sharks and the like. One particular type of creature can be the fuel for nightmares. These are siphonophores. This is an order of marine animals in the phylum Cnidaria. Jellyfish are a part of this phylum. The creature is made up of a complex aggregate colony of many nectophores. Each one is genetically identical. While jellyfish are single organisms that can swim, siphonophores are drifters that flow with the ocean currents. All the individual organisms work as one whole. Some catching prey, some digest food, other parts reproduce while some create the creatures own bioluminescent light. Similar to jellyfish, siphonophores are venomous but rarely are fatal to humans although their stings can be quite painful. Siphonophores are predatory carnivores that feed on copepods, krill, other crustaceans as well as small fish. Each organism has an independent nervous system but they do share a circulatory system. While some may find these creatures beautiful, I would surmise to say that if you were to Google images of them right before bedtime, you would have some terrifying nightmares because these creatures certainly are odd.

This Month in History - MTV Launches

In the month of August, on the 1st, in 1981, MTV launched. This was back when MTV was cool and it was an awe-inspiring experience to have music videos featuring the hottest songs of the time. One of MTV's creators, John Lack, started the broadcast by saying, "Ladies and gentlemen, rock and roll." The channel then rolled out the first video, which was The Buggles' "Video Killed the Radio Star." This first broadcast was only seen in New Jersey, but soon enough every house that had cable was able to get the channel, which revolutionized the music industry. It also pushed cultural boundaries and introduced interesting reality shows like The Real World. MTV introduced us to the term VJs rather than DJs. And who could forget Headbangers Ball, Celebrity Deathmatch and Beavis and Butthead? Careers were launched and many top acts reached their pinnacle because MTV put them in heavy rotation. For us, the 2000s killed MTV by dumping music videos and running reality shows that are just plain dumb. BTW, Iron Maiden had the first heavy metal video on MTV.

Haunted Fayetteville, North Carolina

Fayetteville, North Carolina was settled nearly 240 years ago and has witnessed much history in that time. The city has deep Scottish roots with pioneers immigrating from the Scottish Highlands. And while those roots leaned towards loyalty to the English, this town's revolutionary spirit was strong. The city has endured huge fires and Sherman's Army and come out on the other side with a vibrant spirit and the motto "Can Do Spirit." And speaking of spirits, there are quite a few here and we are going to take you along as we visit a few of them on our 2022 Road Trip. Join us for the history and hauntings of Fayetteville, North Carolina!

Fayetteville was mainly founded by Scottish immigrants in 1783 and was named for Marquis de Lafayette. The city was the first to honor him in this way and Fayetteville was the only city named for him that he actually visited. The carriage in which he arrived is still here and had been on display at the Fayetteville Independent Light Infantry & Museum, which has been permanently closed. But before the Scots made their way up the Cape Fear River to establish the settlements of Cross Creek and Campbellton, which would combine to become Fayetteville, indigenous tribes of the Siouan People had inhabited the area. After the bloodiest colonial war in North Carolina, the Tuscarora War, and the Yamasee War, the Native Americans were pushed out as colonization was encouraged. Since many of the immigrants here were Scottish Highlanders, they remained loyal to the Crown during the American Revolution. But there were patriots here too who created a document called the Liberty Point Resolves, which declared their support for liberty for the colonies. Robert Rowan was the leader of this group and many places are named for him in Fayetteville. The second oldest militia company in the country is still active in the city. 

Nearly all of Fayetteville was destroyed in the Great Fire of 1831. This fire started on May 29, 1831 just before noon. Residents came out of church around noon and found the Market Square on fire. The fire had started in a kitchen at a house at the northwest corner. The fire spread quickly from rooftop-to-rooftop, burning 600 buildings by evening. The one fire engine was basically useless and abandoned and water buckets were little help as well. Officials made the hard decision to start blowing up buildings in the path of the fire to give it less fuel and keep the flames from spreading. Pastor Rowland wrote of his church, "The tall steeple of the Presbyterian church seemed a pyramid of fire; for a while it stood firm, soon the bell descended with a crash—the steeple trembled, tottered and fell." All the churches burned, except for the Methodist church, 105 stores, a school, two banks and two hotels. Thankfully, no one died in the fire. Fayetteville bounced back and rebuilt.

Plank roads were a thing in North Carolina for awhile. These are roads built from wooden planks or puncheon logs and hit their boom from 1844 to the mid 1850s. Puncheon logs are split logs with the face smoothed. One of the main plank roads was the Fayetteville and Western Plank Road. This stretched 129 miles from Fayetteville to Bethania, which was a Moravian village outside of Salem. The tolls North Carolina charged were .5 cents per mile for a horse and one rider, 2 cents per mile for a teamster with two horses, 3 cents for a teamster with three horses, and one with six horses, 4 cents. This road helped Fayetteville become a hub of trading.

The Civil War brought destruction to Fayetteville again. General Sherman brought 60,000 troops to town and they destroyed the Confederate arsenal, cotton factories, foundries and the offices of The Fayetteville Observer. Confederate Lt. General Wade Hampton got involved in a skirmish in downtown Fayetteville and killed 11 Union soldiers. Shortly after that, the Battle of Monroe's Crossroads commenced just outside the city. This was the last cavalry battle of the Civil War. The years after found Fayetteville growing rapidly, but things were not good for black residents as Jim Crow laws were adopted and racial segregation set in. The Civil Rights Movement was robust here with marches and sit-ins. The military established Fort Bragg and Pope Air Force Base here. But of particular interest to us are the haunted locations in Fayetteville.

Museum of the Cape Fear Historical Complex

This historical site contains the Arsenal Park and the 1897 Poe House. The United States Arsenal that had stood here was commissioned after the War of 1812 and was completed in 1858. When the Civil War started and North Carolina seceded from the Union in 1861, a local militia captured the arsenal and turned it over to the state, which made it part of the Confederate States of America. Rifles, ammunition and gun carriages were produced here until the facility was destroyed by General Sherman's troops in 1865. All that remains are the extant ruins of the southwest tower and the machine shops. There is also a metal structure that is a recreation of one of the arsenal's ghost towers that probably was originally wooden and used as a lookout. It is lit up at night and can be seen from downtown Fayetteville and Hay Street. An interesting piece of history about the arsenal is that 50 to 60 young women were employed here as cartridge makers. They made up the bulk of the employees doing that job and were paid 50 cents a day. From January 1864 to August of that year, the arsenal produced 900,000 rounds of ammunition.

Also located here is the 1897 Poe House that was built by E.A. Poe, and yes, his first name was Edgar, but he isn't that Edgar Poe. He was a local businessman and ran the Poe Brick Company. This is a two-story house done in the Queen Anne Victorian style with beautiful ornate gingerbreading along the first story veranda and along a second floor balcony. Edgar and his wife had eight children and he built two other homes on the property for his daughters, but they no longer stand. Someone who lived in the house for three years claims there were many strange occurrences in the house and they believe it was haunted. There is a historic graveyard here as well. The house offers tours and during the Halloween season they offer "Invoking the Spirits: A Poe House Halloween." They have a video to a YouTube dramatization they produced during the pandemic and you can find it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gHw0UlrLbC4&t=34s

Cool Spring Tavern

Cool Spring Tavern is located at 119 N. Cool Spring Street. This is a federal style building that stands two-stories with long verandas on both stories, a low hipped roof and square Doric posts. Each side of the house has a large exterior brick chimney laid in Flemish bond with glazed headers forming chevron patterns. The interior has Federal trim and follows a center-hall plan two rooms deep. This was built in 1788 by Dolphin Davis and Nathan and Elisha Stedman and operated as a tavern until 1795. This is the oldest existing structure in the city. Elisha Stedman married and made the tavern his private residence after 1795. This was the Stedman Estate until 1834 and then there were five different owners. In 1860, Alfred A. MacKethan bought the home and that family still owns the property.

The state's Constitutional Convention was held here in November 1789 and included many members of the state legislature. The presiding officer of the convention was Richard Caswell who had been the first governor of the state of North Carolina after independence. He lived at the tavern and after toasting North Carolina becoming part of the United States, he retired to his room and suffered a stroke. He died five days later. Legends claims that his spirit haunts the tavern. Another legend claims that a young woman hanged herself in the attic and her apparition is seen walking around with a candle.

Prince Charles Hotel

The Prince Charles Hotel is located at 430 Hay Street and is now known as The Residences at the Prince Charles. The hotel opened in April 1925 under Carl and Richard Player and started as a seven-story building built in the Colonial Revival style with an Italian Renaissance style palazzo with 125 rooms. The Players sold the hotel to Dr. R.L. Pittman and his son Raymond and they added onto the hotel in 1942, provided 60 more rooms. It did well for a few years, but eventually turned into more of a flophouse where rooms could be rented for $8 a night. The city of Fayetteville bought the Prince Charles in 1978 and later closed it. Despite not being in use, the hotel was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1983. A developer came in to restore the hotel in the mid 1980s, but the hotel was closed shortly there after due to unpaid debts. Southern National Bank took possession of the hotel and sold it to a group of investors headed by Dr. Menno Pennink in 1992. 

Radisson took over the management, but the bad luck this hotel had with owners just continued when the hotel was sold in 2004 to Choice Hotels and faced default in 2007. New York investor John Chen bought the property with grand plans of adding a tower and running the hotel as an apartment and office building. That never happened. Rather, this became a rent rooms by the month place and the city shut it down in 2010 for code violations. Durham-based developer Jordan Jones bought the property in 2014 for $200,000 and rebuilt the interior as apartments and opened in 2019 as The Residences at the Prince Charles. The spirit that has watched the comings and goings of all these different eras of ownership is said to be Charlotte. She was a bride who got married at the hotel and got the shock of her life when she walked into the honeymoon suite and found her husband in bed with one of the bridesmaids. She committed suicide by jumping out of a window and is usually seen riding the elevator to the eighth floor where the suite had been located. She likes to mess with the locks on the 8th floor also. The spirits of WWII soldiers were seen in a bar that had been in the hotel. Legend claims that a police officer was murdered on either the 4th or 6th floor and he is said to haunt the hotel.

Sandford House

Sandford House is part of Heritage Square, which is owned and maintained by The Woman's Club of Fayetteville and located at 224 Dick Street. It's officially known as Fayetteville Woman's Club. The house was built in 1797 by John McLeran and was designed in the Colonial Georgian architectural style. Duncan McLeran later bought the house, but he didn't own it long and sold it to John and Sarah Adam in 1804. In 1820, the home became the first federal bank in North Carolina. The namesake for the house, John William Sandford, bought the house in 1832 and returned the house to a private residence and he and his wife, Margaret, lived there with their seven children. Margaret died in 1860 and William remarried and he stayed in the house until his death in 1870. It is believed that Sherman's troops used the house as a barracks during the Union occupation of Fayetteville in 1865. Former Confederate Captain John E.P. Daingerfield bought Sandford House in 1873. He had served as a clerk at the Harpers Ferry arsenal during John Brown's raid. The Captain went on to serve at the Fayetteville Arsenal. He and his wife Matilda had four children, one of whom became a celebrated North Carolina painter, Elliot Daingerfield. Fayetteville belle lillian Taylor became the next owner of the house with her husband A.H. Slocumb. The last family to privately own the house were the Powells. They acquired the house in 1919 and stayed until 1941 and then The Woman's Club of Fayetteville leased the property for 4 years and then they optioned to purchase it and still own it today.

The club used the house to provide shelter for unmarried working women during World War II. The second floor bedrooms were turned into dormitory-style living with 30 women packed into the rooms. The club also offered the lower floor for social functions. 

Hauntings here began during the Civil War and the legend connected to that time is that a young couple was trying to escape the house through a tunnel when they saw Union troops appraoching. The tunnel was blown up, burying them and the woman's ghost has been seen on one of the staircases. People call her the Lady in Black. The young man haunted the dormitory rooms. This spirit could possibly belong to Margaret Sandford though. She is thought to haunt the house because she died in the house and may have been worried about the care of her children, especially after William remarried. Another ghost appears as a young girl who wanders the hallways looking forlorn as though she is in mourning. She is said to be missing her sweetheart who was murdered before the Civil War and buried in a secret underground passageway that led to the Cape Fear River. The entrance to this passageway was in the bank vault. Perhaps this is the tunnel the young couple was escaping through as well? People claim to see indentations on furniture when no one is sitting on the furniture.

Kyle House

The Kyle House at 234 Green Street was built by merchant James Kyle in 1855 and is one of the oldest surviving residences in the city. Kyle was Scottish and had come from Philadelphia to Fayetteville, so when he decided to build his home, he hired a Philadelphia architect and hauled materials by water from Philadelphia. These materials included handmade bricks and hand-hewn support beams. The house was made in the Greek Revival and Italianate architectural styles and features a hipped roof, a widow's walk, fluted Greek columns, wrought-iron balustrade and pilasters. Italian craftsmen created the intricate detail work inside the house. The walls were built with 18-inch thick walls lined with brick to provide fireproofing because the house that stood here before had burned down in the Great Fire of 1831. There were four rooms downstairs and a formal staircase led up to four bedrooms on the second floor. An interesting aspect of the staircase can be seen on the octagonal newel. It's inlaid with a six-pointed mother-of-pearl star Builder's Button that signifies that the house was paid for when completed. The kitchen was in a building in the side yard.

Kyle didn't live in the house, rather he gave it to his daughter Margaret as a wedding present. She and her husband, Dr. J.F. Faulk, lived in the house until after the Civil War and they moved to California, so James Kyle bought back the house and gave it to his younger daughter Annie. After Annie was widowed, she took boarders in the house. The house stayed in the Kyle family until they sold it to the city of Fayetteville in 1963. The city used the house as City Hall until 1991, housing the mayor's office and city administration offices. The house sits next to St. John's Episcopal Church and they bought it from the city in 1991. They renovated the house, modernizing the kitchen and bathrooms and adding a new corridor to connect the parish hall to the rear of the house, and opened it in 2002. The upstairs is used as classrooms and the downstairs hosts events and meetings.

Stories of hauntings here have been told for decades. Many believe that James Kyle haunts the house even though he didn't live in it and they think he was unhappy that his daughter had used it as a boarding house. He is often seen going up and down the stairway. The former Mayor, Bill Hurley, and his staff had machines that would turn on by themselves and furniture would move around. There were icy cold spots and noises that couldn't be explained. They often told stories of their spirited office environment. Former City Manager Roger Stancil saw an apparition and felt cold spots in his office upstairs. During a candlelight tour, a volunteer suffered an awful chill that even a blanket and warm cider couldn't shake. She only lost the chill when she went outside of the house. A great-great-grandson of James Kyle, James Kyle, Jr., had lived in the house until he was in his 20s and he twice saw the ghost of his ancestor.  

Vander Light

This area has its own ghost light known as the Vander Light. Legend claims if you stand on the ridge where the Old Vander Road crosses the railroad tracks and look to the east, you will see a light coming up the tracks. The light is said to belong to a lantern carried by railroad worker Archer Matthews who had been investigating a sound he heard along the track and he slipped, knocking himself out. He fell across the track and when the next train came, he lost his head. Now the lantern is looking for his lost head. Since the 1930s, there have been dozens of reports of people seeing the Vander Light. Skeptics claim that methane gas and electrical charges cause the light or perhaps some kind of a phosphorous gas compound that reacts to produce heat and light. 

Fayetteville is an interesting city with a lot of history reflected in some of their historical structures. Are any of these places haunted? That is for you to decide!