HGB Ep. 483 - Haunted Occoquan

Moment in Oddity - 3D Printed Food

Well Diane, I don't know about our listeners, but I KNOW you love a good cheesecake, as do I. And although we eat pretty healthy in general, this is a whole new culinary delight that we may want to partake in. Now it may look a little strange, but hey, we're all about the strange and weird here at History Goes Bump, right? Well, a group of mechanical engineers at Columbia University have been able to 3D print an edible cheesecake! Can you imagine being able to create such a gratifying dessert such as this at home, because that 3D printing ability is coming soon. The slice in 'question' (and I use that descriptive word intentionally), was a cheesecake slice consisting of banana puree, strawberry jam, cherry drizzle, peanut butter, graham cracker and frosting. So of course the graham cracker was serving as the crust, then pool-like layers of peanut butter secure the softer ingredients like the banana puree or jam in place. The structures within the architectural space of the cake support each other, not unlike the architectural support of any tall corporate building. The time it takes one of the foodie 3D printers to create this delectable dish is approximately 30 minutes from start to finish for a single slice. The taste? Well, it was likened to Willy Wonka's three course dinner chewing gum from 'Charlie and the Chocolate Factory'. Different flavors of the cheesecake would hit the palate at different times. The 3D food printing industry has proposed the needed development of creating 'food cartridges' for the printers. All I know is we like natural and fresh food so we will not be experimenting with such a device. But one thing is for sure, a 3D printer that can create edible meals, certainly is odd. 

This Month in History - Artist Raffaello Santi

In the month of April, on the 6th, in 1483, artist Raffaello Santi was born in Duchy of Urbino, Italy (Duh-chee Ur-Bee-No). Raphael was well known for his numerous Madonna paintings. His father, Giovanni Santi, was a court painter and is believed to have begun Raffaello's training before his death when Raffaello was only 11 years old. He was a painter and architect of the High Renaissance. Raffaello was also one of the traditional trinity of masters which included Leonardo da Vinci and Michelangelo. His work was admired for his clarity of form, ease of composition, and visual achievement of the Neoplatonic ideal of human grandeur. After additional training in Perugino, Raffaello attained the title of "master" by 1500. In 1508 he moved to Rome at the invite of the pope to begin work on the Vatican Palace. While in Rome, Raffaello was given a variety of important commissions and then he began to work as an architect. He was still a highly sought after artist at the time of his death, on his birthday, April 6th, 1520.

Haunted Occoquan (Suggested by: Cecil H) 

The town of Occoquan in Virginia is a suburb of Washington, D.C. and was established over 250 years ago. This is a town full of historic and colorful buildings that started as a trading post. The mill town has today become an artist enclave that hosts two large annual arts and crafts festivals and a few ghosts. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of Occoquan!

Prince William County in Virginia has its share of haunted locations. This encompassed a large tract of Northern Virginia and was named for the son of King George II. The county would have two large town areas: Manassas and Occoquan. We're focusing on Occoquan on this episode. (Dumfries is part of this county as well - where the Weems-Botts House is located that we covered on Ep. 441.) The name means "at the end of the water" and comes from the Algonquin Doeg Indians who were early inhabitants here. They were eventually replaced by the Dogues tribe. Their main village was at the mouth of the Occoquan River. The first Europeans explored the area in the early 1600s, but wouldn't establish a trading post here until the early 1700s with a tobacco warehouse being set up on the south bank of the river. The town soon expanded from there with iron furnaces built by Charles Ewell and John Ballendine in 1755, a grist mill in 1757, Merchant's Mill with a second grist mill in 1759 and the first cotton mill in Virginia would eventually be here in 1828. The town thrived as a port until river silting shut down the river traffic. Occoquan was chartered as a town in 1804. The mills eventually closed and industrial operations shut down. The town reinvigorated with small businesses and is today a tourist center with lots of great shops and restaurants and several of these places are reputedly haunted.

The Occoquan Historic District consists of sixty structures. Many of these are frame, two-story structures that had once been private homes. They have German siding and decorative porches. They are all very cute. Mill Street was clearly the main hub of this town and still is today with lots of shops. An arson fire destroyed many buildings in 1980, but everything was rebuilt and restored. During some excavations along the Occoquan River, a tombstone was unearthed dating back to 1893. This was a spot behind Madigan's Waterfront Restaurant. The tombstone is on display at the Mill Street Museum and is said to be unnaturally cold to the touch. The corner of Commerce and Union Streets was the scene of a Civil War skirmish and people still claim to hear the moaning there.                 

Madigan's Waterfront Restaurant

Madigan's Waterfront Restaurant is located at 201 Mill Street. The restaurant is family owned and opened in 2005. Occoquan Spirits has conducted dowsing sessions inside Madigan's and they believed they were talking to two little girls that like to hang out on the second floor of the restaurant. They also has sensory experiences that included one woman feeling a hand on her leg and another was bumped into by something she couldn't see when they were going up the stairs. 

It's Your Day Shop

It's Your Day Shop is located at 206 Mill Street. The website describes this as a self-photo studio and a party room rental. This is a wood frame two-story building with a gable roof that was built in the late 18th century. At least seven families had lived in the house before it was renovated in the 1970s to serve as a retail shop. The original porch was replaced with Williamsburg-type steps. The renovations also revealed the original material used to build the house which included huge timbers, brick ballast and oyster shell mortar and the wall was left open so people could see this material. The spirit here is named Charlotte and she likes to rearrange things. People have seen her apparition and felt cold spots. There is also that feeling of being watched by someone who isn't there.

302 Mill Street

The original part of this building was built in 1860 and was added onto throughout the years. This started as W.R. Selecman Dry Goods, Groceries, Liquors & General Merchandise. Later it became Leary Lumber & Hardware for many years and in 1971 it became Blackbeard’s restaurant serving up seafood. The building was gutted by a fire in the mid-1980s and reopened as a quilt shop. Then is was the Golden Goose, which was a shop specializing in Christmas decor and novelties. The most recent iteration was the Urban Posh Boutique, but that seems to have moved to a location on Washington Street, so we're not sure what is here now. When it was the Golden Goose, staff claimed that the place had a poltergeist who enjoyed moving stuff around and liked to hang out at the old sales counter after hours. The original 1860 tin ceiling has managed to survive through all the years.

Artists' Undertaking Gallery

The Artists' Undertaking Gallery is located at 309 Mill Street and was established in 1977. The name may sound unusual until you learn that this had once been a funeral home. It was built in the 1930s by R.S. Hall. This funeral home went out of business in 1972 after Hurricane Agnes blew through and took out the additions to the building. The main building survived, but was flooded by the Occoquan River. When the artists decided to make this building their studio, they had to clean mud out of the basement left over from the flooding. The old funeral director haunts the store. He was seen by his grandson in the place after he died. Annette Ka lei Pua worked there and one night she was alone in the building and someone walked past her out of the corner of her eye. She saw the figure pass again. The third time the figure passed her, she said, "Ok, you can have the store. I'm going home." One day after a snow day had shut everything down, Annette came into the store and opened the cash register. She was shocked to see all the coins neatly stacked on top of each other. She closed the drawer and opened it again and the coins were still stacked so she called a couple of other employees over and they were shocked to see them that way too. Annette took pictures, but the pictures came out blank.

Before Hall built his undertaking business there was Slack Funeral Home. It had been located at 210-214 Commerce Street, but no longer stands. Undertaker Slack had a two-horse carriage with black windows on both sides and was open from the back. Carl Eike, Jr., born in Occoquan/Woodbridge area, was quoted in 1979 describing his memories of Undertaker Slack “He had two old boney horses and a rickety old hearse, but I guess it made no difference to the dead person.”

13 Magickal Moons 

13 Magickal Moons is located at 440 Mill Street and had three resident cats that would often appear to see something that nobody else could see. An employee named Amanda said that cats often seemed to be looking at something behind her. And she said that she would often get that feeling like something was behind her. She was there alone one evening close to closing time when she heard a banging in the other room. She ignored it, but later when she went into the back something started rattling the doorknob back there. And then she saw what she described as a shadow that crossed the room very quickly. So then she left pretty quickly because it scared her.

Gift & Gather Shop

The Gift & Gather Shop is located at 307 Mill Street and opened in 2017. This is a place that showcases small independent creators and sells Pure palette soy candles. The building was built in the early 1900’s and served as a general store from the 1940’s until 1972 where fishing licenses and tackle were
available, as well as boat rentals. The rear had an attachment that featured 5 rooms for rent, but this washed away during Hurricane Agnes in 1972. People have reported seeing a flickering light in the windows in the early morning hours and sometimes they even see a woman holding a candle moving through the shop when it is closed.

Labella Bridal Boutique

Labella Bridal Boutique is located at 313 Mill Street. The building dates back to 1888 and was formed from ground oyster shell mortar and English bricks that came over on ships as ballast. Lynn's General Store used to be here on the ground floor and Lynn and his family lived on the upper level. The unexplained activity here are dark footprints appearing inside the building and disembodied whispering voices. Merchandise gets moved about in the middle of the night. 

The Spot on Mill Street

The Spot on Mill Street is located at 406 Mill Street. This is the oldest building in Occoquan and is believed to have been built in 1750. Massive logs were uncovered in a 1970 renovation that had been hand dressed for what was originally a residence. The stones for the foundation are the same type used for the Rockledge property. The fireplace here is original and the stairway is built from chestnut. Legend claims that British spies were kept in the basement dungeon during the Revolutionary War. Today, this is a pub on the Occoquan Pub Crawl. 

204 Washington Street 

The building at 204 Washington Street was originally a corner grocery store. This is a two-story wood frame house with a one-story porch and was built at the turn of the century. Ogle Harris, who was the son of a slave, opened the store in 1914 as an ice cream business that expanded into a grocery store. The store would sell as much as 25 gallons of hand-cranked ice cream on a weekend. The store sold bushels of fresh vegetables from local farms and Harris cut the sides of beef and lamb he sold himself. Harris ran it for 35 years until he passed away in 1949. Then his sons took over and ran it until 1974. A business named Yarn Cloud was here for 10 years, but has relocated. There are thought to be several ghosts in the shop. They move things, create disembodied footsteps and have revealed themselves as full-bodied apparitions.

The Well in the Courtyard

The Well in the Courtyard had been located at 201 Union Street. This location is also home to Poplar Alley. The alley was named for a stand of poplar trees that were once growing here. They were destroyed in a fire in 1916. Alleys like this were to provide access to the rear of buildings. The well was here for everyone's use and is said to be haunted by a ghost that likes it quiet. And the reason people figured this out is because any major sources of noise get silenced. There had been some storage units here for an electric company and they were renovated into shops.

The Occoquan Inn/D'Rocco's Italian Restaurant

The Occoquan Inn was located at 301 Mill Street. The inn is today D'Rocco's Italian Restaurant and The Tap Room. The house was built by Lucien Clark and then a Tyson Janney moved into it with his new bride in the last quarter of the 1800s. The Janneys were a prominent Quaker family in the town and they eventually took over the Mill complex and the Rockledge Mansion and they continued to operate the mill into the 1920s. The house passed to a Samuel Davis, then to Robert Hall, and then to the Dawson family in the 1970s. At that time it was vacant. The Lynn family leased the property and established the Occoquan Inn in the 1970s. They opened a little bar in the basement called the Wade Hampton Lounge. Jim Novak was twenty-three when he took over at the inn in the 1980s. He renamed the little bar the Down Under Tavern. During Novaks tenure, the Occoquan Inn was run as a romantic, white tablecloth restaurant. There was a banquet room upstairs. Gary Savage took over in 1997 and ran it until 2020. Then Jim Novak came back and opened D'Rocco's Italian Joint. He changed the bar downstairs into The Tap Room.

In the 1800s, a Native American lost his life at the foot of the stairway because he seemed to have been embroiled in a love triangle. The innkeeper shot him with a shotgun because the woman in the middle was his wife. The ladies room on the second floor was haunted. A server came up one time and tried to go in the bathroom and the door wouldn't budge. When she stepped away, the door blew open. There is a large old mirror in the bathroom that is original to the building and the manager said people sometimes claimed they saw a spirit in the mirror. This is a tall, handsome Native American male with long black hair. There is a fireplace in the Tea Room and the spirit sometimes appears in the fireplace. There was a large wedding at the inn and the manager was closing everything down around midnight and he went back downstairs and every single place setting had been reversed. He initially thought that a busboy was playing a trick, so the next day he asked the busboy if he had moved the place settings. The busboy said he didn't do it.

Occoquan Spirits was told by Jim from D' Rocco's that after their tour group left one night, an antique clock fell off the wall in the bar and broke, documenting the time the group left. Argos Paranormal investigated the Inn and they used a Phasmabox to communicate, as well as set up two flashlights. The one flashlight turned on and then off. They asked if it was a woman they were speaking with and the flashlight turned on again. Then the Phasmabox said, "Hey" and one of the investigators said, "You're moving around aren't you?" and the Phasmabox replied, "Please look here" and "Investigation." The group asked if the spirits remembered them and the Phasmabox said, "You." Then they got "Scarlett" and "Bring her." One of the guys is sensitive and he got to feeling like there was a child there and when they asked if a child was there, the word "mine" came through.

Rockledge Mansion

Rockledge Mansion is the historic anchor of the town and was built by the founder of Occoquan, John Ballendine, in 1758. Ballendine also built a sawmill, a grist mill, bake houses, an iron foundry and other businesses. He lost everything to foreclosure in 1765. So he was a great visionary, but not so good about paying his debts. Some of his visionary work was with George Washington and Ballendine helped expand Virginia's economy. Nathaniel Ellicott was the next owner of the eleven room Rockledge and he added a kitchen. His family had founded Ellicott City in Maryland. Wood siding was very popular in the late 1700s and so Ellicott put that over the stone that Rockledge had been built from. Ellicott was also a founder of Occoquan. He laid out streets and built a bridge over the Occoquan River that helped bring a stagecoach line to the town. Ellicott left in 1816 and then as mentioned before, the Janney family bought Rockledge and they owned it through 1929.

During the Civil War, Rockledge was turned into a hospital and they drilled holes in the floor to help drain the blood off the floor. The house suffered damage after the Consolidated Stone Quarry started blasting in 1902 and sent rocks flying at the house and damaged the foundation. As business in town went down, so did Rockledge. Fred Almon Barnes bought Rockledge in 1929 and he renovated it, leaving it to his son, Laurence Barnes. He and his wife eventually abandoned it in 1960 and it sat vacant for ten years. A man named Donald Sonner bought it and spent over a million renovating it for his wife as a Christmas present, but that dream would die when the house was burglarized and set on fire. Rockledge was severely damaged. Unable to afford to repair it, the Sonners sold it to Joy and Ronald Houghton who opened it as a bed and breakfast. Their son Lance Houghton was the most recent owner and he was leasing the ballroom to a catering company. It is now for sale for $1.5 million.

Gloria Rouse was the owner Georgetown Caterers and she shared with Hilltop Productions, some of the experiences she and her staff have had. The day she signed the lease, they were offered a room to overnight in and in the middle of the night, about eleven o'clock, they heard footsteps on the stairs and she assumed it was the owner returning to the property. The next morning she said to him, we heard you all come in last night and the owner said, "We didn't come in." This unnerved her, particularly since she was planning on staying a second night. The bartender is set up in the Summer Kitchen and they had a candelabra on the bar and the flames started going around in a circle. All of them doing the same circle. Gloria was called over and she couldn't believe what she was seeing. There is no forced air in that room, so they couldn't understand what was making the flames do that. Here's a really crazy thing. There were investigators there that had a camera on a room and they caught what looked like a bunch of orbs moving sideways through the shot. Gloria watched it and said it looked like snow. Then she left the room and this snow-like stuff changed direction and started coming up from the floor. This was the room that had the drilled floors that have now been sealed. Gloria never felt frightened though. People have reported seeing the spirit of a Confederate Soldier.

The town of Occoquan is more than fun and colorful shops to peruse. It clearly has an haunting air about it. Is Occoquan haunted? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:

Tour: https://occoquanspirits.com/