HGB Ep. 603 - Margam Castle

This Month in History - The Battle of Sedan (Suh-dawn)

In the month of September, on the 2nd, in 1870, Emperor Napoleon III surrendered to the Prussians during the Battle of Sedan. Napoleon III ruled France from December 1852 to September 1870. He rose to power after a coup and referendum in 1851 and was the nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte I. The Battle of Sedan was a pivotal and decisive battle of the Franco-Prussian War. The war began in July of 1870 and France expected a quick victory. However on September 1st, the Prussian army surrounded Napoleon and his troops which numbered over 100,000 soldiers. The Prussians used superior organizational skills and employed exceptional artillery expertise during the intense battle. The following day, realizing there was no way for escape, Emperor Napoleon III surrendered. This event led to the collapse of the Second French Empire, thus ending the Bonaparte Dynasty, and resulted in Prussia's eventual victory and proclamation of the German Empire. 

Margam Castle (Suggested by: Lyn Beasley)

The visually stunning Margam Castle is located in Margam, Wales and while the 269,000 square foot structure resembles a castle, it really is technically just a country house. A very large country house. The reason it is referred to as a castle though is because it was made to look like a castle complete with an octagonal tower, turrets and battlements. While this was never a fortification, there are hill forts that dot the landscape, as do burial cairns. And what really makes this site remarkable is the nearby Margam Abbey, which lies in partial ruins. There are several spirits that call the castle home. Join us for the history and hauntings of Margam Castle. 

The area here has over 4,000 years of continuous habitation. The history here dates back to pre-historic times with relics dating to the Bronze and Iron Age and there is evidence of Roman and Celtic occupation. Margam started off as the cwmwd (koom wood) of Tir Iarll (Teer Yar-thll), in ancient times. A hill fort named Mynydd-y-Castell (Munith uh Cass-tell) was built here and there are still remains of that here. After the Norman invasion of Wales, Robert, 1st Earl of Gloucester, and Lord of Glamorgan, gave the land to the Cistercians. The name Margam came with the founding of the Margam Abbey by the Cistercians in 1147. Prolific abbot and mystic St. Bernard of Clairvaux (Clair Voe) greatly expanded the Cistercian Order and this abbey played a significant part in getting his writing out there. He also revived Benedictine monastic life and advised multiple popes. King Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in the 1530s and so in 1536, Margam Abbey was sold to Sir Rice Mansel. The abbey church would be retained as a parish church and it continues to be that today. The other buildings of the monastery would be sold off and some fell into ruins, like the twelve-sided Chapter House. 

Eventually the Talbot family would have possession of the Margam property through the female descended line of the Mansels. The Talbot family were a branch of the Earls of Shrewsbury. One of the monastery buildings was opened as the Margam Stones Museum. This is a little building next to the abbey church and contains 30 inscribed stones and crosses dating back to sixth-century Wales. These had served as milestones on Roman roads. One of the crosses is the Cross of Cobelin, which features a carved hunting scene. An effigy of a 14th century knight dressed in chain mail is here as well and he has a small dragon at the foot of his shield. And there is a grotesque gargoyle designed to void rainwater down its back. 

Margam would become an important part of the industrial base because it had a good harbor, named for the Talbot family, Port Talbot, and there were coal deposits. Coal mining in the parish took off in the late 18th century. Port Talbot would become a community of industrial workers. Margam would then be a suburb of Port Talbot. Urbanization would change the landscape, but Margam County Park preserved the history and the land. A deer herd that is here was thought to have been brought by the Romans. The park and estate covers 850 acres. The main part of the property is, of course, the castle. The castle is described as a "late Georgian country house," but it has many of the elements of a castle. This was the second estate built here. Despite owning the estates of Penrice and Oxwich, Sir Rhys Mansel built another estate here at Margam in the 1530s and this eventually was demolished. The Margam Castle that stands today was built for Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot and was designed by Thomas Hopper in the Tudor Revival style. Christopher was born in 1803 and everyone called him Kit. He loved to race yachts and was an accomplished musician. Kit collected art and was very good at chess. And he loved architecture and when it came to designing his home, he knew what he wanted. Talbot asked the architect Hopper to borrow elements from the family's ancestral home Lacock Abbey in Wiltshire and Melbury House in Dorset. Construction was started in 1830 and was completed in 1835. The castle's exterior was made from ashlar stone taken from the nearby Pyle quarry and features an elaborate Gothic porch, oriel and lancet windows, groups of chimney stacks, an octagonal tower and irregular gables and turrets and heraldic decor. 

The interior has a stunning, immense staircase hall that really has to be seen because words don't do it justice. A fire gutted the building in 1977, but its grandeur remains. Originally, the family rooms were set around a small courtyard on the west side of the terrace and people entered through an elaborate porch on the north side. The large quantity of windows that surround the octagonal tower, stream light down onto the staircase and reveals all the amazing plasterwork. Kit and his wife, Charlotte, filled the home with their four children. He passed away in 1890 as the richest commoner in Wales and the estate passed onto his daughter Emily Charlotte Talbot because his only son had died in 1876 due to a hunting accident. Emily made vast improvements to the property. When she died, her will gave the castle to her nephew, but it was adminstered through trustees who decided to auction off all the contents in 1941 and the estate itself was sold off in 1942. This property had been occupied by Sir Ryhs Mansel’s direct male descendants for six generations over 200 years. The castle was used by the military during World War II and then it was empty. Today, the castle and park is owned and administered by Neath Port Talbot County Borough Council.   

One of the unique extra structures, other than those left from the abbey, is the Orangery, which predates the current castle. We had never heard of an Orangery until a week ago when we watched the Thursday Murder Club on Netflix - and if you haven't watched that you should - and the place where the murder club meets is the Orangery of the historic estate where it was filmed. Or at least its supposed to be. The producers had it built. The Orangery lives up to its name because it housed a large collection of orange, lemon and citron trees that were inherited by Thomas Talbot. Construction on the Orangery started in 1787 and was completed in 1793 and measures 327 feet long, making it the longest in Britain. Architect Anthony Keck designed it. The collection of citrus trees predates that though with a gardener’s catalogue from 1727 listing more than 70 plants at the property. The Orangery has a row of 27 round-headed windows on the south side. It was heated by coal fires with chimneys that ran along the back wall. An east pavilion housed marble statues and busts, only one of which remains in the Orangery today. It's a life size 
statue of the Roman Emperor Lucius Verus. A collection of orange trees was maintained up until World War II. They were put outside and died during the winter weather. The Orangery was restored and reopened by the Queen during her Silver Jubilee visit in June 1977. 

William Henry Fox Talbot was a member of the family and he visited Margam often. We'll call him Henry. He was a scientist and inventor and one of his focuses was photography and he was a pioneer in that field. One of the processes he came up with was the salted paper, which produced positive prints from negatives and, obviously, used ordinary table salt to blot and dry a wet sheet of writing paper that had a strong solution of silver nitrate on the other side. The paper darkened and then was exposed to light  and a stronger solution of salt was used to stop exposure. It's chemistry, so way over our heads but it worked well. He also came up with calotype, which was paper coated with silver iodide. The term is Greek for beautiful impression. The silver chloride made paper sensitive to darkening when exposed to light. A draw back was that the exposure had to last for at least an hour. Imagine sitting that long for a picture. We've only seen examples with buildings because, uh yeah, whose sitting that long without moving? The castle was something that he used as a subject in many of his photographic experiments. And speaking of Margam and photography, this is the location of the earliest known Welsh photograph, which was a daguerreotype taken by Reverend Calvert Richard Jones on March 9, 1841. 

Visitors and guides and investigators claim that there are strange things that happen at the castle. There are several spirits here. Some of them are children, which are heard running around and giggling. Full-bodied apparitions of children in Victorian dress are seen. A security guard had just let in a group of investigators and sent them off to an upper floor when he had an experience with the children ghosts. He was standing by himself, looking out a window when he heard children running and giggling outside the room where he was standing. he looked out into the hallway, even though he knew that the ghost hunting group was all adults. Of course, there was nobody there. A day history tour was being conducted and a couple who brought their young son with them was doing the tour and about halfway through the tour, they noticed that there son was missing. Panic ensued as everyone searched the castle for him and when he was finally found, his parents asked him what he was doing and why he had left the group and he told them that he was playing with the other kids. Of which there were none. 

Shadow figures are also seen and one of these figures is very tall and likes to hang out in the nursery. The nursery is said to be the most active spot in the castle. The Tapestry Room has strange noises and weird night anomalies. The ghost of a blacksmith is seen on the castle grounds. Emily Talbot has been seen walking around in the master bedroom and is said to be the lady in white seen on the stairs at times. Many of the ghost stories about the castle started to be reported during World War II by the soldiers who were being treated at the castle. They saw spirits inside and out on the grounds. 

The most active ghost in the castle, the spirit of Robert Scott who had been a gamekeeper that worked at the Castle for many years. A poacher had been on the grounds one day and when Robert confronted him, the poacher murdered him. This left the spirit of Robert very angry and that comes out through poltergeist like activity. One of his favorite things to do is to throw rocks at people. His full-bodied apparition is seen climbing the Gothic staircase. Psychic investigators that have come through claim that Robert is full of rage. 

Ghost Hunters International investigated many years ago and they claimed to capture on camera the floating figure of a monk wearing a white habit. They also had a monk identify itself as Brother Tom. They saw a shadow figure that they thought might be Christopher Rice Mansel Talbot. They heard the footsteps of a woman, perhaps Emily and these were in the master bedroom. And they got an EVP featuring a male voice ordering them to get out. Ghost hunter and author Peter Underwood wrote in the 1950s about a ghostly monk being seen many times in and around the ruins of Margam Abbey. The sightings were usually in the late afternoon or early evening.

The website There Be Ghosts wrote, "During a visit to Margam in 2016, my wife and I chatted with a park guide who told us the monk had been seen more recently in 2005. Apparently, a man walking his dog late one afternoon saw the monk walk out of and through the solid wood door on the south side of the church. As the man stood stupefied, with his dog cowering, the monk walked a short distance and then physically dissolved. The man’s dog was so traumatized by the encounter that it couldn’t be consoled for several days."

Amy from Amy's Crypt goes into haunted locations all around the world and like us, she rarely is scared by a place. But she says of Margam Castle that this is one of the scariest places she has ever investigated. Her partner Jared had a rock thrown at him while he was standing and looking out a window. And then he heard a very loud bang coming from down the hall. A little later there is a distant audible scream that Diane heard before Jared said he just heard a scream. Later, Amy and Jared went upstairs and they heard what sounded like children and then they heard a tap sound. Amy and Jared did an ESTES session on the grand staircase and they got a female voice that said, "I'm here" and then immediately "She's here" and when Amy asked who is she, Jared heard "Legion." Then Jared heard "Follow me" and Amy asked to follow where and the answer was "Up there" and then "here." Amy thought she saw some movement above her and she could hear something. When she asked if there was someone up there, Jared said "A lot" and when she asked who was making that noise, Jared said "People." A little later Amy was asking more about who was there and Jared answered "I was stationed." Then there was a bang and when Amy asked what made that noise Jared said "I'm close." There were two taps on the stairs behind Jared and he said "They're scaring him." Jared complained several times that his leg muscles were twitching during the ESTES method and it was really interesting because they showed that the camera caught some of this twitching and Amy said that this has happened before at other places and she wondered if it had something to do with going into a trance-like state. They got out a spirit box and immediately it sounded like a child yelling "Mommy." Later they asked how many children were in the house and the answer was seven.

Adelaide's Haunted Horizons has investigated the castle and Alison told Amy that her group felt the same way as Amy. This was one of the few places that has really scared them. The group was investigated in one of the further away rooms near the nursery and the group heard disembodied footsteps and the swishing of a dress outside the room. Inside the room they heard the audible sound of heavy breathing. The atmosphere felt very tense and then they heard the sound of a large stone being thrown and they found this near them. A security guard came in a little later and the group was away from the room and telling him what they had experienced when they all heard these loud booming noises coming from the nursery area. Alison described the sounds as very unnerving and they had no idea what had caused them. They also say on their website, "We conducted a brief ghost box session and appeared to get a couple of interesting responses, not least a voice (almost electronic) saying ‘Bastard’.  Why interesting?  Because it sounded like Kag’s voice, as if she was being mimicked. (This is one of their team members.) We soon moved to the bottom of the staircase, but apart from a couple of loud thuds from upstairs, whatever was in the building seemed less talkative now.  We did get one interesting noise that I am unsure how to describe. If you watch the video, I will let you make up your own mind on what it is as we have no idea!  Even our security man, Dave, who joined us at the end, had never heard this before.  We didn’t hear it audibly."

Project Fear investigated as well. They had rocks thrown at them. They left a team member alone at the castle, while the rest went to the Abbey. Supposedly, Robert Scott is seen at the abbey as are figures that look like monks. Light anomalies are also seen. The team member at the castle was sitting on the stairs and there was a very audible sound like something being dragged. Near the Abbey, the thermal camera showed something weird in the field and they found out that it was a statue, but its one of the creepiest statues I've ever seen like a mother wailing over a child with this wide gaping maw. We found more information on the castle's website, "This was created by Glynn Williams. ‘The Shout’ (made in 1982), is a depiction of a desperate kneeling mother holding the body of her dead child. From the information we have found it was completed as a memorial to the victims of the war in Lebanon, the shocking images of which had been broadcast at the time on TV. He also completed a similar sculpture called the ‘Mother of the Dead’. The strength of the Shout sculpture – the feeling it conveys – are evidenced by the fact that it was moved to a secluded location in the park as visitors found it too disturbing when initially placed in a more prominent position." They used a Spirit Box and asked who it is that people keep seeing out there. Could it be a monk named Tom? And then "shoot" came through the box making them think it was Robert Scott. The guy in the castle heard a bunch of footsteps running up the stairs after he went upstairs and it scared the crap out of him. He shouted over the walkie-talkie for the other group to return. It was very dramatic, but we could understand how it would be really freaky to be alone in that castle. They tried talking to whoever this was later and they got a "No" about communication. However, it did later indicate that it was Robert. When asked if he was the one trying to scare them out of the castle, he answered "no." Now interestingly, Chelsea and Dakota were in the Nursery with a Spirit Box and it said "seven." Now they assumed it was referencing the 7-foot tall shadow figure that has been seen in there, but we watched this after Amy's Crypt and they got seven as the number for the children. 

Margam Castle  is one of the most magnificent buildings around. It's a bummer that the interior suffered a bad fire, but it still looks amazing and it had such a creepy, Gothic feel to it, that the movie Da Vinci's Demons was filmed here and interior sets were built that were left behind. People claim this is one of the most haunted places in Britain. Is Margam Castle haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 602 - Haunted Crystal River

Moment in Oddity - Bishop Castle (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

Back in 1959, a 15 year old young man named Jim Bishop purchased a plot of land in Colorado. Ten years later he embarked on a unique journey with the goal of single-handedly building himself a home on that property. The initial structure began as a stone cottage, however residents of the area started commenting about how much the home looked like a castle. Those thoughts sent Jim Bishop's imagination into overdrive. Over 44 years, Mr. Bishop continued adding stone and iron to his home, gradually making it more and more castle-like. By the end of its creation, Bishop's Castle displayed a tower that stands over 160 feet high, intricate spiral staircases, stained glass arched windows with a view of the surrounding mountains, grand halls divided by stone and steel arches and a fire breathing dragon on the front peak of the castle. The dragon does actually breathe fire with the assistance of a hot air balloon burner and due to a cleverly designed chimney, the nostrils do blow smoke! Bishop's Castle is open to the public for visits and it works off of donations to help preserve the unique structure. Sadly, Jim Bishop passed away in November of 2024, however, it is reported that his son is continuing with his father's vision and will keep maintaining and building onto the incredible structure. 

Haunted Crystal River

The town of Crystal River in Florida is the home of the manatee. This is where they can be found in the winter, congregating in the natural springs found in the area. Those springs attracted indigenous people as well and some of them left behind their mounds. These not only have cultural and historic interest, but they have paranormal activity as well, which we discovered for ourselves. There are other locations with ghost stories too, one which also has a connection to Elvis Presley and his film "Follow That Dream." And we found a wonderful small historic cemetery that not only had some sad stories to share, but the activity we experienced there, brought us back for a second trip. Join us as we share the history and hauntings of Crystal River! 

The town of Crystal River sits along what is known as the Nature Coast of Florida. This area is home to manatees and a wide variety of other animals that enjoy the natural springs, marshland and flowering plants. Florida's early pioneers, known as Crackers, built their simple and sturdy wooden homes here that featured high ceilings and large windows for airflow. But long before they arrived, the people of the Deptford culture were here, followed by the Santa-Rosa-Swift Creek culture and the Fort Walton period and they left behind their mounds. They abandoned the area for unknown reasons. Native Americans had called the Crystal River, Weewahi Iaca. After the Armed Occupation Act of 1842 was passed, twenty-two settlers filed claims for land in Crystal River. Not many people would come here until after the Civil War, but during the war there were small skirmishes because the Union Navy blockaded the entire coast of Florida because the state was an important source for supplies for the Confederacy. The Spanish had planted citrus trees all over Florida and this also attracted people from the North. Crystal River not only was a fishing economy, but turpentine became a major business as did cedar mills. The Dixon Cedar Mill employed everyone, including women and blacks. The richest phosphate deposits in the world were discovered in 1889 and the area boomed until 1914 thanks to that. The railroad showed up at the same time as the phosphate discovery, so that helped as well. Crystal River would become an official town in 1903 and was incorporated in 1923. 

Crystal River Archaeological State Park 

This state park is located at 3400 N. Museum Point and features all varieties of mounds left behind by what is believed to be the Deptford Culture. Those mounds included not only the trash or midden mounds many indigenous groups would leave behind, but there were also ceremonial mounds and burial mounds. At this park, there are only six mounds that still remain. It's possible that there were more, but settlers had used them for fill dirt and that is how the artifacts buried in them were discovered. Two unique steles (Stee-leez), or stone monuments, were left behind as well. These were large pieces of limestone and have carvings on them, one of which looks like a human face. What makes this site so fascinating for us is that there were clear connections to Central America civilizations and also groups from the Ohio River Valley. As a matter of fact, this is the southernmost site in the United States to have a burial mound layout like the ones in the Ohio River Valley. So despite Florida being this peninsula, it seems to have attracted separate cultures migrating or traveling via trade routes from both Ohio and Central America. 

Kathleen Walls wrote "Finding Florida Phantoms" in 2004 and she wrote in there that a ranger reported that voices had been heard among the mounds when no one was present, and some apparitions have apparently been spotted here as well. So we brought our recorder and K2 with us when we visited. We started at Burial Mound G, which was not a really tall mound. This is thought to be one of the earliest mounds based on radiocarbon dating. Many of the artifacts found here were items that weren't very valuable, which made us think that people of a lower status were buried here. But these also could've been a less developed culture. We passed several midden mounds, which were trash heaps with oyster shells, animal bones, charcoal and broken pieces of pottery. The top mound at the site was Temple Mound A, which rises 30 feet and has a flat top that could've been seen by the entire group, so it is believed that a temple was built atop this and that rituals would've been conducted here. It was probably built in 400 AD and only one-third of it still remains. Before we got there, Kelly was carrying the K2 and she noticed that it was going off. The K2 rarely ever goes to red for us when we use it at haunted buildings. But this thing was pinging red for us over and over and in response to us. We aren't sure who was communicating, but there was no way any EMF was setting it off as we were out in the middle of nowhere in the midst of these mounds. Perhaps the spirits here have been disturbed that their mounds and burial places were disturbed. 

Riverside Drive in Yankeetown

We ventured a little out of Crystal River to a small fishing village about 12 miles north named Yankeetown. This is closer to the coast and is just upstream of where the Withlacoochee River flows into the Gulf of Mexico. This village was first settled by an Indiana lawyer named Armanis Knotts in 1923. He decided to build a lodge to cater to the fisherman flocking to the area. He named the lodge, the Izaak Walton Lodge, after the author of the fishing classic "The Compleat Angler," Izaak Walton. That book was written in England in the 1600s. The lodge still stands and has been converted into the Blackwater Restaurant, which serves up hand-carved steaks and fresh local seafood. And ghosts. It is said that water taps turn themselves on and music will play when nothing is turned on. A young woman's image has been seen in a mirror. And there are even reports of being pushed by something unseen.

There are some haunted houses here as well and several places that served as filming locations for Elvis Presley's movie "Follow That Dream." Much of the filming was done toward the end of County Road 40 where the Bird Creek Bridge was built. The road was renamed "Follow That Dream Parkway" leading into Yankeetown and we followed that past the Nature Coast Inn where some of the cast and crew stayed and arrived at the bridge. Many locals played extras and worked to create a beach on Pumpkin Island. We also drove over to a town called Inverness to see the Old Citrus County Courthouse, which is now a museum, but was the set for the courtroom scenes in the movie. We made a short video that is up on YouTube and Tik Tok if you want to see all of that.  

Yankeetown has many great examples of Old Florida cracker homes. Crackers were early settlers to Florida and they built homes condusive to the hot and humid weather. The streets were narrow and pretty beat up and with the large oak trees draped in Spanish moss lining Riverside Drive, it felt like we were going back to a simpler time. Not only was the lodge on this street, but there were a couple of haunted homes on this street. One of them is across from the lodge. Mama DD wrote, "I have heard many ghost stories about some of the houses on Riverside Dr. The one I know happened was the old house across from Izaac Walton Lodge. Yankeetown is called an “original cracker town” and the houses by the river still had the slave quarter houses standing. My sister lived in one of these houses so one day going to do something at her house I remember seeing an old black man sitting at the top of the slave house staring down at us with worn clothes and as I tell my mother there is someone here and she replies that there is no one there. She drags me back to the truck and we leave. She has also told me stories when she was in the large plantation house and she thought her son was in the house trying to scare her but she realized he was outside. So she started running for the door and she heard louder footsteps chasing her. When she got outside she slammed the door and refused to enter the house alone after that. There have been other stories told about this house but I can not remember all the details."

And another house that we couldn't pinpoint because of lack of details was shared by a woman named Mary Cashulette. She wrote in 2019, "I stayed at a home on Riverside Drive. I had no knowledge ahead of time of hauntings. During the night when I got up to go to the bathroom. I heard a woman saying, “help me”, in despair. I heard a deeper man’s voice saying it would be alright. I thought it was my friend having a nightmare in her room and her husband comforting her. When I returned to the bedroom, I asked my daughter if she heard anything, she said she heard a distressed voice going across the room. She couldn’t make any words out. When I asked my friends the next morning, they said nothing happened and they heard nothing."

Karma Cottage and Heritage House

The Karma Cottage is located at 652A N. Citrus Ave. This is a metaphysical and rock shop that opened in 2010 by owners who came from Denver. The Citrus County Chronicle reported in 2016, "In Crystal River, Karma Cottage owners Katie Novak and Andy Crane say the upper level of their building, which was the former garage to the main house that is now Dayz Gone By, located next door to them on Citrus Avenue, had been removed from the main house and added to the top of their building. The son of the owner of the main house reportedly lived in that upstairs apartment until he died. “We have heard footsteps walking upstairs when we know nobody is up there. I have heard things fall up there, as if someone dropped something, and go up and check it out, and there’s nothing,” Novak said. But it goes beyond just hearing. “I have actually seen a man looking out the upstairs window when I was out front,” Novak said. “I’ve named him ‘John.’” She doesn’t feel threatened by what she’s seen and heard, and actually thinks he is just curious.: 

Heritage House is a gift shop located at 657 N. Citrus Ave. It is part of the Heritage Village which is made up of several historic homes. The Heritage House was built in the late 1800s The Chronicle also wrote of it, "Across Citrus Avenue in Heritage Village, Laura Lou Fitzpatrick, owner of Heritage House, whose family owned those buildings, says she’s never had a personal ghostly experience, but one of her former tenants has. Dorothy Koehler, who now works at All About Nature, once ran an antique shop in Heritage House. “I had been down in St. Pete when I got a call that an elderly lady customer of mine, Uma Cross, had passed away,” Koehler said. “I stopped at her the house to look at her things, and bought some of her antique kitchen items.” Right after bringing them back to her shop, Koehler was helping a customer at the front counter when an older woman came in and just wanted to browse. “I was still wrapping the package for the customer at the counter when the elderly lady came back up from the kitchen area and said, ‘I want you to know you have a spirit in the shop.’ ” Surprised, Koehler asked, “How do you know that? What did you see?” The customer described seeing an elderly woman wearing a long dress with her hair tied back in a bun. “That was Uma Cross,” Koehler confirmed. “She always dressed that way.” She told the customer, 'I just came back from St. Pete from her kitchen and those are her things. She must have been checking out her stuff.'"

Crystal River Cemetery

The Crystal River Cemetery was established in 1860 and is fairly small. Many of the pioneers from the area were buried here. And for being a small cemetery, it had quite a few Woodman of the World headstones. One of the burials here was a very small headstone that just read Pope Culbreath of Tampa. We found out more about him:

There were many children buried in this cemetery and five plots really caught our eye. If you follow us on social media anywhere, you may have seen the reel that we made featuring these headstones. We'll play the audio for that here. (King Audio)

You know us. We had to know more. As Diane thought about the last name King, she wondered if that had any relation to the fact that there is a King's Bay here. And sure enough, there was a connection. Turns out that King's Bay was named for Edwin King, who was the father of four of those children. He was born in 1836 at Kings Ferry, Florida, which yes, was named for his family. Apparently, his father Thomas King III was a ferry operator on the St. Mary's River. And that III was something Thomas adopted because there were two other Thomas King's in the area. Thomas actually died before Edwin was born because he died in 1835. He was 55 at the time and Edwin was his thirteenth child. Edwin would eventually take over the ferry business with two of his older brother's, Andrew Jackson King and Henry Perry King. In 1854, Edwin went to law school in Boston. In 1859, he married Mary Ann J. Stafford. The couple would move to Crystal River in 1863 and the lawyer decided he wanted to be a merchant, so he opened a general store. They had a home on the bay that would take their name. During the Civil War, Edwin wrote his brother Josiah that he would like him to come down to Florida when the war was over. An excerpt reads, "It is with much pleasure that I seat myself to write you a few lines hoping it will find you and your family well as it leaves me and my family at present...I am getting along finely down here. I have plenty to eat such as Cane Sugar, Syrup, Potatoes, Rice and Bacon. I want you to move down here when the War is over. I have a good place for you where you can get more fish than you can eat and raise as many hogs as you please and cattle accordingly. I have no news to write you. All is quiet down here. The Yankees came up the River sometime ago but we killed some of them and sent them back!" A couple of his brother's did join him and his brother Andrew Jackson Perry took over the King's Ferry business after the war. He had a daughter named Martha King, who died at 17-years-old. Her's is the fifth tombstone we mentioned in that video. We're not sure why she was buried here in Crystal River, rather than King's Ferry. Edwin and Mary had eight children and the other four headstones belong to four of those children: 

Leila Elizabeth King b Apr 20,1866,d Mar 2,1868
Edwin R. King Jr b Nov 17,1869,d Jan 16,1870
Franklin R. King b Aug 27,1875,d Mar 2,1877
Lottie Eloise King b Sep 8, 1877,d Apr 2,1879

Edwin R King Sr and his wife Mary Stafford King are buried in unmarked graves here at the cemetery. We were unable to find out what the children died from.  

We don't usually do investigations in cemeteries, but we decided to do one here and based on our experiences, we returned the following day for verification. Here is our first video of the EMF activity. For those just listening, the EMF went to yellow and kept going off, but it only seems to be in the one area. (EMF 1) So as you hear, we decided that somehow, even though we were in the middle of the cemetery, that we were somehow catching EMF from somewhere and that this wasn't a spirit. We decided to return the next day to the same spot and see what happened. After this, we decided that we indeed did have a spirit hanging around us. (EMF 2) Later the EMF did ping to orange, so we didn't get red but the orange was nice. And a couple times, Diane felt like her arm went threw a spider web. 

Plantation Inn on Crystal River

Our final spot, we only got to see the outside of because it is being renovated. It has a really cool fountain outside of it. The Plantation Resort, as it is called now, is located at 9301 W. Fort Island Trail. This is a replica plantation house built in 1962 that covers 232 acres and features golf, adventures, three restaurants and a spa. There is at least one spirit here that is said to be the ghost of a young girl who can be heard calling for her mother. Guests have reported unexplained phenomena and we have several of those stories to share.

Dee wrote in 2016, "I stayed at the Plantation Inn about 11 years ago and I have told numerous people about my experience there. This evening my daughter and I were talking about the remake of the movie Roots and we got on the subject of ghosts. I told her about my experience at The Plantation Inn. The first night I stayed at the Inn, I was a little unsettled because I felt like I should not be there. It was just a feeling I had because the look of the place reminded me of the “big house” with slave quarters on each side. I even mentioned it to my white co-worker and she just kind of laughed it off. Anyway, later that night when I went to bed, and I am a very light sleeper, but about 30 minutes after I got in bed, I was still awake but just about to fall asleep, I felt tugging on the bed spread, I opened my eyes and laid there very still, then it happened again. At this time I was scared, but I got up and looked around and opened the closet door, looked around the bed, but no one or nothing was there. So I said a prayer to God and went back to bed and went to sleep. I told my co-worker what happened and I told the lady at the front desk, but I don’t think she really think she believed me, but she just kind of laughed it off. I walked around the Inn inside and out and went to the golf shop which was a short walk from the inn, but I kept looking back at the Inn, and I still had a feeling that slaves lived there at one point. I still don’t know if this is true or not. But the second night, before I went to bed and I checked around the entire room, double checked the lock on the door. I watched TV for a while, then I turned off the TV and started dosing off and it happened again, this time the tugging was harder. Finally, I said out loud “look I have to be here because of my job, please leave me alone, I am leaving here tomorrow. I’m sorry for what happened to you, but please leave me alone.” I said my prayers again and fell asleep and it didn’t happen again. After the meetings I was rushing to get out of there. Every year, I talk about my experience at this Inn. It’s something I will never forget."

Vivian wrote in 2017, "About two years ago I stayed at this hotel for business purposes. I was sleeping but felt tugging on the sheets and I woke up to see a tall dark silhouette standing by the side of my bed. I screamed and screamed tried to move but was paralyzed with fear and couldn’t move suddenly it was gone and I could move again at first I thought someone had broken into my room. I looked through the room and there wasn’t any evidence of a break in. I didn’t say anything to the front desk thinking I must of had a nightmare but I was very scared. I was staying on the first floor it was room one hundred something but I couldn’t remember the exact number. I did tell a coworker about the incident who then said there had been a haunting incident there. I was telling my niece about the incident yesterday and she pulled up the hotel name after I told her the story and she read what happened to the person in room 107 it was so dauntingly similar that the same wave of fear that I experienced that day came back for a few minutes. This place is haunted I had to stay another time there a week after the incident which I very nervous about but it was a different room and nothing happened that time. Thank God!"

Kate wrote in 2018, "I didn’t have any experiences, but my toddler seems to have been frightened by something. He had nightmares every night during our stay. The final night, he woke up crying at one point. I asked him what was wrong and he said his pillow was moving and he saw something black by the chair. I held up my jacket that was hanging on the chair, but he said it was something else. He seemed to be struggling to describe it, but said what he’d seen was “too black.” I assured him it was just a nightmare, but an hour or so later, he woke up crying again. This time my husband, who hadn’t heard the first episode got up with him. I heard my son telling him the exact same thing; that his pillow was moving and something black was on the chair by his bed. This time he insisted on sleeping in our bed for the remainder of the night. I asked him about it in the morning because he’ll usually tell me about his scary dreams. This time, however, he kept insisting it was 'not pretend!'"

Yani wrote in 2019, "During our recent visit I was having a lot of difficulties to sleep, I kept having nightmares. On our last night, I continued to have problems falling asleep. When I finally did, I started having nightmares and woke up around 1am with a feeling that something was in the room watching.. I prayed, turned and hugged my husband. I felt asleep again and woke up around 3am with a nighmare of a young woman beeing in our room looking at us. I woke up super scared and on my side of the bed I felt this precense and saw a black shadow.. I closed my eyes and started praying again.. I turned n hug my husband and felt that the thing went away.. The next morning I told my husband what happened, my dream, feeling and what I think I saw and my husband told me he had also had difficulty sleeping because everytime he closed his eyes he will see a young woman with hair up to her shoulders coming towards him.. he felt this presence the whole night and when he woke up there was a black shadow around him… We both thought that the places was probably haunted because that has never happened to us.. and for both to see, dream, and feel the same thing .. thats not coincidence.." 

Anonymous wrote in 2023, "We stayed here last week because I thought it looked beautiful and knowing absolutely nothing about the history. We drove up and thought how fabulous it was. We walked inside to check in and both immediately had a weird feeling despite the beauty and the kind staff. Later in the evening we heard a girl crying for nearly 2 hours and could not figure out where exactly it was coming from. We fell asleep exhausted from driving all day and I was woken up from a deep sleep at 3am to all these very weird noises and the feeling was bazaar, if my husband had not been with me I would have thought I was crazy. By about 4am we looked online and I swear to you I read it was haunted by a little girl crying for her Mother and I was in shock reading about it, we are low key no drama people and never experienced anything like this. By 6am we were out of there." 

Crystal River is a beautiful area and the springs are not to be missed. Especially in the cooler months when hundreds of manatees gather in the warmer waters. Is it possible that some ghosts have gathered here as well? Is Crystal River haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 601 - Haunted Pretoria

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

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

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

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

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

Erasmus Castle

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

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

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

Die Ou Raadsaal

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

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

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

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

Sammy Marks Museum 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HGB Ep. 600 - Magick vs. The Nazis

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

HGB Ep. 599 - Fort Ontario

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

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

This Month in History - Double Eagle II Balloon

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

Fort Ontario (Suggested by: Katherine McManus)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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