HGB Ep. 583 - The Life and Afterlife of James Dean

Moment in Oddity - Sign Squatter

Back in the spring of 2024 in Midland Michigan, local police encountered a most unusual experience. They were summoned to investigate at Family Fare Supermarket after contractors discovered an extension cord and were able to follow it to an enclosed area of the rooftop store sign. This was something that shouldn't have been part of the sign. When the officers broke into the enclosed area, they were shocked by what they found. Located within the sign was a mini desk, flooring, a pantry of food, a coffee maker, computer, bedding, phone and even a houseplant. This clearly was someone's makeshift residence. The "home away from home" had been occupied for nearly a year by a 34 year old woman who came out wearing an all black outfit and ski goggles. Apparently, she wore the goggles because her eyes were sensitive to light. The woman said it was an “old safe spot” little known to most people in Midland, but “not anymore.” An officer was overheard telling the woman that, “Believe it or not, you’ve got a nickname, 'Rooftop Ninja'”. The woman was never identified by name in the press. The Supermarket didn't file criminal charges. Most unbelievable about this woman was that she actually had a job, and no, not at the store. The woman asked officers how they managed to get onto the roof to access her hidey hole and one police officer stated, "Ladder, we're not [roof ninjas.]" Luckily for the woman, the store worked with her to ensure she was able to stay in possession of her furniture once it was removed. Our question is how she even got the furniture up there and into the sign. The whole affair, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - First Deaf School Opens Doors

In the month of April, on the 15th, in 1817, the first permanent American School for the Deaf opened its doors. One co-founder of the school was Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet (Gal luh day). In 1814, Thomas was visiting his family in Hartford, Connecticut. While there he looked out the window and saw his younger brothers and sisters playing while another child stood by, apparently excluded. Thomas went outside to see what was going on and he found out that the little girl was deaf. Her name was Alice Cogswell. The man attempted to communicate with her by pointing at his hat and writing the word hat in the dirt. Alice understood him and this stirred Thomas to teach her more. Mr. Gallaudet then met her father, Mason Cogswell who was a wealthy doctor. Alice's father was encouraged by Thomas's attempts to communicate with his daughter. He subsequently financed Gallaudet's trip to Europe to learn sign language due to the fact that there were no schools that taught sign language in the United States. Thomas's first experience when he got to England was with the Braidwood family who operated many schools for the deaf in England. Their focus was on the oral method of reading lips instead of signing with hands. The family was not keen on teaching their methods to a young American man. Thomas also did not believe that lip reading would be as beneficial to a deaf person like signing would. While in England, Thomas met Abbe Sicard who was the director of the Institut Royal des Sourds-Muets (in-s-tee-too ro-yel day soor mew-ee) in Paris, France. Thomas accompanied Sicard and two of his faculty members back to France to learn more from them. Soon Thomas was running low on funds and he knew that he still was not prepared enough to open his own school for the deaf in the United States. He asked one of the faculty members to accompany him back to the states and Laurent Clerc obliged. Once the school was opened in Connecticut, Clerc became the first deaf teacher of deaf students in America. Thomas Gallaudet later married one of the graduates from the school he co-founded and they had eight children together. Thomas's youngest son traveled to Washington D.C. to run a school for deaf children there. Seven years later, in 1864, President Abraham Lincoln signed the charter to create a national college for deaf students.

The Life and Afterlife of James Dean

James Dean's star burned bright, but fast. He starred in three amazing films, earning two posthumous Academy Award nominations, before his untimely death in 1955 at the age of 24. One can only wonder what heights his performances would've reached with that kind of trajectory. Dean loved speed and that would bring his ultimate demise. Perhaps because he had much still to do, his spirit still seems to be here. Join us for the life and afterlife of James Dean.

James Byron Dean was born on February 8, 1931 in Marion, Indiana to Winton Dean and Mildred Wilson. Winton was offered a job as a dental technician in Los Angeles, so he packed up the family when Jimmy was six-years-old and they moved. Jimmy's mother was a fan of the arts and she enrolled Jimmy in tap dance and violin lessons. They would read poetry together and put on skits. She even built a cardboard puppet theatre for their performances. They built an imaginary world together. We're not sure if Jimmy was a difficult child or just a typical high energy boy, but people said of the relationship between him and his mother, that she was the only person "capable of understanding him." That may be why when his mother became ill and eventually died of uterine cancer when he was nine, that his father sent him off to be raised by his Uncle Marcus and Aunt Ortense Winslow. This put Jimmy back in Indiana where the couple had a farm in Fairmount. The couple were Quakers and they raised Jimmy with those values. Jimmy didn't see much of his father who had gone off to fight in World War II and then remarried, so he sought out another father figure whom he found in Reverend James DeWeerd. The man pastored the local Methodist church and it was said the two had an intimate relationship with the Reverend cultivating Jimmy's interest in things like bullfighting and car racing. The pastor also got him to try his hand at theater. Now, when it comes to the term "intimate" there are many ways this could go. Some say the two were just good friends, but Paul Alexander suggested in his 1994 book Boulevard of Broken Dreams: The Life, Times, and Legend of James Dean that the two had a sexual relationship. This was during Jimmy's adolescence, so anything of that nature would have been sexual abuse and Elizabeth Taylor did say that Jimmy had confided to her that a minister had abused him shortly after his mother's death.

We watched a video of Scott Michaels from Dearly Departed Tours visiting the James Dean Museum in Indiana in June of 2023 and they have nearly everything Dean owned at the time of his death. Some of these items included Jimmy's letter jackets, which he earned for baseball and basketball. He also was a track star and there were lots of ribbons he had won. They also had his pole vault. He clearly was very active in high school and flourished. He studied drama and competed in speech as well. When he graduated, he set his sights on college in California, so he moved there to live with his father and stepmother, Ethel Case Dean. Despite his interests in the arts, Jimmy initially enrolled at Santa Monica College and majored in pre-law. He didn't care for it and transferred to University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) and majored in drama. This displeased his father, with whom he already had a strained relationship. That didn't keep Dean from pursuing acting and he won the part of Malcolm in Macbeth over 350 other actors who auditioned at UCLA. Dean decided after that to quit school and pursue a full-time acting career, which probably really didn't make his father very happy. 

As is the case for most actors, he got his first break in a commercial. This was for Pepsi and was his television debut in 1950. His next gig was also for television and he portrayed John the Apostle in televsion Easter special named "Hill Number One." Next would come movies with a few walk-on roles. To help pay the bills, Dean also worked as a parking lot attendant at CBS Studios and it was here that he met a radio director for an advertising agency named Rogers Brackett. Brackett gave Jimmy a place to stay and advised him that he should think about moving to New York City to pursue theater work. Jimmy decided to go and he became one of the youngest actors ever admitted to the prestigious Actor’s Studio where he studied method acting under Lee Strasberg. Jimmy wrote to his family in 1952 of this that the Actor's Studio was "the greatest school of the theater. It houses great people like Marlon Brando, Julie Harris, Arthur Kennedy, Mildred Dunnock, Eli Wallach...Very few get into it...It is the best thing that can happen to an actor. I am one of the youngest to belong."

Broadway would bring Jimmy the big break he needed with his second Broadway play "The Immoralist," for which he won the Daniel Blum award for Best Newcomer on Broadway. Dean played the part of Bachir, a homosexual North African houseboy that was hired to keep the main character, Michael, company as he suffers from tuberculosis. The play was an adaptation of André Gide's book The Immoralist, written in 1902. Producer and director Elia Kazan saw Dean's performance and he decided that Jimmy would be great for the part of Cal Trask in the movie "East of Eden." Kazan wanted someone like Brando and he felt Jimmy fit the bill. When Jimmy left Broadway for Hollywood, he left behind a broken heart. He had an affair with actress Geraldine Page during the play and Page's daughter Angelica said of the relationship, "According to my mother, their affair went on for three-and-a-half months. In many ways, my mother never really got over Jimmy. It was not unusual for me to go to her dressing room through the years, obviously many years after Dean was gone, and find pictures of him taped up on her mirror. My mother never forgot about Jimmy—never. I believe they were artistic soul mates." She would be one of many women to be heartbroken over Dean.

The part of Cal Trask in "East of Eden" was a difficult one. The movie was based on John Steinbeck's 1952 novel East of Eden about the Trask and Hamilton families over the course of three generations. The movie adaptation focused mainly on the character of Cal Trask who was emotionally complex. Cal has a twin brother named Aron and the two are like a modern day Cain and Abel with Cal being like Cain who is always seeking the approval of his father. If you have seen the movie, you probably were riveted with Dean's angst-filled performance. Diane certainly was and was also shocked to find that many of the key moments in the film were improvised by Jimmy. There is a scene where he does a dance in a bean field and this was unscripted. After finding out that his mother, whom he had been told was dead by his father, was actually a madam in a brothel, Cal visits her and returns home atop a train boxcar. Jimmy gets into the fetal position while riding that boxcar and this was unscripted. The best unscripted moment though involved getting a shocked reaction from the actor playing Cal's father. Cal has made a lot of money speculating on beans and he brings his father a check for $5,000 to show him how well he has done. Cal's father rejects that gift and the script says that Cal runs away, but instead, Jimmy started to walk away and then turns to his father and grabs him in a big hug while crying. Kazan loved the moment and the shock on the other actor's face and kept it in the film. Dean was nominated posthumously for the 1956 Academy Awards as Best Actor in a Leading Role for the part of Cal Trask. This was the first official posthumous acting nomination in Academy Awards history. This movie would be the only one of Dean's big three that would be released before his death, so he never got to see the success of his other two films. East of Eden is considered one of the best 400 American films of all time.  

East of Eden was wrapped and now Dean was on a roll. He would make two more big films before he would die. The next part he nabbed was Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. Teenagers loved this movie because they identified with Jimmy's portrayal of the misunderstood Stark. Modern day audiences criticize the film for its pacing and dialogue without keeping in mind that this was the 1950s and teenagers were usually portrayed as good kids who always did what was right and didn't have any issues. Men in film weren't portrayed as overly emotional either. Rebel Without a Cause would change that. It put a magnifying glass on teenage angst. Jim Stark would've fit in with The Breakfast Club. And that's kinda how this film should be viewed, as a film for teenagers. And James Dean is just so cool in it and he got top billing, which is the only time that this happened for him. His performance was critically praised even by those who thought the movie was boring. The film garnered three Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture and is included in the top 500 movies of all time. Jimmy was worried after this film wrapped that he might get typecast as a rebellious teenager. 

He knocked typecasting out of the park with his next role in Diane's favorite James Dean film and that was Giant. Dean played Jett Rink, a Texan ranch hand who strikes oil and becomes wealthy. Giant was an epic drama and starred Rock Hudson, Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean. Dean's character, Jett, is willed a small piece of land by a member of the Benedict family and it is on that piece of land he discovers oil. This is a cattle ranch and Hudson's character, Bick Benedict, won't allow Jett to get an oil drilling permit. When Bick's children become adults, he realizes that they don't want anything to do with the ranch, so he allows Jett to drill and he becomes a powerful oilman. Throughout the years that the movie covers, Jett carries a torch for Bicks wife Leslie, who is played by Liz Taylor. The movie culminates in a scene featuring Jett hosting a lavish event where he gets highly intoxicated and makes a fool of himself. This scene has been nicknamed The Last Supper, since Dean died shortly after filming. In the most extreme use of Method Acting, Jimmy got completely inebriated for real and unfortunately, this caused him to mumble most of the speech he makes in this scene. The scene needed to be overdubbed, but Jimmy had died, so the director had actor Nick Adams overdub the speech. Jimmy also dyed his hair gray and shaved off part of the front of his hairline to make it appear to be receding in order to look older for the film's later scenes. Dean received his second posthumous Best Actor Academy Award nomination for his role in Giant at the 29th Academy Awards in 1957. 

Jimmy's next role was set to be Rocky Graziano in the 1956 film, Somebody Up There Likes Me. We'll never know how he would've done, but he seemed unstoppable. Perhaps if he hadn't died young, he wouldn't have been so iconic. He was forever frozen as the young, hot and cool actor. Men and women loved him. There are rumors that one of Dean's closest friends might have been a lover and this was screenwriter William Bast. Bast was Jimmy's roommate at UCLA and moved to New York with him. Bast wrote two books about James Dean. The first was published in 1956 and was titled James Dean: A Biography. The second was published in 2006 and entitled Surviving James Dean and this book got much more personal and revealed that the two had a sexual relationship. Obviously, Bast knew it wouldn't go over well if he wrote about this in the 1950s. We believe he was telling the truth for just this reason and James Dean definitely had sex appeal for everybody. And while Jimmy may have experimented, he loved the ladies. He didn't just date Geraldine Page in New York. He also dated actress Barbara Glenn and their love letters sold at auction in 2011 for $36,000.

Jimmy had an intense relationship with Italian actress Pier Angeli, whom he met in 1954 when she was filming "The Silver Chalice." Angeli said of their relationship, "We used to go together to the California coast and stay there secretly in a cottage on a beach far away from prying eyes. We'd spend much of our time on the beach, sitting there or fooling around, just like college kids. We would talk about ourselves and our problems, about the movies and acting, about life and life after death. We had a complete understanding of each other. We were like Romeo and Juliet, together and inseparable. Sometimes on the beach we loved each other so much we just wanted to walk together into the sea holding hands because we knew then that we would always be together." Dean had said of Angeli, "Everything about Pier is beautiful, especially her soul. She doesn't have to be all gussied up. She doesn't have to do or say anything. She's just wonderful as she is. She has a rare insight into life." It seemed that the two were meant for each other, but he wasn't a Catholic and people said he had no desire to marry. Although, after his death, An Order for the Solemnization of Marriage pamphlet was found in his effects and Pier's name was penciled in everywhere that the Bride's name was meant to go. Angeli DID have a desire to marry and she did just that in October of 1954, marrying Italian-American singer Vic Damone. Rumors claimed that Jimmy watched the nuptials across the street from the church on his motorcycle and gunned the engine a few times. That marriage didn't last, Angeli married and divorced again and always claimed that Jimmy was the love of her life. She ODed in 1971 at the age of 39. 

Swiss actress Ursula Andress was another of Jimmy's girlfriends and she was with him when he bought the Porsche Spyder that he would later die driving. She liked to ride around Hollywood with him on the back of his motorcycle. At the time of his death, James Dean was renting a rustic, log cabin-style villa located at 14611 Sutton Street in Sherman Oaks. The owner of the house was the maître d' at Dean's favorite restaurant Villa Capri. He paid $250 a month, plus utilities. There was no actual bedroom in the house, but there was a second floor loft. Dean filled this home with pieces of his eccentricities that included a bronze eagle, a white bearskin rug, Spanish corrida posters, a reel-to-reel tape player, a 16mm movie camera, a hangman’s noose used on set and James’ beloved bongos he had been playing for years. He also had a Siamese kitten named Marcus given to him by Elizabeth Taylor. Unfortunately, the house burned down in April 1957 and a more modern house was built in its place. 

The morning of September 30, 1955, Jimmy was up early because he had just wrapped filming for the movie "Giant" and he was free to go pursue his car racing. His landlord and friend Nicco Romanos arrived at the Sherman house a little after 7a.m. and made Jimmy a cup of coffee. They visited for a bit and then Dean left the residence in his Ford station wagon towing his race car, a Porsche Spyder. He stopped at his friend Bill Hickman's house to pick him up. The two men then stopped at Competition Motors for a few extra tweaks to the Spyder. The mechanic who worked on the car was Rolf Weutherich. A few other people met up with Jimmy at the garage, including his father and uncle, and the group decided to walk down to the Hollywood Ranch Market to get coffee and doughnuts while they waited on the car. The car was finally ready at 1:30p.m. and the entourage headed for Salinas where the race was being hosted. Dean drove his Spyder with Weutherich riding as a passenger. Based on an earlier speeding ticket and the amount of distance Dean had traveled in a short time, it is believed that he was speeding when he approached an intersection at Highways 46 and 41 and crashed into a Ford sedan that was making a left turn through the intersection. The driver of that car was a college student by the name of Donald Turnupseed and he was only injured in the crash.  Neither Dean or Wütherich were wearing seatbelts.  The crash was violent and left Jimmy trapped in the car with a broken neck and other fatal injuries. A nurse on scene said he had a weak pulse and so he wasn't declared dead until he arrived at the hospital. Weutherich survived, but he was thrown from the car and his thighbone was shattered and his jaw was broken.

Dean's body was taken back to his hometown of Fairmount and the funeral was held on October 8, 1955 at the Fairmount Friends Church with 600 people in attendance. It was a closed casket for the funeral because the injuries were so severe. There was a procession to the cemetery and 2,400 fans gathered along the route. Jimmy's grave is at Park Cemetery in Fairmount. The James Dean Museum we mentioned earlier is located in Fairmount, Indiana. We were pleasantly surprised to find that Dean's family cherished his possessions and didn't auction it all off to make money. Nearly everything he owned at the time of his death is located in this museum. The museum includes his 1947 Czech 125cc motorcycle, 1955 Triumph TR5 Trophy 500cc motorcycle, clothing, movie props, photographs, letters, artworks and awards. An annual festival has been held here the last weekend in September, every year since 1975.

When we talk about the paranormal and Jimmy Dean, the most prominent stories feature his Porsche 550 Spyder with claiming it was cursed. There are really some strange accounts connected to that. But before that, we did want to mention this other oddity. Dean played the character Cal Trask in the movie East of Eden and then he went on to play Jim Stark in Rebel Without a Cause. Those last names are anagrams of each other and that is pretty weird. Now, with the Spyder, several parts from it were salvageable and placed in other cars: the engine, transmission and tires. All cars that received parts from the Spyder were later involved in terrible or deadly accidents. When the car was initially brought into the shop of the new owner, George Barris, it rolled off the back of a truck and crushed a mechanic's legs. Later the car was being used as an educational piece about driving safety and on a trip to one event, the truck transporting the Spyder went off the road and killed the driver.  At another safety event, a teenager's hip was broken when the car's restraint chains snapped and the car fell on the teenager. Then somehow the Spyder managed to disappear...forever. And then there was the German mechanic who was riding with Dean when the accident occurred. He tried to kill himself a number of times. He was never successful, but he did go on to stab his wife fourteen times. He died in 1981 in a drunk driving accident. Did he have survivors guilt or did the curse get him?

It is reported that James Dean is not at rest.  He was buried in Park Cemetery in Fairmount, Indiana and his grave sits atop a small hill.  People claim that Dean's ghost haunts his grave site.  James Dean was a smoker and a legend has grown that if a visitor to the grave site places an unlit cigarette at the headstone after dark and leaves for a bit, when they return they will find the cigarette lit and the scent of cigarette smoke in the air.  Some people report that the cigarette completely disappears. The ghost of Dean appears as well.  He has been spotted sitting on the tombstone and cold spots in the heat of summer can be felt around the grave.  The area where the car crash occurred has also apparently been visited by a hitchhiking Dean who disappears when people stop to pick him up.  The Porsche, driven by Dean, is sometimes seen cruising the highway as well. When Scott Michaels of Dearly Departed Tours was at the museum, he asked museum curator and docent Dorothy Schultz if she ever felt Jimmy there at the museum and she said there were definitely times that she sensed he was checking in on his stuff. Scott actually said that the lights flickered a couple of times while they were talking and he heard a noise in the corner.

Julia commented in 2024 under an article we wrote on the blog called The Ghost of James Dean, "I met James Dean's ghost in Times Square when I lived there in 1990. He was looking for Pier Angeli. He introduced himself to me in my apartment on W44th Street I told him he had the wrong person and that I had never seen any of his movies. He said he had the right person. He said he was looking for his girlfriend and that I reminded him of her. I am an Italian American woman and I told him I didn't know who he was talking about but that I would find out. I became a big fan of James Dean after that. I learned that the love of his life Pier Angeli committed suicide because she wanted to be with him and her Dad who had passed away. I just don't understand why was still looking for her. Once I found out the story I asked God and invited Pier to join James for eternity for they were soul mates." and also "I had another encounter with James Dean in the Summer of 2024. I had purchased some James Dean collectibles like a James Dean doll and a James Dean alarm clock and also a James Dean License plate and placed it over my bed. I have a camera in my room. During the night my camera recorded a voice and it said JAMES then many orbs appeared in my room and a bright orb who I think was James Dean exited out through my picture on the wall. I am convinced it was James Dean re-visiting me. I have this on youtube if anyone wants to see it for themselves. Its right after I clear my throat he says JAMES."

And anonymous also wrote under there in 2017, "My parents had an interesting experience when visiting Park Cemetery in the late 80's. They had just met and were traveling to Ohio to visit with my mothers family. On the way there they made a point to stop by the cemetery to visit James Dean's grave. When they arrived they parked and began walking around the cemetery looking for the tombstone. They were having trouble finding it and after searching for a while an older gentleman who walked with a cane approached them and asked if they needed any help. My dad explained why they were there and the man said no problem, that he was actually related to James Dean, and pulled out his wallet to show that sure enough his license was listed with a last name of Dean. (My dad cannot remember his name or what kind of relation he claimed to be to James Dean unfortunately.) So they walked for a while and the man says, "Here we are." as they were approaching the tombstone. My parents both walked ahead a bit and observed the grave site for what my dad describes as just a short moment. (probably 5-10 seconds or so) After this pause my dad turned to ask a question to the man and he was somehow no where to be seen. Confused my dad jogged up the small hill near by and looked around the cemetery. The man had completely disappeared. They took me by the cemetery a couple years ago because I find this story so fascinating. My mother doesn't like to talk about it because it kind of freaked her out, they are such rational and level headed people but to this day they simply cannot explain what happened. I saw the area myself and made sure to go up the hill my father talked about. Sure enough you can see pretty well the entire cemetery from that spot and I can't see how a man walking with a cane could have escaped them in that short amount of time."

Anonymous wrote, "My daughter and her family headed down south from Salinas,California early morning on September 21, reminder she is only 27 so had no idea who James Dean was. She was driving and her boyfriend and 2 kids where all asleep headed near Lost Hills when she said she got really tired and started to does off, when all of a sudden she said slammed on her breaks because she seen a person crossing the road. It was about 4 in the morning so it was still dark outside, but she swears it was a person. She said her boyfriend woke up and said what's wrong she told him what she seen and he said it's impossible for someone to be crossing out here. Later on when she told me I realized that the area she described was the area James Dean died. My mother was a big fan of James Dean and I think she sent him to keep my daughter awake. Has anyone ever had this happen." 

James Dean was an iconic actor who had so much potential. His star burned bright, but not for long. Some wonder if that is why his spirit seems to continue on here in the afterlife. Does James Dean's ghost haunt people and places? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 582 - The Mount

Moment in Oddity - Emma Gatewood (Jenny Lynn Raines)

Back in 1955, there was a little granny by the name of Emma Gatewood who one day told her family that she was "going for a hike in the woods". Emma was 67 years old and known by all as Grandma Gatewood. She was a mother of 11 children and grandmother of 23 grandchildren. She was a strong woman after growing up doing strenuous manual labor on the family farm as a child and later marrying Perry Clayton Gatewood who set her to work building fences and mixing cement. Unfortunately, he also physically abused her for more than 30 years. The Monday that Emma told her family that she was going out for a hike, little did they know that diminutive Grandma Gatewood was setting out to establish a record. The 'woods' that Grandma was referring to was the Appalachian Trail and through her grit and determination, she became the first woman to solo hike the entire 2,168 mile trek. She did so with minimal equipment which consisted of the following:  a homemade denim bag with essentials like a blanket, shower curtain, cup, canteen, small pot, spoon, Swiss Army knife, first-aid kit, pins, flashlight, rope, raincoat, warm coat, and a change of clothes, as well as her trusty Keds sneakers. The journey took Grandma Gatewood 146 days and she was not only the first woman to hike the entire trail, but she went on to become the first person to hike the trail three times. Her hiking style was somewhat unconventional as she hiked without a map, tent or sleeping bag and she occasionally relied on the kindness of strangers for food and additional shelter which was more than her shower curtain and minimalist approach could provide. Taking up hiking at an older age is admirable, but accomplishing such a feat as hiking the whole Appalachian Trail not only once, but three times at the age of 67, certainly is odd.

This Month in History - Susanna M. Salter elected the first female mayor in the U.S.

In the month of April, on the 4th, in 1887, Susanna M. Salter was elected the first female mayor in the U.S. in Argonia, Kansas. In the late 19th century the women's suffrage movement was gaining strength, bolstering the push for women's right to vote and have a voice in civic life. That burgeoning push for social change inspired many women to step up to challenge the opposition of societal norms. The movement was supported by organizations like the Women's Christian Temperance Union, and this is how the environment changed and America's first female mayor's story began. In Argonia, Kansas, there was a group of men who believed that there was no place in politics for women. As a spoof, the men decided to add the name of Susanna M. Salter to the ballot for the position of mayor. The men, thinking it was a great joke, believed that the prank would emphasize their point of view. Mrs. Susanna Salter was an active, respected and beloved member of the community. The men's goal of nominating Salter without her knowledge was to prove their point that women had no purpose in politics. Their intention was to humiliate Mrs. Salter and to discourage all women from striving for equality, especially in the world of politics. When word spread of the men's antics, Susanna's supporters quickly turned the prank into a full blown campaign. Many rallied for the unexpected nominee and to the pranksters' chagrin, Susanna M. Salter won by a landslide with over 60% of the vote. Not only did Ms. Salter break a glass ceiling, she proved that women do indeed have a seat at the political table.

The Mount (Suggested by: Mary Larkin)

Edith Wharton was a woman ahead of her time when she was born into her upper-class New York family. In 1921, she became the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for Literature and is considered one of America's greatest writers. She inspired countless other authors and gave the world a glimpse into the rich of the Gilded Age. Wharton also wrote ghost stories. She believed in ghosts. The home that she built, that is known as The Mount, is said to be haunted. Join us as we explore this interesting woman's life and the history and hauntings of The Mount.

The Mount is located in Lenox, Massachusetts in the highland area of western Massachusetts known as The Berkshires (Burk sheer z). The man who named them was the royal governor between 1760 to 1769, Sir Francis Bernard. The name came from an area in England known as Berkshire. Herman Melville wrote Moby Dick from his home that had a view of a Berkshire mountain that looked a lot like a white whale when covered with snow. Melville described that whale as a "grand hooded phantom, like a snow hill in the air," which supports the theory that he was inspired by the mountain. Someone else who found inspiration at the Berkshires was Edith Wharton.

George Frederic Jones was a wealthy man from real estate investing and the profits of his family-owned bank, the Chemical Bank of New York. That bank was one of the 3rd largest banks in the United States all the way up until 1995. Legend claims that this Jones family is the one that inspired the saying "keeping up with the Joneses." George was born in New York in 1821. In 1844, he married Lucretia Stevens Rhinelander. Lucretia came from a wealthy family and grew up on her grandfather's estate that was called "The Mount." Frederic's parents didn't approve of Lucretia and they told their son that if he continued to court her, they would not give him a sailing boat he wanted. Frederic married Lucretia anyway. They would experience times of financial hardship, which was worsened by an addiction Lucretia picked up. While on their honeymoon in Paris, Lucretia saw all of the lovely clothes made and sold there and she became a "clothes-a-holic," wearing only clothes imported from Paris. The couple would have three children, Frederic, Henry and Edith. Edith was the youngest and born twelve years after Henry in 1862.

The family lived in a brownstone at 14 West 23rd Street in New York City when Edith was born. That brownstone no longer stands and was replaced with a building housing apartments and several businesses. Starbucks is currently at 14 W. 23rd St. Friends and family called Edith "Pussy Jones." Although Edith was born during the Civil War, her family wasn't affected much by the war. After the war, they traveled extensively through Europe, visiting Germany, Italy, Spain and France. France became a favorite of the family and many of them would die in France in their elder years, including Edith. Women were encouraged to find themselves a good mate and raise children at this time in America, but that wouldn't suit Edith at all. She pushed back against the female fashion of the time and the etiquette. And she wanted a good education. Her father didn't agree with that and so she had to turn to books and self-education. These were restricted to educational type books as Lucretia feared that Edith would be hard to marry off if she got the wrong ideas from novels. She forbade her daughter to read any novels until she was married. It was said that Edith obeyed her mother on that point. Edith said of her reading, "No children of my own age…were as close to me as the great voices that spoke to me from books. Whenever I try to recall my childhood it is in my father’s library that it comes to life."

From her travels, Edith became fluent in French, Italian and German. She also came to appreciate art and architecture. Edith developed her writing skills and she wrote a book of poetry at the age of sixteen, which the family published privately. At that same time, she was secretly writing a novella. She didn't tell anyone because her mother had squashed an earlier effort she made at writing a novel when she was eleven. Edith made her "debut" into society when she was seventeen. She didn't care for the parties and dances and all the rituals of high society. This will be made clear in her novels in which she skewered these trappings of the Gilded Age. She courted a couple of young men. The first, Henry Leyden Stevens, did propose marriage, but it ended shortly thereafter. Just before that, Edith's father died while the family was in Cannes, France. The year was 1882. She courted another young man, but no proposal came from that. The years passed and Edith obtained the age of twenty-three without a proposal. She was reaching "old maid" status.

Edith's brothers, Frederic and Henry, had a good friend named Edward Wharton, whom everyone called Teddy. He was born into the priviledged life as well, growing up in a wealthy family. He graduated from Harvard and came into his trust fund, which he used to travel. In 1883, he met Edith while they were both in Bar Harbor, Maine. They courted and married in New York in 1885. They purchased an estate in Newport, Rhode Island in 1893. This was a described as a summer "cottage," but we ran across a listing for it in 2019 that had it for sale for $11.7 million. It's utterly gorgeous. Although Edith was wealthy, she didn't removate Land's End into an extravagant place. She cherished simplicity. Edith so enjoyed the decorating of Land's End that she co-authored a tome on design and architecture with Ogden Codman, Jr. titled "The Decoration of Houses" in 1897. It was her first major book. Her time in Newport inspired the novel "The Age of Innocence." After ten years, Edith was done with the community of Newport and its stuffiness. The Whartons decided to buy a property in the Berkshires and build their own estate. This would be The Mount.

The original property was 113 acres and the Whartons were excited to bring a mixture of culture and traditions from their travels through France, Italy and Britain to the decor of the house and the landscape. Edith poured herself into The Mount, so when one sees this grand place, they really are seeing Edith Wharton. The Belton House in England inspired some of the design of the main house.  That house too is reported to be haunted. The spirit is described as being a black-clad spirit that haunts the bedchamber reserved for royal visits. Construction began in 1901 and finished in 1902 and the Whartons hired architect Francis L.V. Hoppin to design the Georgian-Revival manor. The exterior features white stucco and there are dozens of windows framed by dark green shutters. The ground floor has stonework on the outside. The west end of the house is three stories and the garden side is two stories. The manor is capped by a balustrade and cupola.

Ogden Codman, Jr. helped Edith with the interior design. Their main focus was on symmetry, proportion and functionality. The entrance hall features a statue of Pan. There was a library filled with books. The Main Staircase is lined with Rococo-style paintings and leads to the Gallery, which is Italian with archways and terracotta tiles and rows of windows to help show off the art the Whartons had collected. The Dining Room has two French doors leading out onto the back veranda and dark murals on the walls featuring fruit and flowers. There were no overhead lights or square tables in the room because Edith detested both of those things. And although she was about simplicity, many of the walls have embossed designs on them and the crown molding is ornate. Several ceilings also have embossed and elaborate designs. The bedrooms were on the second floor. Edith had her own room and did most of her writing in bed in the morning. She also had an office for writing. There was a sewing room on this floor, as well as a personal maid's room and closets. The main floor had the butler’s pantry, brush room for cleaning shoes and outdoor wear, and offices for household management. The ground floor had the kitchen, a scullery, laundry room and servants' dining room.

Edith designed the formal gardens herself in an Italian style, so they were laid out like rooms. The walled garden had walks and a rustic fountain with a lion's head spout. Her niece was well known landscape architect Beatrix Farrand and she helped Edith design the entrance drive into the house and the kitchen garden. There were walking trails and natural wooded areas. There were also terraced lawns and a French flower garden with a small pool that featured a dolphin fountain in the center. Sweet ferns and grass-covered steps were part of the alpine rock garden. The landscape underwent an extensive restoration that started in 1999 and took several years. Other buildings on the property included a Georgian-Revival gatehouse and stable and Lord and Burnham Greenhouse. BTW, a company bought all the plans and materials and such in 2018 and so is still manufacturing the greenhouses.

Edith wrote of her house, "On a slope over-looking the dark waters and densely wooded shore of Laurel Lake we built a spacious and dignified house, to which we gave the name of my great-grandfather’s place, the Mount…There for ten years I lived and gardened and wrote contentedly…” The Whartons had many servants that had been with them for years and a few Edith considered to be friends. She wrote, "Several of our servants have been with us for so long that I know to the full the strength of feeling one has about such irreplaceable friends." Most of their work was done in the southern wing. Edith wrote forty books in forty years and her most prolific years came at The Mount. It wasn't a happy time for Edith and Teddy though. They were ill-matched and spent the early years of their marriage traveling and raising dogs. They had little in common and Teddy was mentally unstable. Edith took on a lover named Morton Fullerton. She wrote to him of The Mount, "I am amazed at the success of my efforts. Decidedly, I’m a better landscape gardener than novelist, and this place, every line of which is my own work, far surpasses The House of Mirth." That novel she published in 1905. She would also write Ethan Frome here, which was published in 1911. That same year, the Whartons decided to separate and sell the house. Their divorce would be finalized in 1913. Although Edith only spent ten years at The Mount, it is the home she is most known for and it is her legacy. She moved permanently to France.

Edith didn't leave Paris when World War I broke out. She jumped into the war effort through charities and humanitarian groups. These included setting up tuberculosis sanitariums, refugee hostels, work for the unemployed and schools for refugee children.She even went to the front lines to document experiences in writing. For all of her work, she was awarded the French Legion of Honor. After the war, she left Paris for a suburban villa in a small village. In 1920, Edith wrote The Age of Innocence, which was first published in serial form in the magazine Pictorial Review. In October of that year, it was published in book form and went on to win the 1921 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. Wharton was the first woman to receive a Pulitzer. The novel is set in the New York of Wharton's childhood and was said to be a kinder and gentler version of her work The House of Mirth. The novel reflects on the prewar world that was now lost and Wharton was sad for that. Many of our listeners may have seen the 1993 film of the same name by Martin Scorsese and starring Michelle Pfeiffer as Countess Olenska, Daniel Day-Lewis as Archer, and Winona Ryder as May Welland Archer. Winona Ryder was nominated for an Academy Award for her performance.

Edith only returned to America twice after move to Paris. She spent her latter years writing, gardening and raising dogs. She received an Honorary Doctorate from Yale in 1923. She is remembered as one of America’s greatest writers and the fact that wrote over 40 books in 40 years is an impressive feat not matched by many. She died on August 11, 1937 at the age of 75 at Pavillon Colombe. She is buried, in the Cimetière des Gonards in Versailles. As for The Mount, it became a private residence for a time and then a girls' dormitory for Foxhollow School. It sat vacant for a few years and then a theater group called Shakespeare & Company moved. The Edith Wharton Restoration acquired the property and restored it to its original condition and opened it as a museum. They continue to manage the property that sits on just 50 acres of the original plot. None of the furnishings belong to the Whartons as Edith took everything with her when she moved to Europe. The one exception is the library that has 2500 books that belonged to Edith. All forty of the books she wrote are in the library too. The books are written in several languages and feature a range of subjects revealing how varied Edith's interests were. Many of the books have personal annotations by Edith. The Terrace Cafe has food offerings. Events and weddings can be booked for the property. Group tours and ghost tours are offered. Meaning, The Mount is haunted!  

Wharton was interested in paranormal activity because she had experienced it herself. Many people who read Wharton may be unaware that she not only wrote ghosts stories, but she was very good at crafting them. Edith wrote in the preface to her book Ghosts, which was a compilation of what she felt were her best pieces of supernatural fiction, "I don’t believe in ghosts, but I’m afraid of them." She had a fear of ghosts that went back to her childhood. She was sick with typhoid fever when she was nine and almost died. While her mother wouldn't allow her to read novels, a couple of her friends snuck her some books and she wrote of one of the books, "To an unimaginative child the tale would no doubt have been harmless, but it was a 'robber-story' and with my intense Celtic sense of the supernatural, tales of robbers and ghosts were perilous reading." Edith wrote that after she recovered from her illness, "I came to myself, it was to enter a world haunted by formless horrors. I had been a naturally fearless child; now I lived in a state of chronic fear. Fear of what? I cannot say – and even at the time, I was never able to formulate this terror. It was like some dark, indefinable menace, forever dogging my steps, lurking, and threatening; I was conscious of it wherever I went by day, and at night it made sleep impossible, unless a light and a nursemaid were in the room." That didn't keep her from being a fan of the genre as she got older. She would read the works of Nathaniel Hawthorne, Edgar Allen Poe, M.R. James and she said of Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw it "stands alone among tales of the supernatural." And her childhood fear gave her inspiration for her own ghost stories. Her first ghost story was titled "The Fulness of Life" and it was published in 1893. The last story she ever wrote was also a ghost story titled "All Souls." Interestingly, she did say during an interview that she couldn't bear to sleep in a room with a book containing a ghost story until she was almost 30 and "I have frequently had to burn books of this kind because it frightened me to know they were downstairs in the library." Now she just might be a ghost herself.

When The Mount was the Foxhollow School for Girls, the first stories of paranormal activity were reported. This started in 1942. The girls reported hearing unexplained noises and having things disappear. When the theater company moved in, the actors reported similar activity that the female students had reported. They too heard weird sounds and they often saw a figure in period dress. Through the years, guests and staff have reported seeing pale faces gazing out of windows from rooms that are empty. Disembodied footsteps are heard in the hallways. Female visitors have had their hair pulled in Teddy's former study. Ghost Hunters visited the location twice - once in 2009 and again in 2015 - and captured audio and visual evidence that included disembodied footsteps and voices.

One of the spirits thought to be here is said to belong to a chambermaid of Edith's named Catherine Gross. The story about her claims that she became pregnant from a lover who rejected her and she hanged herself from the upstairs landing. People claim to see her hanging from that spot. There is also the ghost of a male apparition with glowing eyes. This was seen by a contractor doing renovations in an upstairs apartment. A shadow figure has been seen wandering in the woods near the house and this has been reported for decades. Another ghost seems to belong to Edith's caretaker and chauffer, Charles Cook. This apparition hangs out in the stables mostly and appears many times as a shimmering ball of light. A whispered "goodnight" is heard often as well. We have also seen some stories that claim Wharton is here, although she clearly didn't die here, so maybe she just visits a home that once meant a lot to her. Another female ghost is sometimes seen appearing with sunken eyes and cheeks looking out the window of Edith's bathroom. The Mount's Rebecka McDougall explains that "the ghost tours bring the property to life in an altered, shadowy light. We share stories from former residents, staff and visitors of ghostly encounters and the unexplained" and recent visitors have "mysterious movements and the feeling of an unseen hand on their shoulder."

Seeing this extraordinary house during the day would be amazing. Going on a flashlight tour of the house at night would be a lot of fun. It seems as though there are many spirits here, perhaps conjured by the lovely ghost tales Edith Wharton spun. Is The Mount haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 581 - Haunted Akron

Moment in Oddity - African Jacana

Diane and I are avid bird enthusiasts. We spend a good bit of money feeding the wild birds that frequent our backyard because we enjoy observing them. Recently we came upon a very unique bird called the African Jacana. This species of bird is found in the sub-Saharan African freshwater wetlands. Swamps, marshes and sometimes slow moving rivers are their homes. Their species distribution spans from Senegal to Sudan and south to South Africa. Jacanas are also known as 'Jesus birds' due to their long toes and slender legs which allow them to walk on floating vegetation, giving the illusion that they are walking on water. The Jacanas are polyandry which means that the female mates with multiple males and the male alone incubates the eggs and cares for the chicks once they have hatched. What is so striking about the species however comes into play when there is a threat to the chicks by a predator. The male Jacana will squat low and open his wings. The chicks will then run underneath the wings of the male and press against his body. The male will then close his wings and carry the chicks to a safer location. This remarkable bird looks more like something born of a nuclear waste disaster. That or possibly one of Dr. Frankenstein's creations because while the male is carrying the chicks, the chick's legs sprawl out every which way from under the male's wings. The photographs that one can find online of male African Jacanas carrying their babies are bizarre, heartwarming and above all, certainly are odd.

This Month in History - The Gray Ghost Captures Union General E.H. Stoughton

In the month of March, on the 8th, in 1863, Confederate Colonel John Mosby and his Rangers captured Union General E.H. Stoughton. John Singleton Mosby's Rangers were well known for their guerilla style approach and raids behind Union lines in Northern Virginia during the Civil War. The Rangers were composed of 1,900 men between January 1863 and April of 1865. They were not a traditional army unit but were still able to enjoy the plunders of war. They also were not tasked with camp duties and the Rangers lived dispersed amongst civilian populations. Mosby's Rangers were quite successful, often being called on to strike specific targets. These were known as lightning raids in the countryside of Virginia. To this day, Mosby's 43rd Cavalry is still known in parts of Virginia's Piedmont region as "Mosby's Confederacy". The night of Stoughton's capture, a light rain was falling. A raid was ordered for Fairfax Virginia which was known as Fairfax Courthouse at the time. Stoughton was sleeping amongst several thousand Federal soldiers only a short 15 mile distance from the White House. Mosby was also known as the "Gray Ghost" due to his unit's ability to appear and quickly disappear, ostensibly without a trace. That night, the Gray Ghost entered the Union General's quarters after Mosby's rangers quickly overpowered a few drowsy guards. Next, the Rangers snuck into the stables to gather horses. What took place after that is somewhat amusing. The Gray Ghost stealthily lifted the General's nightshirt and slapped Stoughton's bare bum with a sword, shocking the General awake. The following conversation is said to have gone like this. The General asked, "What is the meaning of this?" Mosby, "General, did you ever hear of Mosby?" Stoughton replied, "Yes, have you caught him?" to which the Gray Ghost stated, "I AM Mosby and I have caught YOU. Stuart's cavalry has possession of the Courthouse; be quick and dress". Many Union soldiers escaped into the forest after realizing that Mosby's forces were of a small number. The total list of captured were as follows: a Union General, 2 Captains, 30 enlisted men and 58 horses, all without firing a shot. When President Lincoln was advised of the news, he bemoaned, "I can make another Brigadier in 5 minutes, but I can't replace those horses."

Haunted Akron

Akron is an industrial city with roots as a canal town that grew out of a swamp. It is the fifth largest city in Ohio and has a rich history connected to some of the most well known manufacturers in the world. There is a dark side with a history of violent riots and crimes committed by the Black Hand Gang. Like all historic cities, Akron has its legends and haunted locations. Join us for the history and hauntings of Akron, Ohio!

Akron, Ohio started as an inhospitable swamp that settlers to the area quickly abandoned. This was the Cuyahoga Valley that was referred to as the Western Reserve. The Ohio and Erie Canal was built between the 1820s and early 1830s and connected Lake Erie and the Ohio River. Workers drained the swampland of Akron. A man named Simon Perkins founded Akron in 1825 and since it was the highest point in the county, it was named Akron, which means "high" in Greek. The first canal boat would launch from Akron in 1827 and the town exploded with growth. Mills and factories would be attracted to Akron because of the canal and companies like Quaker Oats and General Mills would start here as would many tire companies like B.F. Goodrich Tire, Firestone Tire, General Tire, and Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. The rubber industry was so big that Akron was nicknamed the "Rubber Capitol of the World." The city would also be the center of airship development. So from canal town to industrial powerhouse. The city has many strange legends connected to it and haunted locations due to murders, riots, violence and tragic stories. Here are some of those haunted locations.

River Styx Bridge

River Styx is a pretty ominous name and it was inspired by the River Styx of Greek mythology. It's the name of an unincorporated community and nearby river. Over the River Styx is a seventy-five-foot-tall steel railroad trestle. On March 22, 1899, the Erie Limited No. 5 was heading west toward Chicago with Erie Railroad engineer Alexander Wallace Logan at the helm. Logan had worked for 30 years on the rails. A bolt snapped on the bridge and it cause the train to derail and plunge down an embankment. The train consisted of a baggage car, a day car, two sleeping cars and a dining car with 79 passengers on board. The fireman on board, Byron Ward, survived and said, "I kept my eyes on Logan after he had put on the emergency, thinking I would jump if he did. But he didn’t. He kept his hand on the throttle and the last I saw of him he was leaning out of the window, his teeth set with that grim determination so peculiar to him, his hand on the throttle, calm and determined to do all in his power to save the lives of those on the train." His efforts were not in vain. Logan was killed instantly, but the passenger cars remained upright and no one else died. 

One of the first witnesses to the ghost train when the Wayne County coroner, Dr. William Faber, told people in October of 1899 that he saw a train that "The train was enveloped in great clouds of dust and smoke and huge flames of fire shot up in every direction, and immense volumes of steam making a terrific noise shot up from the engine, and the noise of creaking timbers and breaking iron bars was plainly heard, but above all came the shrieks of those pinioned beneath the wreckage." He had a buddy in the car and they ran toward where they saw the wreckage go, but when they reached the bridge, they found nothing. It was eerily quiet. The following year, three men heard a train whistle and heard the sound of a train wreck and watched it plunge into the river. They ran over, but again, no train was found. For the past century, people have reported seeing the lights of a train and billowing smoke and hearing the screams of passengers as a ghost train plummets towards the river. The bridge runs parallel to East Ohio Avenue, just north of Morton Salt in Rittman.

Cry-Baby Bridge

There is another bridge with legends connected to it and it carries the familiar moniker of Cry-Baby Bridge. The story that goes with this one dates back to the 19th century. A couple were riding in a horse-drawn carriage with their baby near Silver Creek. They were making their way down a steep hill and lost control of the carriage and the baby was lost in the creek. Another story claims the mother committed infanticide, like in most Cry-Baby Bridge stories. It is said that when people stand on the bridge at midnight under a full moon, they will hear the wailing of a baby. The bridge is near the Chippewa-Rogues Hollow Historical Society at 17500 Galehouse Road. 

Hale Farm & Village

Spending time at the Hale Farm and Village is like stepping back into the 19th century. The village is located at 2686 Oak Hill Road, about 7 miles north of Akron. The farm is named for Jonathan Hale who homesteaded the property and built the house in 1825. He had come here from Connecticut in 1810 without his family, so that he could prepare a place for them. When he got to the land he purchased, he found a squatter had moved onto the land and built a log cabin. Now, one might think he would be angry about this development, but when he saw the work the man had done at clearing the fields, he told the man he was welcome to stay as long as he continued to care for the land. Hale's wife and three children arrived a few months later. The permanent house, that still stands today, was begun in 1824 and was fashioned from clay bricks formed from clay near the Cuyahoga River. The house was designed in the Federal style and stands three stories. The rear of the house is built into a slope, so the first floor has no windows in the rear. That first floor has an open concept like our modern homes with a great room that has a dining room, living room and kitchen. The second floor had another dining room that was more formal and a parlor. Eventually the dining room became a bedroom. The third floor had six small bedrooms with no fireplaces. Yikes, talk about freezing in the winter! Later years found those rooms being redesigned as larger bedrooms. The Hale family called their home "Old Brick."

The Hale's son Andrew stayed on the property after he married and he built a small house across from Old Brick. This home eventually was moved to become the South Wing of Old Brick. A North Wing was built later for storage. We're not sure when the wings were added, but probably after 1854 when Jonathan died and Andrew moved his family into Old Brick. Andrew ran the Hale Farm until his death in 1884. Andrew's son, Charles Oviatt, decided to turn the house into an inn for city dwellers to enjoy on the weekends and for summer tourists. Charles died in 1938 and his niece, Clara, inherited the house. When she died in 1953, she donated the property to the Western Reserve Historical Society, so they could open Old Brick as a museum. That house is the central focus of a property that now contains 34 historic structures, 8 of them built by three generations of the Hale family, and runs as an outdoor living history museum. In 2008, Sandvick Architects restored Old Brick. Visitors can learn about spinning and weaving and see demonstrations of glass blowing, pottery making and blacksmithing.

There is a one-room cabin in the village that had been built by Jonathan Fritch in 1805. When the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company moved onto the property that Fritch had owned, they used the cabin as a fishing and hunting cabin for clients. In 1995, they donated the cabin to the village and it is used as a representation of the cabin that the Hales lived in for their first 17 years on their farm.

Another house on the property is the 1832 Goldsmith House that was designed by architect Jonathan Goldsmith in the Greek Revival style for the William Peck Robinson family. The family of six arrived from New Haven, Connecticut to Willoughby, Ohio in 1820. They were a wealthy family as William had owned several mills. The house is the most luxurious one on the property and was donated and moved here from Willoughby in eight sections in 1973 and reopened in 1985. This is the most haunted building on the property. Staff claim to have seen a female apparition on the second floor whom they believe is Caroline Robinson, the wife of William Robinson. William, unfortunately, had died before the house was finished. A volunteer at the house claimed to see an impression on a bed as though someone unseen was lying on the bed. The indentation went away as they approached the bed. 

The Herrick House was brought over to the Hale Farm, stone by stone and reconstructed. The house is named for Jonathan E. Herrick who had it built in 1845 in Twinsburg. Herrick was an early settler to the town and he came to the Western Reserve after his brothers had success there. He married Phila Clark and they had five children. The house was designed in the Greek revival style and has a unique square cut stone structure. Phila died in 1889 and Jonathan died in 1898 and at that time, the house was willed to Anna Simmonds, who had been an employee of the family. The house passed down through the Simmonds family. It was decided to build an industrial park where the house sat and so it was slated for demolition in 1981. A grant and donation made it possible for the Hale Farm to acquire the house. It took 20 truckloads to move the stones. It took years before rebuilding, but the house was finished and opened in 1989. Since Jonathan Herrick had been a dairy farmer, the new site of the house has been interpreted as a working dairy farm with a barn, fenced animal paddocks and land for gardens and barnyard animals added to the house. Cheese was a big deal in the Western Reserve and it got the nickname "Cheesedom." Employees claim that objects move around the house when it is closed. People have seen a male apparition walking around inside the house and this is thought to be Jonathan.

The Jagger House was built in 1845 by Clement Jagger, who was a prosperous carriage-maker in Bath, Ohio. The house was designed in the Greek Revival style and the interior features hand carved paneling and stenciling. The house was relocated in 1962 and is presented as a part of the farm village that is named Wheatfield Township. The house is set up as the home and office of Dr. William Tibbals and his family. A former volunteer at the house reported this experience, "The most frightening house at Hale by far is the Jagger House. This house itself hates. You walk in and it feels like the house would just drop down on you if it could. I hated to work in that house, even during the day. And whoever worked there would become hateful the entire day. You just could not help it. If you stayed in the house for just a few minutes, you just hated everything and everyone. People that worked that house together would be arguing constantly."  

Stan Hywet Hall

One of the finest examples of Tudor Revival architecture in America is Stan Hywet Hall and it is one of the largest homes in America. This is a huge 65-room stone mansion that was built for Goodyear Tire & Rubber magnate F.A. Sieberling between 1911 and 1915. The property is on 70 acres with sprawling gardens designed by Warren H. Manning. The house cost $150,000 to build and architect Charles S. Schneider was tasked with designing it. A spur had to be added to the railroad to bring all the supplies out. The interior decorator was Hugo F. Huber of New York and he brought much of the furnishings from New York. Other pieces came from England. The inside of the mansion featured 23 fireplaces, hand-carved oak, sandalwood and black walnut paneling, Gothic Revival Conservatory and 21,455 panes of glass. The formal dining room could seat 40 people and there was an indoor pool. The Seiberlings named their home Stan Hywet, which means stone quarry in Old English, because of old quarries on the property. For 40 years, the Seiberlings lived in Stan Hywet Hall and many of their things remain, like the Aeolian Organ in the Music Room. This room featured entertainment from the likes of Will Rogers and Shirley Temple. The Sieberling children eventually donated the house to the Stan Hywet Hall Foundation and it is run as a museum today. One that occasionally hosts ghost tours. 

The ghost here is referred to as the "Lady in Grey." This could be either Gertrude Sieberling, F.A.'s wife, or possibly an attachment to some of the furnishings brought over from an English mansion. This spirit usually hangs out in the Master Bedroom or the Great Hall. A staff member claims that after a Christmas tour, he was locking down the mansion when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. When he looked, he saw the Grey Lady crossing the balcony overlooking the Great Hall. She was heading towards Gertrude's bedroom.

Wolf Creek Tavern

Wolf Creek Tavern serves up food, libations and live music. And there is a speakeasy here that is open on the weekends as a throwback to an era when the building had a speakeasy in the basement during Prohibition. The original carved chestnut 1840s bar is still here. This tavern is located 10 miles southwest of Akron in Norton at 3044 Wadsworth Road. Irishman Shane Moore and his wife Amy opened Wolf Creek in 2013. Amy had visited a previous tavern here when she was a child. The original building was built in 1840 and ran as possibly a blacksmith shop and then a tavern. In 1858, it became H. Bechtel's Cabinet Shop. By 1874, it was the Loyal Oak House that ran as a hotel with a bar. Jack Lozier and his mother bought the building in 1911 and continued to run the hotel. The name changed in the 1930s to Adam's Place in honor of the new owner, Adam Pinter. Other uses of the building were as a sheriff's office, jail and children's infirmary. Staff and patrons at the restaurant claim to see shadow figures and to have been touched by something they can't see. A female apparition in a long black dress has been seen. There is a male apparition as well that people believe belongs to a bartender from the late 1800s named Ray Wilhelm. Martini glasses go flying down in the speakeasy, all by themselves.

Perkins Stone Mansion

The Perkins Stone Mansion was built by Simon Perkins in 1835. His father, General Simon Perkins, was the founder of Akron. The house sat on 115 acres that has been whittled down to 2.5 acres today. The hill it sat upon was nicknamed "Mutton Hill" because it was used for sheep grazing. The house was designed by Isaac Ladd in the Greek Revival and Federal styles and features a two-story portico. Hand cut yellow sandstone was quarried from nearby as the building material, hence the word "stone" in the name. The house remained in the family until 1945 and is owned and operated by The Summit County Historical Society of Akron today. The site not only has the family home, but the original Wash House where linens and clothing were washed and dried and also the original well. The woodshed behind the house is the historical society's office. A reconstructed outhouse, gazebo and carriage house complete the property that runs as an historic house museum. People claim to have seen, felt and heard the spirits of cats and dogs. Ghost cats rub up against ankles. Full-bodied apparitions are seen in period clothing and these include both adults and children. The children are often seen running around the table. Floorboards are heard creaking under disembodied footsteps and chiming bells are heard. Mysterious lights have been seen and indentations are seen on beds and pillows. One woman claimed she felt something unseen touch her hair and another woman claimed to have something unseen breathe on her neck. 

Akron Civic Theatre

The Akron Civic Theater is located at 182 South Main Street and started out as the Loews Theatre, being a part of the Loews chain of theaters run by founder Marcus Loew. This was one of eleven and is the only one that still remains. It also is one of only five atmospheric theaters that were designed by John Eberson that still exists. Our listeners are more than familiar at this point with what atmospheric theaters were. They were meant to give patrons the feeling that they were outside with night sky murals painted on the ceilings and twinkling lights to symbolize stars. The theater is also one of a very few that have a rotating ceiling. The original plan for the theater though started with dance hall owner Oscar Beck. He planned a 3,000 seat theater that would anchor what he called "The Hippodrome." There would be thirty stores and restaurants along the arcade. Construction began in 1919, but the project went bankrupt in 1921 with only the lobby completed. 

Marcus Loew came through Akron in 1925 and decided to bring one of his theaters to the abandoned project. He hired John Eberson to design it and construction was completed in 1929. The exterior had a terra cotta facade and the interior was made to resemble a Moorish castle with Mediterranean decor made up of Italian alabaster sculptures and medieval carvings. The theater is home to a full-sized Wurlitzer Theater organ. The Kelly Operating Company leased the theater in 1964 and were later bought out by the Akron Jaycees in 1965 when it was proposed to turn the theater into a parking lot. Live theater came back to the theater at this time because The Women's Guild got involved with the operations of the theater and they not only ushers, but they invested in the building of a concession stand and brought in famous celebrities to act in the plays. A man named Clarence Randall satisfied a tax lien in 1985. The theater was renovated for $19 million from 2001 to 2002 and reopened with a performance by Tim Conway.

There are said to be three spirits at the theater. The first is the spirit of a girl who allegedly committed suicide by jumping into the canal behind the theater. People have heard her weeping uncontrollably and seen her ghost walking along the canal. There is also the ghost of Fred the janitor. He had worked at the theater for a very long time and is seen in all different places inside the theater. His spirit is very protective and has run off vandals in the past. According to Weird U.S., "Fred also apparently has no tolerance for people who disrespect his beloved theater, especially the bathrooms. In fact, Fred’s ghost is said to get so angry over people messing up his bathrooms that he will sometimes chase or attack you if he catches you doing anything other than answering the call of nature in the restrooms." The balcony has the spirit of an unknown man who is seen wearing a black tuxedo complete with coattails.

Hower House

The Hower House Museum is a glorious Victorian mansion that was built in 1871 by John Henry Hower. He had made his fortune in the milling, reaping and cereal industries. Hower was so involved in the economy of Akron that he was called the "Father of Akron Industry." He and his wife, Susan, had come to Akron from Doylestown in 1865 and started design and construction on their three-story Second Empire Italianate style mansion, almost immediately. The architect was Jacob Snyder and the finished product featured a tower topped by a distinctive mansard roof and 28-rooms. The first floor had two parlors, a library, Music Room, office, dining room and kitchen. The second floor had four bedrooms and two sitting rooms. The third floor had storage, a drawing room, picture gallery and large ballroom. The Howers collected furnishings and art from around the world and these are a part of the museum today.

In 1901, John moved to a smaller home near the mansion with his second wife and his son Milton moved into the mansion with his wife Blanche. Father and son both died in May of 1916 and Blanche remained in the mansion. Her daughter Grace came to live with her and she remained in the house until it was deeded to the University of Akron in 1970. In the mid-1980s, the mansion was opened as a museum. It is thought that the spirit here is John's first wife Susan and that she is angry. Apparently, as Susan was lying on her deathbed, she made John promise her that he wouldn't remarry. He held on for four years, but then he did remarry and Susan ain't having it. It is said that she glares out from a portrait on the wall. Heavy doors open and slam shut. A security guard once heard an audible voice yell out, "Get out of my house." Many people feel very uncomfortable in the house.

John Tedrow's Ghost

There is a legend about a grisly slaying that is connected to the Botzum Cemetery. Botzum Cemetery is located at the corner of Yellow Creek and W. Bath Roads. This is five miles north of Akron. A man named John A. Botzum is connected to this legend. Botzum was born in Germany in 1835 to a family that owned woolen mills along the Rhine River in Germany. His father decided to flee Germany with his five sons to prevent them from being drafted into the German Army during the Napoleonic Wars. The boat they took to America was boarded by pirates who robbed the passengers of everything, so when the Botzum family landed in New York City, they had nothing. Then a dishonest agent tried to sell the family into slavery in South America. A new friend made John aware of the danger and helped him to get his family to Ohio, where they arrived in 1836. The family took in boarders and John worked construction. In 1876, his son John A. bought a farmstead that he later transferred to his brother Conrad and this is today the Conrad Botzum Farmstead that is run by the National Park Service. A town named Botzum sprang up around the family and featured a store, blacksmith shop, warehouse, post office and hotel. The Botzum Depot opened in 1880. There was a large ballroom in the upper floor of the hotel that hosted dances and talent shows. In 1882, there was a dance being hosted at the hotel and a drunk farmhand from the Botzum farmstead named John Tedrow was being belligerent to guests. One of these guests was a man named John Brook and when the men tustled, Brook's jacket was torn. His way of handling the issue was to grab an axe and hit Tedrow in the head. This killed him instantly. Tedrow was buried at Botzum Cemetery, but he didn't stay there for long. Medical students grave robbed the body and this left his spirit at unrest. The legend claims that his lurching disembodied footsteps are heard after dark and people claim to see the full-bodied apparition of a man with a bleeding head, wandering about the woods. 

Wingfoot Lake Hangar

We love our airships and Akron is home to an airship hangar and more importantly, to the famous Goodyear Blimp. Suffield is 13 miles east of Akron and has The Wingfoot Lake Airship Hangar at 841 Wingfoot Lake Road. The hangar was built in 1917 and used by the Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company. to construct and maintain their fleet of advertising blimps. The company also built blimps for the US Navy during World War I and II. The first class of Navy airship pilots were trained at the site. Today, the hangar is still the center of operations for the Goodyear Blimp. Lt. Ernest D. Cody and Ensign Charles E. Adams were piloting a Navy airship off the coast of San Francisco in 1942, when the men disappeared. The blimp drifted to shore where it was found without pilots. Police and military personnel investigated the crash site and found the gondola doors hanging open. The pilots would have walked away unscathed, but a search of the area didn't find them. A search was made on land, air and sea and was abandoned after a few days. Authorities at first surmised that the men had bailed out of the airship, but all three parachutes and a rubber life raft were found aboard the gondola and those most certainly would have been employed. No distress call had been made either. There was no damage that would have come from an attack like bullet holes or signs of fire. The theory that eventually landed for good was that the two men had discovered an oil slick on the water and stopped to investigate it and send up a smoke marker. To do that, the hatch had to be opened and then it was believed one of the men fell out and the other attempted a rescue and fell out as well. Some people believed the men had been captured by the Japanese and then, of course, there's always, aliens. Cody and Adams were declared legally dead in 1943. The gondola was stored for decades at Wingfoot Lake before being donated in 2003 to the National Naval Aviation Museum in Pensacola, Florida. Where did the phantom crew go? The blimp was called The Ghost Blimp.

Oriana House

Oriana House is a residential correction center at 222 Power St. in Akron. From 1930 until 1960, it was run as the Summit County Detention Center. During that time a crime took place here that has led to paranormal activity. It was the weekend after Thanksgiving and the facility was understaffed with three adult attendants. Eula was a firm disciplinarian with a good heart and she brought ice cream for the girls in her dormitory on the second floor. She left and returned before bedtime to see if anyone needed anything. Five of the girls ranging in age from 14 to 17, jumped Eula, stole her keys, tied her with belts and stuffed an ammonia-soaked cloth in her mouth. They smashed a window with a shovel and crawled out into a snowstorm. The girls were clad in thin dresses and tried to hot wire a car, which didn't work. Eula was found suffocated and the girls were all caught later. They were charged with first degree murder, but the Grand Jury changed it to manslaughter and the girls plead guilty and were given from one to 20 years. All were out by 1960. For decades after the crime, staff in the building reported strange phenomena that included windows opening and closing on their own and televisions turning themselves on and off. Disembodied footsteps would follow people in the hallways and the sound of furniture scraping as it was being moved would be heard coming from empty rooms. One deputy in 1989 remarked that they weren't worried about the ghost because "she’s a good ghost. I feel good she’s here. She watches over us."

Akron has a long and successful industrial history. Much of the landscape here was built by members of industry and many of their spirits remain. And there are clearly some interesting legends connected to the Ohio city as well. Are these places in Akron, Ohio haunted? That is for you to decide!