HGB Ep. 609 - Chatham's Haunts

This Month in History - Christopher Wren Born

In the month of October, on the 20th, in 1632, Christopher Wren was born in East Knoyle, Wiltshire. Sir Christopher Wren was an English architect, astronomer, mathematician and physicist, and was widely considered a polymath. After the Great Fire of London in 1666, Wren was tasked with rebuilding the city. His architectural portfolio was quite impressive, having designed over 50 churches, one of which being St. Bride's Church. That particular church was the inspiration of apprentice baker, Thomas Rich, who wanted to make an extravagant wedding cake. The baker imitated the design of St. Bride's Church which continues in the traditional style of wedding cakes today. Wren's architectural designs reshaped London's skyline after the Great Fire, but he is most well known for St. Paul's Cathedral. The cathedral is considered a masterpiece of English Baroque architecture. Known by its iconic dome, it signifies London's resilience after surviving both the Great Fire of London and the Blitz in WWII. After leaving many indelible marks, primarily in London, Christopher Wren died on February 25, 1723, in his sleep and is buried in the crypt at St. Paul's Cathedral. 

Chatham's Haunts (Chat Um)

Chatham in Kent has many haunted locations with most of them being connected to battle, war and the military. There were six forts built here to protect the Chatham Dockyard from attacks, particularly by Napoleon Bonaparte. Several of those forts are haunted and the Dockyard is probably the most haunted location in Chatham. Join us for the history and hauntings of Chatham! 

Chatham is located on the River Medway, making it a strategic location. The Royal Naval Dockyard was established here in 1568 by Queen Elizabeth I, but settlements date back to the Stone Age and archaeologists have uncovered Roman occupation and Saxon settlement. With the establishment of the dockyard, large amounts of manpower were needed and a village formed that grew through the years. Protection for the dockyard was desperately needed so Fort Amherst became the first fort built. This was followed by Fort Pitt and then Fort Luton, Fort Bridgewoods and Fort Borstal. Then Fort Horsted was built as the final fortification. The Dutch raided the dockyard in 1667 and inflicted severe damage. When it was decided that something more substantial than Upnor Castle needed to be built, bastions and ditches were constructed and these would be the beginnings of Fort Amherst. Official construction of Fort Amherst began in 1756. An infantry barracks was built in 1757. Two Redoubts were added in 1778 equipped with 14 42-pounders, 10 9-pounders, 8 6-pounders and 2 4-pounder guns. Amherst was expanded during the Napoleonic Wars and vast underground stores and tunnels were added with the use of convict labor from St. Mary's Island. Amherst was a formidable defense, but it was never put to the test. In 1820, much of the fort was considered obsolete so it became a training ground. People would come from all over to watch the practice sieges. Charles Dickens lived in Chatham and he described one of these sieges in his Pickwick Papers. The fort saw some use during World War II as an Air Raid Warning command post. In the 1980s, restoration on the fort was begun and eventually it was opened for tours and programs. These tours include Halloween ones.

Once Amherst opened to the public in 1983, ghost stories started flying. Many people have seen dark shadows that move and this is during the daytime. The reports are almost daily occurrences. Disembodied voices are heard, many times as whispers in the ears of tourists who go running and screaming. Other times, these sounds are a child's cry or a woman weeping. The child's crying coincides with visitors having tiny hand prints show up on their backs. Poltergeist activity is experienced throughout the fort. The most seen apparition is of a soldier who hangs out on the lower gun floor. There is another spirit that gives the soldier a run for his money and that is a faceless male ghost seen wearing a top hat and Victorian era coat. One story shared came from an electrician who was doing some work in a tunnel when he heard a fire bucket fall to the ground behind him. When he turned to look at it, he watched it slide across the floor. 

Fort Pitt was begun in 1805 and would be completed in 1819. It was named for Prime Minister William Pitt who died in 1806. The fort is shaped in an irregular polygon with bastions at each corner. Two outlying towers were also built and they were named Delce and Gibraltar. There were 10 18-pound cannons, and other armaments. Not only did this fort not see any action, but by the time it was finished the Napoleonic Wars had ended and there wasn't much purpose to the fort. So it was transformed into a military hospital. This would also become the headquarters of the Army Medical Department. The hospital closed in the 1920s and the buildings became a girls' grammar school. Much of the fort has been demolished, but what remains is part of the school. The fort has a military cemetery that mainly served the hospital that lies a quarter of a mile south of the fort. Many of the burials are from both World Wars. Charles Dickens nearly lived next door to the fort as a boy. Since this is a school, there haven't been ghost hunts here. There are rumors that it is haunted, but no definitive stories to share. 

Construction on Fort Luton began in 1876 and finished in 1892. The fort was named for the Luton Valley over which it looks. This is the smallest of the forts and was meant to guard the landward approaches to Chatham Dockyard. This too was finished too late to be of service during the Napoleonic Wars. Thus it had no arms and wasn't permanently manned. The fort was used for siege trials, which came to an end in 1907. Troops were housed here during World War I. After the war, it became a store. And then in 1938, the fort became a Gun Operations Room. 

Ghost Connections was the first group to investigate the fort. They wrote, "Due to the fact that it is being restored there were only certain areas open to us on this investigation. We set out with the intention of covering as much of the internal structures as possible in the evening. Session One: The team used the furthest magazine accessible from the left tunnel to commence a séance however due to the noises encountered would move out to the tunnel to continue this experiment. During this Dave moved to the main entrance end of the tunnel after Ian had walked the length of it to research noises that appeared to come from the tunnel. Session Two: The team located to the one restored casemate that is accessible. Session Three: The team returned to the same positions within the tunnel as at the end of session one but Dave positioned half way along the tunnel. Graham had the impression of someone standing between himself and Dave opposite him within the small magazine. The team initially heard a number of noises emanate from the tunnel. As this wasn't visible from the teams location Ian walked the length of the tunnel. The noises did not repeat themselves during this time as would be expected. Ian did manage to replicate something similar to the tone of the noise heard when he stepped on a loose brick within the the structure of the steps leading up to the main entrance from the tunnel itself. It was observed that communication could be had between the team easily at normal volume and without much echo. This we found surprising given the normal acoustics of tunnel structures we have investigated. Given this, Dave moved towards the further end of the tunnel in order to try and establish a source for the noise for sure by physical observation. Further noises were heard between Dave and the team within the tunnel. None of these were repeated on request although some were close. Dave had a song come into his head later identified as 'Mademoiselle From Armentières' and questioned the age of this song and its origins. The team did not know and it was decided to research this later. Dean had thoughts of a hot air balloon crashing and described it as red and white striped. He did not tell us about this until the break. Later recordings of this session would reveal voices unheard by the team at the time and one which clearly says “Allo Dean”.

Fort Bridgewoods became another in the circle of forts protecting the dockyard and this one was a landward approach. Construction began in 1890  and this too, would be finished after the threat from France was over. Imperial Germany was threatening though. Bridgewoods was polygonal in shape with earthen walls and there was a deep dry moat around it, but no fixed armaments were mounted anywhere. The main defense would come from field artillery. 

To the left of the entrance were casemates that held bunks and off the casemates were short tunnels leading to reservoirs and magazines. Convict labor did the construction and a new prison was built above the nearby city of Borstal to house that workforce. That's how the youth corrections system got its name. During the 1907 Siege Operations, Bridgewoods was damaged. During the World Wars, the fort had radar installed and was used as headquarters for anti-aircraft guns. A railway connected Fort Luton, Fort Horsted, Fort Bridgewoods and Fort Borstal to each other to facilitate construction by moving materials and men. Royal Engineers built it. Most of the fort was demolished in the 1970s. What was left is a Royal Mail depot. There are no ghost stories connected to this fort. 

Fort Borstal had construction begun in 1875 and would be completed in 1883. This protected the southern approach to the dockyard. There were underground tunnels and secret areas and this fort also had dry ditch surrounding it. A loopholed wall at the rear provided extra protection. The fort was polygonal in shape. The fort got its name from the town of Borstal. Borstal was used for training during the World Wars and AA gunners were placed here and remained until 1957. The fort was sold in 1990 with plans to restore it and open it as a tourist attraction, but those plans fell through. Today, it is being refurbished into a winery and occasional tours are offered. It really looks nice with what has been done inside. The entrance hall has wooden white walls with a black and white tiled floor. This fort also has no ghost stories associated with it.

Fort Horsted is located south of Chatham, Kent. The Fort is named for the nearby Horsted Valley, which was named for the 5th century warrior Horsa. He and his brother, Hengist, are considered the first leaders of the Anglo-Saxon settlers that came to England. They are attributed with founding Kent. Horsa died in battle in 455. Hengist ruled as King over Kent from 455 to 488 and it is believed the character Beowulf is based on him. Archaeologists have found artifacts from the Anglo-Saxon time, particularly helmets and spear heads. The fort never experienced any direct battle action, but it is believed that the land underneath it was a battlefield at one time more than likely connected to this time of the Anglo-Saxons. There were more than likely some warriors buried on the land. Construction on Fort Horsted started in 1879 and lasted for ten years. Forced labor did the work and was completed in 1889. They came from the newly build Borstal Prison, known today as HM Prison Rochester. Horsted was a land fort in the shape of a six sided arrow head, with each flank protected by machines guns. There are an extensive network of tunnels beneath the fort. In 1902, Horsted was armed with seven mounted machine guns. Anti-Aircraft guns were mounted at the fort during World War II. The fort was deserted in the 1990s and sat derelict. Today, the fort is mainly a business park that hosts tours.

People have claimed for decades that they feel uneasy at the fort. People claim to hear disembodied whispers and screams and shadow figures have been seen. Ghost Adventures visited in 2012 and they wrangled some locals into conducting a seance to see if they could agitate the spirits. The group did hear audible screams and booming sounds. They captured EVPs that said "they're coming" and "they're not doing this." The Spirit Box had "Hey Carl", "we can play", "me" and "back here" come through. Carl was someone who joined them on the hunt. The "back here" was a female voice with an English accent. The group also saw a dark shadow, had the EMF device going off and there was an unexplained light anomaly in a room where Carl and Aaron were investigating. Zak wore this jacket that was supposed to be sensitive to rises in temperature and it did light up red right after the group heard a disembodied voice.

The Maidstone Ghost Hunters offer ghost tours and they investigated in November of 2022 with a group of people. They went down into the underground tunnels, which were pitch black, and only had their flashlights to see their way. The group heard a shuffling noise down a dark alleyway. Colin Waterman was among the group and he told KentLive, "We did a Ouija board, we were calling out to see if there were any spirits in the area and a little child came through on the board. They spell out the letters, we said are you a little boy and it went to yes, he said that he died there when he was a little boy." Colin snapped a bunch of pictures during the investigation and we he got home, he discovered a face in one of the pictures. He said, "I skipped past the photo and went hang on a minute, and I zoomed in, lightened it up and it came up as a little face. I’ve got a few in the past but nothing as clear as that. You get the little goose pimples to think I was actually standing there and that was looking down at us and we didn’t see it. I was straight onto the crew members they were like, 'oh my god, I can’t believe it what a great photo'."  

The group Search Into the Supernatural shared about a ghost hunt they hosted on September 13, 2025 on Facebook writing, "As the evening progressed, we truly began to connect with the spirits of the fort, leading to some fascinating captures on our cameras. One highlight was when a gentleman in what appeared to be military uniform was caught on a guest’s camera in the exact same spot where we’ve previously encountered him. He certainly isn’t shy about making his presence known!" 

Chatham Dockyard is probably the most haunted location in Chatham. The Dockyard started as a center for wooden shipbuilding in 1567 and grew into a center for the new iron navy. The initial facility was below Chatham Church and had a wharf, storehouses, slips and was home to the warship Merlin, which was a pinnace of ten guns built in 1579. The Merlin would fight against the Spanish Armada in 1588. This Tudor Dockyard no longer exists and the present Chatham Dockyard would move to its location in 1618. The Navy needed dry docks and the former dockyard didn't have the room. So this dockyard had the dry docks and new storehouses, slips and housing for senior dockyard officers. The first action for ships coming from the dockyard would be trade wars with the Dutch. These battles would be fought in the English Channel and North Sea. The late 1600s brought conflict with France and Spain as Britain joined forces with Holland under William & Mary. It was at this time that the Chatham Dockyards would become the principal shipbuilding yard. Two Mast Ponds were added and this made it possible to make masts from fir logs. The process required seasoning the masts underwater. This was a traditional shipbuilding method also referred to as pickling and entailed putting freshly cut logs underwater saltwater for at least a year to leach out the sap and resins and this would keep the wood from decaying. A lengthy air-drying process would finish the process. 

Britain's oldest surviving intact naval building is here and this is the Commissioner's House, which was built in 1704. Many other buildings would join it such as the Officer's Terrace, Clocktower Building, Hemp House and Main Gate Dockyard Wall. There are around 100 buildings on the property today. The largest and finest ship built up until 1765, came out of this dockyard and that was the HMS Victory. The Battle of Trafalgar would end Napoleon's struggle to invade Britain and the HMS Victory was the flagship during that battle. This signified to the world that Britain had the greatest Navy and made it the global superpower of the early 1800s. 

With the Industrial revolution came new ironworking facilities. These were constructed in 1808 and one of Britain's first steam-powered saw mills was added in 1814.Another dry dock would be finished in 1820. There were more Admirals Offices added and a Royal Dockyard Church as well. The middle of the 19th century would see the biggest period of construction for the dockyards. Steam and Iron would be the focus and the first steam vessel was launched in 1832. This was the paddle sloop Phoenix. Any timber-hulled sailing ships had auxiliary steam engines added to them and this made up Britain's Black Battlefleet that would fight during the Crimean War. The first iron-built ship would be the Achilles and it was finished in 1863. The dockyard would struggle with these new iron ships because there were no longer constraints on size. Wooden vessels could only be built so big, but iron ships could be massive and the dockyard was soon too small. A new dockyard extension was created, but it mostly just was used for repairs. The last battleship constructed at the dockyard was in 1905 and this was the HMS Africa. The HMS Dreadnought would change how battleships were constructed and it was built at the Portsmouth Dockyard in 1906. That ended Chatham's shipbuilding, at least of battleships. Submarines, however, could be made at Chatham and this became the dockyards new focus. Fifty-seven submarines would be built here from 1908 to 1960. The dockyard had plenty of work during the World Wars and the dead were honored here as well. There is a Chatham Naval memorial at the dockyard to honor 8,000 men of the Chatham Division who lost their lives during World War I. This is above the Historic Dockyard. There are many barracks here including the Infantry Barracks, Marine Barracks, Artillery/Engineer Barracks, St. Mary's Barracks and Naval Barracks. The Dockyard closed in 1984. Most buildings are still standing. Some are used by the Universities at Medway and others are museums. Forty-seven are Scheduled Ancient Monuments.

Charles Dickens wrote of the dockyard in 1861, "Twelve hundred men are working at her now; twelve hundred men working on stages over her sides, over her bows, over her sterns, under her keel, between her decks, down in her hold, within her and without, crawling and creeping into the finest curves of her lines wherever it is possible for men to twist. Twelve hundred hammerers, measurers, caulkers, armourers, forgers, smiths, shipwrights; twelve hundred dingers, clashers, dongers, rattlers, clinkers, bangers, bangers, bangers!" There was a time when the Dockyard employed 10,000 men. 

The Chatham Dockyard offers ghost tours and people have had a lot of paranormal experiences. The main haunted locations include the Commissioner's House, the Ropery, and the Joiner's Workshop. As we said earlier, the Commissioner's House is the oldest structure here. There is a legend that claims a young woman committed suicide in the house by hanging herself from the back stairs after hearing her lover had been killed in battle and she now haunts it. She may be the Gray Lady who wanders the staircase and landing. Former Commissioners are here too. One of the spirits encountered is thought to belong to Peter Pett. He was the Commissioner at Chatham Dockyard from 1647 to 1667. The Dutch attacked the Medway in 1667 and to Pett's shame, he decided to protect his own property before protecting the King's. This lead to the worst defeat the British Navy ever experienced. Pett was thrown into the Tower of London for punishment.  

The Sail & Color Loft is another haunted building. Workers in the building reported seeing a woman wearing a long flowing dress that usually had the scent of lavender around her. Many of the machinists would claim to be touched on their shoulders by something they couldn't see. One of the former female overseers may be here and she is a mean one who bullies. She pushes people and when she appears, she has no feet and hovers.

Miles and miles of rope were made at the Dockyard over 400 years. The Ropery is one of only four remaining original Royal Navy Ropeyards still in operation. It's a really cool looking building and was built in 1728 and expanded in 1812. The building is said to be haunted by mischievous young ghosts who had been "Bobbin Boys." Ghostly women who are seen in the Spinning Rooms. There is an area near the Ropery where a young drummer boy was murdered and decapitated. He is seen as a headless ghost walking around. This area also has the sound of horses' hooves heard at night. The Joiner's Shop is today a modern business center, but was built in 1790. It originally made treenails, but then was used by the yards joiners. Fun Fact: The Resolute Desk that many US Presidents have used in the Oval Office was made here by Dockyard Joiners from the timbers of the HMS Resolute and that is why it has that name. The Joiner's Shop is haunted by dark spirits. Shadow figures are seen wandering around and people feel like something is oppressing them and that they aren't welcome. Visitors have been dragged from chairs. 
     
The show Most Haunted investigated during Season 4 and Yvette became so scared, she couldn't move. Derek seemed to become possessed by an evil spirit. The group heard disembodied footsteps and shuffling. Nick Richmond was a Duty Manager who lead ghost tours at the time and he told Most Haunted, "We've been doing ghost walks around the dockyard now for about 4 years, and we've experienced strange apparitions. People in the group have said they've seen people as we've been talking. In the Commissioner's House itself, I've been involved in two ghost watches and um we know that we have a presence of a woman who's affectionately known as Mary who took her own life in the house and she's come to me on numerous occasions. I'm always aware of her presence." 

Tour Guide Samantha Hartley told Most Haunted about an experience she had in the Joiner's Shop, "I've actually been pushed over. I've been rocked backwards and forwards as well, which is quite strange. The most common thing that happens is the cold spots, though. You manage to walk into a room, you'll feel the temperature drop dramatically, which is quite strange." Derek Acorah was the medium for the show and he said in the Commissioner's House, " I'm aware of at times a woman's energies. And it's not just here, but at this moment, I'm picking up on the residual a woman's energies moving between these two rooms. And this woman, um, come on, Sam, you give her that back to me again. This woman, if we can, I know it might sound awkward. If we go into that next room, I I'll pick up the energy stronger, I feel. Yes. You know, it's even more evident in this atmosphere here in this room because it's like the psychic antenna, so to speak, is activated here in this energy. So, she would spend a lot more time in this room, but she moves about. She doesn't come through the doors, she just goes through the wall. And this woman, her attitude, her personality is very bossy. And she was used to I feel it's only a feeling at the moment because she is not active here in this room yet, but I know she moves about this house. Absolutely. She is here all the time. And she's not just in visitation. I feel she is not a bad person, by the way. A good person."

All of these location have a long history in Chatham. Britain wouldn't have the Navy it does today without the Chatham Dockyards and the forts that protected it. Are these locations haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 608 - Haunted Cemeteries 31

Moment in Oddity - Yeti Crab (Suggested by: Michael Rogers)

Diane, do you know what the definition of hirsute (HER-suit) is? Hairy, and it's usually used to describe men's chests or sometimes circus performers when they grow an excessive amount of hair on their body. But did you know that there is a crab by that name? Let me introduce you to the Kiwa hirsuta. This crustacean was discovered in 2005 in the South Pacific Ocean along the Pacific-Antarctic Ridge. It is approximately 6 inches in length and is also known by its common name, Yeti Crab or Yeti Lobster. The reason for the Yeti name is due to the quantity of silky blond to white colored setae (SEE-thai) that covers the decapod's body, making it look like a furry yeti. The crabs live along hydrothermal vents, deep in the ocean. Their hairy arms and bodies collect toxins released by the hydrotherms in their environment. This process is known as chemosynthesis. They are thought to be blind and their diets consist of epibiotic bacteria. Our vast and deep oceans contain many strange and unusual creatures, with many of them, likely not having been discovered yet. But a furry white crab that clearly resembles a Yeti, certainly is odd. 

Haunted Cemeteries 31 

Cemeteries just lend themselves to ghost stories.There is hardly a town that doesn't have that one cemetery that has a legend or myth connected to it. These legends are hard to prove, but even without evidence they have staying power. And most people like to believe that their loved ones hang around even after they've died, so why not hang out at the cemetery where they're buried. In this 31st episode of haunted cemeteries, we share cemeteries in Arkansas, Texas, Canada, Oklahoma, Illinois and Indiana. 

Kellers Chapel and Cemetery - Jonesboro, Arkansas

The chapel and cemetery are located at 2401 Kellers Chapel Road in Jonesboro, Arkansas. The Keller family came to Jonesboro in the 1850s and it is believed that this cemetery started as their family cemetery. The earliest burial was for J.W. Keller in 1859. . Many settlers to the area are buried here as well as veterans of the Civil War, Spanish-American War, World Wars I & II, Korean War and Vietnam War. The oldest person in the cemetery is a man named William Murphy Loudermilk who lived to be 105 years old and was the last living veteran of the Confederate Army. This cemetery has a legend connected to the chapel within its borders. It is said that if a guest knocks on the door of the chapel, they will hear a knocking in return. Apparitions are seen walking in the cemetery and the sound of babies crying is also heard. 

Concordia Cemetery - El Paso, Texas

Concordia Cemetery in El Paso, Texas is known as El Paso's Boot Hill. It was established in 1856 and has around 60,000 burials. The site started as a family cemetery for Hugh and Juana Stephenson, who had moved to El Paso from Chihuahua, Mexico. Juana passed in 1856 and Hugh buried her in what would become Concordia Cemetery. People from El Paso would travel the three miles to Concordia to bury their dead. In the 1890s, various areas were bought and set aside for the Jews, the Catholics, the Masons, the Chinese, the Military and Blacks. There are Buffalo Soldiers here, Texas Rangers, gunslinger John Wesley Hardin, Lawmen John Selman. 

That Old West gunslinger Hardin is said to be one of the sirits in the cemetery. There is also a Lady in White people call Lady Flo. The hoofbeats of horses are heard and some people claim to catch children's laughter. Three sisters on a ghost tour in El Paso in 2012 asked the tour guide to take a picture of them in Concordia Cemetery. When they looked at the picture later, they could see what seemed to be a dark figure walking to the side of them. Their brother brightened the picture and there is a clear dark figure of a man in a hat walking. If there wasn't a real person walking there, it certainly is interesting. But what makes it even more interesting, is that this figure has popped up in several pictures through the years. 

Ghost Adventures visited Concordia Cemetery during their 13th season. This was part of their Route 666 Halloween special. The crew was investigating the nearby De Soto Hotel where Richard Ramirez may have conducted Satanic rituals and it is believed these rituals spilled over into the cemetery. The X camera picked up three shadowy figures walking in the distance after Billy does a reading. Billy is so convinced that these are real people, he calls the police to come, but they find no one in the cemetery. 

Burkholder United Cemetery - Hamilton, Ontario 

Some of the first people to arrive on Hamilton Mountain were Jacob Burkholder and his wife Sophia and they came in October 1794. Some of their land was used as a cemetery starting in 1800. The cemetery was officially founded in 1839 as a public burying ground and a small log school was built just inside the entrance. A small church was added in 1850 and everyone called it the "The Little White Church." That church stood for 100 years, until it was demolished in 1955 and replaced with the bigger Burkholder United Church. Stories of weird activity in the cemetery date back to the small church, which would have a strange light run along the roof of the church every time a prominent person died. Occasionally, this orb of light would float over to the house of the person who passed and rest above it. People claimed that this was an angel of some sort. Some claim that the new church has the same mysterious light run along its roof. The churchgoers were very superstitious. They believed that if the cemetery claimed a victim, two more deaths would follow. Kinda like our "deaths in threes" today when it comes to celebrities. A woman in black is seen walking in the cemetery. There is supposedly a double headstone for a wife and husband and when people bend down to get a better look at the husband's name, his wife appears and scares them away. Some pioneer doctor is reputed to have done some grave robbing in the cemetery, once getting away with a body that he boiled pieces of in a huge wash-boiler in his house. A servant girl reported him and he was busted. 

Arapahoe Cemetery in Arapahoe, Oklahoma  

The Arapahoe Cemetery is located in Arapahoe, Oklahoma and was established in 1893. The town of Arapahoe was established after the 1889 Oklahoma Land Run. This had been the land of the Cheyenne and the first American settlers arrived in 1892. The most notable person buried here is Jesse J.W. Lawton. He was the newspaper editor of the Arapahoe Bee for 32 years. As a matter of fact, he passed away at the newspaper office. 

A man named Walter S. Mills wrote of his passing, "LAWTON is dead. The word flew from lip to lip last Monday and it was true. An old timer has passed on. One who for more than thirty years sat at his old table at the Bee office, is gone. And with the passing of Jesse W. LAWTON, Arapaho loses its strongest character. He had his faults. He had his enemies. He knew it, and like a man did not try to deny either. Lawton's pen cut like a knife at times, and his blows were often sledge hammer blows that raised welts and sometimes left scars. But no lick he ever struck was without a purpose. When timid men scudded for cover, Lawton took up his pen and hit the bull's eye. He ridiculed the foibles and lambasted the idocies of the community. In a larger town or a more sophisticated community, they would have laughed-- because the thing did not sound so personal. But in a community that has only one or two fat men, and one or two extra lean ones, and only a handful of all kinds, generalities took the form of personalities and often one with an imaginary injury went gunning for the editor. Lawton had a keen sense of humor and a dauntless courage. He never advocated the side of wrong of lawlessness and he didn't know the meaning of the word policy. But long after lesser lights are forgotten, Lawton will be remembered. He was a man of brain and of character. In other environments, he would have been a great newspaper man. Arapaho has lost its staunchest friend, its truest advocate. Custer County has lost its one outstanding editor. The Bee will go on--but the personality that created it is gone."
       
The haunting here at the cemetery is connected to Robina Smith. She passed away in 1936 when the car she was riding in hit a creamery truck on U.S. Highway 183. When police arrived at the scene, they found several victims frozen to death. Robina had died when her head impaled on the floor-mounted gearshift. She doesn't haunt her plot, but apparently her father does. The haunting started when her father passed in 1972. He had worried that his daughter wasn't a Christian and so wasn't saved and his spirit is heard wailing. EVPs have been captured of him saying "Oh no, oh my God, Robina has not been saved." Others claim to hear it audibly. 

Auxiliary Sable Cemetery

People claim that Auxiliary Sable Cemetery is the scariest cemetery in Illinois. The cemetery is located along Brown Road in Minooka, Illinois. This is one of the oldest rural burial grounds in the area and was founded in 1834, with many burials going back to the 1800s. There are a few hundred burials. What makes this cemetery creepy is that one must drive through a forest on a narrow gravel road to reach the iron gates at the entrance. A windowless shed at the back of the cemetery has been rumored to be a portal. This was more than likely a receiving structure for storing bodies to wait for temperatures to warm up. It's made of stone with metal doors. The main ghost here is a little girl named Adeline Stevenson and much of the activity happens to people's cars. Their electrical may go crazy with lots of bells and whistles and lights going off. Cars may even stall or not restart. Electric windows go down, even without a key in the ignition. Mysterious mists and fires have been seen. Many people have shares their experiences online.

Not Right posted: "As soon as went through those gates the whole energy changed, this was at around 11 at night. You just knew we were not supposed to be there. I was doing a spirit box, and I’ll never forget what it said, Thomas crash die. At the time didn’t take it seriously, but two years later a buddy of mine name Thomas crashed and passed away, and it makes me think."

My Knowledge And Experience wrote: "I’ve had friends go out there and were demonically attacked. A blue glowing dog jumped on the hood, car engines die, the windows going up and down, and the gate closes behind you after you cross the bridge and come into the cemetery. These were some bad-ass guys, and they still to this day will not go back into that cemetery. I have more info, I don’t want to post it, but I think much worse happened out there. My advice would be, all those spirits need to be left alone, and I truly hope they cross over or find some kind of rest, salvation, or find their way home to heaven."
Many of the headstones inside Aux Sable Cemetery date back to the early 1800s. John Ferak/Patch

Awesome remarked: "Went during the middle of the night with a group of like 5. We absolutely 10000 percent saw a ghost car come down the narrow wooded road."

There's Something Off About This Cemetery commented: "I go to a lot of cemeteries because I find them peaceful, and I like to take photos of the cemeteries I've been to. I have never felt that any of them were haunted or had a weird feeling, even at Bachelor's Grove, until I went to this one. I went twice in the same day because a friend wanted to come along later, and I caught a glowing white orb and a transparent dark orange glow with my professional camera. One in the day, and one at night ... I am officially spooked out. When I was here alone in the day, I had a really weird feeling. I heard crying twice from the forest and lots of shuffling and footsteps behind me. When I walked up to the rusty door, there was a loud bang once coming from inside, and it scared the shit out of me because it was completely quiet until I walked up to it. I'm not blowing smoke. I have NEVER encountered anything unusual in cemeteries before this one! Really weird!" 

Handprints And A Welcoming Feeling Wrote: "Handprints in the dust on my buddies previously clean car. We go all the time. Using a box, the spirits like to speak to us, as we’re younger, both 17. They seem to remember us. I wore pink the first time I went and every time I go they seem to say 'he’s back, pink' over and over. It’s surreal, but I don’t feel weird being there. I feel like I’m welcome, it’s odd." 

Stepp Cemetery

And then there is what is said to be the most haunted cemetery in Indiana. This is the Stepp Cemetery located near Bloomington, Indiana. It was named for Reuben Steep who owned the land. Apparently, the cemetery was already on the land when Stepp bought it in 1856. We're not sure when the cemetery was established, but the oldest burial is for Isaac Headstocks in 1850. He was a veteran of the War of 1812. It's unclear how many people are buried here, but only around 50 tombstones remain. This is a rural cemetery, so doesn't get much care. The state of Indiana bought it in 1929. But before that, a group of people who had some weird religious beliefs, would meet in the cemetery. They were known as Crabbites - which sounds like a tasty appetizer - but definitely was not. A man named Reverend William Crabc founded a cultish religion named Church of the First Born. He had quite a following in the early 1900s because he was a great orator even though he had little education. He detested worshiping inside a meeting house, wanting to be out in nature. So he would bring his flock of 300 out into the woods near the cemetery and he would clamber up on a tree stump and start preaching. And then he would bring out the snakes. Oh yes, these were snake handlers. This is really how Reverend Crabb got his start with people following him. He was like a sideshow who charmed people into listening to him. Crabb asked for no money and he fathered thirteen children, twelve of them girls. He got his followers comfortable with handling rattlesnakes and they would speak in tongues ans sometimes even dance naked among the tombstones. The group eventually moved on, but they left in their wake the negative energy they may have conjured in the cemetery with their bizarre rituals.

After the state took over the cemetery, stories began to circulate about haunting activity. There was a tree stump in a far corner that had the appearance of a chair and so people started calling it the Warlock Chair. This was next to an infant's grave and visitors would claim to see a woman in black visiting the grave. She often sat in the stump chair and appeared to be rocking. People would swear she was holding a baby as she rocked. On some nights, she would have no baby and would be heard weeping. She disappears when approached and that isn't a good idea - to approach her - because sometimes visitors have had trouble starting their cars or their headlights won't work. 

A woman named Annie Hacker lost three of her children and she was so broken by that that people believe she may be the crying woman in black who has returned to the cemetery. There is a curse connected to the Warlock Chair too. Anyone who sits in it will have misfortune come upon them and there are some whom claim that the person who sits on the stump will die within the year. A story claims that a German Shepherd who jumped onto it was found dead the next morning. Ashley Hood who wrote Haunted Cemeteries of Indiana in 2020 shares that one evening when she was in the cemetery with a group, they heard the weeping of a woman and it was very chilling. Ashley Hood writes in her book about other legends connected to the Lady in Black , "In another version of this story, Anna was a wife and mother. Her husband, Jacob, was killed in a quarry accident and buried in Stepp Cemetery. Anna reportedly turned all of her attention to their sixteen-year-old daughter, Emily, and became protective of the girl. When Emily was invited to a dance, Anna had her reservations but allowed her daughter to attend. The weather turned rainy that night. Returning home from the dance, the car with Emily and her date slid off the road, hitting a tree. Emily was killed instantly. Anna had her daughter buried in Stepp Cemetery next to Jacob. Anna visited Emily’s grave every day and was often seen by locals, draped in black, sitting on the large stump and speaking to her daughter as if she were still alive. Much as with the previous tale, the sorrowful spirit of Anna is said to remain in the cemetery, mourning the loss of her daughter. There is potentially some truth to this tale, as there is a Jacob and Anna Adkins buried in Stepp Cemetery. The couple had eleven children, one of whom, Ida Mae, passed away at the age of seventeen. She was buried in Frye Cemetery, also known as Taylor or McGowan Cemetery, located on North Low Gap Road in the Morgan-Monroe State Forest, not far from Stepp Cemetery."

There is a grave for a baby named Lester buried near the Adkins family that always has gifts piled up around it - particularly toys. It is always so tragic to see these graves for infants. Poor little Lester didn't even have a chance to live. He was born Paul Lester and stillborn. His parents were O'leathia and Harley Lester and they were 16 and 21 respectively. Certainly not equipped to deal with losing a child at birth. Trying to find a real history behind Baby Lester is, as the Orange Bean Indiana blog describes it as finding, "a few flakes and nuggets, but mostly [just] sludge." And the legend goes on to claim that Lester died in a car wreck, or was it a fire or... His mother, the lady in black, comes to visit his grave often. People hear her weeping and sometimes she screams. Ashley Hood shares, "In truth, Baby Lester passed away after taking only a few breaths in 1937. His mother, Olethia Pryor Lester, and father, Harley Lester, eventually divorced. Olethia later married James Walls and moved to Indianapolis. It is unlikely that Olethia is the woman in black, as she lived to be eighty-five years old, passing away in 2007, long after the reports of the woman in black began. She is buried in Oaklawn Memorial Gardens in Fishers, Indiana."

Many of the legends connected to the cemetery started in the 1950s and increased in the 1970s as young people visited the cemetery for late night parties and shared the stories. They embellished real things as well. For example, the German Shepherd did die, but it was at the hands of a group of cruel boys who found themselves in court for their actions. Another story is told about a son of Reuben Stepp dying over a property dispute and being buried here at the cemetery and he supposedly rises to confront people trespassing in the cemetery. But the only Stepps buried here are Reuben and one of his grandsons who died as an infant. A similar story predates the Stepp family and claims that the property dispute was between two sons of the previous owner. They decided to have a duel because their father had passed without telling them, which of them was to inherit the land. And they managed to kill each other. No graves seem to back up this story, but there are those that claim there is at least one angry spirit in the cemetery. This entity could be connected to the Crabbites. There is also the spirit of a woman wearing a long white dress that is thought to be connected to the Crabbites. Another ghost here is said to belong to a young woman who was murdered in the nearby Morgan-Monroe State Forest. Because her killer was never found, she wanders the cemetery near where her body ended up. There was a murder of an Indiana University student named Ann Harmeier in 1977. Her car was found on Indiana 37, abandoned because it had overheated. Her body was found two miles from Martinsville, which is 12 miles away from Stepp Cemetery. So more than likely not her. So who is this young woman seen in the cemetery? 

And then there is a legend about a Hookwoman. She lost her hand in an accident she had, that killed her young son. She replaced that with a hook and she would visit her son's grave in the Stepp Cemetery. After she died, she continued to visit with her hook hand. She chases off trespassers in the cemetery. And this cemetery even has stories about Bigfoot being seen in the nearby woods and a group of strange men wearing white cloaks. 

It really does make sense that there would be spirits in cemeteries since this is where bodies are buried. But we do always wonder who would want to hang around their dead and decaying body. Are these cemeteries haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 607 - Mizpah Hotel

This Month in History - National Hagfish Day

In the month of October, on the 21st, in 2009, National Hagfish Day was established by the non-profit marine conservation organization WhaleTimes. Hagfish are a strange looking, jawless, slime-producing fish that live deep on the oceans floors. Found around the globe, the peculiar fish play an important role as scavengers, cleaning the ocean floor and recycling nutrients. They prefer silty, muddy bottoms that they can burrow into. Similar to the shape of an eel, the hagfish has also been likened to that of a giant, pink worm. The extreme slime threads produced by these unique creatures can be used as ultra strong fibers for clothing. The slime can be spun into threads, similar to spider silk or Kevlar. The purpose of creating National Hagfish Day is to appreciate the less charismatic creatures of the ocean, the important role they play in the marine ecosystem, and the threats they face such as overfishing and pollution. National Hagfish Day is celebrated annually on the third Wednesday of every October.

***So, the take-away is that slimy hagfish haute couture, may be coming to a store near you!?  

Mizpah Hotel

The Mizpah Hotel has been voted the number one haunted hotel by a couple of publications. Not surprising for a hotel that has stood for 120 years. And it's been able to stand this long because this is one strong hotel. This building was formed from concrete, stone and brick in the Nevada town of Tonopah near the height of its mining boom. The lighted sign that sits on the roof can be seen from miles away. We wonder if that sign not only attracts travelers to come and stay the night, but does it get the attention of spirits as well? There are several spirits here, including a Lady in Red. Oh, and did you know that the Clown Motel is in Tonopah too. We'll talk about that as well. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Mizpah Hotel. 

Tonopah was the Queen of the Silver Camps. The town is located between Las Vegas and Reno in Nevada and began with the second richest silver strike in the state. How this silver was discovered is a matter of which story one wants to believe. A prospector named Jim Butler had married a Paiute woman and he more than likely learned from her tribe that there was some pretty silver minerals in the area. But the legendary story is much more interesting. Apparently, Butler had a burro that got away from him one night and he was quite frustrated looking for it the next day. When he found the creature, he picked up a rock to throw at it and he noticed the rock was really heavy and then he realized it was silver and BOOM! So 1900 would see the birth of another Nevada mining town. The town was named for Butler until 1905 when it was changed to Tonopah. Men flooded the town looking for their fortunes and this included many Chinese men as well. One of these men was a 24-year-old George Wingfeild. He was a gambler and found great success at the poker tables and soon had a gaming license. He had a friend come to town and start a bank, which he invested in and the men partnered in buying mines and supplying miners. They headed off for Goldfield later, having made around $30 million in Tonopah and knowing that the town would soon go bust. The mining in town peaked in 1913 and then slid until 1921 when the town's population was half what it had been. But before that bust, the Mizpah Saloon was the place to be in town. 

The Mizpah Saloon was a one-story building and shared a name with one of the mines. Mizpah comes from a Hebrew word meaning lookout. The word was connected to a story in the Bible featuring Jacob and his father-in-law Laban and a promise they made between each other. The erected a pile of stones as this mizpah watchtower and this served as a witness between the two men and God. This then became a word that represented an emotional bond between people and there is special mizpah jewelry inspired by this. Jim Butler's wife Belle is the one who gave one of the mines the name Mizpah. It was the richest and most successful in the town. 

The Mizpah Hotel was built by George Wingfield, George S. Nixon, Cal Brougher and Bob Govan in 1907 from reinforced concrete with stones on the front and bricks on the sides and rear. Architect George E. Holesworth designed the hotel, which stood five stories, matching the height of the Belvada Building that was built the previous year. The buildings shared the title of tallest building in the town. The Mizpah also had a three-story building next door that had rooms on the upper floors and businesses on the ground floor. The buildings were connected with a wood stairway crowned with a skylight. It cost $200,000 to build and was one of the first luxury hotels in the state of Nevada, featuring leaded glass windows, solid granite walls, Victorian-era appointments, solid oak furniture, and an electric elevator, which was unheard of at the time. There was also hot and cold running water and steam heating. 

There are many legends connected to the hotel, most of them not having any truth to them. One legend about the bar at the hotel claims that Wyatt Earp kept the bar at the Mizpah. That wasn't true. Earp did move to Tonopah in 1902 and he did co-found a saloon, but that was called The Northern. He served as a private police force for the town as well, mostly going after claim jumpers. Apparently, Earp left town before the Mizpah Hotel was ever built. Another legend claims that Jack Dempsey was a bouncer, but he always maintained that he had never been a bouncer. He did, however, box in Tonopah in bare knuckle fights and some of them lasted up to 25 rounds. And then there is the legend that Howard Hughes married Jean Peters at the Mizpah. Hughes did get married in town, but it wasn't at this hotel. 

And then there is the legend connected to Key Pittman. Pittman had been a powerful Democrat senator in the U.S. Senate. He advocated for and supported the silver industry in his home state of Nevada, so everyone called him the Silver Senator. He was  running for a sixth term in the U.S. Senate in 1940 when he died. Apparently, the Senator liked his drink and he was drinking heavily as he campaigned through Nevada. On November 4, Pittman had a heart attack and was hospitalized where two separate doctors said he would die shortly. Newspapers were told that he was just exhausted and resting at the hospital. The next day was election day and people went to the polls and re-elected Pittman. Pittman did die on November 10th. Now, some stories claimed that Pittman had the heart attack in Reno, but the more interesting tale claims that he was in Tonopah and that he actually died before the election and was put on ice in the hotel. The truth was hidden, so that people would vote for him. The book "The Green Felt Jungle" shared this legend and it became fact. So while Nevadans like to share a story that their state once elected a dead man, that wasn't true. But the story of Pittman on ice in a bathtub at the Mizpah continues to be told by some in the town today. 

The 1940s also saw gaming come to the hotel. The first chips were issued in 1945. Guests could play at the craps table, roulette wheel, poker and blackjack tables and slot machines. The Mizpah closed in 2000 and sat abandoned. Today, the hotel is owned by Fred and Nancy Cline who purchased the property in 2010. They restored the hotel to its prior glory, keeping the lobby full of plush antiques that transports one back to a previous era. The doors reopened in 2011 and rooms offer elegance and luxury linens. There is the Lady in Red Suite or the Jim & Belle Butler Suite, and the latter suite has a bed frame made from a wagon. The Pittman Cafe is award-winning and offers great breakfast fare. The Jack Dempsey Room serves up dinner and the Longshot Bar has drinks.

The Mizpah Hotel embraces their haunted reputation by offering ghosts tours that incorporate a little bit of hunting. Several employees will say that they didn't believe in ghosts before working at the hotel, but after being at the hotel for awhile, they are true believers. There are several spirits at the hotel. Ghost children run and laugh through the upper floors. They like to play pranks on hotel guests. And strangely, there is a soldier that roams the grounds. Perhaps a carry over from the Civil War or maybe even the Paiute War of 1860. Some claim to see him wearing a World War II uniform. He is seen often on the 4th floor. A bellhop wanders the floors with people's luggage. We're not sure how he came to his end, but it must have been while he was working. And even though we don't know if Key Pittman was actually in this hotel...and on ice...there are those who claim his spirit is here and they say they have seen his apparition. Two bank robbers have their spirits hiding in the basement. It is here that they met their ends at the hands of their third partner in crime who betrayed them and murdered them both and made off with all the loot. There is anger here and people feel unsettled in the basement. 

The most famous spirit here is The Lady in Red. I feel like we should cue Chris De Burgh's song about his wife. The story about the Lady in Red has nothing to do with being a wife though. This woman was a prostitute. She often worked in the Mizpah Hotel and she had one of those clients who decided that he wanted her all to himself. So he put her up on the 5th floor of the Mizpah hotel in a suite. That suite today has been broken up into three rooms to give you an idea of how big this was. No one is sure if she was strangled, beaten or stabbed to death, but she died on the 5th floor after her lover went into a jealous rage.  

Much of the paranormal activity at the hotel is attributed to her . She messes with the elevator, especially when it is on the 5th floor. Her disembodied whispers are heard, often by men, and this usually happens in the elevator. This is how she would have escorted men to her room back in the day. But the really weird thing that happens is that guests will find a single pearl under their pillows in the morning. This is said to be from the pearl necklace she was wearing on the night she died. Cordero Gomez wrote on the blog Traveling Fiction, "While I didn’t witness any paranormal activity in the room, lobby, or roaming the halls, my daughters described hearing whispers at night. They also said their bed lifted up. That’s some weird and spooky stuff. However, I didn’t hear or see anything, despite a restless night’s sleep. Many instances of hearing strange noises can rightly be assigned to the building settling, guests roaming the halls, the elevator opening, or the wind. However, while my youngest daughter and I were exploring the upper floors, my wife, Amber, and my eldest daughter heard a knock on the door. When Amber answered it, no one was there. Cliché, yes. Classic, most definitely. I can come up with theories, such as the knock coming from the room across the hall, or naughty children ding-dong ditching. What I can’t account for, however, is why there were no creaking or thuds from the floorboards? Is it proof of life after death? I don’t think so, but it is certainly unexplained." Steven B. wrote, "My husband and I recently stayed on the second floor, Room 207. The floor itself felt very heavy when we stepped off the elevator and, in fact, uncomfortable. We didn't have anything happen while awake. However, we did not sleep well. I have never been one who has a lot of dreams or nightmares, but I had one after another while trying to sleep there, so did my husband. From talking in our sleep, to yelling out and in fact I woke with a bruise on my arm that had not been there when I had gone to bed that night. After checking out of the hotel, we compared notes on our dreams and nightmares and found that we both had similar dreams...and in fact one of them actually was the same dream. I can't find anything written about a bellman in this hotel, but he and a very angry woman in period clothes seemed to frequent both our dreams the whole night. My husband also had a woman whisper "hey you" in his ear while in the lobby bathroom."

Yvette wrote, "I stayed in Room 205 with my 9lbs dog. She woke up around 3am startled and was looking back as if someone was trying to pet her. She jumped off the bed and proceeded to "avoid" this person for 5 minutes. I also felt a light touch on my ankle around midnight but dismissed it as nothing. The next morning, I noticed a thumb sized bruise on my left arm as well as a smaller one as if someone had pinched me." Hebert wrote, "The breakfast coffee station on the fifth floor is the corner of the floor where the lady in red is said to be. We were at the opposite end of the floor and my partner heard children playing in the hall way in the night, but there were no children on the floor." 

Letsctheworld wrote, "We are in the wagon wheel room right now. My husband was sitting in the chair while I'd gone down to get ice and he was tapped on the shoulder three times." Jill Delaney wrote in 2024, "My daughter and I stayed in the Lady in Red room in July of 2024. We went on the evening ghost tour, which was really cool. I felt something heavy pounce on the foot of the bed. It didn’t feel light like a cat, though. I woke up and gasped in fright, expecting the sheets to next get pulled off the bed. That didn’t happen, but for a split second I saw a large black dog curled up on the foot of the bed who was gazing at me with kind eyes. And then the image was gone. My daughter didn’t wake up at all. I asked the clerk in the morning if others have mentioned a ghost dog. She said that she sometimes sees a large black dog out of the corner of her eye, but when she turns nothing is there. Pretty cool." 

Ghost Adventures investigated the hotel in 2011. A static night vision camera was placed in the basement and captured a shadow figure. Zak also saw a shadow and this blocked out a light coming from under the door. They caught EVPs saying "Dammit, What The Heck", "We Got Work To Do", some moaning, an unexplained voice, an unexplained scream, "Hey You" and "I'm Evil." Nick said he felt as though something went through his body. The crew also heard knocking and banging. An elevator that no longer works suddenly opened and closed its doors. 

Sam and Colby visited in 2022 and the woman at the front desk said that she was standing next to a guest who was taking pictures in the lobby and in one of the pictures, they captured the Lady in Red. The woman described her as being in a red period dress and it looked as though she were captured in mid-waltz across the room. They were excited to see a rocking chair in their room because Connor Randall, one of the inventors of the ESTES Method, told them that rocking chairs enhance the session because of the rocking leading to a trance-like experience quickly. There were two women with the guys and the group was down in the basement where a vault had been and one of the girls was touched on the back of her neck. She had long hair so it had to go through the hair. The guide who was taking them through the basement had felt something touch the back of her head a little before this. This guide told them the following story, "I guess I'll start with the first time that I did an investigation. It was just me, Celia and Jonathan. I'm standing here, Celia is here, Jonathan is there. Celia all of a sudden starts like moving backward. She's like, I just got groped. Then all of a sudden I jump and I was like what the *F*, something just grabbed my leg full on and squeezed it. Then Jonathan's standing here and he goes, "Something is grabbing me." His whole sleeve was like [and she pulls the sleeve out away from her arm]. So all three of us got touched or grabbed." They used a spirit box and the Lady in Red identified herself as Evelyn. They think her name was Evelyn May Johnson. Most people refer to her as Rose, which could've been a pseudonym. They returned to the hotel again in 2023. 

There are other haunted locations in Tonopah. The town has seen some tragedy. There was the Tonopah Plague, which swept through the town in 1905. What started as chest pains lead to death within a number of hours. People's livers turned black and hard as stone. It was believed that poor sanitation led to the illness. Hundreds died. In the early hours of February 23, 1911, a fire broke out in the Belmont Mine, at least 1100 feet deep.   

A man named William 'Big Bill' Murphy set out to rescue the trapped miners in the mine and he went down in the cage and returned with it full. He went a second time and then a third. When the cage got to the surface, Big Bill was not on board and one of the injured miners said that someone had fallen out of the cage. It was Bill, of course. His last words before he went down that third time were, "Well boys, I've made two trips and I'm nearly all in, but I'll try again." Bill was only 28-years-old and he had saved many men. His tombstone in the Tonopah Cemetery reads, "Died while saving others." Seventeen miners lost their lives that day, along with Big Bill. There was another fire in 1942. The Tonopah Historic Mining Park is located where several f the original mines were located. The park covers 100 acres and offers history exhibits, self-guided tours and ATV tours. The park is open seven days a week and hosts a few spirits. The name of one of the ghosts is Bina Verrault and she is said to be elegant and smart. Hard to believe she was a criminal. She apparently was on the run from the law, having made it to Nevada from New York City. Bina died of alcoholism and was buried in the Old Tonopah Cemetery. She is seen looking out of the windows of buildings. The disembodied voices of dead miners is heard and people have captures anomalies on their cameras.

The Tonopah Liquor Company is a historic saloon that was established in 1906. They have over 100 whiskeys on site. There are a couple of ghosts here. One is Hattie who is believed to be a former barmaid. She seems to love children and is a benevolent spirit. The other is George Davis who went by the nickname Devil. He loves to play pranks because he was a trickster in real life. Apparently, he was a black man whose wife shot him in the back. He had abused her so she was only given a year in prison for it.

The Vanwood Variety Store had been the Nye County Bank. The building was constructed in 1902 and was Tonopah’s first permanent stone building. Visitors and staff in the store say that there are cold spots, unusual lights, strange sounds and disembodied voices. The spirit here may belong to a former bank employee who died inside the old basement safe. The Old Tonopah Cemetery was founded in 1901. There are 300 graves in this dusty cemetery. Burials stopped in 1911. People claim to see mysterious lights in the cemetery and they hear strange noises. Full-bodied apparitions are seen walking among the tombstones. They have self-guided maps, so a cool place to visit. And wouldn't you know that this cemetery sits right next door to the infamous Clown Motel. 

The Clown Motel was built in 1985 by the children of Clarence David, Leona & Leroy. Clarence had been buried in the Tonopah Cemetery and so they decided to open a motel next to it. Their father had collected clowns, so they used the motel to display all 150 pieces of that collection. There are clown statues, dolls, paintings and toys. In 1995, Bob and Deborah Perchetti bought The Clown Motel because they lived in Tonopah.  Bob ran the hotel for twenty years and it was popular with motorcyclists, but traffic was slow. That was until Ghost Adventures visited in 2015. 

Zak's crew put the motel on the map. People not only visited, but sent clowns from all over the world. There are now around 6,000 clown items. During their investigation they caught a shadow figure and they had "Hello, it turned on" come across the Spirit Box. And they caught the hand of a large clown moving off it's leg entirely of it's own accord on camera. In 2017, Bob decided to retire and put the motel up for $ 900,000 with the strict condition that the new owners had to keep the clown collection at the motel. The motel sold in 2019 to the Mehar family and they have embraced the Clown Motel's haunted reputation. Vijay Mehar worked as a Master Chef in hotels around the world and he has worked hard to renovate the motel. He gave it a 360-degree facelift by revamping its exterior adding clown colors and polka dots to give it a real circus look. Jolly the Clown has become the brand of the motel and so there are two Jolly Clown cutouts that stand 19ft. tall on the outside. There are themed rooms featuring the Exorcist, Friday the 13th, IT, Fear Unlimited and a Chucky Room. They offer ghost hunting at the motel. If you do want to record videos, there are rules and money and such, which seems to be a growing trend in some of these haunted locations. And reviews indicate that it is scary for all the wrong reasons. People do claim to have experienced objects being moved, hearing disembodied voices, seeing full-bodied apparitions and experiencing unexplained cold spots and hearing strange sounds. EVPS include "we mined" and "we died that day." One guest had a terrifying dream of a headless lady in a rocking chair.

Tonopah has a deep mining history and the tragedies in the town lend themselves to hauntings. Is the Mizpah Hotel and these other locations haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 606 - Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp

Moment in Oddity - Lung Tree (Chelsea Flowers)

In April of 2009, a 28 year old man named Artyom Sidorkin had been experiencing chest pain and was coughing up blood. He subsequently went to a hospital in Izhevsk, Russia. The hospital performed x-rays of the man and determined that there was a tumor in his chest area. A biopsy was ordered and while being performed, it is said that the surgeon discovered not a tumor, but a small fir tree sapling. It was believed that the plant's needles had been pricking the man's lungs, causing the blood and pain. According to a newspaper article, the doctor stated that the branch was too large to have been inhaled or swallowed, but must have grown from an inhaled seed. A plant ecology researcher from Toronto shared his thoughts on the discovery stating, "It looks like a hoax to me, it's dark inside a lung, and most seeds need light to stimulate germination and to grow. I don't see how it could get anywhere near that size without photosynthesis". Also noted in the x-ray was a shoulder growth plate that was not yet fused which indicates a pediatric case and not a 28 year old man. We have been told as children not to swallow watermelon seeds because then a watermelon plant would grow inside our tummies, but the thought of having a tree sapling growing in a person's lungs, certainly is odd. 

Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp

There are two main Spiritualist Camps in America dating back to the Victorian Era: Lilydale in New York and Cassadaga in Florida. We've visited Cassadaga several times, which is known as the Psychic Capital of the World. Almost as often as St. Augustine, and like St. Augustine, Cassadaga oozes spiritual energy. While some people might think that Spiritualism was just a craze during the Victorian Era, it is a real religion that still exists today and is recognized by the military as a standard religion. There are around 13 million practicing Spiritualists in the world today. Many of them still live in Cassadaga and there seems to be many spirits in this small town, not only of the Spiritualists who have already transitioned, but perhaps of the many spirits called to the town. Join us for the history and hauntings of the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp. 

The practice and beliefs around modern spiritualism have their beginnings in the Victorian era in the 1840s, but even before that there were The Shakers. The Shakers were a communal Protestant sect that was founded in England in the mid-1700s. This was a breakaway group from the Quakers and a woman named Ann Lee joined the Shakers with her parents in 1758. Very early on, the Shakers recognized Ann as a prophetic voice who shared visions. She married and had four children, all of whom died in infancy. Her marriage faltered and she decided to emigrate to America, which she did in 1774 and she brought her Shaker religion with her. Ann settled in New York and built her commune there with everyone referring to her as Mother Ann Lee. The Shakers invented things like the clothespin, the broom, Shaker furniture and the circular saw, which we shared in a Moment in Oddity. Communicating with spirits started creeping into the practice in the early 1800s and they would entertain trance speakers. The Shaker community eventually lost members and today there are just a handful of communities. Many of the Shakers moved over to this new religion that embraced spirit communication and that was Spiritualism.

Andrew Jackson Davis was born on August 11, 1826 in Blooming Grove, New York. Davis claimed that he grew up fairly poor with an alcoholic father and a very religious mother. And she apparently was clairvoyant. The family relocated to the Poughkeepsie area. Shortly after turning fourteen, Davis realized he had a gift where he could diagnose illnesses and he started to teach himself hypnotism. He took on the nickname "The Poughkeepsie Seer" and he wrote "I have a body, a tangible body – I reside in the form – but is it my natural or spiritual body? Is it adapted to the outer world, or to the post-mortem life? Where am I? Oh, I am so lonely! Alas, if this be death!" 

Davis decided to use his gifts through a medical clinic and he opened one with a partner named William Levingston. This magnetic healing, as he called it, progressed to giving lectures and spreading the principles of Spiritualism. He felt that this wasn't just a religious movement, but that it was scientific and that it would make man "happier, and wiser, and better." Davis would enter a trance and write down what he learned in books. His writings became the foundation for American Spiritualism. One of the spirits he claimed to in contact with was the spirit of Swedenborg and there was a Greek physician named Galen. One of the lectures Davis gave was on mesmerism and Edgar Allen Poe was in the audience. It inspired him to write the short story "The Facts in the Case of M. Valdemar." Davis really helped the growth of the Spiritualist movement, despite criticism that referred to him as a crazy "coot" and pointed out that his books were filled with scientific errors. But Spiritualism was going to get a real boost from another area of New York. Three years after Davis had his first trance experience, the Hydesville Rappings occurred. This phenomenon is named for the city where it happened, Hydesville, New York. The Fox family had moved into a two-room cottage in the city in March of 1848. The family had two daughters, Margaretta and Catherine who were known as Maggie and Kate, and shortly after they moved into the cottage the two girls claimed to hear knocking on the walls. The two sisters quickly figured out that a spirit was trying to communicate with them. Neighbors and other family members witnessed the rappings, both hearing and feeling them. They investigated to see if they could figure out what was causing the noise, but nothing was found. The girls decided to name the entity Mr. Splitfoot. 

At first, Mr. Splitfoot communicated in very simple ways, like one rap for yes, two raps for no. The Fox sisters' older brother David, developed an alphabet to make the communication more in depth. You can imagine how long this took going A, B, C, D, knock, okay. The sisters also incorporated table tipping. So, they're communicating with whatever had been knocking on this wall and this entity tells them that he was a peddler, that he had come here to sell his wares and the people who lived in this house had murdered him and buried him under the house. As news traveled about the Fox Sisters, they became hugely popular and they began touring the country. 

Those tours inspired people into hosting seances in their parlors. The sisters admitted sometime later that they were frauds and the that the knocking noises people heard were actually created by them. Apparently, they would crack the knuckles of their toes. We don't know how they were doing that and making it loud enough to sound like knocking on a wall. They eventually reneged on that confessions and claimed they really were talking to spirits. So who know, but when they excavated under that cottage later, they did find the bones of a male. Maybe a peddler had been murdered and really buried there. Another key figure in the movement was Emma Hardinge Britten. She was born in London in 1823. She got involved in the theater and traveled with a company to New York in 1856. When there, she met a medium named Ada Hoyt who converted her to Spiritualism. Britten mastered automatic writing, psychometry (which is reading objects by feeling them), prophecy and healing. Robert Dale Owen was an American statesman who communicated with Britten after he died and he gave her the first four of the seven original principles of Spiritualism. British spiritualists still adhere to these principles, while the American Association has drafted its own set of principles. Britten was one of the most zealous spiritualists in history and she took her message around the world. Another pioneer to Spiritualism in America was a very unlikely person, a Chief Justice of the New York State Supreme Court. Judge John W. Edmonds wrote the book "Spiritualism" in 1853 detailing his investigations of mediums. He had witnessed hundreds of manifestations. His book outraged the churches and politicians and they, along with the press, forced the Judge to resign the bench and return to private practice. Despite the negative response of much of the public, many high profile people were embracing this new spiritual science. The Lincolns used mediums and participated in seances, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle was a true believer as were Elizabeth Barrett Browning, William Cullen Bryant, Thomas Carlyle, Emily Dickinson, Sir William Crookes, Edgar Allen Poe, Alfred Russell Wallace, Mark Twain, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Queen Victoria, and W. B. Yeats. 

Another adherent was George Prescott Colby who was born in New York in 1848. He became a teacher as an adult. His relationship with Spiritualism started early with him demonstrating mediumship abilities starting at the age of twelve. Through the years, he seemed to gather spirit guides around him. There was a Native American spirit named Seneca, then a German guide named The Philosopher, a healing guide named Wandah and another named Professor Hoffman. He became ill with tuberculosis. Legends connected to Colby claim that during a seance he was told to establish a Spiritualist Camp down south and a group traveled to Jacksonville, Florida and Seneca told them to travel to Blue Springs to establish a town. This is an interesting legend, but almost certainly an embellishment. The truth was that a doctor told Colby that Florida would be good for his tuberculosis. 

Colby homesteaded in 1875 and named the town Cassadaga after the city in New York. There was a lake here that he named Lake Colby, for himself, and he built a large house on the west side of the lake. The house burned down in 1911, but he rebuilt. Colby started a chicken and dairy farm, planted an orange grove and opened a lumber business. And what started as 35 acres, grew to 57 acres. He granted access to parts of his property and sold plats and a group of 13 Spiritualists from De Leon Spring Camp started the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp in 1894. Campers came from the north in the winter and lived in tents. Eventually, they built cottages and a post office, grocery store and pavilion were added. And a three-story hotel named Cassadaga Hotel was also built. The main thoroughfare in town is Stevens Street and the neighborhood along it started with a woman named Anna Stevens. She platted the subdivision after buying one large plat. Anna built a beautiful Victorian home that still stands. She left before paying out the balance of her mortgage and the new camp assumed that. In 1926, a fire ripped through and burned down everything. Buildings were rebuilt and today there is the rebuilt Hotel Cassadaga and a temple/auditorium that is known as The Colby Memorial Temple, a large educational building built named Andrew Jackson Davis Educational Building, Harmony Hall and Brigham Hall.

We had never done the Encountering Spirits Night Tour, so we decided to give it a whirl. Diane had done the historical tour before and it explained more about Spiritualism and how their main goal had been to prove the afterlife with science and that they don't believe in death, rather that we transition. Spiritualists adopted the sunflower as their symbol because the sunflower turns to the sun as spiritualism turns to the truth. There is a certification to work as a medium in Cassadaga and there are dozens available for readings. Back in the day, you could visit the camp from October to March it was 10 cents a day to enter. If you stayed for the whole season it was two dollars and 50 cents. 

The tour met in the Andrew Jackson Davis Building, which is also the bookstore there. There is a lot of activity going on in this building. The building was completed in 1904 and initially served as the new Pavilion with a dance floor. The dances hosted here attracted people from other towns, particularly during World War II. The floorboards had pretty big gaps between them and when people were dancing, the change that was in their pockets would fly out and down through the cracks and the children in town would crawl under the building to collect the change. The Pavilion was renovated in 1974 and the roof was lowered and the walls were paneled. The Andrew Jackson Davis name was given to it two years later in 1976. Another renovation in 1985 transformed the front part of the building into the bookstore. We checked in and gathered in the back room for a Power Point presentation on Spiritualism and orbs. Here is a video of that back room. The focus of the tour was going to be catching orbs in pictures. We had only been sitting for about five minutes when a flashlight across the room turned itself on. (Flashlight On 1) At the end there you hear us mention that our K2 has gone off and gone up to red. This happened multiple times. The second time, a couple behind us shared something that verified the activity. (Pedulum) So very interesting that their pendulum started swinging crazy and then our K2 went crazy. Here are a couple of videos featuring the K2. The flashlights turned on and off several times. There were cat balls in a couple spots also and there were two at the front that were about 6 inches apart from each other and they both went off at the same time. Our two guide shared this story that happened to her to illustrate how spirits might help us. (Drive Story 1)

Some of the activity described happening here include people hearing change dropping on the floor. They'll hear band music playing and there are no instruments in this room at all and they will hear children that are running around laughing and specifically there is a little boy and a little girl that haunt this place and they like to get into a lot of mischief so they do a lot of poltergeist type activity. People also feel cold spots. On one area of the wall there used to be a door that people would come in that was the main door. This former door has been paneled over and the reason why they paneled it over was because spirits used that door like a portal. They felt this was the only way to stop all the spirits from coming in. 

We headed out onto Stevens Street and worked our way down to the Colby Temple. There are two buildings across from each other that are called Harmony Hall and Brigham Hall and both have paranormal activity. Harmony Hall is a long, two-story building that was constructed in 1895 and served as a boarding house to accommodate winter guests. There were suites of three rooms that could be rented separately or together and there was a shared kitchen in the center. In just one season, they had 33,000 people come through Harmony Hall. Since it only had 16 rooms, that's a lot of turnover of people coming in and out. Our guide shared that a picture was taken on a tour that featured three faces in a window. She showed it to an 89-year-old medium in town one day and she said, "Oh, that's my husband, my mother and my daughter." Then she asked if the guide would print the photo off so that she could hang it in her home as a family photo. 

Brigham Hall was an apartment building constructed in 1898 by Dr. Hubbard and Sarah Brigham and Fred and Kate Brigham. There were 18 single rental rooms and they even accommodated extra people with quilts in the attic. Ownership changed in 1912 and then the Cassadaga Spiritualist Camp Meeting Association bought it in 1913 and they remodeled kit in 1928 into four private 3-room apartments with private bathrooms and that is how it is today. They conducted community seances on the third floor and so they have quite a bit of hauntings that are going on up there. A lot of the time they'll hear up on the third floor, tables dragging across the floor, chairs dragging across the floor and the floors will creak like there's people walking around. Our tour guide told us that a woman in period clothing is seen often in the downstairs hallway and has been captured in pictures taken from outside the door, shooting down the hallway. This woman is also seen going in and out of the front door every so often. 

The Norman House is next to Harmony Hall. Between the two is a camphor tree that has been cut back several times into a stump and it always grows back. A picture has been carved into the trunk and there is a story that goes with this. First, let's talk about the house. It was built in 1906 and this is one of those houses you could order out of the Sears Roebuck catalog when they sold kit houses. This particular house was an Aladdin home and that means that it had a big wraparound porch on it so it's really cool. Inside, there's a portrait of the family who had lived there at one time and they had an eight-year-old daughter named Evelyn Phelps, but they called her Neesh and she was very ill and she ended up dying in the house in 1927. She loved pennies and she would collect pennies and she would stack them and roll them. She was always playing with pennies. Well, now all of the owners that have been in that house ever since then find pennies all the time. Piles of pennies. They'll lift up the couch cushions and have a whole pile of pennies under there. You lose some coins out of your pockets with couches, but not that many. That carving on the tree features this little girl and there is an angel flying down from heaven, bringing her pennies.

The Bond House was owned by father and son Frank and Eber Bond. They owned a sawmill and they built the house out of heart of pine and heart of pine gives off this sap that makes the wood indestructible so when you're trying to build with it, you can't hammer a nail into it, so they had to drill into each board before they could put the nails in. So you can imagine how long that took. But it was worth it because wood doesn't do well in Florida and this house is still standing even though it is over a hundred years old. There's no hauntings going on here, but it was it was a really cool house to check out. 

The Snipes House was built by Joseph and Charlotte Snipes in the American Foursquare style. Joseph was the accountant for John D Rockefeller and he was very wealthy. Their house was the biggest house in Cassadaga and sits right across from the temple. The house was 4,000 square feet with a grand entryway and there was a gorgeous amethyst chandelier hanging in that entryway. The windows feature stained glass. Charlotte loved to wear a diamond tiara everywhere she went. When people would look back at old photos they would know who Charlotte was because she was wearing her diamond tiara. She got really ill and she would hang out by a window in the house. Charlotte passed away in the house and people started seeing her in the window. A neighbor across the street once complained because there was this woman in the window who would just stare at her. She said it was really unnerving and could they tell her to stop staring. The owners of the house said they had no idea who she was talking about because they didn't have anybody in the house that was older that matched that description. 

There is a memorial dedicated to George Colby right before the temple and this is where our group took orb pictures. I captured a strange one with Kelly. There seems to be some kind of mist. We'll upload to Instagram too.  

Then we also have the Colby Memorial Temple, which has both pews and chairs inside. This started as the Auditorium, which just had a shingled roof with cloth sides at first. This was replaced with a brick and cement building in 1923. It could hold 750 people. The floor was built to slope down and then there was a stage. The name was changed to honor Colby in 1975. Behind the platform is the Seance Room. This is lit with red light and table tipping is done in here. There is a large mirror on one of the walls and we all took turns taking pictures of ourselves in the mirror to see if we could catch anything strange. We got nothing. People often feel ill in there or light-headed. Just felt like a big closet to me. There is a lot of memorabilia in the temple. The first time I was in this building, they had these huge trumpets in there and if anybody knows anything about Spiritualism, one of the things that they do as a demonstration is they'll have voices that come out of trumpets. They would take these trumpets out of their cases sometimes when having a seance or a gathering and voices would come out of those trumpets and speak.

That ended our tour. Before we did the tour, we had dinner at Sinatra's Ristorante in Hotel Cassadaga. Great food! This is probably the most haunted building in the camp. It is across from the Andrew Jackson Davis Building. The small camp had lots of temporary visitors coming and it really needed a hotel. The original hotel was built in 1903. It was three stories and modeled after the Maplewood Hotel in the sister camp at Cassadaga Lake Free Assembly in New York. Visitors had to make reservations two years in advance, the hotel was so popular. The hotel burned down in the big fire in 1926 and the fire started on the second level of the hotel. 

Hotel Cassadaga was quickly rebuilt and this one was two-stories and was fashioned in the Mediterranean style and stuccoed. There were forty-two rooms and a long veranda. This was privately owned until the Great Depression nearly bankrupted the owners and they told the spiritualists if you want the hotel, you can have it. It was privately owned again in the 1970s and turned into a registered nursing facility. By the 1980s, it was a hotel again. Today, there are sixteen rooms as renovations opted to make bigger rooms. There are antiques in the lobby, as well as a historic bar and there is a gift shop. And, of course, Sinatra's Ristorante, which also hosts a haunted attraction in October. The main spirit who is here is named Arthur and he used to stay in the hotel back in the 1930s and he'd love to walk to the end of the second floor it has two two floors he would walk to the end of the second floor he'd put a chair there open up the window and he'd have himself a gin and smoke a cigar and he would just love to people watch all the people who were out there. Well he ended up dying in the hotel and so now to this day people if they go to that window they will sometimes hear smell his cigarette smoke or his cigar smoke they even might smell a little bit of gin or alcohol and they definitely will feel a cold spot he also likes to touch people so a lot of the time people will feel a little pinch on their shoulder a tug on their shirt with him letting them know that they're there but they never see him. 

And we should probably talk about the Devil's Chair at the Lake Helen Cemetery, which is right down the road. Most of the Cassadaga spiritualists are buried here. There's actually four brick chairs at the cemetery, but only one of them is considered the Devil's Chair. This has a brick border wall around it and the Devil's Chair is in the middle of this wall. You can sit in the chair. The story goes that a man's wife had died and he liked to come visit her so he had this built so that he could come and sit and visit her grave. Now, we don't know why there's three other burials that have them too, but perhaps they wanted to visit their loved ones too. The legend that goes with it obviously involved the Devil. They say if you sit in the chair at midnight, the Devil will communicate with you. And apparently he likes beer - who knew - so people will go in there with a beer and they'll leave it unopened on the chair. Then when they return the following morning, they find the beer is empty. 

Cassadaga can't help but be full of spirits. After all, the purpose of this town is to facilitate communication with spirits. But we still have to ask, is Cassadaga haunted? That is for you to decide!