HGB Ep. 463 - Blennerhassett Hotel

The Moment in Oddity - Sax During Surgery

Some of us may find surgery based television shows fascinating, others of us may cringe at the sight of a scalpel and human flesh. Brain surgery is clearly a very touchy situation. Undoubtedly, anyone who needs brain surgery would want the most talented surgeons available. In the following case, the surgeons probably also wanted a talented musician. Recently in Rome's Paideia (pay-dee-uh) International Hospital, a team of 10 brain surgeons worked on their 35 year old patient as he performed various songs on his saxophone. Yes listeners, this patient was fully awake during the nine hours of surgery. According to the surgeons, "awake surgery", performed with a local anesthesia, allows the surgeons to map with extreme precision, the neuronal networks that control the various brain functions. With this particular patient, the surgeons studied the music that would be played prior to the surgery. This meant that any wrong note or too long of a pause would be recognized by the surgeons, which in turn would indicate that they needed to avoid the area of the brain which they had just stimulated. Every surgery of this sort is different. Some patients will answer questions, read a book aloud, sing or play an instrument. The surgeons try to tailor each surgery to the individual patient as much as possible. In the case of the saxophonist, his operation was difficult due to his left-handedness which mapped his brain structure differently than a right-handed person. Thankfully his surgery was a success and he was able to go home to his wife and children just three days later. Although playing a saxophone while undergoing brain surgery is nothing short of miraculous, some may say, it certainly is odd.  

This Month in History - Christopher Columbus Arrives in Hispaniola

In December, on the 5th, in 1492, the first Europeans arrived on the island of Hispaniola, guided by explorer Christopher Columbus. The island is today home to two countries known as Haiti and the Dominican Republic. It is located in the Greater Antilles archipelago of the Caribbean Sea. The Italian explorer had originally thought he had found India or China. Columbus founded the first European settlement on the island when his flagship the Santa Maria sank after hitting a coral reef on Christmas day in the same month. This occurred on the Haitian side of the island. The ship was dismantled to use the timbers for Fort Navidad, or Christmas Fort. This was built in a native Taino (Tay-know) village. The fort was the first Spanish settlement in the New World. However, by November of the next year when Christopher Columbus returned to the island, the fort had been burned. Later, Columbus built a settlement further east in present-day Dominican Republic and named it La Isabela after Queen Isabella.

Blennerhassett Hotel (Suggested by listener: Rylee Burkman)

The Blennerhassett Hotel is the oldest hotel in West Virginia and is located in Parkersburg. The hotel was named for a couple who first settled the nearby Blennerhassett Island. Their story is one mired in political persecution, scandal and conspiracy. They eventually were forced to flee the area, but their name remains an imprint here. The hotel became a place for the millionaires of the time to find lodging. On opening day in 1889, the hotel featured both gas and electricity. Today, the hotel still offers elegant accommodations with modern amenities and a few ghosts. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Blennerhassett Hotel.

The area that became Parkersburg and the nearby Blennerhassett Island, was first settled by an indigenous group that left behind artifacts dating to 3,000 years ago. The Delaware Nation was also here, led by Chief Nemacolin, who widened a path through the Appalachian mountains with two of his sons to allow for westward expansion. Chief Nemacolin died on Blennerhassett Island in 1767. Settlers first came to the area after the American Revolutionary War from Virginia. They were looking to get closer to the ocean and they named their settlement Newport. The location was favorable too because it was at the confluence of the Ohio and Little Kanawha Rivers. The land was originally a grant to Alexander Parker for his service during the war. In 1810, the town officially was named Parkersburg. The Baltimore and Ohio Railroad arrived in the town in 1857. During the Civil War, Parkersburg was a transportation and medical center for Union forces. The late 19th century had Parkersburg transforming into a major oil refining center after an oil and gas boom. In 1883, construction on the Blennerhassett Hotel was started. This hotel was built by Colonel William Nelson Chancellor, who was a banker and eventually became mayor of Parkersburg. He had started as a bank teller and worked his way up until he was President of the local bank.

Chancellor wanted to build a hotel for the rich and he wanted it to be the best hotel in the state of West Virginia. Construction took six years to complete and the hotel was built in the Queen Anne architectural style and stood five stories. Electricity came to the city in 1888 and Chancellor had the hotel wired. The electricity was generated by natural gas and the hotel also featured steam heating. No expense was spared on the interior. Fresco works were in different areas of the lobby and two companies were hired to do the window treatments. The Bentley and Gerwig Furniture Company provided all the furnishings in the hotel. Guests could get to the upper levels via an electric elevator and there was an electric service elevator as well. There was also a central staircase in the lobby that led up all five stories. Another luxury for guests was that each of the 50 guest rooms had a private bathroom. Every floor featured public bathrooms as well. The second floor featured a common area for people to gather with two double parlors. One of the parlors had a piano. There was a restaurant on the second floor as well, but the kitchen was actually on the fifth floor just in case a fire started, so it would be easier for people to exit the hotel before the fire worked its way down. And then there is this interesting tidbit: There was a large and beautiful mirror in the lobby that had a wire cage built around it. The cage was there to protect the mirror from stray bullets. Was this an issue in Parkersburg, West Virginia? Stray bullets flying in from the street?  

Another unique feature of the hotel is that Chancellor had his bank inside it and this was reached via an entrance on the corner of Fourth and Market Streets. The bank remained in the hotel until the 1910s and then the bank entrance became the hotel's main entrance. The hotel opened on May 6, 1889, but it wasn't Chancellor who ran it. He just built it. George C. Campbell leased the hotel as the first proprietor and he is the one who named the hotel. Campbell at first wanted to name it Hotel Argyle, but then he finally landed on The Hotel Blennerhassett. This was in line with the nearby Blennerhassett Island, which was named for Harman and Margaret Blennerhassett. Harman was an Anglo-Irish lawyer and aristocrat who was born in England and raised in Ireland. he attended school in London and eventually joined a secret society there known as the Society of United Irishmen in 1793. This was a group that supported an Irish republic and through the years became militantly radical. An uprising was put down and the United Kingdom parliament at Westminster followed in its wake.

Harman married Margaret Agnew who was his sister's daughter, which we're pretty sure makes her his niece. This was considered in defiance of religious and societal values at the time, so this wasn't something that was just done in 1794. The following year they immigrated to America, landing in New York City first. They moved on to Pennsylvania and then Ohio and finally settled on 174 acres on an island two miles below Parkersburg that had belonged to George Washington. They built their 7,000 square foot Blennerhassett Mansion in 1798. One of the people who visited their grand home was former vice president Aaron Burr. Harman and Burr started working on a conspiracy to undertake a military expedition to the Southwest where they would found a new country. In 1806, the authorities heard about the plan and decided to raid the mansion, but not before Harman and Burr escaped down the river. Right before the bust Margaret, who had been away, arrived home with the kids. Margaret begged the militia not to destroy the home, but it was ransacked and Margaret ran away with the children. Eventually, Harman and Burr were arrested, tried and eventually freed, but not before Harman lost all his money. The family didn't return to the island until Harman and Margaret were buried there in 1996. Their grand mansion had burned to the ground, but the state government rebuilt it in the 1980s and turned the island into a historical state park. Margaret Blennerhassett is said to haunt the island that she loved. Her ghostly figure walks the shoreline. Some have seen her with a young daughter who died on the island and was buried on the island.

William Chancellor's grandson became the next proprietor of the hotel and he implemented the first major renovation of the hotel in 1944. The lobby floor was changed into a terrazzo one and a marble facade was added to the outside. In 1960, Robert Huck became the new proprietor and under his management, Senator John F. Kennedy stayed at the hotel while campaigning for the Presidency throughout West Virginia. He stayed there twice in May of 1960 in Suite 216, which was the largest in the hotel at the time. Teddy and Bobby stayed with him on one of those visits. A banquet luncheon was held in honor of Kennedy. The grand hotel lost its luster in the 1970s and eventually became an apartment building for elderly people. A fire erupted in a second floor linen closet and gutted most of the hotel except for the fifth floor on May 9, 1979.

After the fire, the hotel sat vacant and there was real fear that eventually it would be demolished, but some Parkersburg residents joined with some investors to save the hotel and renovate it. This major renovation started in 1985 and went on for nearly a year at a cost of $7 million. A new Ballroom and Promenade were added to the first floor, an Atrium to the third floor with skylights, a Library was added and several new guest rooms bringing that number to 104 rooms for rent. The interior was redesigned to resemble the inside of a Mississippi riverboat with dark stained wainscoting throughout and antiques were incorporated into the decor. They also added a building to the hotel, the Kaltenecker building, which was right next door. This building dates back to the same time as the hotel and has a similar architectural style because the same architect was used.

The Ross Family purchased the hotel in 2002. The Blennerhassett Hotel underwent another renovation beginning in 2002 and this lasted until 2006 with many of the guest rooms being turned into suites, so that there were only 89 rooms. They added a new garden patio area with a portable stage area for outdoor entertainment. The hotel is now under the management of R & W Hotels, which is owned by local businessmen Wayne Waldeck and Lee Eric Rector who bought the hotel in 2019. In 2020, they added Faux tin ceilings to the library and the main lobby and promenade area of the hotel. The original Terrazzo lobby floor was uncovered in the library at this time as well. Two new chandeliers were hung in the lounge and main dining room areas, which came from a home located near the Versace mansion. In 2022, the hotel became "The Blennerhassett Hotel and Spa." The Blennerhassett remains the oldest operating boutique hotel in the state of West Virginia and through the years, the hotel has acquired several spirits.

Like many historic hotels, the elevator in this one is haunted. Many guests claim to see a female ghost enter the elevator and then vanish. One of the people who saw this was a postman bringing a delivery. He was told to get on the elevator and go downstairs. As he approached the elevator, he saw a woman get on and he ran to catch the elevator and put his hand out to stop the doors from closing. He jumped into the elevator and realized he was all alone. There was no woman on the elevator. He later asked an employee if the hotel was haunted. Guests riding the elevator also claim to get rides they aren't expecting.

Another ghost is seen at the door facing Fourth Street. This too is a woman. In 1889, this had been the door to the gentlemen's cigar stand and smoking room. Sherry Stevens, Human Resource Manager at the Blennerhassett Hotel, told Channel 12 that she had seen this spirit. She said, “It was mid-afternoon. I was walking down the sidewalk across the street, and something flashed, and it made me look in [the direction of the door], so I stopped for a second, and I saw a woman looking right at me in [the door] window.” Stevens said she saw the woman twice within a week. She has looked for her since then, but hasn't seen her. The woman she saw was a white woman with an expressionless face and bright red hair and wearing a light blue dress that had a frilly, tall collar and a broach.

Many members of the staff have seen shadow figures down in the basement. These are a wide array of figures with some wearing trench coats, others top hats and some with what looks like fur coats. The main place these figures gravitate to is the laundry room and they are generally seen walking to a staircase at the end of the washing machines that leads to the bellman’s closet in the main lobby. Adam Dotson, who was a Hospitality Guest Services Specialist at the hotel, said he saw a shadow figure walk into his office, which was down in the basement. He was so sure that this was a real person, most likely a server in black clothing, that he went to his office to see what the employee needed and nobody was there.

The Man in a Bowler Hat is one of the most seen ghosts at the hotel. He is seen in the dry storage area in the basement and also in Room 409, which is four floors right above the storage area. This part of the hotel used to be part of The Kaltenecker Building, so people think the ghost is connected to that building. Room 409 is unique in that it is the only two-story suite in the hotel. Guests report hearing the furniture moving around at night and one woman claimed that a man in a bowler hat held her down in bed by her neck one morning. Adam Dotson had an encounter with spirits in Room 409 as well when he was staying in the room right next to the suite, Room 407. He was awakened at night by a party going on in the suite. Dotson told the front desk about the noise and he was informed that he was the only person staying on that floor.

The man who built the hotel, Colonel Chancellor, is seen usually during renovations. He is seen wearing a brown suit with a bushy mustache and monocle and looking thoughtful. He is usually on the second floor in the hallway or in guests' rooms. People have reported to the front desk that they have awakened to find a man staring at them as they slept. He is usually at the foot of the bed. People assume he is just keeping track of how things are going in the hotel. Colonel Chancellor was fond of cigars and the scent of cigars is often detected when he is nearby. There is no smoking in the hotel, but the library has many times been filled with the pungent smell of cigar smoke. Sometimes smoke is even seen hanging in the air. Sometimes the cigar smell is caught wafting through the hallways as well. When people see the picture of the Colonel in the hotel, they will report that he is the spirit that they have seen. And that very picture is said to be haunted as people will see gold lights dancing around it. These have even been captured in photographs. And even stranger are people who claim to have caught a red glow on the end of the Colonel's cigar in the picture. 

The library not only has the haunting scent of cigars, but books often get tossed about, even the old heavy books. One book in particular gets thrown a lot, so the staff have taken to putting a potted plant on the book. Even this doesn't keep it from getting tossed into the walls. The whispering of female voices is heard over the intercom system and sometimes there is even a female scream, followed by laughing. Flapper-style music is heard coming from the Charleston Room and the ballrooms. The chandelier also swings on its own in the Charleston Room and silverware occasionally goes flying. 

There is also the spirit of a little boy here. He is dressed in clothing from the 1920s and looks to be about nine-years-old. A chef saw him standing in the kitchen one night. He did a double take, and when he looked back, the child was gone. This boy has also been seen down in the basement near the staff lounge. He always disappears right after he is spotted. And he's not the only child here because security staff have claimed to hear the disembodied singing of children. One of them said they heard this phantom group of children singing "Jingle Bells" at Christmastime. Also on the second floor, ghostly children play tag in the hall and a bellman said he saw a little girl in a fancy dress on that floor out of the corner of his eye, but when he turned to look at her, she disappeared around a corner.

The list of ghosts in this place goes on and on. A phantom maid has been seen scrubbing the floor in the lobby wearing a uniform from another era. There is the Four O'clock Knocker who haunts the coffee shop that is located where the front desk used to be. This spirit raps on the wall near the doorway into the office at 4 am. There are usually three loud raps. There is the Kissing Bandit who likes to give female guests little kisses on their faces and lips as they sleep. These women awaken, sit up and then the kissing stops and they are shocked to find that they are all alone in their room. The Red Room gives people a feeling of dread and the doors open and close on their own. People feel like they are being watched here as well.

Another guest reported that he had been awakened in the middle of the night by something depressing the bed as if someone unseen had just sat down. He glanced at the foot of the bed and saw an old man sitting there who upon realizing that he had been seen, scowled and said, "I was here first." The spirit then faded away. The guest promptly packed his bag and checked out, happy to leave the old spirit in the room he apparently was possessive of. 

And then finally there are the haunted mirrors. The Blennerhassett purchased two large and fancy mirrors that had been made from two mirrored door casings from a Victorian-era building that was going to be demolished in New York City. The mirrored doors dated to the Victorian-era. The mirrors were put in the bar and one evening, several bar patrons saw the reflection of a man in a 1920s-style white tuxedo. When they turned to see the man in the tuxedo, they realized that there was no man in the bar wearing those clothes. The other mirror has reflected the image of a sea captain who looked almost to be in black and white, except for his shiny brass buttons.

There are a large number of spirits hanging around this hotel and nobody knows exactly why, other than that the hotel has been here a long time and hosted a lot of history. The hotel hosts its own ghost tours and spirit sessions. Is the Blennerhassett Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide!

The Appalachian ParaCon is going to be hosted at the hotel in March 2023: https://www.hauntedblennerhassett.com/appalachian-paracon/

HGB Ep. 434 - Old Hospital on College Hill

Moment in Oddity - The Belchen Tunnel White Lady (Suggested by: John Michaels)

The Belchen Tunnel is a motorway tunnel in Switzerland that runs over 10,000 feet that links Eptingen with Hagendorf. The tunnel officially opened in 1966. For years, the Eptingen side of the tunnel has had rumors of a mysterious happening. A phantom hitchhiker walks the shoulder until a vehicle picks her up and then she disappears from the car when the car enters the Belchen Tunnel. They call her weisse Frau or the White Lady. She appears as an elderly woman all dressed in white. The first paper to report about these sightings was Blick on January 6, 1981. The police started logging dozens of calls reporting the mysterious woman. The most popular shared experience occurred on September 26, 1983. The White Lady was picked up by two female jurists in Eptingen. They described her as being middle-aged and pale. The two women said that they inquired if she was ill and she said that she was and then she told them something terrible was going to happen. One of the women spun around to ask more about that revelation and she discovered that the White Lady had disappeared. We're not sure if something dreadful did happen later. Was she remembering her passing perhaps? Did it happen in the tunnel? Whatever the case may be, the White Lady of the Belchen Tunnel, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Katharine Hepburn Born

In the month of May, on the 12th, in 1907, Katharine Hepburn was born. Hepburn was born and raised in New England and was brought up to be an independent thinker. And in the world of old Hollywood, she certainly was that. She broke the rules about glamour, rarely wearing make-up and sporting trousers. She was outspoken and strong-willed. Her acting career spanned 60 years and garnered her 12 Best Actress Oscar nominations, a record not broken until 2003 when Meryl Streep received her 13th nomination. Hepburn won three of those Oscars for the films Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner (1967), A Lion in Winter (1968) and On Golden Pond (1981). She didn't pick up any of the awards in person. Many thought of her as arrogant and self-absorbed because she refused to grant interviews, sign autographs or pose for pictures. Hepburn carried on a love affair with Spencer Tracy for 27 years. He refused to divorce his wife because he was Catholic, yet the couple lived together for years before his death. They made nine movies together. She only discussed the relationship after Tracy's widow died. Me:Stories of My Life was her candid autobiography that was published in 1991. Her last acting gig was in 1994. She died in 2003 at the age of 96.

Old Hospital on College Hill (Suggested by: MaryAnn Farley)

The Williamson Memorial Hospital was named for the town of Williamson in West Virginia. Most people know this location as the Old Hospital on College Hill. People were born here and they died here and remnants from the past are everywhere inside the dilapidated buildings. The property is set deep in the mystical West Virginian Appalachian Mountains overlooking the town. Entities of all sorts have been experienced here. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Old Hospital on College Hill!

Williamson is the county seat of Mingo County in West Virginia. The town sits along the Tug Fork River and was named for the man who originally owned the plot, Wallace J. Williamson. He founded the first bank and first hotel here. The town was incorporated in 1892 and began to grow with the founding of the rail yard here, which was built by the Norfolk and Western Railroad. This railroad would provide a means for transporting the coal that was pulled out of nearby coal mines. Coal mining is still one of the main industries of Williamson. The town is also the scene of the Hatfield-McCoy Marathon every June. The Hatfield-McCoy Reunion Festival takes place at the same time. And that is because Williamson is involved in that feud, which took place along the Tug Fork River.

The McCoy family came from the Kentucky side of the dispute, while the Hatfields were from West Virginia. These families descended from Joseph Hatfield and William McCoy. The feud began with the Civil War even though both families mainly fought for the Confederacy, except for Asa McCoy. When he was returning home after being wounded, he was ambushed and killed by Confederate guerillas lead by Jim Vance who was an uncle to Anse Hatfield, the leader of the Hatfield family at the time. Thirteen years later, land disputes started between the families. They also fought over moonshine territory. Several family members were killed on each side, many times these altercations left behind bullet-riddled bodies. The feud reached its peak with the New Year Massacre in 1888. Things finally settled down in 1901.  

There are ghosts connected to this feud. The Hatfield Cemetery in Sarah Ann, West Virginia is about 30 minutes from Williamson. Devil Anse Hatfield and his sons are buried here and their spirits are said to still be sticking around. On foggy nights, their spirits are said to rise from their graves and make their way down the mountain toward Island Creek, which is at the bottom. William Garrett was a well-known mountain preacher and he baptized the Hatfields in this very creek in 1911. It's said their spirits are heading to the creek to re-enact their baptisms. They then fade away. The Dils Cemetery is on the Kentucky side of the feud and was the first racially integrated cemetery in Eastern Kentucky. Randolph McCoy is buried here, he was the head of the family, along with his wife and a couple of their children. Shadow figures have been traveling between headstones and trees.

A hospital was built in downtown Williamson in 1918, but that structure burned down in the winter of 1926. No one died in the fire thankfully. A woman, Mrs. Leonard Chafin, on the third floor threw her newborn out of a window and a man on the street named Raymond Edwards caught the baby. A doctor and several nurses jumped to safety on a pile of mattresses. A new hospital, which would eventually be known as the Old Hospital on College Hill, opened March 3, 1928 at 728 Mullberry Street. Unlike the former hospital, this one was state-of-the-art and had 75 beds and 32 private patient rooms. The business owners of Williamson were the ones to fund the construction through the purchasing of bonds and the hospital had paid those bonds off by 1939. The hospital was four stories with a basement. The fourth floor had the pharmacy, the third floor had medical and surgical rooms, the second floor had the maternity ward, the first floor featured the ICU and the basement had a cafeteria, lab, radiology department and emergency room. And there were incinerators located here as well for dispatching of bodies and body parts from amputations. In 2020, ashes left from that were still in the building. 

Eventually, it was more practical for the emergency room to move to the street level and this place saw a lot of action. There were nearby coal mining operations and accidents occurred occasionally. One of those accidents from the Williamson Coalfield took place at the Cinderella Mine owned by the Sycamore Coal Company. This mine opened in March of 1911 and became one of the largest mine operations. On June 30, 1914 a mine fire at Cinderella suffocated five miners to death: George Seibold, James Collins, Benjamin James, Henry Lyons, and Marion Lyons. Twenty other men made it to the surface. Rescuers worked feverishly for hours digging a rescue shaft. An explosion at Burning Springs Mine in 1951 killed eleven miners.

The Norfolk & Western Railway was headquartered in Roanoke, Virginia and started in 1838. The coal train was nicknamed King Coal, but it wasn't just coal that was carried on the trains. There were passenger trains as well. Four passenger trains in each direction stopped at Williamson station every day in 1957. The last passenger trains left Williamson in 1971. On January 23rd 1956, a Norfolk & Western Passenger Train named The Pocahontas derailed and crashed in South-Eastern Mingo County. The engineer was killed, nine passengers were hospitalized and 14 others were injured with more minor issues. Those 23 individuals who were hurt in the crash were brought to Williamson Memorial Hospital. 

Violent injuries from the Matewan Massacre were brought to Williamson Memorial on May 19, 1920. The miners working under the Stone Mountain Coal Company tried to organize and the company hired enforcers from the Baldwin-Felts Detective Agency to evict miners and their families. A gun fight followed some of the evictions and which side fired first is not known. What is known is that the sheriff, Sid Hatfield, shot lead detective Albert Felts. This was after Mayor Cabell Testerman was wounded by either Felts or Hatfield - no one knows the answer to that either. But Hatfield did marry Testerman's widow twelve days after Testerman died. And the day before that marriage, they were caught in a hotel room and charged with improper relations. Anyway, the gunfight continued between miners and detectives. Seven of the detectives were killed and two miners were killed. Many others were wounded.

*Fun Fact: A Dr. Salton had a horse that he really loved and it became sick and needed emergency surgery. He brought it to the hospital, walked it in and loaded it into the elevator. They then went up to the fourth floor. Staff on the third floor heard the clopping of horse hooves and thought they were hearing something quite strange, but later discovered that there was indeed a horse up on the fourth floor undergoing surgery. We're not sure how the horse fared.*

In 1979, the facility was sold to Hospital Managements Association, Inc. and continued to operate until 1988. Then it was closed after 60 years of service because a more modern facility was opened up the street. The building was converted to physician offices and was used for that purpose until 2014. Then the hospital was used for storage. As nature began to take back the building, wrapping it with vines, and the infrastructure began to crumble, the building took on a real creepy mystique. Rumors of hauntings had plagued it through the years. So it seemed fitting that it was decided to host paranormal tours during the Halloween season. Williamson Memorial Hospital partnered with the Tug Valley Area CVB to conduct those tours in 2018 and 2019. There was a real treat for tourists after several of the tours in 2019 when actor Tony Moran, who played the original Michael Myers in John Carpenter's 1978 Film "Halloween" was there to greet them. Thousands came for the tours. 

In November 2020, the facility was purchased by Tonya Webb, a Mingo County Chief Probation Officer, and businesswoman Sabrina Hatfield. Hatfield, unfortunately, died on February 28, 2021 from cancer. Her husband, Charlie Hatfield, is the mayor of Williamson. Webb has been nicknamed the "Queen of Halloween" in the town. She was born at the hospital and two of her grandparents died here. Their goal is to restore the buildings and make this a tourist destination. In 2021, the facility was reopened to the public as a host to both paranormal and historic tour opportunities. There is much unexplained activity reported here.

Residents of Williamson have often seen lights turning on and off in the building when it is empty. They also claim to see people staring out of the windows and shadow figures pass by windows. The Williamson Police Department had been called out repeatedly when the building was abandoned and they would never find anyone inside and no signs of a break-ins. The apparition of a female spirit has been seen floating in the basement between the two x-ray rooms at the end of the hall and an EVP was captured down there in 2018 saying "Help me!" An employee was down in the basement, she looked over her left shoulder and saw a face sticking out of the wall. It made her cry and she looked to be a woman in her late 50s/early 60s, so it really must have scared her. She hasn't returned to the basement since and says she won't return. Others claim to have seen this face in the wall as well. 

The mayor, Charlie Hatfield, had been on the property many times with his wife and he experienced some unexplained stuff. He was working by himself on a window when he clearly heard voices. Charlie looked around and no one was near him. On another occasion, he and a friend named Wes were working on a window in the basement and they heard a door close abruptly. There was no breeze or wind, so they couldn't explain how that happened. They left quickly. Tonya Webb was checking the building one night after an investigation and she heard a male voice say, "Hey!" loudly. It startled her and was so clear that she went looking for the person. She was alone in the building.

The apparition of a nurse has been seen as though she is still doing her rounds and it is thought that she is a nurse who died in the hospital either during one of her shifts or in the operating room on the fourth floor after being involved in a car accident on her way to work. Before the hospital closed, a woman had a run-in with this nurse. She had just given birth and was resting in a room, looking forward to seeing her baby. A nurse came in and told her she could go home and that she wouldn't be able to see her baby until the next day. So the woman dressed and headed for the door when another nurse ran up to her and asked where she was going. She responded, "The nurse told me to leave." This nurse looked at her strangely and said, "What nurse? I’m the only nurse on the floor today." For years, doctors and nurses reported seeing this ghostly nurse. A contractor saw her on the fourth floor when he was doing renovations. He claimed to see her glide down the corridor. He ran after he to find out who she was and she had just disappeared. There were no exit doors she could have gone out. He refused to return to the fourth floor. This nurse has been photographed. One of the pictures was taken by a woman named Sheena Daniels on one of the tours on Halloween night in 2018. We'll share that picture on Instagram.

Many ghost stories originate from the time when this was a working hospital, but even more came out starting in 2018 when paranormal tours started. During one of those tours, the elevator did something strange. This elevator is the oldest in operation in Mingo County. Visitors were transported to floors that were open for the tour. A couple of the floors were locked and were not to be accessed. The elevator stopped on those locked floors without the button being pushed. There was no one on those floors to call the elevator and again, they were locked. The elevator has windows and these closed floors should've been dark, but the lights were on and some people saw shadow figures. One tour guide got ill while giving tours, many days in a row, whenever they entered the left X-ray Room. The flashlight batteries would die in this room as well. A medium later informed the crew that the spirit of a man was behind the X-ray control panel and didn't want anyone in that room. Many believe that it is his face that people see in the wall. And he definitely gives off an unfriendly vibe.

There are moans heard on the third floor and a shadow figure. Many people believe this is the spirit of Mose Blackburn. The story behind this starts in the wee hours of the morning on Saturday, July 21, 1962. Mose and Ora Blackburn owned a restaurant on Pike Street and they got in a domestic dispute there. The police were called and the first to arrive were Lt. Garnet Richmond and Patrolman Howard Hatfield. As we all know, these kinds of calls are the worst for police. They found the couple sitting in two separate cars outside of the restaurant and so they approached the vehicles to find out what happened. They both headed towards the vehicle holding Mose Blackburn first. They had no idea that Mose had a .22 pistol sitting in his lap. Mose picked up his gun and aimed it at his windshield and pulled the trigger. The bullet hit Lt. Richmond below the left eye. Hatfield dove to the ground and called for back-up. He them exchanged fire with Blackburn and around 20 bullets were fired in the gun battle. Mose was struck once in the arm. He was subdued after more officers showed up.  

Both Richmond and Blackburn were taken to Williamson Memorial Hospital, but the officer was declared dead when he got there. Blackburn was treated for his gunshot wound and spent several days in the hospital under armed guard. He was a cop killer and his arraignment would be in a week. Lt. Richmond had been a veteran of World War II and he left behind a pregnant wife, two daughters and a step-daughter. The two deputies who took turns watching him were Enoch Fillinger and Morrie Blair. On the evening of July 29th, Mose complained about being thirsty and Deputy Fillinger went to the nurse's station to get him some water. Once he left his sentry, the story goes that Mose took off running down the third floor hall towards a window and he leapt out that window. The fall didn't kill him, but it broke him up pretty badly. Mose broke his femur, fractured his mandible and had multiple contusions. He eventually died on August 24, 1962. His death certificate lists "empyema" as the cause of death. This is a malady where pus builds up in the area between the lungs and inner chest wall. Mose had this condition due to a fractured rib from his fall. Mose was buried in Davis Memorial Gardens in Stone, Kentucky. 

Many wonder if Mose did indeed jump out that window of his own accord. Could he have been pushed? The police surely would've wanted retaliation for losing one of their own. But he didn't jump out of the window in his room, so its possible a nurse or another patient would have seen him being thrown out of a window by someone else. But this also begs the question, why would he run down the hall to jump out a window when he had one in his room? Mose had told his nurses that he was afraid for his life and that he was having horrible nightmares. Was he being haunted by his victim? Was he just afraid of facing the electric chair? What made him run in terror out a window?

Destination Fear was the first investigative team allowed to overnight at the Old Hospital. They did this in 2020. Their visit was fairly uneventful. There were strange sounds heard on each floor as each member spent an hour alone in the building. Dakota and his sister Chelsea were awakened from sleep by the sound of broken glass and Dakota did find broken glass on the floor in one of the rooms. The Ovilus did give the word "malevolent" once too. Many people believe that something dark is in the building. Was this the entity letting itself be known. It certainly had no interest in talking to the group. The only EVP picked up seemed to be an angry, growling type of voice.

Spectral Research and Investigation team, SRI, visited and they spent much of their time trying to communicate with Mose. They got some interaction using the Ovilus. They described it as "communication was brief and abruptly stopped after only a short time, but not before we were able to establish that Mose seemed to feel at least some level of remorse for what he had done, but also felt that he was a victim too." Paranormal Quest investigated the hospital in the Spring of 2021 and on the Mose floor, one of the investigators felt something pass by him several times. Several pieces of equipment were activated in the hallway that was Mose's route as well. One cool thing they rigged up was a REM Pod attached to an IV rack, so if anything touched the IV rack, the REM Pod went off. That happened a couple of times for a lengthy period of time.

The Old Hospital was no stranger to birth and death. Does the afterlife have a place here too? Is the Old Hospital on College Hill haunted? That is for you to decide!

Show Notes:

Paranormal Quest video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sV9OilJF5mQ

HGB Ep. 369 - Harper's Ferry

Moment in Oddity - Tea Drinking Was Once Considered Irresponsible (Suggested by: Darren Koch)

So drinking tea in our modern age is considered pretty normal. As a matter of fact, tea time is a way of life in Britain. But there was once a time that tea drinking was looked down upon. Pamphlets were delivered to homes in the early 1800s warning against the waste of time and money that tea drinking was for women. One read, "We never were used to tea, and would not choose that our little girl should get a notion of any such thing. The hankering after a drop of tea keeps many poor all their lives. So I would not have any things in the cabin which would put us in mind of it." The attitude was that poor Irish women might as well be chugging from a bottle of whiskey when they were sipping tea from a cup. In England, tea was thought to ruin diets and foster thoughts of revolution. Women were banned from coffee and tea houses throughout Europe. The thought that drinking tea could be controversial and lead poor women down the road of laziness and rebellion, certainly is odd.  

This Month in History - Johnny Cash Performs at Folsom Prison

In the month of January, on the 13th, in 1968, Johnny Cash performed at Folsom Prison. In 1956, Cash had written "Folson Prison Blues," which was written from the point of view of an inmate, but he himself had never done time in Folsom Prison and he had only been in jail to sleep off a drunk. Cash had been a successful songwriter and performer making his way to legendary status when he became his own road block. By 1968, Cash was depressed as his music career was in decline and drugs and alcohol had taken their toll on him. He had performed at Folsom Prison in 1966, but this visit would be very special as Cash planned to record the concert that he performed there. The inmates loved Cash and energized his playing. The record that came from the live performance was a huge hit and Cash's career skyrocketed. He became the "Man in Black" after this as he started wearing his trademark dark clothing as a symbol of the beaten down man and prisoner. He crusaded for the imprisoned man for the rest of his life.

Harper's Ferry

Harper's Ferry is located in the eastern panhandle of West Virginia at the junction of the Potomac and Shenandoah Rivers. The town is best known for its place in history as the site of John Brown's armed raid of the U.S. military arsenal there before the Civil War. This would ignite a spark that eventually ended slavery, which is precisely what Brown wanted. This may be the reason his spirit is still seen in Harper's Ferry. There is more than just Brown's spirit here though. This is West Virginia, a state we have always believed hones supernatural energy and its strategic location with the rivers, more than likely feeds this energy even more. Join us as we explore the history and haunts of Harper's Ferry!

Harper's Ferry was a very strategic location in early America, particularly because of its spot at the conjunction of the Shenandoah and Potomac Rivers. The first known Native Americans to be in the area were the Tuscarora People. With the large rivers, a ferry was needed to help commerce between the states of what was Virginia at the time and Maryland. And since this is named Harper's Ferry, you probably think that someone named Harper was the man to do this. Wrong. This area that was known as The Point was owned by Lord Fairfax, who was a Scottish Peer. Peer is one of those royal titles. He owned a big chunk of Virginia and worked some 30 farms there with slave labor. A squatter came along named Peter Stephens and he set the ferry up in 1733. He ran that for fourteen years until Robert Harper came through and saw how much wasted potential the ferry had. He paid Stephens for his squatting rights and Harper was off and running. 

In 1761, Harper purchased 126 acres from Lord Fairfax and legally set up the ferry and the Virginia General Assembly called the town Shenandoah Falls at Mr Harper's Ferry. The area was beautiful and when Thomas Jefferson visited he proclaimed that the view was "worth a voyage across the Atlantic." George Washington would later establish the site as a military location because of its strategic importance. He had a United States Armory and Arsenal built here. The armory was completed in 1799 and was one of only two in America at the time. Lewis and Clark would supply their expedition from this armory. Most weapons made in the US came from here and by the time of the Civil War, it was cranking out 600,000 muskets, pistols and rifles. This armory and the town of Harper's Ferry itself would be burned into the history of America when an abolitionist named John Brown raided the place.

John Brown was born in Connecticut in 1800 to a Calvinist family who were anti-slavery. The family moved to Ohio and that was where John was raised. He married a woman named Dianthe Lusk and settled in Pennsylvania where they had seven children. He ran several businesses and opened a post office. His main business was a tannery and a secret room there became part of the Underground Railroad. Brown went from doing well to a string of bad luck. His wife Dianthe died during child birth, his logging business ran out of wood and the tannery failed. He had 20 lawsuits filed against him and a variety of his failed business dealings and he eventually declared bankruptcy in his early 40s. He married a sixteen-year-old girl named Mary May and they had thirteen children. They moved to Ohio to start a new life because Brown was finding it very difficult to feed 20 children. 

One day he heard about an abolitionist meeting in Cleveland and he decided to attend out of curiosity because he had always been anti-slavery. He left that meeting inspired and emboldened. He told anyone who would listen that he was dedicating his life to bringing down the institution of slavery. Brown's first major moves in his new abolitionist path took him to Kansas and he brought five of his sons with him. The state was in play between abolitionists and slave holders. Lawrence was an abolitionist town and it was raided by some pro-slavery men on May 21, 1856. Brown and his sons were set on revenge and they attacked a group of cabins along Pottawatomie Creek, killing five men. This launched a series of skirmishes and eventually one of Brown's sons was killed. Brown formulated many plans and one thing he always believed would happen was that slaves would rise up and join him. By 1859, he had worked out funding from some wealthy Abolitionists that were dubbed the "Secret Six" and he had a small army of twenty men that included three of his sons and several free black men. The group rented a Maryland farm and hatched a plan to carry out an attack on Harper's Ferry.

Shortly before midnight on October 16th, 1859, Brown took his men down the road to Harper's Ferry. When they got to the railway station, a free man of color named Haywood Shepherd, who was the baggage master, approached them and told them to stop. He was shot and killed. There were several people in the area that the band of men took hostage and these included some slaves. Brown and his men seized several buildings, including the arsenal. Then they waited for the slaves to rise up. This was the thing Brown had always expected to happen. He just knew that their numbers would swell by the hundreds. That uprising did not happen. Word of the raid spread and soon Brown and his men were surrounded. They drove the raiders back to a fire hall that was dubbed Brown's Fort and they killed Dangerfield Nubie, a free black man with Brown. Dangerfield was the son of his mother's master, so clearly he started out as a product of rape. He eventually married and had seven children. When his father took the family to Ohio, he was freed because that was a free state. But his wife and children couldn't come with him because they were still slaves. So you can imagine why he found himself among John Brown's small army.

On October 18, Colonel Robert E. Lee and Lieutenant J. E. B. Stuart led a troop of Marines into Harper's Ferry and they joined the civilians in the attack on Brown, who was wounded and captured. Two of his sons were killed as well as ten of the other men with him. The state of Virginia tried Brown for treason and murder, and he was found guilty on November 2. He was sentenced to death by hanging and this took place on December 2, 1859. He climbed the thirteen steps of the gallows with pride. He had made his case during the trial, using the process to spread his message. Some thought he was a hero, others thought he was a criminal and some even thought he was a mad man. One thing he was for sure was prophetic. He passed a note to his guard that read, "I, John Brown, am now quite certain that the crimes of this guilty land will never be purged away but with blood." And soon the Civil War would start with many calling this raid, the first shot fired. 

Harper's Ferry would be a prized spot during the Civil War. Both the North and South would trade off control of it during various times. Several places in town have connections to the war and these locations seem to ooze spiritual activity. John Brown is still strongly connected to this place of his final stand. One story dates back to 1974. Shirley Dougherty was running a restaurant in town when a group of visitors came inside. As they settled in they commented to her that the John Brown re-enactor was amazing. Shirley frowned with confusion and asked what re-enactor they were talking about. They told her that this was a man down by Brown's Fort who was a dead ringer for John Brown. They had seen his picture and this man was tall with a shock of white hair and period clothing who had a wild look in his eyes. Shirley started hearing similar stories from other tourists. So many, that she thought perhaps the National Park Service had hired an actor. The craziest part of the story was that people took their pictures with this man, but when they got the film developed, the man was not in the pictures. Brown also is said to regularly appear taking a nightly walk with a dog and as they approach the engine house, they both disappear into a wall. This could be residual as many claim that Brown took this walk many times in life as he surveyed the lay of the land and planned his attack.

Some time later, a man named Brad Matthews claimed to be walking past Brown's Fort at night on the anniversary of the raid. He came face to face with several men carrying muskets who started to interrogate him. The man ran away and he heard gunfire behind him. Makes one wonder if those bullets were as corporal as the men! Park employees and visitors have both claimed to see the apparition of Dangerfield Nubie walking around Hog Alley. He was killed by a 6-inch-spike fired from a rifle that hit him in the throat. The reason Dangerfield might be in this place called Hog Alley is because his body was mutilated with his limbs being cut off and everything was thrown to the hogs. When his apparition is seen, he is wearing baggy trousers and a slouched hat and has a scar across his throat. But it is not just spirits connected to John Brown's Raid that are here. There are many more spirits and ghost stories here.

Today, Harper's Ferry National Historical Park stretches into three states, covers 4,000 acres and includes the historic town of Harper's Ferry. This was established by Congress in 1963 after being a National Monument since 1944. The main points of interest in the park are Jefferson Rock, John Brown's Fort, Loudoun Heights, Maryland Heights and The Point. The Point overlooked the B&O Railroad bridge, which was destroyed and replaced nine times during the Civil War. The Flood of 1936 destroyed it for good. Any buildings located here were burned by the Union in 1862 so Confederates couldn't use them as cover for sharpshooters. Jefferson Rock is named for Thomas Jefferson who stood upon the shale in 1783 and marveled at the view. Loudon Heights was seized by Confederate forces during the Battle of Harper's Ferry. The Confederate forces hauled four cannons up that mountain. Eventually the Union would reoccupy Harper's Ferry.

Camp Hill

Camp Hill is found on High Street. This former military encampment was founded in 1798, shortly after the Revolutionary War. General Pinkney was stationed here with his troops when France was threatening to attack. They never saw any action, but that didn't prevent them from experiencing a lot of death. Cholera swept through the camp and killed many men. Their bodies were buried on the west bank of Camp Hill. Because there was not much action here, General Pinkney kept his men entertained and fit by running drills with them. The troops would run up and down the hill as the fife and drum played. So it is not surprising that the haunt attributed to this location is said to be a phantom army and people claim to hear the sound of drums beating and a fife playing. The disembodied sounds of marching feet are also heard.

St Peters Roman Catholic Church

St. Peter's Roman Catholic Church is located at 110 Church Street and dates back to 1833. The Neo-Gothic structure sits up on the heights of Harper's Ferry and was the only church in the town to not be destroyed during the Civil War. This is a small, but beautiful church built from gray stone with a red sandstone trim around the windows and archways. A grand spire sits atop its tower. The windows are made from colored glass. The interior is one large room that serves as the sanctuary. Father Michael Costello was a young priest shepherding the flock here when the Civil War broke out. He served from 1857 to 1867. When the war started, his homeland of Ireland offered to bring him back home, but he would not leave his church. The church was spared during the war because Father Costello flew a Union Jack flag atop St. Peter's to express neutrality. He protected church property and was nicknamed the "doctor of souls." He made it through the war, but died two years after it from an illness at the age of thirty-three.

Father Costello's ghost has been seen by several people walking around inside and outside of the church he loved. During the war, the church served as a hospital. A young wounded soldier laid out on the lawn waiting for a doctor to see him. He was losing blood fast and thus fading fast. He was carried inside the church and he whispered his last words, "Thank God, I am saved." His apparition is seen on the stairs occasionally and there are other people who claim to hear his disembodied voice whispering his last words again.

The Harper House

The Harper House is now known as the Harper Museum and is located at 102 Public Way. This is the oldest house in Harper's Ferry. It was built in the late 1700s by Robert and Rachel Harper for whom the town was named. The ferry business was good money, but England was charging them huge taxes, so Rachel starting hiding some of the money in jars and burying them. Rachel fell from a ladder in 1780 and her injuries were so severe that she died the next day. She must have been unconscious the whole time because she never told anyone where the money was buried. Some people believe it is in the garden across from the house. Perhaps for this reason, her spirit is still seen at the house and many times she is looking out in the direction of the garden.

Train Tracks by U.S. Armory

There are some old railroad tracks by the U.S. Armory at 118-198 Potomac Street and they have a crazy ghost story connected to them. Engineers claim to see some kind of anomaly coming down the tracks. They describe it as a huge ball of flame passing down the tracks. The scream of train wheels are heard following behind it. There was a woman who was known as Jenny who lived in a tiny shack near the train tracks and the river. She would walk the river looking for driftwood for her fire. One night, the hem of her dress caught fire and she took off running down the train tracks yelling for help. She ended up in the path of the train. Is this anomaly Jenny's spirit running, engulfed in flames? Is this a residual haunting playing the scene over and over again. And speaking of the armory and fire, the Confederates burned it in 1861.

A Phantom Named Jacob

Christopher Coleman tells the story of a phantom named Jacob in his book "Ghosts and Haunts of the Civil War." There is a building that housed a former tintype studio that was taken over by the Union during the war and used as a Confederate prison. One of the guards there was named Jacob. He had met a local girl and left his post to have a late night tryst. His superior found out and punished the whole unit. Afterward, Jacob's troop decided to teach him a lesson and they bound and gagged him. He ended up choking to death and the soldiers dragged his body away and buried it in secret to cover their crime. This is probably why Jacob is at unrest. The sound of a body being dragged down the stairs in the building is heard as well as the sound of gagging and someone being beaten. 

Maryland Heights Trail

The North and South fought over the strategic location of Harper's Ferry heartily and each side traded control of it through the war. The Maryland Heights Trail is a steep mountain trail that winds nearly 6.5 miles. This is an area were hundreds of soldiers battled. Several encampments were set up in the mountains and people who walk here at night claim to see ghostly firelights dotting the hills.  Fun Fact: Before there were billboards on highways, advertisements were painted on the sides of brick buildings (as many of us already know) and stone cliffs. Maryland Heights is one of those places with an ad painted on the side made from milk and whitewash. It reads "Mennen’s Borated Talcum Toilet Powder." The ad was targeted for people traveling on the B & O Railroad.

Phantom Drummer Boy

This next story is a tough one. As we know, drummers during the Civil War were usually young boys. There was one certain nine or ten year old boy who found his Confederate regiment captured. The Union soldiers took pity on him because they knew he would never survive the prison camp. They kept him in the Town House that they were occupying. They first started off having him work like a servant for them, telling him to clean, polish their boots and do the laundry. Eventually, the soldiers started abusing the boy and he would beg them to let him go home to his mother. One day, the soldiers were drunk and when the boy started crying again, they were enraged and started passing him around to each other. One pass sent him flying through a window and he fell to his death. The disembodied crying and begging of a child are heard in the area of this building, which we could not track down the name of. The book "Haunted West Virginia" by Patty A. Wilson just calls it the Town House. 

Ghostly Hand Print

This next haunt we don't know the location of either, but it is another story told in the "Haunted West Virginia" book. A woman ran a restaurant in town and when she first moved in, she noticed a hand print on the wall. She tried to clean it off, but nothing could remove it, so she decided to paint over it. Imagine her surprise when the hand print came through the paint. She decided to ask the former owner about it who had no further information. The woman felt like she had a ghost because she often felt like she was being watched. But the former owner didn't believe there was a ghost. The restaurant owner decided that her only option for dealing with the hand print was to cover it with a painting. The morning after she hung the picture, she found the painting on the ground. Now she had no doubt that there was a ghost in the building. She made peace with the ghost. She would put the painting up on the wall during the day and then take it down when she left for the night. 

Alyssa LeVasseur told journalist Deborah Block, “The whole town is haunted. People have seen things. You can probably ask anyone in town who has been living here, or works here, and they have seen something. They can't deny it. I hear ghosts all the time. I’ve heard kids’ voices and footsteps, so I know they are here. I say good morning to them. I was walking by one of the displays when the audio went on by itself.  You have to push a button to turn it on. Then I realized I hadn’t said ‘good morning’ to the spirits, and as soon as I did, the sound stopped.”

Harper's Ferry has an important place in American history. This town has seen turmoil and war and survived. And while it has moved forward, there possibly could be remnants from the past still holding on in the afterlife. Are these locations in Harper's Ferry haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 333 - Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum

This episode sponsored by Kobo Audiobooks, check out http://kobo.com/HISTORYGOESBUMP and use code HISTORY40 for 40% off and also by the History or His Story Podcast at http://hisstorypodcast.com.

Moment in Oddity - The Mystery of Skeleton Lake

In 1942, a British troop in Roopkund, India made an alarming discovery that came to be known as the Mystery of Skeleton Lake. And that is just what they found. A lake full of skeletons, only this lake was frozen. This lake was 16,000 feet above sea level and set at the bottom of a small valley. The troop waited for the summer thaw to investigate it properly and they were left with two big questions: what year were they from and what killed some 200 people? Since the war was on, many suspected that these were Japanese soldiers who were sneaking through the air and died of exposure. Archaloegists studied the bones and found they they were much older, so the skeletons could not belong to Japanese soldiers. The dry, cold air had preserved the bones and scientists found that they dated to around 850 AD. Now they needed to figure out what had killed these people. Was it some kind of exposure? Had there been an epidemic? Was there a natural disaster? Was this some kind of weird death ritual? Modern DNA tests helped scientists to figure out that these were two different ethnic groups and based on clothing and items found nearby, that this was probably a traveling group of people who were being lead by a hired group of local guides. Studying the skulls revealed little deep cracks and the only other wounds found were on the shoulders, leading experts to believe that the blows came from above. But it didn't seem that weapons had made the wounds. This was probably a weather event and based on stories we hear about baseball-sized hail stones, it's easy to believe that being out in an open valley during one of these storms, could lead to massive head trauma. That is what scientists concluded. And an old Himalayan folk song lends some credence to that theory because its lyrics describe a goddess raining death down on those who defile her mountain with hailstones that were as "hard as iron." Finding a large group of skeletons frozen in a lake some 1,800 years after a hailstorm killed them all, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Hank Aaron Beats Babe Ruth's Home Run Record

In the month of April, on the 8th, in 1974, Hank Aaron hits his 715th career home run. Aaron was born in 1934 in Mobile, Alabama to a poor family. He practiced by hitting bottle caps with a stick and made balls and bats out of anything he could find laying around. Aaron dreamed of being like his hero Jackie Robinson and just like Robinson, when he finally made it into the Negro American League in 1951, he experienced some overt racism. For three months, he played for the Indianapolis Clowns and then he got two offers from the MLB, one from the Boston Braves and the other from the New York Giants. He went with the Braves because they offered hom $50 more a month. His teammates called him "Pork Chops" because he ate them for almost every meal. 1955 was a banner year for him in which he hit with a .314 batting average with 27 home runs and 106 RBIs. Each year he did even better. In 1969, Aaron passed Mickey Mantle's total home runs and moved into third place on the career home run list, behind Willie Mays and Babe Ruth. When Aaron closed in on Babe Ruth's record, he started receiving death threats. He actually feared that he wouldn't live long enough to surpass that record. Aaron broke the record on that April day in 1974 in front of a record breaking Braves' crowd. Aaron ended his career with 755 home runs and he retired in 1976.

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum (Suggested by listener Astrid)


Creepy. That's the one word we hear from everyone who has ever visited the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum. This was a place of immense sadness that was for many years home to the mentally ill and other unfortunate souls. The name would change later to Weston State Hospital. The hospital closed in 1994, but the building reopened as a historic site offering tours. And as is the case with so many of these places, one can investigate the paranormal here and there are so many stories of unexplained experiences coming out of this place, that it is hard not to believe that this is one of the most haunted places in the world. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.

West Virginia is a gorgeous state and one full of mystique. We've shared before about the legends of this state that is completely engulfed in the Appalachian Mountains. This is a state of coal mines, rolling hills and trees. There are many well known haunted locations here as well with this being the home of the Mothman, Flatwoods Monster, Moundsville Penitentiary and Lake Shawnee and Harper's Ferry, both of which are on our suggestions list. The settlers who founded Weston, West Virginia seemed to have a tough time choosing a name for their town. The town was founded as Preston in 1818 and changed to Fleshersville right after that and then finally they chose Weston in 1819 and that was the one that would stick. Weston incorporated in 1846. The Museum of American Glass is here with over 20,000 pieces on display including historic glass and art pieces. This would also be the place chosen to build the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum.

The former asylum is located at 71 Asylum Drive and is the largest hand cut stone building in America and the second largest in the world, falling just behind Moscow's haunted Kremlin. Stone masons came from Germany and Ireland to cut the stones. As was the case with many of the asylums we've covered, Trans-Allegheny was designed following the Kirkbride plan. Thomas Kirkbride thought of mental illness in a different way then many people of his time. He believed that the mentally ill could be treated and cured. This could be facilitated with moral care, which is just basically good food, lots of rest, exercise, light and getting out in nature. And he came up with a design that would work better for asylums and wrote about it in his book "On the Construction, Organization, and General Arrangements of Hospitals for the Insane With Some Remarks on Insanity and Its Treatment." This design was in a flattened V shape, branching out like stair steps on each side. This would allow for ventilation and sunshine for every room. One side of the V was for men and the other for women and the outer reaches of the wings were reserved for the toughest cases.

Architect Richard Andrews designed Trans-Allegheny according to the Kirkbride plan. Construction was begun in 1858, using prison labor, and would not be completed until 1881. One reason for the delay was the Civil War. During the War in 1861, the Union 7th Ohio Infantry took over the asylum and called it Camp Tyler. This was an important military post. Despite not being completed, the first patients were welcomed in 1864. The asylum was meant for a total of 250 patients, but far more would end up being housed here. Studying the architecture of the asylum, it is easy to see the Gothic and Tudor Revival style influences. There are Tudor arches, drip moulds above the windows and the very distinctive Curvilinear gables, which is what is seen at the top front of The Alamo. There is a central clock tower that was completed in 1871 that looks a bit out of place and is painted white. Segregated rooms for people of color were added in 1873. When construction was finished, the asylum was like its own little community like all those that came before and after it. There was a vegetable garden, a dairy, a waterworks, a gasworks and three cemeteries. The apothecary in the old Civil War Wing offered an assortment of medicinal items from thorazine to heroin to bourbon!

Things started out good with positive intentions, but this would unravel over time. By 1880, there were nearly 500 more patients being cared for than the hospitals maximum of 250. These numbers just rose until there was a peak of 2,600 patients in the 1950s. Clearly, this caused overcrowding and poor sanitation. Obviously, not just the mentally ill were housed here. People could be sent here for a number of reasons including epilepsy and addiction and even very trivial matters like a husband who just didn't like his strong-willed wife talking back to him. Women could get committed by their husbands for reasons like "disappointed affection," "imaginary female trouble," "medicine to prevent conception" and "time of life." Unruly patients were often locked in cages. In 1913, Trans-Allegheny became Weston State Hospital, but the name change did nothing for conditions. In the 1980s, the population was lowered. The hospital was closed in 1994 when another hospital was built. For many years, the buildings on the campus were left abandoned and many areas were damaged by vandals and the elements. The Weston Hospital Revitalization Committee, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization, was formed in 2000 to help preserve the buildings. Joe Jordan bought the property for $1.5 million in 2007 and they have put together a museum and offered historical and ghost tours ever since. His daughter Rebecca Gleason is now the operations manager.

Many forms of therapy were used on the patients and doctors liked to experiment. There were cold baths, electro-shock therapy, insulin-shock therapy, bloodletting and confinement cribs. One of the darkest stains on the history for Trans-Allegheny was its West Virginia Lobotomy Project headed up by Walter Freeman. This project started in the early 1950s and was authorized by the West Virginia Board of Control. There was a control group of 228 patients who were subjected to transorbital lobotomy. The procedure led to four fatalities, two of them due to hemorrhage and two to dehydration. After a year, eighty-five of the subjects were released from the hospital. The main goal of this project and for even doing the lobotomies was to help empty out the hospitals. Egas Moniz, a Portuguese neurologist, pioneered the method and Freeman adopted it in 1936. He was the one who named it "lobotomy" and he was the one that developed what we consider to be the barbaric transorbital version of the lobotomy. This was basically using an ice pick through the eye, beating it with a mallet to get into the skull and severing the frontal lobe from the rest of the brain by moving that ice pick around. Most patients did not consent to the procedure. The project ended in 1955 and there seemed to be no positive outcome. Violent patients were docile, but they also were basically catatonic. (STAT Podcast did a series featuring Freeman back in 2017 that was excellent.)

 Some of the things listed as reasons for being committed:

    Asthma
    Epilepsy
    Dementia
    Tuberculosis
    Addiction
    Seduction
    Egotism
    Bad whiskey
    Indigestion
    Doubt about his mother’s ancestors
    Loss of arm
    Change of life
    Menstrual derangement
    Childbirth
    Disappointed love
    Death of sons in war
    Overstudy of Religion
    Domestic trouble
    Laziness
    Snuff Eating for 2 Years
    Reading too many novels
    Masturbation
    Fits
    Desertion of husband

Thirteen buildings still stand on the property. The total acreage of the property is an ominous 666 acres. There are countless ghost stories connected to the place. They all seemed to start after the hospital was abandoned, but that doesn't mean that there were not experiences while the asylum still had patients. Many ghost programs have featured this location from Ghost Hunters to Ghost Adventures to Portals to Hell to Paranormal Lockdown. Several areas that can be toured and investigated include the operating room, apartments and morgue. Trans-Allegheny could be straight out of a horror movie with dim and dingy hallways full of peeling paint, crumbling floors and broken windows. And even though it has been undergoing extensive renovations for years, it still looks as though it were abandoned. The experiences that people have run the gamut of everything we have heard about from every other reputedly haunted location: cold spots, strange sounds, disembodied voices, apparitions of doctors and nurses and patients.

Jim James was a former patient who liked cigarettes. Investigators are usually able to coax him into communicating by offering him one. Marisa Kashino visited the asylum in 2018 and wrote an article for the Washingtonian sharing her experiences during an investigation. Jim was one of the spirits she believed she interacted with and she wrote, "We placed a Maglite on the floor and asked Jim to turn it on. The light was Julia’s, but I inspected it and it seemed totally ordinary. A few beats passed—then it came on. By itself. I offered Jim a cigarette to turn it back off. It went dark."

The Apothecary in the Civil War Wing reputedly hosts black or dark figures or masses. This is said to be a very haunted area of the main building. Guides claim to hear disembodied voices and doors slamming. One night, a guide witnessed a door slamming against the wall over and over and there was no one near the door. Another guide had the most traumatic event he had ever experienced in the pharmacy one night. His name is Mike Heath and he was assaulted by a spirit. He came through the door and felt four fingers press against his back and push him forward in a violent way. It was the first time that anything in the building had touched him.

Eddie is a former patient who liked to play poker. He seems to like to communicate with flashlights and was documented doing so during a visit that the New York Times paid to the location in 2013. The author of the article was John Searles and he found himself wondering if his guide had some way of controlling the flashlight. Diane had often wondered the same thing until our own investigations with our own flashlight started going on and off without us being anywhere near it. Searles writes, "As soon as we set up our cots, a strange noise — like something heavy being dragged across a floor — started coming from a distant part of the asylum. Thomas sat up and asked if I had heard it. At first, I told him that it was coming from that ghost-free waiting area, which was not far away. But then we heard the sound again, this time unmistakably coming from the space near that rusted cage door that led to the lobotomy area. When we heard the sound a third time, louder than before, Thomas bolted. He returned with Copperhead. The three of us walked quietly with our flashlights through a series of rooms, some with old hospital equipment still in them and bars on the windows, until we entered a room that had what looked to be roofing material on the floor. Copperhead stepped on it with his boot, and we heard that distinctive dragging sound. We were in the off-limits part of the asylum, where no one else was supposed to be, so that meant the noise we had heard had to be otherworldly. I couldn’t help but feel as if we were in a 'Scooby-Doo' episode, and at any moment we would figure out who had been trying to scare us away."

The Women's Auxiliary Building is the second oldest building on the property and no one is allowed access in this building. The building is in real sad shape, so it is not surprising. The show Paranormal Lockdown did get to go inside on episode 1 of their first season. Nick and Katrina caught a very clear EVP answering "Yes" when they asked if they had seen a figure standing in a room here. They then got a "No" when they asked if the spirit knew it was dead. They also felt an electrical charge and the owner, Rebecca, who was giving them the tour, had goosebumps on her arms. It was hard to tell the gender of the voice on the EVP. Nick and Katrina returned to this building the next night with their Geobox, which is an upgraded spirit box or something, and they picked up two voices. The first said, "Hello" in a female voice and the second was male and said, "Don't say a word."

Up on the fourth floor, Paranormal Lockdown caught the creepiest thing I've seen if it was the real deal. This is a floor that Nick was afraid of because he had seen a shadow figure up here during a previous visit. He spent the first night up there in the complete dark with a camera on him that had night vision and there was a sound that he didn't make and is hard to describe, kind of like a banging. When the crew was up there earlier, the camera man and Nick both heard something say, "Shhh." On the final night of their 72 hours, the camera man is taping Nick and Katrina and then he hears something and sees something behind them slithering in the dark along the floor. They played it over and over, Kelly and I watched it, and it is strange. If it wasn't some extra person on the property crawling slowly across the ground, then I don't know what the hell it was. Both Nick and Katrina seemed shocked to see it when the camera man replayed it for them, so I lean towards legit and it gives you chills.

A little girl named Lilly is said to have been born at the asylum and now haunts the hallways and plays with toys left for her. She lived to be nine-years-old and then died. Another version of the story claims that she was dropped off by her parents and abandoned. Her spirit is seen as a full-bodied apparition wearing a white dress. Her disembodied giggling is sweet, but also very unnerving. Lily's Room, which is full of scattered toys, is located on the first floor of Ward Four in the eastern corner. A music box in this room plays on its own and Lily interacts with guides. Usually this manifests with balls rolling across the floor by themselves. She also will turn off and on flashlights when asked.

One story claims a patient named Jane Harvey killed herself in the asylum and is said to haunt it now. On the first floor is the spirit of a patient named Ruth who apparently hated men. It is said that she still hates men and tends to throw things at them during investigations. A Civil War ghost named Jacob hangs out on the 4th floor of the main building. A murderer named Slewfoot was murdered himself and is now apparently haunting the place, particularly in the shower area where he was killed.

Ward F housed the most aggressive male patients and Ward C housed the most dangerous female patients. A patient named Joe was one of those who was violent and he decided to take his fury out on a lobotomized patient named Charlie. A former employee claimed that Joe had been a serial killer before coming to the asylum. The Portals of Hell show referred to the victim as Dean, so we're not sure what his name really was, but what happened to him was horrible. A nurse recalled that Joe got some other patients to help him string Charlie up to an overhead pipe in an attempt to hang him. They lowered Charlie to the floor picked up a metal-framed bed and put the leg against his forehead and then jumped up and down on the bed, driving the bedpost into Charlie's skull. Charlie's spirit is believed to have remained here because of this tragic event. Another employee claimed that two men had been murdered in the same way, but we have only heard that this one time, so not sure about the accuracy of that claim.

knight 1431 on TripAdvisor in March 2020: "I got touched down my face while walking on the first floor heading to the Civil War area of the wing, stopped me dead in my tracks. filmed activity in Lilly's room and got activity on my Mel-Meter while talking to"The Sarge" in the Civil War section of the Asylum. I also picked up anomalies on the fourth floor in the Addiction section of the Wing with my SLS CAmera."

There are so many tales of experiences at the asylum. It would seem most everyone who enters either feels something, sees something or experiences something. Is the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 239 - Keith-Albee Theater

 
Moment in Oddity - Benjamin Bathurst Disappears

Benjamin Bathurst was a British man who was sent by the British government on a secret mission to Austria to ask them to join in a confederation to fight against Napoleon. His message was that Britain would attack the French occupying Spain if Austria would join. Things didn't work out and Austria ended up ceding territory to Napoleon. Bathurst began his journey home after delivering the message under the assumed name Koch. He told everyone that he was a wealthy merchant and he was traveling with his secretary. Bathhurst had been acting very vervous and was sure agents of Napoloen were following him. He decided to leave an inn where he was staying in the middle of the night. He left his secretary to pay the bill and he went out to check that the horses were rigged right. He walked around the horses and just disappeared. The valet did not see him anywhere and he had been loading the baggage. The secretary did not see him come back into the inn. Soldiers stationed at each end of the street did not see him pass. He literally just disappeared. Many stories theorized that he had somehow run away and been lost at sea, others say he was kidnapped and others say he slipped away and changed his identity. The only thing we know for certain is that he walked out around his horses and was no more and that, certainly is odd!

This Month in History - Beatles Turned Down by Decca Records

In the month of January, on the 1st, in 1962, the Beatles auditioned for Decca Records and were turned down. The members of the Beatles at that time were John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Pete Best. They travelled from Liverpool with their roadie Neil Aspinall. Brian Epstein met up with them later as he decided to take the train. They nearly missed their 11am audition with Decca because of snowstorms. The boys were eager to seal the deal. A representative from the company had already seen them perform live and he was not impressed, so they hoped the private audition would win the contract. They were thrown off at the beginning of the audition because their amplifiers were considered subpar and so they had to use some that Decca owned that they were unfamiliar with. The session took an hour to record. They recorded 15 songs most of which are only available today as bootleg. Another group had auditioned that day as well and that was Brian Poole and the Tremeloes. Decca Records could only choose one of them and in a decision they clearly must have regretted later, they decided to sign Brian Poole and the Tremeloes since they were a local group and would be easier to work with. The official reason Decca gave was that "guitar groups are on the way out, Mr Epstein". Dick Rowe would forever be known as the "man who turned down the Beatles" and this line became infamous. Obviously, Brian Epstein pressed on for the Beatles and took the recordings they made around to other record labels. And the rest, as they say, is history!

Keith-Albee Theater (Suggested by Victoria Brooke)

The Keith-Albee Theater in Huntington, West Virginia was a part of a national chain of theaters that hosted vaudeville shows and then eventually converted to motion picture theaters. The Keith-Albee Theater also has the distinction of being one of a very few atmospheric theaters built in America. Nearly all of them are gone today. This theater has survived and has been refurbished to its former glory. All the decades of use has left spiritual residue behind. There are rumored to be several ghosts here. Join us as we share the history and hauntings of the Keith-Albee Theater.

Keith-Albee-Orpheum Theaters was a national chain of vaudeville theaters formed by the merger of the holdings of Benjamin Franklin Keith, Edward Franklin Albee II and Martin Beck's Orpheum Circuit. The company was incorporated in Delaware on January 28, 1928 and soon the company was operating a chain of theaters across America and Canada that could seat a total of 1,500,000 people. There were 700 theaters at its height. Fifteen thousand vaudeville acts passed through the theaters. Eventually the KAO theaters were bought out by RKO and motion pictures became the main source of entertainment at the theaters.

One of the locations where Keith and Albee decided to build a theater was in Huntington, West Virginia. The first permanent settlement in Huntington was "Holderby's Landing," which was founded in 1775. The official city of Huntington was incorporated in 1871 and named for founder Collis P. Huntington, who was one of the "Big Four" to build the Central Pacific Railroad. He and Delos W. Emmons wanted the city to be the western terminus for the Chesapeake and Ohio Railway. The tract of land was at the mouth of the Guyandotte River. Huntington boomed from that time in the late 1800s and the city was actually the second in America to feature electric street cars. They were eventually replaced by gas-powered buses. Things changed with the Great Flood of 1937. The Dust Bowl and Great Depression had already hit the country hard and this flood was devastating. For Huntington, it resulted in five people dead, millions of dollars in damage and tens of thousands left homeless. *Fun Fact: The movie "We Are Marshall" was filmed in Huntington.*

Construction on the Keith Albee Theater began in 1926 and ended up costing $2 million to build. The owners, the Hyman brothers, hired Scottish-born architect Thomas W. Lamb to design the theater in the rococo style. The rococo style dates back to the 18th century and was a French artistic movement. The style was ornate and featured light colors, curves, gold and asymmetrical designs. Many of the themes were quite witty and many times incorporated Chinese figures and designs. Interiors would integrate ornate furniture, tapestries, small sculptures and ornamental mirrors. Another unique part of the design for the theater is that Lamb chose to make it one of eight atmospheric theaters he designed. Atmospheric theatres were designed to create the illusion of being entertained outdoors in a magnificent courtyard. There are faux facades of various shops and village homes and the domed ceiling appears to be a blue night sky with a smattering of stars.There is only one other atmospheric theater left and it is in New York and scheduled for demolition.

The theater officially opened on May 7, 1928. Guests entered to find a grand theater with seating for 3000, chandeliers, intricate plasterwork, balconies, restrooms for men and women that had fireplaces, smoking rooms, cosmetic rooms and a gorgeous front lobby with Mexican Baroque styling. Inside the theater there was a Wurlitzer organ to accompany live performances and motion pictures. This type of organ was fun in that it could create sound effects for any silent pictures shown at the theater. The Hyman Brothers innovated the theater to have air-conditioning. It was one of few places to have such a luxury. There was also a state-of-the-art heating system, so guests were comfortable all year long. Huntington’s Herald-Dispatch newspaper called the theater the “temple of amusement.” That first opening featured a performance by singer Rae Samuels, some vaudeville acts and a screening of 1928's "Good Morning Judge" starring Reginald Denny. People paid .50 cents for a ticket.

The theater was hit hard through the Great Depression and the flood and the entertainment industry changed. The Wurlitzer organ was removed in the 1950s, but in 2001 the Huntington Theatre Organ Project, Inc., purchased a 1927 Wurlitzer organ and reinstalled it in the theater. In the 1960s, the theater was converted fully to a three screen theater. A fourth smaller theater was added later. In 1986, the theater was added to the Register of Historical Places. The Hyman family had owned it for eighty years and they decided to donate it to the Marshall University Foundation, Inc. in the 1990s. In January 2006, the Keith-Albee Theatre closed as a functioning movie theater. The foundation later passed it on to the Keith-Albee Performing Arts Center Foundation. Many grand theaters dating back to the time of the Keith-Albee were demolished, so it is really special that the citizens of Huntington decided to save their theater. Today, the theater is used for weddings, special events, touring Broadway shows, music concerts and dance recitals.



The Keith-Albee shares a unique feature found in so many theaters and that is, ghosts. Several people have met their ends inside the theater and many believe that their spirits have opted to stay at the theater in the afterlife. There are claims that this is the most haunted building in the tri-state area. Three of the ghosts reputed to be here, belong to workmen, two of them electricians and one a maintenance man. The electricians were electrocuted while working on wiring and the maintenance man died in some way inside the modern projection room. They appear as shadow figures and fittingly, mess with the lighting and other electrical parts.

A homeless man had taken shelter in the basement, but there was no heat down there and he ended up freezing to death. It was right below the staging area. Much of the activity does center around the basement and it believed that this is where the electricians died as well. Ghostlore claims that the basement opens up into a system of tunnels, but we didn't find anything to prove that these tunnels exist today. They may have been under the city, but they are more than likely filled in now.

The most famous ghost at the theater is the Lady in Red. She tends to occupy the ladies restroom on the mezzanine level. There is a mirrored parlor that leads into the restroom and this is where she is often seen as a full-bodied apparition. The specter wears a fancy red dress and high heeled shoes. Another bathroom at the Keith-Albee is said to be haunted by a spirit, but no one is sure what is haunting it as it only appears as more of a poltergeist type spirit. Patrons describe feeling as though they are being watched or followed.

Most theaters claim to have at least one spirit hanging around. The Keith-Albee claims to have several. Is the Keith-Albee theater haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 146 - The Lowe Hotel and Mothman

 
Moment in Oddity - Urine Turned into Potable Water

Scientists in Belgium have created a solar powered machine with a unique ability. It can turn urine into drinkable water. The scientists conducted an experiment at a music festival that lasted ten days. In that 10 days, they managed to capture 1,000 liters of water from the urine of several partygoers. The urine is collected in a tank where it is heated by solar power in a boiler. The liquid is run through a membrane that distills 95% of the ammonia from the urine and pulls out the potassium and nitrogen for use as fertilizer. They plan to use this former urine that is now water in the production of Belgium beer. So next time you order a Belgium beer, be careful. It might taste a bit odd!

This Day in History - Edgar Rice Burroughs Born

On this day, September 1st, in 1875, Edgar Rice Burroughs was born in Chicago. Burroughs was a failure at nearly everything he attempted. He flunked out of most schools, finally finishing at a reform school. He failed the entrance exam to get into West Point. He was sent off to Fort Grant in Arizona where he was told to catch Apaches, which he never managed to do. He tried being a cowboy and then a shopkeeper and then a gold miner and then finally an accountant. Nothing seemed to work for him. He wrote stories and drew cartoons to beat back the Depression that was setting in from all his failure. In desperation to make money for his growing family, he sent off one of his writings that was really only half a novel. The editor liked it and asked for the rest. That story was "Under the Moon of Mars" and is considered the turning point of 20th century science fiction. Then came "Tarzan of the Apes" and as they say, the rest is history.

The Lowe Hotel and Mothman (Suggested by listener Katie Dunlap)

Photo courtesy of Katie Dunlap

At the corner of 4th and Main in Point Pleasant, West Virginia stands the historic Lowe Hotel. This hotel dates back to the early 1900s when it was built by two brothers. The hotel was needed to serve the heavy traffic and trade from the nearby Ohio and Kanawha rivers. Across the street from this grand structure is a peculiar statue. Rather ugly. It features a creature known as the Mothman. Point Pleasant is home to the legend of the Mothman. There are legends about the hotel as well, including many rumored hauntings, one of which might be a member of the Hatfield Family who was involved in the Battle of Matewan. Join us and our listener Katie Dunlap as we explore the history and hauntings of the Lowe Hotel and explore the legend of the Mothman!

Point Pleasant is located at the confluence of the Ohio and Kanawha Rivers. The French explorer Pierre Joseph Céloron de Blainville claimed French sovereignty over the Ohio Valley and buried a plaque in modern day Point Pleasant making a claim for this area to be a part of New France. The only problem is that Britain already had a foothold and the Native Americans preferred them to the French. The French and Indian War solidified the British hold over the area. Fort Blair was erected in 1774 and Colonel Andrew Lewis who was the leader called it Camp Point Pleasant. Relations had soured with the Native Americans and that same year, the Battle of Point Pleasant occurred. Lewis led 1,000 Virginia militiamen against Shawnee Chief Cornstalk and his confederation of Algonquin. The militiamen won and this is considered part of Lord Dunmore's War. The name Point Pleasant stuck and the new Fort Randolph was established. The settlement received an official charter in 1794. The town became the county seat of Mason County in 1804.  The city was incorporated in 1833.

Point Pleasant had been home to the Silver Bridge, which had been built in 1927. It connected West Virginia to Ohio. The bridge was declared a "shining example of man's engineering ingenuity." That all came crashing down on December 15, 1967 when the bridge collapsed like a child's erector set. The bridge had held bumper to bumper Christmas traffic and those cars fell into the icy Ohio River. Forty-six people lost their lives that day. Some claim there was a warning that this disater was going to take place and it took the form of something that has come to be called the Mothman. This legendary creature came to more public awareness in the 2002 Richard Gere film based on the book the Mothman Prophecies.

Sightings of the creature known as Mothman began in 1966. The first happened on November 12th and it involved a group of five men working in a cemetery near Clendenin, West Virginia. The men were horrified when they spied a human shaped winged beast take off from a nearby cluster of trees. It flew directly over them. They reported what they had seen and soon more sightings were reported. On November 15th, two young couples had been out for the evening and they drove past an abandoned TNT plant near Point Pleasant. They were startled when they saw a human shaped creature that they described as nearly seven feet tall standing near the plant. They could tell that it had wings folded against its back. They sped off, but saw the thing again on a hillside near the road. The winged creature spread its wings and flew alongside the car and kept up even though the car was traveling at 100mph.

That same night, another group of four witnesses would tell the sheriff they saw the same bird-like humanoid. Ninety miles away, a man named Newell Partridge claimed to see two red circles that looked like bicycle reflectors near his hay barn when he pointed a flashlight in that direction to see what was making his dog go nuts. The dog ran towards the thing and Partridge went to get his gun, but was too scared to go outside. Two days later, his dog had still not returned. Partridge would later read the other eyewitness accounts in the paper and there was a report that a large dog had been seen lying on the ground near the TNT plant. When the couples drove by again, the dog's body was gone.

The witnesses were all well known people and the town took their stories serious. These people had clearly seen something very strange. The TNT plant was used to store explosives during World War II and it had woods all around, so it was a perfect place for the Mothman to hide out. Marcella Bennett was visiting her friends, the Thomas family, in November. She had her baby girl with her and as she was pulling her from the car, she noticed something out of the corner of her eye. She turned and saw a big gray human-like being with glowing eyes that stood over six feet tall. She dropped the baby in fear. She scooped her daughter up and ran for the Thomas' door. The Mothman followed her onto the porch and after she entered, peered through the windows. The terrified group called the police, but the Mothman had disappeared by the time they arrived. It would take months for Bennett to recover from the encounter.

The sightings and other strange events continued for a year. The reports stopped around the time of the bridge collapse and many claim that the Mothman either had something to do with it or it served as a warning of impending doom. There were people who claim it was just a Sandhill Crane in the wrong place. While we can attest that these birds are large, have a strange call we liken to a Velociraptor dinosaur and can be aggressive, they do not look anything like a human. There were several UFO reports at the same time in Point Pleasant's history. The whole incident is very strange, but one thing is for certain. Point Pleasant has embraced this legend. There is the Mothman Museum with the Mothman statue outside and every year there is the Mothman Festival in September. (In 2016, it's September 17th & 18th and celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first sighting.)

Across the street from the Mothman Museum is the Lowe Hotel. It was originally named the Spencer Hotel and was built in 1901 by the Smith Brothers, Homer and Griff. They chose the name Spencer in honor of their friend J.S. Spencer. It makes sense because Spencer was a financial backer of the hotel and the name Smith is well, the name Smith. Griff was the older of the two brothers. He was born in 1867 and Homer was born in 1868. Griff was considered a ladies' man and worked in politics early on, first for the West Virginia Secretary of State and then for the IRS Commissioner. He left politics and D.C. to join his brother in the hotel business.

The Lowe Hotel was four stories tall, built on land that Colonel Andrew Lewis had owned. The first floor was meant to be a place for the community featuring a barber shop, bank, billiards room, ladies reception area and a bar and grill. The brothers spent $65,000 on construction and another $10,000 to furnish the hotel.  The kitchen was on the mezzazine between the first and second floor and there was a dining room. Guests stayed on the second and third floors and a grand ballroom was on the fourth floor. Rumors claim that gambling and prostitution were embraced here.

The Stock Market crash hit the brothers hard and they sold the hotel to the Lowe family in 1929. The Lowe family renamed the hotel using their name and that is what it is known by today. They stopped the backdoor illegal activities. The hotel passed on to a son in 1945 and when he retired, he put the hotel up for sale in 1987. Ruth and Rush Finley bought the hotel in 1990. They have upgraded the hotel, but keep it furnished and styled in a way that takes guests back to an earlier time. Some claim it is like taking a trip back through the Twilight Zone and we would agree. An old charm hotel right across from the Mothman Museum just screams Twilight Zone. It's not surprising that John Keel stayed at the hotel while he was investigating and writing his book, "The Mothman Prophecies." (Katie shared the biography of the Finleys, which was a really nice touch.)

West Virginia has been considered a strange and haunted place all the way back to the times when the Native tribes lived on the land. They would report strange phantom lights and bizarre creatures. Particularly in this area of southeastern Ohio and western West Virginia. There are claims that this area is a portal or window to something else. And then there is the Cornstalk Curse. Chief Keigh-tugh-gua was murdered here. His name translated to "Cornstalk." In 1777, during the Revolutionary War, Cornstalk visited Fort Randolph with a warning. The British were mobilizing the native tribes in the area to attack the fort. Chief Cornstalk was one of the lone holdouts, but he explained to the colonists at the fort that he knew soon that his people would be forced to join the British. Captain Arbuckle was alarmed when he heard this and he took the chief hostage.

Photo courtesy of Katie Dunlap

The chief was treated well. A few days later, two soldiers went outside the fort to hunt and they were ambushed. One man was killed and when his body was returned to the fort, the other soldiers were enraged. They broke into the quarters where the chief was being held with three other men and they murdered all four. The chief was shot eight times. The town of Point Pleasant really struggled and a historian named Virgil A. Lewis wrote in 1808, "Point Pleasant did not flourish for many years [after the turn of the century]. There was no church for more than fifty years and society was at a low ebb. There was a popular superstition that because of the fiendish murder of Cornstalk there in 1777, the place was laid under a curse for a hundred years." The legend holds that as Chief Cornstalk was on the floor dying, he uttered this curse, "I was the border man’s friend. Many times I have saved him and his people from harm. I never warred with you, but only to protect our wigwams and lands. I refused to join your paleface enemies with the red coats. I came to the fort as your friend and you murdered me. You have murdered by my side, my young son.... For this, may the curse of the Great Spirit rest upon this land. May it be blighted by nature. May it even be blighted in its hopes. May the strength of its peoples be paralyzed by the stain of our blood." Disasters and tragedies have plagued the area since.

Is it this confluence of tales of portals and curses that has led to reports of hauntings at the Lowe Hotel? The hotel is reported to play host to a plethora of spirits. The mezzanine features a tale about a ghost that many believe is the spirit of Juliette Smith. She was the Lowe family's middle child and she was a beautiful girl with long flowing hair. She fell in love with a boy and in typical fashion, her father disapproved. He forbade her from seeing the young man and he married another, leaving her heartbroken. Between the first and second floors is home to one of the most famous of the Lowe ghosts.  A beautiful, but disheveled young woman is seen dancing to music only she can hear.  She is barefoot, wearing a nightgown, and has long, flowing hair.  No one is sure how she died. She is reportedly seen wearing a nightgown and dancing. When the show Sci-Fi Investigates stayed at Lowe while filming a special on the Mothman, a member of the crew who was a skeptic, claimed he saw the apparition of Juliette. Some people leave a single long-stemmed rose on the mezzanine to coax her out.

The third floor seems to be the most haunted area of the hotel. Room 316 has reported sightings of a spirit named Captain Jim. This is a nice three room suite, so perhaps there is room for the living and the dead here. A woman staying in that room in 2005 was startled when she returned to her room and found a man standing at the window wearing what looked like a ship captain's outfit, staring out at the river. She demanded to know what he was doing in her room and he said he was waiting for a boat. It was then that she realized he had no legs. She ran as would we! There was a Captain James O'Brien who worked on a steamship here in 1915.

Another spirit on the third floor is the spectre of a former maid. Guests feel cold spots in the hallway and in their rooms and claim to hear disembodied whistling with a female lilt. Cleaning supplies are found laying around and the staff claims to have not left them. (Likely story *wink wink*) Maybe they aren't lying because the supplies are never the current products the hotel staff uses. There is also another male spirit on the third flood who appears wearing 1930s style clothing in Room 314. One of the witnesses saw a postcard with the likeness of a former Sheriff of Matewan. The witness was sure that was the spirit they had seen. That man was Sid Hatfield. And yes, that Hatfield of Hatfield vs the McCoys.

Sid Hatfield was a descendant of the leader of the Hatfield family involved in that infamous raucous. Sid himself was involved in another raucous: The Battle of Matewan. Sid became a miner when he was a teenager. In 1919, he became Police Chief of Matewan. He was staunch supporter of the United Mine Workers of America. Coal companies ran the lives of miners forcing them to live in their housing and shop in their stories. They worked the miners in harsh conditions and for long hours. So along came unions to help the workers. A group called Baldwin-Felts Detectives would go around and punish any workers who joined unions, beating them up and throwing their furniture into the streets. Twelve men led by Albert Felts came to town to evict a bunch of miners.

Sheriff Hatfield made sure the process went smoothly, but later that evening, things took a turn for the worse. The townspeople were angry about the evictions. The sheriff and mayor were not happy either. They rounded up a group and confronted the Baldwin-Felts men. No one knows for sure what happened next, but bullets went flying. The mayor was mortally wounded. Seven of the Felts men were killed including Albert Felts. Two miners and the mayor were killed on the other side. State troopers seized control of the town, but no charges were brought against anybody. The following year, Hatfield and his deputy were shot and killed.

There is a residual type haunting on the second floor of the Lowe Hotel. This one features a young girl about two or three-years-old. She rides a tricycle in the hall as a full bodied apparition and makes no eye contact and does not respond to anyone. She will then just disappear. The sounds of a tricycle are heard in the hallways as well and no one will see anything to cause the noise. Some believe this is an imprint of one of the Lowe's children who would play in the hotel. People claim to hear music coming from the empty ballroom.

A woman reported after staying in 2015:

"The best time was this last week when we returned with our 6 month old son and my Mom. We stayed in room 220, the suite. We all stayed in the two bed room with my sons bed between us. Between two and four in the morning I was awaken several times by the feeling of someone touching my knee (not under covers as it was hot). I would wake up, look around, see nothing (as we kept a light on for our son) and check blankets were not on me at all. This happened about three times. I can best describe it as it felt like a small child tapping my trying to get my attention. When we all woke up about 8am the next day, my Mom reported that she kept feeling someone touch her as well in the bed across the room."

Lori K wrote on TripAdvisor of her stay in 2009:

 "My boyfriend and I stayed at The Lowe this past weekend while we were in town for the Mothman Festival. I loved it! We had two strange experiences there. On Friday night we had a hat rack fall over in the middle of the night and on Saturday our TV came on by itself."

The Lowe Hotel sits in a town with an active and strange history. Did the Mothman really exist or was he just the result of active imaginations? Was this just a large bird? Could the historic Lowe Hotel harbor some energy that is carrying over from the past? Do members of the Lowe family still remain here in death? Do some previous guests still remain in the afterlife? Is the Lowe Hotel haunted? That is for you to decide!

Photos provided by Katie Dunlap:

Dining Hall

Lobby and Mezzanine

Second Floor Parlor

Second Floor Hallway

Lowe Hotel Room

Third Floor Hallway

Stairs to Upper Floor

A "Real" Room Key!

TNT Bunker

Bunker

Inside Exploded Bunker

Katie with Mothman Statue