Showing posts with label ghosts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ghosts. Show all posts
"New" Shuck stories courtesy of the Paranormal Database monthly update.....
Is there anything creepier than an animal spectre? Particularly when it is seen doing an un-animal-like thing, such as walking on two legs? I've always been intrigued by ghostly dog/shuck stories, dating back to the first time I read Hans Christian Andersen's 'The Tinderbox.' See earlier entries 'The Beast of Brymbo' and 'The Black Dogs of South Mountain.'
What is a Shuck?
What is a Padfoot?
These stories have spellbound listeners for centuries, even millennia, but even in our modern, 'enlightened' technological 21st century, new sightings and stories are still being reported. Here are a few stories that were posted on Paranormal Database just during the last month or so.
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Postman's Dog
A postman in Wales reported that every night, at the Ewenny crossroads where one road leads to Ogmore, he would watch as a large phantom black dog appeared, moving purposefully as if it were on a mission. It made no sound as it passed. This story may date to the nineteenth century.
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Trotting Dog
Also in Wales, a predictable but elusive Shuck is said to appear every night at midnight at the crossroads between Bridgend and Laleston. This haunting is ongoing. People who have attempted to follow the hound-like creature have always lost sight of it, despite their efforts.
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Changing Entity
In Durham, the area of Glassensikes (river) and Harewood Hill was once said to be haunted by a large black dog which could sometimes change into a rabbit, a white cat, a headless woman, or a flaming headless man. The age of this legend is unknown.
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Padfoot
At Horbury in Yorkshire, in the area of Jenkin Road, a man returning home caught a glimpse of a white dog in the hedgerow. He struck at it with a stick, which passed straight through the dog. The dog didn't flee, but turned around and stared at the man. He ran home, where he became sick and later died. This shuck is said to sometimes run around on two legs. Catching sight of it is considered to be a portent of death.
This legend dates at least as far back as the nineteenth century.
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White Lass Beck
A stream near Thirsk in Yorkshire has long been said to be haunted by the spirit of a maid who was murdered in the area, in the nineteenth century or earlier. Her body was found buried in a gravel pit. White Lass Beck appears as a woman dressed in white, but also has taken the form of a white dog or a white cow.
VISIT PARANORMAL DATABASE
What is a Shuck?
What is a Padfoot?
These stories have spellbound listeners for centuries, even millennia, but even in our modern, 'enlightened' technological 21st century, new sightings and stories are still being reported. Here are a few stories that were posted on Paranormal Database just during the last month or so.
---------------------------
Postman's Dog
A postman in Wales reported that every night, at the Ewenny crossroads where one road leads to Ogmore, he would watch as a large phantom black dog appeared, moving purposefully as if it were on a mission. It made no sound as it passed. This story may date to the nineteenth century.
---------------------------
Trotting Dog
Also in Wales, a predictable but elusive Shuck is said to appear every night at midnight at the crossroads between Bridgend and Laleston. This haunting is ongoing. People who have attempted to follow the hound-like creature have always lost sight of it, despite their efforts.
---------------------------
Changing Entity
In Durham, the area of Glassensikes (river) and Harewood Hill was once said to be haunted by a large black dog which could sometimes change into a rabbit, a white cat, a headless woman, or a flaming headless man. The age of this legend is unknown.
----------------------------
Padfoot
At Horbury in Yorkshire, in the area of Jenkin Road, a man returning home caught a glimpse of a white dog in the hedgerow. He struck at it with a stick, which passed straight through the dog. The dog didn't flee, but turned around and stared at the man. He ran home, where he became sick and later died. This shuck is said to sometimes run around on two legs. Catching sight of it is considered to be a portent of death.
This legend dates at least as far back as the nineteenth century.
----------------------------
White Lass Beck
A stream near Thirsk in Yorkshire has long been said to be haunted by the spirit of a maid who was murdered in the area, in the nineteenth century or earlier. Her body was found buried in a gravel pit. White Lass Beck appears as a woman dressed in white, but also has taken the form of a white dog or a white cow.
VISIT PARANORMAL DATABASE
III. The Lawn
Just a hilltop or two away at Elk Ridge, Colonel Marshall had neighbors in Lawyers’ Hill, an enclave above the Patapsco River where several lawyers, judges, and doctors had their summer homes.
{During and after the war, they gathered socially on the wide lawn of Judge George Washington Dobbin, who hosted a Friday Club at his home, which was aptly named The Lawn. His daughter, Rebecca, noted in her journal that the sound of artillery from Manassas could be heard from this favorite vantage point during the first battle of Bull Run.}
On the wall of the porch near the front door, you can still find a string of wooden beads that Judge Dobbin used to keep track of the laps he walked on the wraparound porch. There was something odd/special about the knocking, ringing, or locking mechanism on the front door, but I can't remember what it is right now!... The glowing entrance hall where the smell of oil paints and linseed oil hit you upon entering. On the right, the dark gallery/studio, and on the left the drawing room....then kitchen and butler's pantry. Just inside the drawing room door, on the right, a desk with a phone. Mrs. May Cobb, a family friend from church and my art teacher, had funny stories of things that happened back when phone lines were party lines and you could listen in on other peoples' conversations (or vice versa.)
Art lessons were either on the 'back porch' or in the drawing room. My sisters had taken these classes too, when they were my age.....I had to bring a quarter with me to each Saturday afternoon lesson, to help defray the cost of supplies. Sometimes during these sessions, she told me ghost stories about the house. A vase of flowers on the mantel would float out into the room and dump itself out....and this was the poltergeist, she explained....a 'noisy ghost' that likes to move things, throw things, cause disturbances. Once, a recently planted flower box was uprooted when her back was turned. She speculated that this was Judge Dobbin, who had an observatory above the second floor, where the flower boxes were located.
After Mr. Joe Cobb's death, Mrs. Cobb awoke in the night to hear his circular saw running in the workshop. I thought it might be lonely and scary for an elderly widow to live alone in a big place like this, back in the woods, with spirits. Fortunately, she rented out part of the second floor to tenants. The tenants, a family, loved the house so much that when Mrs. Cobb went to live with family in Pennsylvania near the end of her life, they bought it and lived in it for about a decade.
~~
When I was older, she found some of my old paintings from class and had them matted for me. I still have a fabric wall hanging that I made at her house, and I remember doing ink drawings over watercolor wash, and learning the principles of Japanese flower arranging...odd numbers always, earth, sky and water. She let slip to friends that I had a fascination with buttons, and one of them brought me a small collection at church one morning.
My elementary school friend Alan Talbot lived in the gatehouse (one of the original tenant cottages) with his mother, and I remember attending one of his birthday parties there.
An oil painting in/near the front hall of a man with a floppy hat
"Merriman"
It was here that I first heard the word 'Europe' as a small child, and conceived of a place far away, that was different from where I lived.
The two tenant cottages had to be moved when Rt. 895, the Harbor Tunnel Throughway, went through in the early 1970s.
In the mid-2000s, the family who loved the house so much sold it, and shortly thereafter it was chosen to be the Howard County decorator's showhouse for 2007. The home underwent restoration and refurbishment, and vendors and designers showcased their work all through the property in the fall of 2007. The photos below were taken when my mother, sister, and I visited the showhouse on my mother's birthday in September of that year.
Sadly, about a year later, the then-owner of the property died by his own hand in the historic barn. I don't believe the property has changed ownership since that time.
Judge George Washington Dobbin, builder of The Lawn.
Fairy swings
Above, a view of the barn, to the west of the main house.
View from an outbuilding
Here you can see the two extra extensions added
to the rear of the main wings of the house.
The beads!!
Part of the porch on the cottage/library/studio wing.
{During and after the war, they gathered socially on the wide lawn of Judge George Washington Dobbin, who hosted a Friday Club at his home, which was aptly named The Lawn. His daughter, Rebecca, noted in her journal that the sound of artillery from Manassas could be heard from this favorite vantage point during the first battle of Bull Run.}
On the wall of the porch near the front door, you can still find a string of wooden beads that Judge Dobbin used to keep track of the laps he walked on the wraparound porch. There was something odd/special about the knocking, ringing, or locking mechanism on the front door, but I can't remember what it is right now!... The glowing entrance hall where the smell of oil paints and linseed oil hit you upon entering. On the right, the dark gallery/studio, and on the left the drawing room....then kitchen and butler's pantry. Just inside the drawing room door, on the right, a desk with a phone. Mrs. May Cobb, a family friend from church and my art teacher, had funny stories of things that happened back when phone lines were party lines and you could listen in on other peoples' conversations (or vice versa.)
Art lessons were either on the 'back porch' or in the drawing room. My sisters had taken these classes too, when they were my age.....I had to bring a quarter with me to each Saturday afternoon lesson, to help defray the cost of supplies. Sometimes during these sessions, she told me ghost stories about the house. A vase of flowers on the mantel would float out into the room and dump itself out....and this was the poltergeist, she explained....a 'noisy ghost' that likes to move things, throw things, cause disturbances. Once, a recently planted flower box was uprooted when her back was turned. She speculated that this was Judge Dobbin, who had an observatory above the second floor, where the flower boxes were located.
After Mr. Joe Cobb's death, Mrs. Cobb awoke in the night to hear his circular saw running in the workshop. I thought it might be lonely and scary for an elderly widow to live alone in a big place like this, back in the woods, with spirits. Fortunately, she rented out part of the second floor to tenants. The tenants, a family, loved the house so much that when Mrs. Cobb went to live with family in Pennsylvania near the end of her life, they bought it and lived in it for about a decade.
~~
When I was older, she found some of my old paintings from class and had them matted for me. I still have a fabric wall hanging that I made at her house, and I remember doing ink drawings over watercolor wash, and learning the principles of Japanese flower arranging...odd numbers always, earth, sky and water. She let slip to friends that I had a fascination with buttons, and one of them brought me a small collection at church one morning.
My elementary school friend Alan Talbot lived in the gatehouse (one of the original tenant cottages) with his mother, and I remember attending one of his birthday parties there.
An oil painting in/near the front hall of a man with a floppy hat
"Merriman"
It was here that I first heard the word 'Europe' as a small child, and conceived of a place far away, that was different from where I lived.
The two tenant cottages had to be moved when Rt. 895, the Harbor Tunnel Throughway, went through in the early 1970s.
In the mid-2000s, the family who loved the house so much sold it, and shortly thereafter it was chosen to be the Howard County decorator's showhouse for 2007. The home underwent restoration and refurbishment, and vendors and designers showcased their work all through the property in the fall of 2007. The photos below were taken when my mother, sister, and I visited the showhouse on my mother's birthday in September of that year.
Sadly, about a year later, the then-owner of the property died by his own hand in the historic barn. I don't believe the property has changed ownership since that time.
Fairy swings
Above, a view of the barn, to the west of the main house.
The main house with the original 'cottage' wing in the foreground, the two story
double-parlor wing further back, with the observatory poking out above the second floor.
View from an outbuilding
Here you can see the two extra extensions added
to the rear of the main wings of the house.
The beads!!
Part of the porch on the cottage/library/studio wing.
The Howard County Tragedy
September 19, 2013: It was a slow day at work. Working in a library, sometimes things get very quiet; but when workflow is at a low ebb, it’s easy to indulge in the pursuit of idle curiosities. I had been doing some research, for fun, on the first people to live in my current house back in the 1930s, and decided to look up a Kent County News story of an incident concerning the builder’s father. I was following a trail whose steps I no longer remember, gathering facts that seem trivial now, which gave my mind some mild entertainment in the form of eavesdropping on the past. I found the article I was looking for, detailing an incident of the builder’s father as a teenager, getting into a fistfight with a former teacher on the street in Still Pond, back in the spring of 1883. Typical Kent County stuff, maybe. I dropped a dime into the machine and printed out the page, as my eyes scanned the other headlines on the page. “The strawberry season is not far off.” “The Sale of Bellevue.” And then: “A Madman’s Tragic Act. Killing His Intimate Friend.” Interesting. I read on: “Mr. Charles R. White, of Howard Co., was shot and instantly killed on Wednesday by Mr. Charles Edward Hanson, an intimate friend and neighbor.” Howard County, my home county on the western shore.
That's when I realized that I knew these people.....
Belmont, front stairs and Ballroom wing. Photo, J. Nesbitt
Belmont was built in the 1730s, and was owned and lived in by Dorseys and their descendants, including the Hansons, for more than two hundred years. In 1965, it ended its days as a privately owned estate, and began a second life as a small, exclusive conference center. Whole families of high school-aged sisters and brothers in Elkridge, including mine, became part of the Belmont family, securing coveted jobs as waitresses and houseboys. I spent nearly ten years working there, in several departments, from high school until several years after college, by which time I was sharing the position of Marketing Coordinator which a childhood friend and wife of the former executive chef. People outside of our community knew little to nothing of the existence of this place, with the exception of the lucky groups who came to stay, a large proportion of them connected with Federal and local governments, including foreign dignitaries and even sometimes people important enough to require Secret Service detail. Belmont’s isolation was one of its chief marketing points.
When you first came to work at Belmont, you were scrupulously trained by the senior generation of staff members in how to deliver the highest quality of service. These were the motherly women from town who cooked breakfast and lunch every day; the executive chefs, always from “elsewhere,” who always had very special and entertaining personalities; the gruff, businesslike housekeepers, tending to be past middle age and firmly rooted in the community; and the grounds and maintenance men who seemed to know everything…. and did, since they lived in houses right on the property. Precision, perfection, discretion, and courtesy, doing things “the Belmont way” were required in all aspects of food and beverage service and housekeeping.
Fortunately, it was not only an interesting place to work, but a companionable place, with colleagues feeling like family members and, after a while, the house feeling like home. Very soon after you completed your first shift, as you relaxed in the staff room after dinner with your coworkers, you began to hear the stories, legends, and rumors about the house, and the people who had lived and visited there.
As new employees in the 1980s, my friends and I all heard about the Dorseys during those staff room storytelling sessions: the original builders, landowners, and entrepreneurs who founded this estate and many others, becoming one of the most powerful families in the state. Caleb Dorsey, the builder, was fashionably superstitious, and had installed 6-paneled witches cross doors throughout the home to keep out evil. He met his wife Priscilla while fox hunting in the area, and their initials are still carved in stone beside the front door.
Another Priscilla Dorsey, their granddaughter, eloped with Alexander Contee Hanson, a congressman and later a senator who was nearly killed in a Baltimore riot at the beginning of the war of 1812. It was after his untimely death from his lasting injuries in 1819 that the estate fell upon hard times.
If you were to consult local history sources or books containing descriptions of colonial homes in the region, you would notice that in most histories of Belmont, the years between 1819 and 1913 are barely mentioned. Or, they may be condensed into one or two lines: “Hanson’s son Grosvenor enjoyed gambling, and the estate was nearly lost. Two of Grosvenor’s nine children, Nannie and Florence, still lived in the house in 1913."
Yet, every member of the Hanson family--- Priscilla and the Senator, their son Grosvenor and his wife Annie Maria, the latters’ nine children who had lived to adulthood, as well as four more children who died in infancy, or young--- is buried in the old cemetery at the edge of the woods beyond the formal gardens, surrounded by a wrought-iron fence.
The rumors and tales told in the staff room of this part of the house’s history were darker, and began to intersect with the countless stories of employees and guests who claim to have experienced strange events and even seen uncanny things while staying or working at the house.
The two old Hanson ladies who remained in the house at the turn of the 20th century used the ballroom to store their enormous stock of canned fruits and vegetables. During the same period, a grimy painting was discovered, blocking a drafty fireplace on the second floor. This painting turned out to be an original Gilbert Stuart portrait of George Washington, and is now part of the Frick Collection.
It was rumored that the family who lived in the house had a son who was either crazy, monstrous, or had severe developmental disabilities, and that he was often locked in the room in the cellar where the extra chairs are kept. This is in the same area of the basement where two employees from the phone company were servicing the telephone connections in the early 1990s, when they suddenly left without completing the job, telling the manager on duty that they wouldn’t be returning. There was something “very wrong” down there, and it didn’t involve the phone lines. None of Belmont’s employees liked going into the basement, which was built of local stone and multichambered, running the length of the five sections of the house.
We were told that somebody was once shot on the front porch because he had borrowed his cousin’s horse without permission. This is the same area of the house that is featured in Belmont’s “official” ghost story, published in several places, of a phantom coach which drives up the circular drive and stops at the front door, horses stamping, while an invisible person stomps up the porch steps, enters the house, and marches toward the kitchen wing. I’ve never met a person who has experienced this “official” phenomenon (although a friend of a friend's mother claims to have heard it, once.)
Instead, kitchen employees are plagued by trays of glasses that smash while safely stored in glass-fronted cupboards, carefully counted silverware and plates which disappear and reappear in a few minutes’ time, mysteriously exploding wine containers, and other frustrating events which seem to escalate when especially important guests are in residence. Objects have even been seen flying across the dining room by employees working alone, with both doors to the room closed.
A woman wearing white has been seen, usually appearing as a real, solid woman clad in Victorian clothing, in a particular bedroom by more than one guest, or sitting quietly in the corner of an adjoining bedroom by an employee who was checking the rooms one evening before the arrival of an important group. She may be the same person whose misty, white-clad form was seen on several occasions standing at a small bridge over a nearby stream in the early morning hours.
September 26, 2013, a week after my discovery in the Kent County News: I don’t remember if this was a slow day at work, but I do know that I took the time to contact several of my Belmont friends, with whom I’ve never lost touch. I couldn’t wait to tell them that by pure chance, I had stumbled upon an incredible story that filled in many of the lost details of the scraps of history we had heard about the “troubled” years of our former workplace. After finding the article about the May 1883 murder in the Kent County News, I consulted the Baltimore Sun from the same time period, where I found a series of articles describing, in true Victorian fashion, full details of the murder, inquest, funeral of the deceased, testimonies of both families, and Ned Hanson’s trial. Along with census records of the decades leading up to and following the murder, these articles helped me piece together a strange, sad story of this family who had lived at the heart of our community a hundred years before any of us had been born, in the very house that, in retrospect, had played a huge part in our coming of age, early adulthoods, and for some of us, even in the formation of our own families. What’s more, the story oddly lined up, in certain places, with some of the strange, unexplained phenomena for which the house had become known.
The following headlines are taken directly from The Baltimore Sun (microfilm, collection of Clifton M. Miller Library at Washington College, Chestertown, Maryland.) Below each headline, I have summarized the contents of the accompanying article. Portions in italics are directly quoted from the newspaper.
Part of the Hanson family in the late 1800s, date and names unknown. From a photo at Belmont Manor and Historic Park.
(The Sun, May 17, 1883; Vol. XCIII Issue 1 Page 1, Published in Baltimore, Maryland.)
A MADMAN'S TRAGIC ACT.
KILLING HIS INTIMATE FRIEND.
REVOLVER AND KNIFE BOTH EMPLOYED.
______________________________________________________
At a little before noon on May 16, 1883, Charles Ridgely White of Elk Ridge, Maryland drove to Belmont to see Charles Edward "Ned" Hanson in order to get some seed corn. With him in his carriage were a young girl and a female visitor to his house, a Miss Worthington from Washington. Mr. White was the owner of a farm named "Argyle", a mile above Ilchester, but is said to have lived at the time at his home "Tutbury", which is now located off of Elibank Road, but at the time had an entrance off of Lawyers Hill Road, before I-95 separated the two neighborhoods. The newspaper noted that White and Hanson lived on adjacent properties, and that their families had been great friends for a long time.
At the time, several Hanson siblings, all adults, were living at Belmont. They included Priscilla Hanson, age 37; Charles Edward Hanson, age 35; Grosvenor Hanson, age 27; Annie Hanson, age 25; and Florence Hanson, age 23. Three other brothers lived and did business in Baltimore. They were the grandchildren of Alexander Contee Hanson, the Congressman and newspaperman famous for his involvement with and near death at the hands of an angry mob during the Baltimore Riots, who died a U.S. Senator. Their father, Charles Grosvenor Hanson, had died 3 years earlier. He and his wife, Anna Maria Worthington, had a total of 12 children while living at Belmont, born between the years 1840 and 1864. Four of these children died at age 21 or younger; two of these were twin girls who died in infancy. Of the 8 remaining children, it looks like only one married, and he was widowed at an early age, with no children.
When Mr. White arrived at Belmont on May 16, only Priscilla and Annie were at home. After waiting for about a half hour for Charles to return, Mr. White prepared to leave, saying that he would return another day to see him. He was getting his horses ready to go when Mr. Hanson entered the house (presumably from a back or side door), asked one of his sisters who had come to call, and was told that it was Mr. White. He then walked into the dining room (now the Foyer, where the big staircase is located, and the little 'telephone closet') and picked up a bread knife which was lying on the sideboard. He walked calmly out the front door and when he was about 10 feet from Mr. White, he pulled out a revolver and fired three shots, all of which hit Mr. White in the head, one first passing through Mr. White's hand. Death was probably instantaneous, but Mr. Hanson then threw himself upon the body and cut Mr. White's throat with the bread knife, partially severing the windpipe. Both of his sisters witnessed this, as well as Mr. White's daughter and friend. Mr. Hanson then walked calmly back into the house, into the kitchen (now the dining room), washed the blood from the knife, and returned it to the sideboard in the dining room (now foyer.) He then went to his room and waited for his brothers John and Grosvenor to return from Baltimore.
When John and Grosvenor returned, Charles gave them a number of strange reasons for the shooting. He said that when his mother was dying (10 years earlier), her last request had been that he should kill Charles White, because he had killed Mr. Hanson's sister (Mary, who had died of an illness at Belmont in 1863, when she was 21 and Charles was 15.) Mr. Hanson had not been present at his mother's death. He apparently spent part of the 1870s in California, and it may have been during this time that his mother died. He also accused Mr. White of "flashing his eyes" to make himself look like Hanson.... a habit that Mr. Hanson had.
A jury of inquest was quickly assembled and met at Belmont at 4 p.m. the same day, where the family was assembled and to which Mr. White's body had been brought after the murder. 12 jurors were present, and two doctors, who made the postmortem examination on site, and testified that instantaneous death had been caused by the third shot, which entered the temple. The postmortem wound to the throat would not necessarily have been fatal. The Hanson sisters, several house servants, and two additional doctors testified that until this day, a very friendly relationship had existed between the two men, and that they often met to discuss farm operations. The only cause that could be assigned for the act was Mr. Hanson's mental state. One of Mr. Hanson's sisters had suffered attacks of insanity, and for some time leading up to this event, some of Mr. Hanson's behavior had made his family uneasy about his mental condition, although he was usually a good-natured person and had shown no signs that he might become violent. One of the farm hands testified that he had acted strangely that morning, walking around singing wildly at the top of his voice. The farmhand had remarked to his wife at home at dinnertime that Mr. Hanson was crazy.
At the conclusion of this investigation, the jury gave the verdict that on May 16, 1883, Charles R. White had died from a pistol wound inflicted by Charles E. Hanson, and that Charles E. Hanson was at the time insane. Charles was given into the custody of one of his brothers who, along with two other men, took Charles to the jail in Ellicott City. Before leaving, Charles wished everyone a good evening, and said that he would return later that evening after making an explanation for his actions.
~
(The Sun, May 18, 1883; Vol. XCIII Issue 2 Page 1, Published in Baltimore, Maryland.)
THE HOWARD COUNTY TRAGEDY.
Hanson's Talk and Appearance --- Much Sympathy Felt for the Family.
_____________________________________________________
'Mr. Charles Edward Hanson, who is confined in the jail at Ellicott City for the killing of Mr. Charles Ridgely White on Wednesday, said yesterday that he had acted in self defense. The spirit of his sister had appeared before him, he said, and warned him to be on his guard, as Mr. White would shoot him on sight. When he saw Mr. White he became convinced that the time had come for action. Consequently he killed him. When questioned on other subjects Mr. Hanson spoke clearly and quietly, but the moment the shooting was mentioned his eyes snapped and his talk was wild and disconnected. He has a pleasant face and a kindly blue eye when in repose. His quarters at the jail have been made comfortable with a new bed. A neighboring hotel furnishes his meals.
'Messrs. Murray, Samuel, and Grosvenor Hanson, his brothers, and several other kinsmen and friends called to see him during the afternoon. His brothers show unmistakable evidence of having suffered a great deal in consequence of the murder. They say that Chas. Hanson had shown signs of a gradual mental derangement ever since he came back from California. He thought at that time that three men were following him, and was frequently excited on account of his vagaries. Afterward he was sun struck, which increased his malady. He was never known to be violent, however. On the contrary, he was looked upon as a jolly good fellow, who was fond of listening to a funny joke, and could tell a capital story himself. Occasionally, when politics was under discussion, he would become excited and it was at such times that suspicions were created as to his sanity. Much sympathy is felt for the other brothers, who are thorough gentlemen. Even the sons of Mr. White take this view of the unhappy affair. Said one of them, "It was a great blow to us, but a far greater one to the Hanson boys. I pity them sincerely, and shall shake hands with them in the future as heartily as we clasped hands in the past. We think there is not the slightest doubt as to Charles Hanson being insane, but of course we cannot understand why his insanity took a turn so unexpected and terrible. The two families have always been intimate. Charles Hanson and my brother Stephenson here were such close friends that when Stephenson married, Hanson came home with him. We were all friendly with him, and were fond of hearing him tell of his adventures in California. Last Sunday Grosvenor Hanson came over to the house and was talking to father about corn planting. It was on business resulting from this conversation that made father go over to Hanson's on Wednesday. He was accompanied by Miss Worthington, who is visiting us, and by my little sister, both of whom were going to call on Miss Hanson. What occurred at the Hanson place is already known. My little sister says that she saw Hanson in the rear of father, but thought at first that he was a colored man going to attend to the horses. She says that when the attack was made Hanson rushed forward raging like a wild beast." The White family were all at the old residence yesterday, and the sons talked unreservedly about the occurrence, but without bitterness, and with frequent expressions of sympathy for the Hanson family.
'Messrs. John J. Donaldson and J. Upshur Dennis have been engaged as counsel for Hanson. It is not unlikely an effort will be made to get him out of jail on a writ of habeas corpus. If this is not done he will remain in prison until the grand jury moves in the matter. The White family will leave the whole thing with the State. If the writ is issued, however, they will try to prevent Hanson's release unless he is immediately put in an insane asylum and kept there, as they think it would be dangerous to let him go about free, especially since he is said to have threatened to kill them.
'The pistol with which Mr. White was shot is a five-barrelled revolver, marked "Red Jacket No. 3." The knife is a large, sharp instrument used for cutting bread. The funeral of Mr. White will take place shortly before noon today.'
~
(The Sun, May 19, 1883; Vol. XCIII Issue 3 Page 4, Published in Baltimore, Maryland.)
LOCAL MATTERS.
Funeral of Mr. Charles R. White.
_________________________________________________________________________________
Charles Ridgely White was buried on Friday, May 18, 1883 in St. John's Cemetery, Ellicott City, following a service held at the White home. The Reverend Hall Harrison of the Protestant Episcopal Church officiated, and a large gathering of friends and family were at the house. The trip to the cemetery "was a long, silent, and dusty drive, and would have been unendurable had not the fragrancy of the wild honeysuckle and the varying tints of the grass and trees given a refreshing yet quiet and beautiful charm to the scene."
Among the friends and acquaintances in attendance were the brothers of Charles Hanson. Hanson's two sisters were unable to attend on account of being ill.
Following the service, the Hanson brothers visited Charles, who was not well, having been attended by a physician for cramps in the stomach. He still spoke disjointedly about the shooting, but denied that he threatened to kill the White boys; in fact, he had expressed fear that they would want to kill him for what he had done to their father, but was misunderstood in the excitement at the house.
~
(The Sun, June 11, 1883; Vol. XCIII Issue 22 Page 4, Published in Baltimore, Maryland.)
CHARLES EDWARD HANSON.
Adjudged Insane by a Jury and Committed to an Asylum.
______________________________________________________________________
On May 30, 1883, upon the request of the Hanson brothers, Judge Miller at Ellicott City signed an order directing that a jury be summoned on June 9 to inquire into the mental condition of Charles Hanson. When Charles was brought into the courtroom, he smiled and greeted his friends, shaking hands with several of them.
Charles' brother Murray testified to his long illness in 1871 from sunstroke, and said that during the illness, Charles became convinced that his attending physician had poisoned him. At another time, he believed that two men were lying in wait for him in Baltimore with the intent of killing him, and he began carrying a pistol so that he could defend himself. He went to California in 1875 and when he returned, he complained that some men had followed him back to Maryland so they could kill him. His family became worried that he was losing his mind, but when a long period of time elapsed during which his hallucinations seemed to have left him, they began to feel relieved at his apparent recovery. Murray told of several incidents which showed the imbalance of his brother's mind, including his uncharacteristic fits of temper when discussing matters of politics, and his belief that he was a Mason, which was based upon his belief that he could tell a man's intentions by looking into his eyes.
After this testimony and two others (one by a physician and one by the prisoner's sister, a witness to the murder,) Charles Hanson made his own statement, which lasted almost an hour and left observers without a doubt as to his mental condition. Two sons of Mr. White also testified to his insanity, noting that they had never considered him so prior to the shooting. The testimony of several doctors followed. The jury retired for only a few minutes, returning with the verdict that surprised nobody.
~
Charles Edward Hanson, in June 1883, was committed to the Maryland Hospital for the Insane, now Spring Grove, in Catonsville. He remained there until his death in 1931 at the age of 83.
A few years later, sometime prior to 1900, his sister Priscilla was also committed to the Maryland Hospital for the Insane. She remained there until her death in 1925 at the age of 78.
Charles' younger sisters, Anna Maria "Nannie" Hanson and Florence Hanson, lived at Belmont until sometime around 1910, when they moved into rented accommodations in Elkridge following the transfer of the property to the Bruce family, relatives of theirs who were also descendants of the Dorseys, the original owners.
Charles, Priscilla, Nannie and Florence, along with their parents, grandparents, and many brothers and sisters, are now laid to rest in the Hanson family burial ground at Belmont.
~
The victim, Mr. Charles Ridgely White
~
POSTSCRIPT
After writing the account above, I noticed something really intriguing while looking again at the 1860 Census.
It turns out that Charles Ridgely White was not the only Charles White who was acquainted with the family.
According to the 1860 census, a young teacher from Massachusetts named C. J. White was living at Belmont. I was able to find a brief biography of a Charles Joyce White from Massachusetts who, after his graduation from Harvard in 1859 at age 20, became a teacher in Maryland. Odds are very strong that this was the C.J. White who was living at Belmont, employed as a teacher, in 1860. He later became a Harvard professor in Mathematics who published some of his work.
~
Charles Joyce White
from Class of 1859. Harvard College Class of 1859 class album of Henry Weld Fuller. HUD 259.704.3, Harvard University Archives.
Mary was 18 when the 20-year-old White came to live at Belmont. Three years later, she died from an illness. Charles Joyce White never married. He died in 1917 at age 81.
20 years after Mary's death, her brother killed Charles Ridgely White, a neighbor and cousin, at Belmont.
After committing the murder, Ned Hanson said that his mother had instructed him, when she was dying, that he should kill Charles White. Her reason, Ned said, was that Charles White had been responsible for the death of Ned's older sister, Mary, who died in 1863 when she was 21 and Ned was just 15. The next day, confined to jail in Ellicott City, he stated that the spirit of his sister had appeared to him, and warned him to be on guard against Charles White, who would shoot him on sight.
Is there a chance that Ned, if mentally unstable, confused one Charles White with another? Did something happen between the teacher Charles and Mary in the years before her death that could have caused Ned and/or his mother to hold Charles (the teacher) responsible?
Did Ned believe that he was visited by the ghost of his mother at the time of her death, and that of his sister prior to committing the murder?
What relationship is there, if any, between mental illness and extrasensory experience?
The driveway through the gates to Belmont. Photo, J. Nesbitt
Happy Halloween!
Photos taken on Friday night at an undisclosed location in my hometown in Howard County, Maryland.
The Red Path - Part One
The following is one of the strangest stories of "the creepy" that I have ever heard. Although the geographical area of the events has been inhabited by humans for 3000 years, the accounts of this 'creature' that I've been able to find only date back to the early 1970s.
The border between Wales and England is traditionally an area that has been full of contrasts and conflict. It is not surprising, to me anyway, that it is also very rich in folklore and tales of the weird.
Here is the account of 'The Beast of Brymbo' as related by Richard Holland, the editor of the website Uncanny UK:
"Twenty years ago a friend, Wendi Clough, told me a very strange story. The child of a young mum she knew had come home in tears one afternoon after being frightened by what he described as ‘a cow standing up like a person with smoke coming out of its nose’. He and his little friend had both seen this fiendish shape and had run home in terror.
Childish imagination? A trick played on two small children? Something like that, I thought - but the eerie image of this ‘cow’ on its hind legs stayed in my memory. There was something so medieval about it, so devilish. Unfortunately, Wendi had lost touch with the informant and because she had heard the story a year or two previously, she couldn’t remember where exactly it was supposed to have taken place. All she could tell me was that it was ‘somewhere near Wrexham [in North-East Wales] and that it was on a path that goes up a hill in the middle of the village and acts as a short cut’.
Come forward two decades and I happen to mention this odd anecdote to another friend, Jonathan Edwards, who now lives in Gresford between Wrexham and Chester. ‘That sounds like Brymbo,’ he told me. ‘The village is split into two levels, with a big sandstone outcrop dividing them. There’s a path called the Red Path which goes up it.’
Jonathan was brought up in Brymbo and knows the village well, but had never heard of it being haunted by such a spectre. His mother, however, had heard something about it. When Jonathan mentioned it to her, she recalled that two women she knew had spoken of encountering something very similar.
And this is how I met Mrs J and Mrs S (both names on record). Their brush with what I can’t help but call The Beast of Brymbo took place one bright, moonlit night in December, 1985. They were both happy to admit that they had had a few drinks before the sighting, since they had been walking home after a jolly night out at the Miner’s Arms. However, there was no doubting their conviction; indeed, Mrs S became suddenly a bit tearful when she remembered how frightened she had been. Genuine encounters with the Very Strange can have that effect, as I know myself. Ms J told the story, with occasional corrections or added details from Mrs S. This is a précis:
‘We were walking up the Red Path at about midnight. When we got near the top, we paused for a breather, leaning on the railings. Just there, to the left, there is another set of very steep steps which you can take as a short cut. But they’re very overgrown and can be slippery, so I wasn’t being serious when I suggested we take them. But because I did so, [Mrs S] looked up in that direction. [Mrs S] said: “What’s that looking at us?”
‘I looked up and there it was, standing on the bank. It was cow-like, standing on its hind legs and at least 6ft tall. It was a light brown colour and smooth haired. There were two little bumps where you might expect horns. We could see it clearly because it was illuminated by the moon and the streetlights. It just stood there, frowning down at us with its eyes wrinkled up. Its hooves were sort of dangling down in front of it. We ran up the Red Path but then realised it could easily cut us off at the top. When we got there, though, it had vanished.’
Mrs S continued: ‘I realised I had dropped my scarf on the path, so I had to go back for it. I was so frightened. The thing didn’t appear again but I didn’t dare use that path for a whole month.’
That was the end of their adventure. There’s no doubt in my mind that the two children referred to above saw the same thing, possibly in the same year (although admittedly there was no ‘smoke’ emerging from nostrils on this occasion). Mrs J and Mrs S are convinced it wasn’t somebody in a costume: ‘It was too realistic. The proportions were all wrong and the legs were too thin.’
It may have been some sort of dummy but someone must have been waiting in the bushes on that cold night to have removed it so quickly. On the same evening that I met Mrs J and Mrs S, however, I also met a Mr J (no relation), who had another strange experience in Brymbo more than a decade earlier. His sighting bears similarities to The Beast of Brymbo and I shall recount it in my next article.
[SOURCE: Personal communication with the author, 1988 and 2004]"
copyright 2008 Richard Holland
*click below for*
A Walk Around Brymbo - with links to photos of the town and its surroundings!
~to be continued~
The border between Wales and England is traditionally an area that has been full of contrasts and conflict. It is not surprising, to me anyway, that it is also very rich in folklore and tales of the weird.
Here is the account of 'The Beast of Brymbo' as related by Richard Holland, the editor of the website Uncanny UK:
"Twenty years ago a friend, Wendi Clough, told me a very strange story. The child of a young mum she knew had come home in tears one afternoon after being frightened by what he described as ‘a cow standing up like a person with smoke coming out of its nose’. He and his little friend had both seen this fiendish shape and had run home in terror.
Childish imagination? A trick played on two small children? Something like that, I thought - but the eerie image of this ‘cow’ on its hind legs stayed in my memory. There was something so medieval about it, so devilish. Unfortunately, Wendi had lost touch with the informant and because she had heard the story a year or two previously, she couldn’t remember where exactly it was supposed to have taken place. All she could tell me was that it was ‘somewhere near Wrexham [in North-East Wales] and that it was on a path that goes up a hill in the middle of the village and acts as a short cut’.
Come forward two decades and I happen to mention this odd anecdote to another friend, Jonathan Edwards, who now lives in Gresford between Wrexham and Chester. ‘That sounds like Brymbo,’ he told me. ‘The village is split into two levels, with a big sandstone outcrop dividing them. There’s a path called the Red Path which goes up it.’
Jonathan was brought up in Brymbo and knows the village well, but had never heard of it being haunted by such a spectre. His mother, however, had heard something about it. When Jonathan mentioned it to her, she recalled that two women she knew had spoken of encountering something very similar.
And this is how I met Mrs J and Mrs S (both names on record). Their brush with what I can’t help but call The Beast of Brymbo took place one bright, moonlit night in December, 1985. They were both happy to admit that they had had a few drinks before the sighting, since they had been walking home after a jolly night out at the Miner’s Arms. However, there was no doubting their conviction; indeed, Mrs S became suddenly a bit tearful when she remembered how frightened she had been. Genuine encounters with the Very Strange can have that effect, as I know myself. Ms J told the story, with occasional corrections or added details from Mrs S. This is a précis:
‘We were walking up the Red Path at about midnight. When we got near the top, we paused for a breather, leaning on the railings. Just there, to the left, there is another set of very steep steps which you can take as a short cut. But they’re very overgrown and can be slippery, so I wasn’t being serious when I suggested we take them. But because I did so, [Mrs S] looked up in that direction. [Mrs S] said: “What’s that looking at us?”
‘I looked up and there it was, standing on the bank. It was cow-like, standing on its hind legs and at least 6ft tall. It was a light brown colour and smooth haired. There were two little bumps where you might expect horns. We could see it clearly because it was illuminated by the moon and the streetlights. It just stood there, frowning down at us with its eyes wrinkled up. Its hooves were sort of dangling down in front of it. We ran up the Red Path but then realised it could easily cut us off at the top. When we got there, though, it had vanished.’
Mrs S continued: ‘I realised I had dropped my scarf on the path, so I had to go back for it. I was so frightened. The thing didn’t appear again but I didn’t dare use that path for a whole month.’
That was the end of their adventure. There’s no doubt in my mind that the two children referred to above saw the same thing, possibly in the same year (although admittedly there was no ‘smoke’ emerging from nostrils on this occasion). Mrs J and Mrs S are convinced it wasn’t somebody in a costume: ‘It was too realistic. The proportions were all wrong and the legs were too thin.’
It may have been some sort of dummy but someone must have been waiting in the bushes on that cold night to have removed it so quickly. On the same evening that I met Mrs J and Mrs S, however, I also met a Mr J (no relation), who had another strange experience in Brymbo more than a decade earlier. His sighting bears similarities to The Beast of Brymbo and I shall recount it in my next article.
[SOURCE: Personal communication with the author, 1988 and 2004]"
copyright 2008 Richard Holland
*click below for*
A Walk Around Brymbo - with links to photos of the town and its surroundings!
~to be continued~
Old House Woods -- Part III
Stories from Old House Woods, Part III
The community surrounding the Old House Woods in Mathews County, Virginia is rife with tales of mysterious appearances and disappearances which have never been satisfactorily explained. These stories involve both humans and animals. Our friend Harry Forrest spoke passionately about this in 1951:
"It was near 100 years ago that Lock Owens and Pidge Morgan came through these woods with their steer, on the way back from a cattle auction, and nothing's been seen of 'em since. Steer, carts, and everything disappeared in there. Lock had a little black dog and the only thing that was ever found of it was a little bunch of hair off of that dog's tail.
There used to be a lot of cattle down on these points, but they got to wandering in here and never came out. Everything that comes in here heads for the Old Cow Hole and disappears. It's very strange. One night that Old Cow Hole will be covered with water, the next it's dry. Some night it'll be light enough to pick up a pin in these woods, and black and storming outside. And sometimes, you'll come in here and it'll be pouring down. You get wringing, soaking wet, you can wipe the water off you. And then you come out and you'll be perfectly dry."
Perhaps the story of Owens and Morgan explains why there have been numerous reports of headless cattle wandering around in the woods.
Harry Forrest once took a newspaperman to see Old Cow Hole. The reporter described it as a small circular pool of gray water, which seemed to swirl, yet was dead still. Forrest believed that Old Cow Hole is where the legendary money was buried by one or all of the groups mentioned in the earlier sections of this story. He also believed that someone was killed and buried along with the treasure, to 'guard' it.
Speaking of headless animals, another well-known tale from Old House Woods concerns a farmer's wife who lived adjacent to the woods. One evening at dusk she went into a pasture to bring home the work horses. After driving them down the lane to the gate, she called to her husband to open it. He didn't answer right away, so she did it herself. As she did, her husband came out of the barn and laughed at her, saying he had put the team in the barn two hours earlier. "Don't be foolish!" she said, and when she turned to lead the team through the gate, instead of the two horses she saw two headless black dogs running back toward the Old House Woods. "That woman was my great grandmother," says Olivia Davis today. More recent reports claim that these headless dogs like to pursue moving vehicles passing through the woods, and have even been known to try to jump onto cars or into the beds of pickup trucks.
A tragic tale is told of a local fisherman named Tom Pipkin who lived nearby around 1880. Excited by the rumors of buried or sunken treasure, he took his small boat into the woods, following an old channel thought to be cut by pirates two hundred years earlier, heading for Old Cow Hole. Several days later his boat was found in the Bay. Inside were two gold coins of unknown age and a battered silver cup covered with slime and mud. One coin bore a Roman head, and the letters 'I V V S' were distinguishable. No one would claim Pipkin's boat and it was left on nearby Gwynn's Island where it rotted away. Tom Pipkin was never seen or heard from again.
"A thousand people have been in here after that money, but they'll never get it," said Harry Forrest. "The trees start bending double and howling. It storms. And they get scared and take off. The woods is haunted....that's what it is."
Maybe so. But one thing is for sure. Any being who ventures into Old House Woods, by land or by water, whether they be human or animal, may very well be disappearing into another time. They will probably return, with or without a story to tell. But there may be a small chance that they will become stuck in its strange alternate dimension and take their place among the ranks of the long dead, but not forgotten, denizens of Old House Woods.
"It was near 100 years ago that Lock Owens and Pidge Morgan came through these woods with their steer, on the way back from a cattle auction, and nothing's been seen of 'em since. Steer, carts, and everything disappeared in there. Lock had a little black dog and the only thing that was ever found of it was a little bunch of hair off of that dog's tail.
There used to be a lot of cattle down on these points, but they got to wandering in here and never came out. Everything that comes in here heads for the Old Cow Hole and disappears. It's very strange. One night that Old Cow Hole will be covered with water, the next it's dry. Some night it'll be light enough to pick up a pin in these woods, and black and storming outside. And sometimes, you'll come in here and it'll be pouring down. You get wringing, soaking wet, you can wipe the water off you. And then you come out and you'll be perfectly dry."
Perhaps the story of Owens and Morgan explains why there have been numerous reports of headless cattle wandering around in the woods.
Harry Forrest once took a newspaperman to see Old Cow Hole. The reporter described it as a small circular pool of gray water, which seemed to swirl, yet was dead still. Forrest believed that Old Cow Hole is where the legendary money was buried by one or all of the groups mentioned in the earlier sections of this story. He also believed that someone was killed and buried along with the treasure, to 'guard' it.
Speaking of headless animals, another well-known tale from Old House Woods concerns a farmer's wife who lived adjacent to the woods. One evening at dusk she went into a pasture to bring home the work horses. After driving them down the lane to the gate, she called to her husband to open it. He didn't answer right away, so she did it herself. As she did, her husband came out of the barn and laughed at her, saying he had put the team in the barn two hours earlier. "Don't be foolish!" she said, and when she turned to lead the team through the gate, instead of the two horses she saw two headless black dogs running back toward the Old House Woods. "That woman was my great grandmother," says Olivia Davis today. More recent reports claim that these headless dogs like to pursue moving vehicles passing through the woods, and have even been known to try to jump onto cars or into the beds of pickup trucks.
A tragic tale is told of a local fisherman named Tom Pipkin who lived nearby around 1880. Excited by the rumors of buried or sunken treasure, he took his small boat into the woods, following an old channel thought to be cut by pirates two hundred years earlier, heading for Old Cow Hole. Several days later his boat was found in the Bay. Inside were two gold coins of unknown age and a battered silver cup covered with slime and mud. One coin bore a Roman head, and the letters 'I V V S' were distinguishable. No one would claim Pipkin's boat and it was left on nearby Gwynn's Island where it rotted away. Tom Pipkin was never seen or heard from again.
"A thousand people have been in here after that money, but they'll never get it," said Harry Forrest. "The trees start bending double and howling. It storms. And they get scared and take off. The woods is haunted....that's what it is."
Maybe so. But one thing is for sure. Any being who ventures into Old House Woods, by land or by water, whether they be human or animal, may very well be disappearing into another time. They will probably return, with or without a story to tell. But there may be a small chance that they will become stuck in its strange alternate dimension and take their place among the ranks of the long dead, but not forgotten, denizens of Old House Woods.
The stories of Old House Woods have been brought to you with the assistance of L.B. Taylor's delightful publication, The Ghosts of Virginia, Volume I (of many!)
____________________________________________________________________________________________
(the sound of wind blowing constantly, through pine trees and marsh grass)
Old House Woods -- Part II
Did I forget to mention the headless black dogs?
Yes...but first, an example of the many accounts of skeletal 17th century soldiers in plate armor...
Jesse Hudgins, described as a respectable merchant of unquestioned integrity, told the following story to a Baltimore Sun reporter in 1926 (and to anyone else who would listen), and he swore to its authenticity.
"I do not care whether I am believed or not," he often said. "I am not apologetic nor ashamed to say I have seen ghosts (in Old House Woods.) I have seen ghosts not once, but a dozen times. I was 17 when I first actually saw a ghost, or spirit. One October night I sat by the lamp reading. A neighbor whose child was very ill came asking me to drive to Mathews for the doctor. We had no telephone in those days. I hitched up and started for town. The night was gusty, clouds drifting now and then over the moon, but I could see perfectly, and whistled as I drove along.
"Nearing Old House itself, I saw a light about 50 yards ahead moving along the road in the direction I was going. My horse, usually afraid of nothing, cowered and trembled violently. I felt rather uneasy myself. I have seen lights on the road at night, shining lanterns carried by men, but this light was different. There was something unearthly about it. The rays seemed to come from nowhere, and yet they moved with the bearer.
"I gained on the traveler, and as I stand here before you, what I saw was a big man wearing a suit of armor. Over his shoulder was a gun, the muzzle end of which looked like a fish horn. As he strode, or floated along, he made no noise. My horse stopped still, I was weak with terror and horror. I wasn't 20 feet from the thing, whatever it was, when it, too, stopped and faced me.
"At the same time, the woods about 100 feet from the wayfarer became alive with lights and moving forms. Some carried guns like the one borne by the man or thing in the road, others carried shovels of an outlandish type, while still others dug furiously near a dead pine tree.
"As my gaze returned to the first shadowy figure, what I saw was not a man in armor, but a skeleton, and every bone of it was visible through the iron of the armor, as though it were made of glass. The skull which seemed to be illuminated from within, grinned at me horribly. Then, raising aloft a sword, which I had not hitherto noticed, the awful specter started towards me menacingly.
"I could stand no more. Reason left me. When I came to, it was broad daylight and I lay upon my bed at home. Members of my family said the horse had run away. They found me at the turn of the road beyond Old House Woods. They thought I had fallen asleep. The best proof that this was not so was we could not even lead Tom (the horse) by the Old House Woods for months afterwards, and to the day he died, whenever he approached the woods, he would tremble violently and cower. It was pitiful to see that fine animal become such a victim of terror."
Some years later, another newspaper reported the account of a youth from Richmond. He experienced car trouble on the road near Old House Woods late one night. As he knelt beside his tire in the road, a voice behind him asked, "Is this the King's Highway? I've lost my ship." ( !!!! that part totally freaks me out for some reason !!! ) When the young man turned around, he beheld a skeleton in armor just a few paces away. Screaming like a maniac, he ran from the scene, not returning for his car until the next day.
----to be continued----
Old House Woods
Tidewater Virginia
Yes...but first, an example of the many accounts of skeletal 17th century soldiers in plate armor...
Jesse Hudgins, described as a respectable merchant of unquestioned integrity, told the following story to a Baltimore Sun reporter in 1926 (and to anyone else who would listen), and he swore to its authenticity.
"I do not care whether I am believed or not," he often said. "I am not apologetic nor ashamed to say I have seen ghosts (in Old House Woods.) I have seen ghosts not once, but a dozen times. I was 17 when I first actually saw a ghost, or spirit. One October night I sat by the lamp reading. A neighbor whose child was very ill came asking me to drive to Mathews for the doctor. We had no telephone in those days. I hitched up and started for town. The night was gusty, clouds drifting now and then over the moon, but I could see perfectly, and whistled as I drove along.
"Nearing Old House itself, I saw a light about 50 yards ahead moving along the road in the direction I was going. My horse, usually afraid of nothing, cowered and trembled violently. I felt rather uneasy myself. I have seen lights on the road at night, shining lanterns carried by men, but this light was different. There was something unearthly about it. The rays seemed to come from nowhere, and yet they moved with the bearer.
"I gained on the traveler, and as I stand here before you, what I saw was a big man wearing a suit of armor. Over his shoulder was a gun, the muzzle end of which looked like a fish horn. As he strode, or floated along, he made no noise. My horse stopped still, I was weak with terror and horror. I wasn't 20 feet from the thing, whatever it was, when it, too, stopped and faced me.
"At the same time, the woods about 100 feet from the wayfarer became alive with lights and moving forms. Some carried guns like the one borne by the man or thing in the road, others carried shovels of an outlandish type, while still others dug furiously near a dead pine tree.
"As my gaze returned to the first shadowy figure, what I saw was not a man in armor, but a skeleton, and every bone of it was visible through the iron of the armor, as though it were made of glass. The skull which seemed to be illuminated from within, grinned at me horribly. Then, raising aloft a sword, which I had not hitherto noticed, the awful specter started towards me menacingly.
"I could stand no more. Reason left me. When I came to, it was broad daylight and I lay upon my bed at home. Members of my family said the horse had run away. They found me at the turn of the road beyond Old House Woods. They thought I had fallen asleep. The best proof that this was not so was we could not even lead Tom (the horse) by the Old House Woods for months afterwards, and to the day he died, whenever he approached the woods, he would tremble violently and cower. It was pitiful to see that fine animal become such a victim of terror."
Some years later, another newspaper reported the account of a youth from Richmond. He experienced car trouble on the road near Old House Woods late one night. As he knelt beside his tire in the road, a voice behind him asked, "Is this the King's Highway? I've lost my ship." ( !!!! that part totally freaks me out for some reason !!! ) When the young man turned around, he beheld a skeleton in armor just a few paces away. Screaming like a maniac, he ran from the scene, not returning for his car until the next day.
----to be continued----
Old House Woods
Tidewater Virginia
Old House Woods -- Part I
~The following group of posts is plagiarized from one of my other blogs, and was first related by me last year at this time~
Old House Woods -- Part I
Old House Woods might very well be the most haunted location in Virginia. Located in Mathews County, on the shore of the Bay at the end of the Middle Peninsula, Old House Woods is the subject of almost three centuries worth of oral history tales, containing psychic phenomena so bizarre that it's hard to believe they are entirely invented.
There are a few possible explanations for the concentrated activity in this remote location. Local lore states that the crew of a pirate ship came ashore here in the 17th century, buried their loot, and returned to sea where they all died in a storm. This would explain the strange figures seen digging furiously in the woods by the light of tin lanterns. Another theory is that Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, intercepted this group of men as they were hiding their treasure and murdered them all.
It's also possible that the treasure here belonged to Charles II of England, who following his defeat at Worcester in 1651 considered coming to Virginia. In preparation, a group of his followers loaded a ship with several chests of money, plate, and jewels, and the ship set sail for Jamestown. It never arrived. For reasons unknown, the ship sailed further up the Chesapeake Bay and anchored at the mouth of White's Creek near the Old House Woods. The treasure was offloaded, but before it could be hidden, the Royalists were set upon by a gang of escaped indentured servants. All of the Royalists were murdered and the bondsmen escaped by boat with part of the money, planning to return later for the rest. They weren't that lucky. Their ship, too, was caught in a storm, capsized, and everyone on board was drowned.
The third possible reason for the hauntings dates to 1781, when a small group of British soldiers were sent with a large amount of money and treasure to safeguard it prior to the battle at Yorktown. They headed north through enemy lines, hoping to find a british ship anchored in the Bay. They did manage to hide the treasure in the Old House Woods before they were found and killed by a unit of American cavalry.
Perfectly credible citizens over the years have reported seeing not only the lamplit diggers, but completely freaky sights including full-rigged ships floating above the woods or in the marsh at the mouth of White's Creek, luminescent skeletons in translucent plate armor carrying lanterns and strange primitive firearms, and horses and cows which appear and disappear into thin air before their eyes.
A local fisherman and farmer, Harry Forrest described several personal experiences before he passed away in the 1950s. "Once I went out on a brilliant November night to shoot black ducks," he reported, "I found a flock asleep in a little inlet where the pine trees came down to the edge of the water. As I raised my gun to fire, instead of them being ducks, I saw that they were soldiers of the olden time. Headed by an officer, a company of them formed and marched out of the water." Recovering from his shock, he hurried to his skiff tied on the other side of the point, only to find a man in a red uniform sitting in the stern. Frightened but angry, Forrest ordered him out of the skiff and threatened to shoot. The soldier replied "Shoot and the devil's curse to you and your traitor's breed," beginning to draw his sword. "Then I threw my gun on him," says Forrest,"and pulled. It didn't go off. I pulled the trigger again. No better result. I dropped the gun and ran for home, and I'm not ashamed to say I swam the creek in doing it, too."
Old House Woods -- Part I
Old House Woods might very well be the most haunted location in Virginia. Located in Mathews County, on the shore of the Bay at the end of the Middle Peninsula, Old House Woods is the subject of almost three centuries worth of oral history tales, containing psychic phenomena so bizarre that it's hard to believe they are entirely invented.
There are a few possible explanations for the concentrated activity in this remote location. Local lore states that the crew of a pirate ship came ashore here in the 17th century, buried their loot, and returned to sea where they all died in a storm. This would explain the strange figures seen digging furiously in the woods by the light of tin lanterns. Another theory is that Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard, intercepted this group of men as they were hiding their treasure and murdered them all.
It's also possible that the treasure here belonged to Charles II of England, who following his defeat at Worcester in 1651 considered coming to Virginia. In preparation, a group of his followers loaded a ship with several chests of money, plate, and jewels, and the ship set sail for Jamestown. It never arrived. For reasons unknown, the ship sailed further up the Chesapeake Bay and anchored at the mouth of White's Creek near the Old House Woods. The treasure was offloaded, but before it could be hidden, the Royalists were set upon by a gang of escaped indentured servants. All of the Royalists were murdered and the bondsmen escaped by boat with part of the money, planning to return later for the rest. They weren't that lucky. Their ship, too, was caught in a storm, capsized, and everyone on board was drowned.
The third possible reason for the hauntings dates to 1781, when a small group of British soldiers were sent with a large amount of money and treasure to safeguard it prior to the battle at Yorktown. They headed north through enemy lines, hoping to find a british ship anchored in the Bay. They did manage to hide the treasure in the Old House Woods before they were found and killed by a unit of American cavalry.
Perfectly credible citizens over the years have reported seeing not only the lamplit diggers, but completely freaky sights including full-rigged ships floating above the woods or in the marsh at the mouth of White's Creek, luminescent skeletons in translucent plate armor carrying lanterns and strange primitive firearms, and horses and cows which appear and disappear into thin air before their eyes.
A local fisherman and farmer, Harry Forrest described several personal experiences before he passed away in the 1950s. "Once I went out on a brilliant November night to shoot black ducks," he reported, "I found a flock asleep in a little inlet where the pine trees came down to the edge of the water. As I raised my gun to fire, instead of them being ducks, I saw that they were soldiers of the olden time. Headed by an officer, a company of them formed and marched out of the water." Recovering from his shock, he hurried to his skiff tied on the other side of the point, only to find a man in a red uniform sitting in the stern. Frightened but angry, Forrest ordered him out of the skiff and threatened to shoot. The soldier replied "Shoot and the devil's curse to you and your traitor's breed," beginning to draw his sword. "Then I threw my gun on him," says Forrest,"and pulled. It didn't go off. I pulled the trigger again. No better result. I dropped the gun and ran for home, and I'm not ashamed to say I swam the creek in doing it, too."
A Ghost Story -- Fox's Gap, South Mountain, Maryland
This is a mirror on a tree at Fox's Gap, directly across the road from where Wise's cabin once stood. It is on the stretch of road here reflected in the mirror that Daniel would have seen the ghostly soldier approaching.Late in the summer of 1862, more than a year after the start of the Civil War, Army of Northern Virginia General Robert E. Lee decided that it was time to carry the war into the North. Sentiment toward the war in the border state of Maryland was diminishing, and the Federal Army had just suffered a surprising defeat in Manassas. Furthermore, Lee was desperate to feed and supply his impoverished army. It was nearing harvest time in Maryland when Lee's army made its first of two forays into the North, crossing the Potomac into the Blue Ridge foothills of Maryland.
The Battle of South Mountain was not a huge battle, and was quickly overshadowed a few days later by the nearby Battle of Antietam, which resulted in the loss of 23,000 men in just one day. Still, a total of more than 5,000 men were either killed, wounded, or missing in action at the end of the day on September 14. Lee's army was positioned to the west of South Mountain, and General George McClellan's Army of the Potomac needed to cross South Mountain to pursue them and drive them back to Virginia. This battle was fought over control of three gaps in the mountain through which the Union Army needed to pass: Turner's Gap, Fox's Gap, and Crampton's Gap (from north to south.)
At the crest of the mountain on the road through Fox's Gap was the farm of Daniel Wise. A widower with two children, he awoke to find his farm overrun by frantic North Carolina soldiers on the morning of September 14 as they transformed it into a fortress to withstand the Union Army, quickly approaching from the east. Wise was advised to gather what he could and leave as quickly as possible, which he did, just as the battle began behind him.
This is a gap in the foliage along the stone wall behind which the North Carolina troops waited for the Union brigades to approach across the field ahead.Within about two hours, the Union Army had gained possession of the Gap. Hundreds of dead and dying men, including one General from each side, were strewn over the fields of the Wise Farm, right up to the walls of the cabin. Although victorious and exhausted, the soldiers still had hard work ahead of them. They would have to bury the dead. They buried their own first, in the already-worked soil of Wise's fields. It was more difficult to figure out what to do with the Confederate dead. The ground at Fox's Gap was full of rocks and boulders, and digging into it was backbreaking work. Finally, exhausted, the burial crew dumped the last 58 dead Confederates into Daniel Wise's well, in the front yard of his cabin. They moved on.
On September 18, Daniel Wise and his son and daughter returned to the farm. Their harvest was destroyed, the fields full of fresh burial mounds, while other dead were buried in shallow trenches right against the cabin walls. The smell of decay was everywhere. Worst of all was the well, now ruined by its horrible contents.
A few days after his return, Daniel Wise was sitting on his front porch at the end of the day. He saw a solitary young man coming up the road from the west. Watching the young man approach, he felt a cold chill creep up his back. For some reason, the sight filled him with an odd feeling of dread. As the young man drew closer, Wise noticed how deathly pale his skin was....and the blank expression on his face. Finally the young man stepped into Wise's yard. It was at this point that Wise realized he could see right through the young man's body to the road and the trees behind him. When he asked the young man who he was, he was met with silence. Not even a bird was heard on the ridge at Fox's Gap in those long moments. Finally: "Our lives were stripped from us and we were not even given a proper burial. Be sure that I will return here every night until we are honored as fallen soldiers." The apparition then slowly turned to look at Daniel's well. Daniel's eyes followed his gaze, and when he looked back, the young man was gone. In a panic, he ran toward the well, inexplicably hoping to find the dead Confederate, to tell him that he was not the one responsible for his improper burial. Lifting the cover from the well, the stench literally knocked him over backwards. After struggling to his feet and hastily replacing the cover, he staggered inside the cabin and slammed the door, shaking like a leaf. As he had leaned over the well for that brief moment, he thought he heard voices coming from the depths.
This is the path along the stone wall just across the road from where the Wise cabin stood.Maybe it was the stress of being caught in a battle zone, or anxiety over the fate of his farm and harvest. Maybe it was the panic over how his family would survive the winter that was creating strange effects in the farmer's mind. Maybe he was beginning to lose his mind. There was little time to wonder. He began to dread the evenings, and found it difficult to sleep. Still, every day was full of the customary work of a farmer. And yet finally, as the sun began to sink and it was time to relax on the porch with a pipe, the ghost of the young man continued to return. Daniel began to avoid the porch in the evenings, but found that even inside the house he thought he could feel the soldier's presence as he gazed over the fence into the yard, at the house, and at the old well.
This is Fox's Gap on a winter evening near sunset. This clearing, now a parking area, is where the Wise cabin once stood. The road is to the right. We are facing west, the direction from which the dead young man approached.Daniel began writing letters to Washington, complaining bitterly about the mess the Union Army had left of his farm, and about the corpses resting at the bottom of his well. He continued his correspondence for years, although he never got a response from the government. He didn't mention the ghost in his letters, but the tale of the dead young man's ghost had begun to travel through the county. Other people started keeping an eye out for the dead soldier along the road at sunset, and some claimed to have seen him. This continued even after the war was over. Finally. In 1874, 12 years after the battle, the US military sent in an army detail to clean up Daniel Wise's farm. The remains in the well were removed, and the men buried elsewhere on his property were taken away for proper burial. Daniel never saw the apparition of the dead soldier again.
Daniel Wise was allowed to live out the rest of his life knowing that he had finally managed to see the right thing done for the soldiers that had been buried on his farm. After his death, the tale of the soldier's ghost became local legend. Although the cabin is no longer there, the fields are abandoned, and the well is long since filled in, the story of the casualties at Fox's Gap and their unorthodox burial remains one of the more gruesome footnotes of the Civil War.
The battlefields of South Mountain are now preserved within South Mountain State Park, Gathland State Park, and the Appalacian National Scenic Trail (which runs through all 3 gaps.)
http://www.friendsofsouthmountain.org/index.html
Self portrait at Fox's Gap. If you look in the mirror, I am standing on the edge of the clearing where the cabin once stood.
Although I have known the history of Fox's Gap for some time, and have visited several times, I did not know about this ghost story at the time...so, visits should be even more interesting in the future :)
~All photos above taken by Me~ .......except the one below. I was not able to find out the date of this photo, or the name of the photographer.
...Wise Farm at Fox's Gap...
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