Haunted Arkansas Mountain

Fayetteville Confederate Cemetery

On a gentle. wooded ridge of the Ozarks overlooking the town of Fayetteville,  Arkansas is the Fayetteville Confederate Cemetery, the final resting place for hundreds of men who gave their lives during Civil War battles in the northwest part of the state. Officially listed as East Mountain, the locals call the ridge Ghost Mountain. Not as famous as other battle sites like Gettysburg, Manassas, or Vicksburg, this was nonetheless one of the most violent and desperately contested sites of the war.  

The men's original burial places were where they fell when after the battle, soldiers of the victorious side or civilians from the area hurriedly interred the bodies in shallow, makeshift graves trying to prevent disease and the stench of decay. In 1878, the Southern Memorial Association of Washington County established the cemetery and began the process of exhuming the bodies from the area. The Confederates were buried here and the fallen Union soldiers were interred in the Fayetteville National Cemetery.

There are a number of homes just down the hill from the cemetery and the residents often report seeing unusual lights floating along the ridge. There are also numerous reports by residents and visitors alike of strange anomalies showing up in photographs taken within the cemetery. Even more famous though, is the legend of the Burning Bride of Ghost Hollow.

Directly across the slender dirt road from the Confederate cemetery is a much smaller cemetery, The Walker Cemetery is a family burial plot of land much smaller than its neighbor. Here lies the body of David Walker. In the 1860s, he was an Arkansas state senator, three times a state supreme court justice, one of the founders of the University of Arkansas, and served as a colonel in the Confederate army during the war. He was married to Jane Lewis Washington, a third-cousin of George Washington. Buried here next to him are his parents and a few of his close relatives.  

In 1872, Judge Walker had a large, 2-story brick house built for his daughter and her husband as a wedding present. It still stands just a little ways away from the family cemetery. Soon after the happy couple moved in though, strange things began to happen. Mostly small things, items disappearing then reappearing several days later, unexplained "moaning" noises, doors slamming closed for no reason. Then the couple became aware they could no longer find hired help. When the last housemaid quit,  they inquired to learn why nobody would work for them. They learned the African-American community considered the home haunted because of a horrible accident that happened there years before. 

Shortly after the Civil War ended in 1865, a man and his fiancé moved to Fayetteville from Fort Smith trying to start a new life after his hard service in the Confederate army.  They constructed a small home on the exact same spot of land as the Walker-built house. They were married in the house one cold winter evening and after the guests left, the bride of one hour, still wearing her wedding dress, leaned over the fireplace to stir the fire. A spark popped onto her dress and set it ablaze. Running and screaming hysterically out of the house, she ran down the ridge and, having ran through the grounds which would later become the Walker and Confederate cemeteries, she fell down and died in agony. From that day on, there have been reports of people seeing her apparition running through both cemeteries and hearing her screams as she over and over, relives her tragic wedding night.

Unfortunately, more tragedy plagued Ghost Mountain. In 1932, a family lived in a small log cabin located near the cemeteries. One night, the husband came home very drunk to his wife who was caring for a sick infant. The baby cried incessantly no matter what the mother tried and the husband, incensed that he couldn't sleep because of it, suddenly grabbed the baby, stumbled outside and threw the baby down the water well. The wife went into hysterics, grabbed the well rope and jumped into the well to save the child. The drunken father picked up a nearby ax and chopped the rope, leaving his wife and child in the well to die. It was several days later when his employer came to investigate why he had not been to work. Seeing the dangling, chopped well rope, he looked down and saw in the dim light, the floating bodies. It is assumed the husband fled the area as he has never been found. 

Some say the stories are just myths, there's nothing strange about East Mountain. Others insist the stories are not myths. One thing that is for certain, to this day, the stories remain a source of fear for those living on and around Ghost Mountain.

The Goliad Ghosts

The Presidio in Goliad

After the fall of the Alamo in San Antonio, Texas in 1836, the victorious Mexican forces continued to march east toward the Presidio in Goliad where Colonel James Fannin commanded 400 Texas men. The Texans were ordered to move to Victoria, a more defendable position on the other side of the Guadalupe River. During the move though they ran into the main body of the Mexican troops while crossing an open prairie. 

After fending off four separate attacks on the first day, the Texans spent that night digging trenches. In the morning, however, they found they were now totally surrounded by the enemy. Almost out of ammunition, Fannin asked for a parley to prevent his troops from being massacred. General Urrea, commander of the Mexican forces, promised the Texans would be treated as prisoners of war and given clemency. 

Upon surrender, the Texans were marched back to the Presidio at Goliad and placed under the watchful eyes of Nicolas de la Portilla and his detachment of men while Urrea and his remaining troops continued their march south. However, Santa Anna, the president of Mexico, was determined to fight a war of extermination and ordered Portilla to execute the prisoners. Having conflicting orders from General Urrea and General Santa Anna, Portilla chose to follow Santa Anna's orders.

Inside the walls of the Presidio where the
wounded were killed

On March 27, the prisoners were divided into quarters. While the sick and wounded remained in the chapel, the other three groups were escorted on different roads out of town. The three groups were told they were on missions to gather wood, drive cattle or sail to safety in New Orleans. When they were ordered to halt a half-mile from the fort, however, the Texans realized their fates. The Mexican guards opened fire as some of the men began running for their lives. Those not killed by gunshots were slaughtered with bayonets.

Back at the presidio, the Mexicans stood the wounded against the chapel wall and executed them. The wounded who couldn't stand were shot in their beds. Fannin, who had been shot in the thigh during the original engagement, was the last to be killed. His three dying wishes were to be shot in the chest, given a Christian burial, and have his watch sent to his family. Instead, Portilla shot Fannin in the face, burned his body with the others, and kept the timepiece as a war prize. In all, nearly 350 men were killed at Goliad.

Today, almost 185 years later, the old presidio and its adjacent Chapel of our Lady of Loreto still stand. Given the horrific events that happened within and around the site, is it any wonder the walls sometimes echo with the mournful sounds of spirits returning from that troubled and turbulent time? 

Visitors often report feeling "cold spots" and uneasy feelings as they walk around the grounds where Fannin and his men were executed. In 1992, a man named Jim reported strange goings-on. As a former deputy sheriff and a security guard for a number of years, Jim was not a man easily frightened or prone to make up wild stories. Hired for a few nights to watch over some equipment at the presidio that was to be used for the Cattle Baron's Ball, he expected quiet routine nights. On his first night though, just before midnight, the silence was broken by the "eerie, shrill cries of nearly a dozen terrified infants." He swore the sounds indicated "pain and suffering." Although understandably frightened, he tried to find where the sounds were coming from. After several long minutes, he finally determined they were coming from one of the dozen or so unmarked graves that are located near the Chapel of Our Lady of Loreto.

As he shined his flashlight on the spot, the cries abruptly stopped but were immediately replaced by the singing of a women's choir. It sounded like it was coming from the back wall of the old fort, but the beam of his flashlight revealed nothing there. After two or three minutes, the singing stopped and silence returned for the rest of the night. When Jim reported his experience, he was teased by his co-workers, but he is convinced what he saw and heard was real and besides, he is not the only person to report strange things in and around the presidio.

The chapel

Numerous people have reported seeing a strange, 4-foot-tall friar who suddenly appears by the double doors leading into the chapel. His robes are black, tied around his waist with a rope and his face is concealed with a hood. He then walks barefooted to each corner of the church and seems to bless it before walking to the center of the quadrangle and begins to pray in Latin. 

A woman in a white dress has been reported kneeling and crying by the graves of the children. When seen, she then turns and looks directly at the person before gliding over to a wall and vanishing. A beautiful soprano voice is often heard emanating from one particular room, but upon investigation, there is nobody in the small space. Visitors who stay late often come back from the fort and comment to the staff about the historical reenactors even though there are no reenactors on the property that day. 

It seems there are many restless spirits here. Who are the crying babies? Are they the little lost souls of pioneer infants killed by Indians in a raid or was there an epidemic that took their too-short lives. The woman in white - is her own child buried in one of the unmarked graves? Why does the short friar keep returning? Is his soul in turmoil over so many brave men who were brutally executed? Whose souls are eternally singing beautiful hymns in a choir, unable to leave this chapel? Caught in a timeless web, so many lost souls searching, sorrowing, singing, praying, unable to let go of the life they briefly lived in a little town named Goliad.

Demon's Road

There's a remote, lonely dirt road outside of Huntsville, Texas that for years has had the reputation as a place you don't want to be after dark. Even the few people who live on the scattered ranches in the area will tell you they will do without something they need rather than take this road toward town once the sun goes down. The road leads to the old Martha's Chapel Cemetery and is known by everyone as Demon's Road. Even in the bright light of day, there are reasons it has become known by that name. Since there were only horse-drawn wagons traveling on it, there have been tales of disturbing encounters and eerie, hair-on-the-back-of-your-neck-standing-up feelings. 

One of the earliest tales is of the apparition of a young child with glowing eyes riding an early version of a tricycle along the road by the cemetery. He has been encountered numerous times and it is reported as you near him, he simply vanishes into the air. Sometimes though, he will slowly turn his head and his glowing eyes will intensely stare at you as if he is looking into your soul before slowly, almost reluctantly, fading away. 

Demon's Road

In 2001, a man named Bob who lived in Houston heard about Demon's Road and convinced a friend to go with him to see things for themselves. As Bob parked beside the cemetery, he saw that his friend had fallen asleep in the passenger seat. It had been a long drive so not wanting to disturb his sleep and figuring he would join him after he woke up, Bob left to explore the cemetery on his own. As he was walking around reading the epitaphs, he saw something moving on the grave next to where he was standing. As he watched frozen in horror, a hand slowly began coming up through the ground. Within a few seconds, the whole arm was above ground and it began grasping around as if in search of something. The undead hand reached Bob's pant leg and grabbed ahold. Finally able to move, Bob instinctively reached down and grabbed the hand to pull it away from his pants leg, but the hand released its grip on his pants, abruptly latched on to Bob's wrist and began pulling him down! At that time, his friend showed up and began frantically pulling him away. With both of them pulling and jerking backwards, Bob managed to get away from the clutching hand. After running a few yards away to safety, Bob turned to look at his friend only to find he was nowhere to be seen. Confused and mightily frightened, Bob continued to run back to the safety of the car. As he quickly opened the driver's door, he saw his friend slumped over in the passenger seat still asleep. Bob quickly started the car and spun away from the cemetery with dirt flying from his rear tires. As the motor raced and the car swayed from side to side, his friend fell toward him, his eyes open, but unseeing. It was later determined he had died of a heart attack hours earlier, apparently during the drive down Demon's Road toward the cemetery.

Buzzard patiently waiting for a meal of
something dead.

In 2010 a woman reported an encounter her husband and their friends had. While visiting the grave of a long-dead relative, they saw a strange-looking man wandering through the cemetery, but none of them paid much attention to him. Several days later, as the woman stepped into the shower, she turned to close the curtain and much to her surprise, there in the doorway stood the same man they had seen in the cemetery! She screamed and the man abruptly faded away before her eyes.

There have also been numerous claims that a strange, faceless, threatening creature appears out of the woods on either side of the road. The one thing in common with all the reports is that no matter what form the spirits choose to reveal themselves, they have never been reported as anything less than hostile.

Peace Cemetery - Haunted Grounds

Outside of Joplin, Missouri is where you will find Peace Church Cemetery. One of the oldest graveyards in Jasper County, it dates back to 1855, ten years before the Civil War. There was a church next to the cemetery originally, but Peace Baptist Church burned to the ground long ago and now the dead and buried are all that remain.

For many years after the church burned, the cemetery was abandoned and forgotten. The old gravestones were covered in weeds that reached 6 feet tall. Briars and thick brush made it almost impossible to enter. Locals told of strange sounds and a feint, bobbing light late at night that could be seen through the trees. Along with the weeds and brush, the stories helped ensure everyone stayed away.

Eventually, the building of new homes and stores in the area have led the 2-lane road in front of the cemetery to become very busy. Most of the drivers passed right on by, intent on their daily lives and never knowing the intriguing stories of Peace Cemetery.

On July 5, 1861, the Civil War began in Missouri with the Battle of Carthage in Jasper County just a few miles from Peace Cemetery. Before the war ended, hundreds of men from the area were dead and most of the locals were forced to leave the county. A large number of men killed in area fighting were buried in the graveyard, sometimes multiple bodies were buried together with nothing but a small pile of rocks to mark the location. One of the most gruesome events happened on May 18, 1863, at the farm of a family named Rader, less than 300 yards down a dirt road from Peace Cemetery.

Major Thomas Livingston was commander of a Rebel guerrilla unit of about seventy men that ambushed a Union foraging party that was holding the Rader family at gunpoint and taking all the corn from the Rader Farm to feed soldiers at Fort Blair in Baxter Springs, Kansas. African American soldiers from Fort Blair, commanded by white soldiers of a Union artillery battery, were moving the corn from the barn to wagons when Livingston’s soldiers attacked from the woods as they came up from Peace Church Cemetery. The whole area was a field of bloodshed as Union soldiers scrambled desperately for their weapons, sought cover or tried to escape from the devastating surprise attack. Half of them would be gunned down. The Rebel troops, in desperate need of provisions themselves, stripped the bodies of clothing, shoes, weapons, and canteens. In their anger and battle frenzy, some of the dead bodies were mutilated.

A few Union men escaped and made their way back that night to the Baxter Springs outpost. The next morning, seeking retribution, hundreds of Union soldiers rode through the cemetery to the site of the ambush. Their commander, Colonel James Williams, was enraged to find some of the bodies of his ambushed troops mutilated. Because of the warm weather, the colonel decided it would be best to simply cremate the gory remains. The corpses were placed in a pile inside the Rader house, but before the flames were ignited, one of the Rebels who had apparently participated in the ambush the day before was captured and brought before the colonel. The colonel had him marched into the house, shot and thrown on the pile of mangled soldiers. The whole house was then set ablaze. Unfortunately, the Rebel prisoner had only been wounded and his screams of agony were heard until the roof of the burning house fell down.

Since then, there have been numerous reports in the area of moaning sounds, agonized screams, shadows that seem to move quickly from tree to tree and even ghostly apparitions appearing to be dressed in civil war uniforms. Perhaps the events at the Rader farm were so gruesome that the poor victims have been damned to never have peace, to forever wander the area in eternal suffering.

In late 1928 or early 1929, just outside Joplin near Peace Cemetery, William Cook was born. The last of 8 children born to an alcoholic father and an abused mother, Cook had a deformity in his right eye which caused it to be an odd shape and the lid would never close, even when he blinked or slept. His family and others soon gave him the nickname "Cockeyed," a name he hated but was stuck with throughout his brief, troubled life.

At age 5, Cook's long-suffering mother died and his dad moved all 8 children into a cave. A year later, his father deserted them, leaving the kids to make do as they could. The children were discovered by the authorities and moved into an orphan home. His brothers and sisters were all adopted, but Bill's eye, which caused him to look sinister, and a bad temperament prevented his adoption. Eventually, he went to live with a foster mother, but she only wanted the money the state provided for his care and vacillated between abusing and ignoring him, often neglecting even to provide food for him. Two years in a row, he was given a bicycle for Christmas, which he proudly showed the caseworker who came by to check up on how he was being treated. Both times, the bike would soon be repossessed for lack of payment.

Before his 13th birthday, Bill began running around the streets at night, stealing various items. He was arrested and told the court he wanted to go to reform school rather than back to his foster mom. Six months later on the same day he was released, he robbed a cab driver of $11. He was found and arrested that night and spent the next 5 years back in reform school. He often got into fights with the other kids because they made fun of his droopy eye. He almost beat one kid to death and so was transferred to the Old Missouri State Prison. While there, he got into another fight when an inmate joked about his eye and Bill beat him so bad with a baseball bat the man spent a month in the hospital. 

Released in 1950 at age 22, Bill went back to Joplin and looked up his father. Being rejected by him again, he then traveled cross-country to California. He managed to stay out of trouble for a few months, working as a dishwasher, but it wasn't long before he acquired a .32 caliber handgun and began traveling around the country and into Mexico. His method of travel was to kidnap people and make them drive him from one place to another. For reasons he never really explained, some of the people he would kill, but others he let go without harm. 

In New Mexico, the auto he had stolen from one of his kidnapped victims ran out of gas. A car driven by Carl Mosser with his wife and three children stopped to help the stranded motorist. Bad mistake. Bill pulled his gun and made the family drive him all the way back to his old stomping grounds in Joplin. Along the way, he robbed stores and gas stations and shot anyone who tried to stop him. Once back in Joplin, Bill ordered the family out of the car and shot all five of them, finishing them off, even the children, with a shot to the head. He then threw the bodies down an abandoned mine shaft near the cave where his father had abandoned his children.

Bill took the Mosser's car and headed back toward California. The car broke down and he kidnapped a deputy sheriff who had stopped to help him. He left the unharmed policeman handcuffed in a ditch a few miles later. Changing cars in the next town, he shot and killed the new car's owner. He drove this car to California where he shot and killed several more men, taking their cars. He headed south, robbing along the way, until crossing into Mexico where the police chief in Santa Rosaria recognized him from a wanted poster. Casually walking up beside him, he suddenly pulled Bill's gun from the waist of his pants and arrested him without a fight. Sent back to California where he was tried for his crimes in that state, he was found guilty and executed in San Quentin’s gas chamber on December 12, 1952. 

The area outside the cemetery fence where "Cockeyed" Cook

is supposedly buried in an unmarked grave.

"Cockeyed" Cook's body was sent back to Joplin for burial, but once there, nobody claimed it and no cemetery would allow him to be buried in their consecrated grounds. An agreement was finally made with Peace Cemetery for him to be buried outside the graveyard's fence with no marker to indicate the location. The graveside service and burial was held in secrecy under the cover of darkness with the aid of flashlights and lasted less than 10 minutes. It is said that just as the last shovel of dirt was thrown over his grave, the cry of a small child was heard whereupon the preacher and grave diggers hurriedly left.

Today, through the supreme efforts of a few volunteers, Peace Cemetery is once again accessible. The underbrush has been cleared, the weeds are kept mowed and the old gravestones are visible. Along with the souls of the civil war damned, does  Cook’s lonely, pain-ridden ghost haunt Peace Church Cemetery? Stories of the supernatural still abound in the area. Visitors still report seeing strange lights and hearing disembodied voices at night. Some claim to have seen what looks like a man standing in the woods outside the cemetery fence watching them. Many believe the mysterious man is the ghost of Billy Cook trying to make it into the cemetery and finally find some peace. Who knows for sure? Only the ghosts themselves.

Unsettled Souls of Fort Smith Cemetery

The Fort Smith National Cemetery in Sebastian County, Arkansas played an important role in the western expansion of the United States. By the early 1800s, white settlers were moving into the land acquired in the Louisiana Purchase of 1805. As the settlers moved onto land inhabited by the Indians, tensions naturally began to rise. The U.S. Army began building military posts to protect the settlers. Fort Smith was the first and most western of these forts. As a wild and lawless town grew around the fort, it became the last “civilized” place for outlaws, bandits, and renegades to acquire supplies before entering Indian Territory.

In 1823, out of the 200 troops stationed there, 51 died and the first official cemetery was created and dedicated on the site just outside the stockade where there had already been 3 burials. In 1824, Fort Gibson was constructed and Fort Smith was closed. Between 1824 and 1838, when the army returned to re-open Fort Smith, a number of men, most of whom died due to the lawlessness of the town, were haphazardly buried there. The army rehabilitated the cemetery and began overseeing internments.

When the Civil War began, Confederate forces took over the fort. When the Union forces recaptured it in late 1863, over 475 Rebel soldiers, most of them men who had fallen in battle, had been buried in the expanded cemetery.

The war ended in 1865 and by 1867, the bodies of so many fallen Confederate soldiers had been removed from hasty graves dug on battlefields and reburied in the Fort Smith cemetery that it was increased in size to over 5 acres. It was officially made a National Cemetery in late 1867 and was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1999.

Over the years, the cemetery has been expanded to cover over 33 acres and include almost 14,000 burials. Probably the most famous person buried here is Isaac Parker, the “Hanging Judge.” During his 21 years in Fort Smith, he sentenced 160 men and women to die with a noose around their necks. 79 of those 160 actually met their fate on the gallows.

During the 1860s, as the bodies of more and more soldiers who had suffered horrible deaths during battles were being dug up from their resting places and reburied in the cemetery, stories began circulating of strange sounds emanating from the graveyard at night; cries of anguish, sometimes a painful scream, and a persistent rumor of hearing what sounded like a young man crying out for his momma. Sometimes strange, bobbing lights would appear, float around the headstones and then vanish. Soldiers who were assigned night duty of standing guard at the cemetery’s gate refused to do it alone and would not enter the grounds.

By the early 1900s, it seems things in the cemetery began to settle down. Although still spooky after dark, stories of the unexplained sounds and lights virtually ceased. In the late 1990s however, for some unknown reason, it seems the forever occupants of the Fort Smith cemetery became uneasy. Once again, strange lights began to be seen floating around in the dark. Cemetery caretakers began reporting tools left amongst the graves overnight would be moved when they reported back to work the next morning. Sometimes the tools would simply be moved from one side of a grave marker to the other side of the same marker and other times a rake or shovel would be moved several graves away from where it had been left.

In 1998, on a cold December night, one of the groundskeepers had been performing maintenance work around Isaac Parker’s grave. He had left a spade and clippers next to the grave when he had been called away to help on another task. It was dark when he returned alone to retrieve his tools and put them away in a shed. After gathering up the tools, he turned away heading toward the shed when he heard something behind him. Thinking it was just a leaf being blown along the grass, he didn’t think anything of it. A few steps later though, he realized the noise had not gone away; in fact, it seemed now like it was the footsteps of someone following him. He pulled a flashlight from his tool belt and turned it on as he quickly turned around. Illuminated by the flashlight stood an old man with white hair and a white beard, wearing an old-fashioned black suit. The man was just standing there looking at him. The groundskeeper asked him what he wanted and the man began moving his lips as if he was talking, but there was no sound. It was then the groundskeeper realized that in the beam of his flashlight, he could see right through the man to the headstones directly behind him! Dropping the flashlight and the tools he had retrieved, the groundskeeper ran directly to his car without looking back and sped home.

Having worked and been in the Fort Smith Museum and having seen the pictures of Isaac Parker numerous times, the groundskeeper had no doubt the eerie apparition had been the Hanging Judge himself. The story goes that when the groundskeeper came in the next day, his salt-and-pepper-colored hair had turned completely white. He told his supervisor of his encounter and then, with trembling hands, gave him his letter of resignation and walked out.

The Haunted Battlefield of Chickamauga

Chickamauga National Park
(photo courtesy NPS)

It shouldn't come as a surprise that Civil War battlefields are some of the most haunted places in America. With so much fear, death, destruction, suffering and sorrow concentrated in one area, it would be a surprise if they were not.

For four long years, brother fought brother and families fought families. When the two sides clashed at Chickamauga, Georgia in September of 1863, the battle became the second bloodiest engagement of the entire Civil War.  For two days in September, almost 125,000 men fought fierce close-quarters and hand-to-hand battles. When it was over, there were 37,129 casualty's and the fields and woods were strewn with the dead and wounded. In some places, the dead lay where they died, stacked so high "a tall man couldn't see over them." After the battle, many of the dead were not found for days and many wounded died agonizing deaths as they lay unfound. For weeks afterwards, nameless dead combatants were buried in hastily dug trenches, sometimes Confederate laid next to Union, covered with dirt and soon forgotten.

Chickamauga Creek (the battlefield is now a National Park) is located close to Chattanooga near the Tennessee-Georgia border. The first Indian inhabitants of the area gave it the name Tsïkäma'gï . The Cherokee who came later continued to call it by that name and when the white man came along, they pronounced it Chickamauga. According to the Indians, the meaning of the word Tsïkäma'gï is "river of death." It is a name the area has surely earned. Over the years, untimely death seems to happen much more often here than can reasonably be expected. In 1898, Chickamauga became a training camp for soldiers headed for the Spanish-American war. Disease repeatedly swept through the camp, killing more men than died in the war itself. The woods and thickets over the centuries have been an unofficial burial ground for the Indians, Civil War troops and many other's. For some reason, many sick and disturbed people are drawn to  this place where they end their lives by their own hand.

Not long after the great battle, area residents began to report hearing strange things after dark - gun shots, soldiers marching, men moaning and crying out in pain, horrifying screams. Mysterious flickering lights were seen along with black shapes that disappeared when the viewer tried to get a closer look.


(photo courtesy NPS)

One day a lady dressed in a white dress showed up at the battlefield. She walked and walked among the grave mounds, over the blood-stained soil, across fields and into the woods. She was there to find the body of her husband, her childhood sweetheart whom she had recently married while he was on leave, just before he returned to his unit in time to fight in the battle. Years later, it is said she lost her mind there, beaten down by her grief. She supposedly refused to come back to her boarding room at night, refused to eat, and refused to leave the site. One day she wasn't there. No one saw her leave, a body was never found, but through the years and occasionally today, visitors who tarry in the park after dark report seeing a ghostly female apparition dressed in a flowing white dress wandering through the fields and woods, forever looking for the body of her lost love. Even in death, she has found no rest.

Another apparition seen over the years is a headless horseman. He is thought to be Lieutenant Colonel Julius Garesche, who was killed by a cannonball during the battle. He was well respected by his men and during a lull in the fighting, they buried him in a shallow grave on a nearby hill. A letter by General William Hazen described his remains when he found him - "I saw but a headless trunk; an eddy of crimson foam had issued where the head should be. I at once recognized his figure, it lay so naturally, his right hand across his breast. As I approached, dismounted, and bent over him, the contraction of a muscle extended his hand slowly and slightly towards me. Taking hold of it, I found it still warm and lifelike." Evidently, his decapitated ghost remains at Chickamauga, galloping through the woods at night.

Perhaps the most famous and often seen apparition is "Old Green Eyes," a strange, otherworldly creature, half man, half beast. He walks on two legs and has long, stringy hair reaching down to his waist. Some have reported him to have huge jaws with two long, sharp fangs sticking out. Others report him to be wearing some kind of dark cape around his shoulders and the cape appears to be blowing in the wind even when there is not even a gentle breeze.  The one thing everyone agrees on however, is his glowing, green eyes which shine in the dark.

It is one thing for visitors to announce strange, unexplained sounds and sightings, but when a down-to-earth park ranger admits to seeing a ghost, one has to take it rather serious. Several years ago, Edward Tinney, a chief ranger at the park reported, "One day at about four a.m., I went to check on some battle reenactors who were camping out in the park. I was walking near Glen Kelly Road when I saw a tall figure, over 6 feet in height, walking toward me. It seemed human, but at the same time, it wasn't. It had shaggy, stringy, waist-length black hair, green eyes and pointed teeth that resembled fangs. Feeling extremely threatened by this presence, I quickly crossed to the other side of the road. As he - or it - walked by me, he suddenly turned and kind of smiled at me, but it was a very devilish sort of grin. At that moment, a car came down the road and as its headlights hit the figure, it vanished right before my eyes."

(photo courtesy NPS)

A recent visitor, a Civil War buff and amateur military historian, had a run-in with Old Green Eyes. He emphasized that he was not in any way a believer in the paranormal, he was visiting Chickamauga Battlefield purely for the military history experience. It was just after sunset as he was heading back to his car to leave when he heard a low moaning sound from the woods he was walking near. Thinking someone was hurt, he hurried into the trees. He had no sooner reached the edge of the woods when he felt a strong sense of foreboding. Suddenly, he saw "this floating head with glowing, piercing green eyes which came bursting out of the trees! This thing wasn't scary - it was terrifying! I just yelled and ran like hell! When I got back to the road, I glanced behind me and saw nothing. I stopped and turned around and saw bushes moving just to the right of where I came running out, but nothing seemed to be following me. I ran the rest of the way to my parked car and sped out of there. I'll never forget what I saw and I doubt I'll ever go back there. I no longer discount the many stories of ghosts that haunt battlefields either."

Feel free to join the thousands of visitors who, during the day, come to Chickamauga Battlefield National Park with its tree-lined tranquil paths, stately manicured grounds with cannons, monuments, and other reminders of the War Between The States. Visit the museum, the visitor's center and go along on one of the ranger led tours. Just be warned though, it's probably not the kind of place you want to hang around in after the sun goes down.

Hotel Monte Vista's Permanent Residents

Located on old Route 66 in Flagstaff, Arizona is the Hotel Monte Vista. Constructed in 1926 and opened on New Year's Day, 1927, the building is listed on the National Register of Historic Places. The hotel has played host to such notable people as John Wayne, Bob Hope, Gary Cooper, Humphry Bogart, Lee Marvin, Jane Russell, and President Harry Truman, but all of its many distinguished and famous guests came and left after a brief stay. What the Hotel Monte Vista is most famous for are the guests who came and never left.

The Phantom Bellboy - Many guests over the years, especially those staying on the 2nd floor, have reported a knocking at their door and then hearing a faint, muffled announcement, "Room service," but when they open the door, nobody is there. One guest reported he just happened to be walking toward the door in the act of leaving his room when he was startled to hear the knock and voice. He opened his door within 2 seconds and just like all the other reports, nobody was there and no one was in the hall. It couldn't have been someone playing a trick because a person could not have ran away fast enough to not be seen. Even John Wayne reported having the same experience. According to him, when he opened his door, nobody was there, but he could feel a presence as if someone unseen was standing there. The Duke said he didn't feel threatened at all and it seemed to him the ghost was actually a friendly sort.

The Little Boy - Guests have for years reported seeing a little boy wearing "old fashioned" clothes wandering around the halls. Sometimes his voice can be heard as he looks up toward an invisible grownup person beside him. His mumbled words can't be made out, but everyone says it appears and sounds for all the world like he is looking up and talking to his mother. Occasionally a guest reports they were walking down a hall when they felt a cold little hand grasp theirs and when they jump and turn around, the ghostly image of a little boy abruptly vanishes.

The Rocking Chair - By all accounts, Room 305 is the most active room. There have been numerous reports by guests of seeing an old woman sitting beside a window in an old rocking chair. Sometimes the woman can't be seen, but the chair consistently rocks back and forth all by itself. Some unwary guests have been so unnerved by being awakened in the middle of the night by the sound of the chair creaking as it rocks that they went down to the desk in their night clothes demanding someone come back to the room with them and move themselves and their belongings to a different room. Cleaning staff consistently report moving the chair to a different place in the room only to return later to find it back exactly where it had been even though the room had been locked and nobody had been in it. Historical hotel records indicate that an elderly woman was once a long-term border in room 305 and she spent countless hours sitting in that same rocking chair staring out the window. Nobody knows what she was looking at or who she was waiting for. Evidentially she waits and watches for that person even in death.

Baby in the Basement - Probably the most unnerving of all the haunts is that of a crying baby in the basement. Reported time and again by maintenance and laundry personnel, there is never a reason found for the sound, no records exist showing a baby died in the basement, but people are often driven upstairs to escape the pitiful and incessant crying of an infant.  Turnover is normally rather high among staff performing these jobs at any hotel, but it is not uncommon at the Hotel Monte Vista for the personnel to come into the office visibly shaken, turn in their hotel key and quit on the spot while saying, "I can't take it anymore!"

Ghostly Dancers - Lounge staff and patrons have often seen the ghostly apparition of a man and woman dressed in period clothing slowly swaying to music only they can hear out on the dance floor. Their clothing is formal and they are seen laughing as they dance, holding each other close for all eternity.

Phantom Fallen Doves - In the early 1940's, the Red Light District was just 2 blocks from the hotel. One night a male guest of the hotel returned with 2 ladies of the night and they retired to his room, number 306. For one reason or another, both girls were killed during the night, their bodies thrown from the 3rd floor room's window to land on the cold street below. The male guest disappeared without a trace and was never found. For some reason, female guests staying in the room never seem to have any trouble, but male guests often report an uneasy feeling of being watched the whole time they remain in the room. There have been many male guests who reported being awakened in the middle of the night unable to breathe, feeling like a hand is being held tightly over their nose and mouth. Once awakened in such a manner, the men find it impossible to return to sleep because they feel extremely anxious and have a strong sense that someone is in the room "keeping an eye" on them.

Call from the Beyond - Staff working the night shift on the front desk have become accustomed to the desk phone ringing in the middle of the night with a call from Room 210. It only happens though when there are no guests staying in that room. When the call is answered, the clerk is able to make out a faint, scratchy sounding "Hello" through the static noise coming from the handset.

Dead Bank Robber - In 1970, three men robbed a nearby bank. As they were running out with their ill-gotten-booty, a guard pulled a hidden revolver and managed to shoot one of the robbers. Passing by the hotel, the men, not comprehending the severity of their companion's wound, decided to hide out from the arriving police as well as to celebrate their success by having a drink in the hotel's bar. Sitting in a corner booth, the wounded man died before finishing his drink. Since then, staff and patrons have repeatedly reported seeing drinks and even bar stools move seemingly on their own and are often greeted with a faint, but cheery "Hello" from what appears to be empty air as they enter the bar.

Meat Man - In the early 1980's, one of the hotel's long-term guests was known among the staff as "Meat Man" due to his strange habit of hanging pieces of raw meat from the chandelier in his room. The cleaning staff only cleaned his room once each week so it wasn't odd that his body was only discovered in his room, #220, three or four days after his death. The room was cleaned and aired out and 3 days later, maintenance workers were making repairs and updating the room in preparation for the next guests. Breaking for lunch, the men locked the door and left for the break room. Returning about 30 minutes later, the men entered the still locked room to find it in disarray, the bed clothes stripped off and the TV on with the volume turned up. There was also the distinct smell of meat present. The workers found it extremely strange, but assumed somebody had somehow gotten into the room while they were gone. They alerted the cleaning staff to get the room back in order and finished up their work just in time for the arrival of the night's guest. In the middle of the night, that guest, a male traveling alone, rushed downstairs to the front desk dressed only in underwear and a t-shirt very upset because somebody he couldn't see was in his room pulling the covers off the bed! The clerk accompanied the man back up to his room and found the bed clothes strewn around the room in profusion. He also wrote in his report that there was a distinct smell of "raw bacon" in the room. Since then, not every guest has such a terrifying experience, but the staff has leaned to not rent it to anyone traveling with a pet, especially a dog as it will invariably go crazy barking throughout the night, staring intently in corners and often up toward the ceiling, right where meat once hung from the chandelier. 

Located at 100 N. San Francisco Street, this renovated hotel still serves guests today and according to many witnesses, remains home to a number of guests who for one reason or another have chosen to not go toward the light.

    

The Headless Boy of Little Geronimo

Little Geronimo is today a peaceful little town in central Texas just north of the larger town of Seguin. In the early 1900's, it was a collection of a few business buildings surrounded by hard-working German farmers and one old house where nobody lived for long.

There were stories about the big old house sitting on the south edge of town. Only uninformed newcomers would move into it and they all left within a few months, usually in the middle of the night with no warning, not even taking the time to pack all of their belongings. None ever returned to tell what had driven them from the house. The stories told of "someone else" who lived in the place, an evil someone who had so frightened a big, strapping teenage boy whose family had moved in that one night he had fired his hunting rifle at it. The shot went through his locked bedroom door and wounded his little brother asleep in the room across the hall.

Not long after "the war to end all wars" was finished,Ludwig Neumann emigrated to America with his family and eventually moved to Geronimo and the big house on the south edge of the town. Like their neighbors, the Neumanns were farmers and they toiled from daylight to daydark. All was well that spring and summer with an abundant crop and new friends made. Ludwig did wonder why everyone seemed inordinately interested in their home, but he chalked it up to curious neighbors just being interested in a house bigger than theirs. 

One dark September night, Ada, one of Ludwig's daughters, left the rest of her family talking in the kitchen and walked to the other side of the house to sit on the porch and wait for a friend who was coming to visit. In the middle of the dark living room, a sudden chill enveloped her and what felt like an ice-cold hand brushed across her cheek! Frightened, she ran through the room to the porch, but it was pitch black outside and she was too scared to stay there. Ada steeled herself to run back across the living room to get to her family. Sure enough, she felt the chill in the middle of the room and then that ice-cold hand touched her face again, this time fingers pulled at her hair as she ran past! She made it back to her family and the light in the kitchen. Knowing her sisters would surely make fun of her, she said nothing of her frightening encounter.

The very next night, the youngest daughter came running back into the house after emptying the dishwater off the porch, her eyes wide with fear. No amount of coaxing however, could get her to tell what had scared her so. 

For several days and nights, all was normal until one evening when just after the supper dishes had been put away and the moon was rising, the two middle girls were outside bringing down the clean clothes from the drying line. They had placed a lamp atop the milk safe on the porch to provide light for them to work by.   Suddenly they heard what sounded like someone walking through the brush out by the windmill just beyond the reach of the feeble lamplight. Knowing the rest of the family was in the house, they worked faster. Then they saw it. From behind the windmill it came out of the darkness, a white, luminous, indistinct form that seemed to float just above the ground. As the girls stared in horror, it turned to face them. When it started coming toward them,they ran screaming toward the house. As the first opened the door, the second dared a look behind and saw the thing, formless and close enough to touch them! Both girls crashed safely inside and slammed the door shut.

"What in the world is the matter with you two?" an alarmed Ludwig asked. They couldn't describe it exactly; how could they when they had ran as fast as they could? Before it came for them, it seemed kind of small, like a little boy, but not. It moved so fast, much faster than anyone could run and it got close, so close! As they cried and told in halting sentences what had happened, the other two girls spoke up and told what they had also experienced. Ludwig, a stern, no nonsense kind of man, admonished the girls for such a story and for leaving a lit lamp out on the porch. He would retrieve it and the girls should go straight to bed. The children begged him to take his gun, but he didn't need a gun against what was nothing but a fanciful story.

Ludwig did return with the lamp, but there was a look on his face and in his eyes that the girls had never seen before. There was a pair of double doors at the end of the house leading out to the far end of the porch. Those doors had been stuck closed and no matter how hard the strong Ludwig had tried, he had been unable to get them open. While he had been on one end of the porch retrieving the lamp, he had glimpsed a misty shape at the other end and heard a loud screeching noise. The double doors were standing wide open. They knew what this meant - it was inside now!

As a group, the whole family went from room to room throughout the house lighting all the lamps, turning them up high so they would provide as much light as possible. Ludwig cleaned his gun and they all spent the long night together in the living room. Nothing happened and in the morning, the back door which had been securely locked was found to be standing open. Evidently the thing had returned outside.

A week later, the oldest of the Neumann girls, Bertha, who was married and lived in San Antonio, came for a visit. When her sisters told her of "the thing," Bertha, a pious, God-fearing woman, shamed them for having over-active imaginations. Good Christians do not see ghosts, she said, and she wanted to hear nothing more of that nonsense. 

A very methodical young woman, Bertha spent each day working and doing chores as proper ladies should. At the end of each day's work though, she enjoyed cooling herself on the porch with her feet being soothed in a pan of cold water. While sitting all alone enjoying this small act of indulgence late one evening several days after arriving for her visit, she clearly saw the buggy house door slowly open seemingly all by itself. The buggy house was only a few yards from the big house with nothing in between so it was impossible not to see the door opening wide, the interior blacker than the night. Suddenly, out of that blackness, a hazy, white mist came forth and right before Bertha's wide-open eyes, began to take the shape of a small boy. Much to her surprise and confusion, she noticed the misty figure was wearing very large, glowing shoes, shoes that were much too big for a little boy. She then tore her eyes from those huge shoes and was astounded to see the figure had no head! "It" seemed to be looking at the woodpile beside the buggy house, but how could it? It had no head! As it turned toward her, Bertha broke from her trance to run into the house screaming, "It has no head! It has no head!"

Again, the family went from room to room, turning up every lamp in the house, making sure all the windows and doors were securely locked. Without anyone prompting this time, Ludwig loaded his gun. Once again, a long, restless night was passed by the family all gathered together in the living room. The Neumanns were relieved to see no doors standing open in the morning. It had not gotten inside.

Several weeks went by with no appearance by the headless thing and the family began hoping it had simply gone somewhere else. The German families occupying the nearby farms had a love for singing the old songs of their homeland and a number of them had formed a choir. The Nuemanns were no exception and having the largest house in the area, volunteered their home for choir practice. One evening, about 30 singers had gathered in the large room near the back hallway. Ludwig's wife sat nearest the door to the room so she could join the singing and still get snacks for their guests. It was she who saw it first.

When the family had found the double doors standing open that previous night of terror, Ludwig had wedged them shut and nailed a large board across both doors. Over the singing, Mrs. Nuemann heard the sound of someone coming up the stairs and walking across the porch toward those doors. As she looked down the hall, there was a loud noise as nails and the cross-board flew across the room! At the crashing sound, the singers fell silent and as Mrs. Nuemann looked on, both doors slowly opened wide.

As she watched in horror, the misty form of a boy entered the room. He turned and straight down the hallway he came, not exactly walking, just silently moving. As it got close, Mrs. Nuemann screamed and ran further into the room. As more than 30 people watched, the form floated right into the room and before their horrified gaze, kept going across the room and up the steps to the 2nd floor. Several of the women fainted dead away and more than a few of the men took quick steps toward the back of the room. All noted later "the headless boy" carried something in his arms, perhaps a pillow? Or at least something wrapped in a pillowcase. Some swore whatever it was, it had the shape of a head.

Ludwig gathered his wits just a few seconds after the headless boy had floated up the stairs and, followed by several brave men in the choir, rushed up to the 2nd floor. Every room was searched and found empty. It was noted all windows were locked shut and the people who remained behind were sure nobody, or nothing, had come back down the stairs. The choir practice quickly ended.

Less than a week later, the Neumann family, like so many others, moved away. Later, Bertha received a letter from her father saying they left because he was getting too old to farm. Perhaps that really was the reason.

Old Brit Bailey

James Briton Bailey was born in North Carolina in 1779 and married at a young age. He and his even younger wife, Edith Smith, had 6 children over the next 10 years. Sadly, his wife died of an unspecified illness. A year later, "Brit" as he became known, married his deceased wife's sister, Dorothy (nicknamed Dot) which wasn't uncommon in those days. He took his new wife and 6 children with him when he moved to Kentucky where he managed to get elected to the state legislature. He earned a bad reputation for being quarrelsome and confrontational while he served, but apparently everything was fine at home as he fathered 5 more children with Dot. He eventually resigned from the legislature and moved with his large family to Tennessee. There is some indication he was about to be prosecuted for forgery when he left, but no definite proof has been found for this. 

While in Tennessee, Brit enlisted in the military and fought in the War of 1812. In 1818 he once again moved his family along with 6 slaves he had managed to acquire, this time to the wild and wide open spaces of south Texas (still a part of Spanish-ruled Mexico.) Bailey purchased his land from the Spanish government in what would later become Brazoria County between the present-day towns of West Columbia and Angleton south of Houston. On the prairie land in the middle of his property he built a house large enough to accommodate his family and painted it barn red. He built quarters for his slaves, barns, outhouses, sheds, and several storage buildings over the next year and had them all painted the same barn red color.

Everything was fine until 1821 when Mexico won its independence from Spain and the newly installed Mexican government refused to recognize Brit's claim that the land belonged to him. Legal wrangling ensued over the next several years with Bailey refusing to back down an inch and daring anyone to come and try to take his property. In 1824, Mexico granted Stephen F. Austin the right to settle up to 300 Anglo's on land which included Bailey's. Austin tried to force Brit to give up his claim and move along, but Bailey didn't back down from the imposing and strong-willed Austin any more than he did the Mexican government. After numerous confrontations, Bailey informed Austin he was unwilling to move, but more than willing to make him a corpse with his Kentucky rifle. Soon after, Austin recognized Brits claim to a league and labor of land (4,605.5 acres). This land became known as Bailey's Prairie.

There is nothing left of the Bailey
homestead and nobody knows exactly
where Brit stands in his grave.

Over the next 8 years, Brit once again gained a reputation for his eccentric behavior, hard drinking, and being quick to engage in brawls. He remained a constant thorn to Stephen Austin, loudly and often proclaiming his dislike of him. He fought several duels and in true Texas fashion, did things his own way and dared the world to have an opinion about it. 

In late 1832, he became very sick, probably of cholera. On December 5th, while on his death bed but still lucid, he dictated his last will and testament and gave specific directions for his burial. He insisted he was to be buried standing up, "for I never lied to a man in my life and I want no man, on passing my grave, to say, 'there lies old Brit Bailey.'" He wanted to be buried with his face to the west, for he had begun going west when he left Carolina and had never ceased looking toward the setting sun. He wanted to be buried with his trusty rifle at his side with a full horn of powder and his pouch filled with bullets and fresh flints; with his possibles bag filled with pipe, tobacco, strike-a-light and a large chaw and a full jug of whiskey at his feet. He proclaimed the reason for his demands was because, "a man doesn't know how long the road may be and what hazards may be along it and my rifle has never failed me yet and I may be in need of refreshment along the way." Brit died the next day.

"Uncle Bubba," one of Bailey's slaves, dug a shaft grave 8 feet deep in order to bury Brit standing up as he requested. The funeral was held and Brit was prayed over by a local preacher. His body was placed in the hole feet first facing west. Into the grave his wife placed his long rifle, a full horn of powder, his bullet bag full of bullets and flints and his possibles bag loaded with a pipe, tobacco, a strike-a-light and a chaw. However, Mrs. Bailey was a devout Methodist and she simply could not in good conscious put a full jug of corn whiskey in the grave with Brit. She hadn't been able to stop his drinking while he was alive, but she sure could keep the jug away from him now that he was dead.

Very shortly after Brit's death, Dot moved the family to Harrisburg (now part of Houston) and rented out the red house. The first family of tenants moved out suddenly and without explanation just a few weeks after moving in. So did the next and the next and the next. There was a reason. 

The first couple who moved into the Bailey house practiced the most effective form of birth control of the time - they slept in separate bedrooms. Just a couple of nights after moving in, the wife came flying into the husband's bedroom one night and jumped into bed with him. "What's wrong with you, woman?" the husband asked. "There was a man in my room," she exclaimed. "I thought it was you. He was on his hands and knees feeling for something under the bed. I reached out to touch him and my hand went right through him!"

The husband was, of course, skeptical, but the wife refused to spend the night in that room again. Finally, the husband had had enough and decided to sleep in the wife's room to prove it was just her imagination. Shortly after midnight, the husband came running from the room and said, "Not only is there a man in there, but I recognized him. It was old Brit Bailey himself!"

It turns out, the bedroom in question had been Brit's and it was his habit to keep his jug under the bed. Each and every tenant moved out of the house saying they saw Brit Bailey walking around the room that used to be his, obviously looking for something under the bed or in the closet or behind furniture. Eventually, nobody would rent the property. The house and buildings fell into disrepair and crumbled to the ground. Today, no trace of the house remains and nobody knows the exact spot where Brit still stands facing west, but Brit has never left. 

For years afterward, he manifested himself in various ways in and around Bailey's Prairie. His appearances became so well known that even the most skeptical of the hardy settlers believed whole-heartedly in the ghost at Bailey's Prairie. He was still making appearances in the late 1930's when a passing traveler reported seeing a gauzy apparition of a man alongside the darkened road he was driving on. His car abruptly stopped running. The radio came on without his touching it and the antenna started waving around in the air. The windshield wipers, which in those days worked off manifold pressure and wouldn't work at all if the engine wasn't running, began to quickly sweep back and forth. The horn honked and the lights flashed, all without any human actions. The traveler said the phantom looked right at him, then appeared to look into his car before shaking his head and disappearing. When the apparition vanished, the car stopped going crazy, could be started again and driven normally. 

In the late 1940's, an oil well being drilled near the site of the old house collapsed in upon itself every time the bit was removed. When casing was placed in the hole, the casing collapsed inward. There was no known physical reason for either the collapse of the hole or the casing. No other wells in the area had any trouble like this and no fault was found in the casing pipes. The well was finally moved just 20 feet away and no further problems were experienced. Old-timers said the well was being dug too close to Brit's grave and he didn't appreciate it.

Today, a mysterious light is often seen floating around Bailey's Prairie. It appears as a bright, white ball moving about 4 - 6 feet above the ground, the same height a man would hold a lantern. Too many sober, well-respected people have seen it for the phenomena to be dismissed. No scientist has been able to explain what causes what is known as Bailey's Light. Perhaps they should just accept the explanation that has been verbally handed down by generations of area residents - old Brit Bailey is still out there, looking all over for his missing jug of whiskey.

The Most Haunted House in America

There are many haunted homes in the United States and Louisiana seems to have more than its fair share. However, only one can legitimately lay claim to being “the most haunted house in America.” The Myrtles” has earned that title in part by being the abode of as many as 14 ghosts. Serving as a respected Bed & Breakfast establishment now, even without the ghosts, the place would be creepy merely due to its bloody history and the mysteries it holds secret.

In 1791, General Daniel Bradford, a hero of the American Revolution, was a leader of the Whiskey Rebellion, a violent protest of the new U.S. government’s imposition of a tax on whiskey. In July, 1794, a government militia force of over 13,000 men marched into western Pennsylvania to put down the rebellion and enforce the tax laws that were being protested by 500 distillers. Bradford decided discretion was the better part of valor so, after retrieving a small fortune in funds and leaving his wife and 5 children behind, he high-tailed it out of the government’s reach down to Spanish-held Louisiana.

In 1796, General Bradford purchased a 650-acre tract of land to begin a plantation and chose to build a large house on the highest point of the estate.  What he didn’t know, however, was that the spot was the exact site of an ancient burial ground of the Tunica Indians. It took several years for the construction crew and artists to complete Bradford’s mansion and for the plantation, which he named Laurel Grove, to be established. Stories handed down indicate that before building began and also during the construction, he spent a number of nights at the site. During those nights, his sleep was often disturbed by the appearance of a nude Indian maiden who would slowly shake her head from side-to-side while looking at him. He said he somehow understood the apparition was trying to tell him not to build on the sacred ground, but not believing in omens, he chose to ignore the warning.

In 1798, President John Adams pardoned Bradford for his actions in the Whiskey Rebellion. That same year, he travelled back to Pennsylvania and brought his wife and children back to live with him in Louisiana. They lived there, peacefully building a life together, until 1808 when Bradford died in bed. After his death, the house passed ownership to his oldest daughter, Sarah, who soon married a lawyer, Clarke Woodruff. Over the next few years, the couple had 3 children and owned a large number of slaves to work the plantation and take care of the house.

One of those slaves was a beautiful, young mulatto girl named Chloe who the master of the house forced to become his mistress. Clarke treated his slave mistress better than any of the other slaves, making her the family’s cook and the children’s nanny.  A year later though, Clarke took a different slave girl to be his new mistress and threatened to put Chloe back in the fields if she told anyone of their coupling. Being fearful of being relegated to backbreaking work in the fields or being sold and separated from her family, Chloe began listening at keyholes to her master’s private conversations for information concerning her fate. One day Clarke caught her and in a fit of rage, cut off her ear. She survived and for the rest of her life wore a green turban on her head to hide the missing ear.

Chloe was sure she would be dealt an even harsher punishment even as time passed so when an opportunity finally presented itself, she concocted a plan to get back into Clarke’s favor. The family was having a birthday party for one of the young daughters and she was instructed to bake a cake for the occasion. Chloe laced the cake with oleander, a poisonous shrub. She only meant to make the family sick so she could then nurse them all back to health and prove how essential she was. Unfortunately, she used too much poison and Sarah and 2 of their children died lying in their beds in spite of Chloe’s efforts to nurse them back to health.

The night of the funeral, Chloe was very distraught and when her fellow slaves asked her what was wrong, thinking they would keep her secret, she confessed to what she had done. However, in those times, a serious infraction of the law by a slave would bring quick and painful retribution not just to the perpetrator, but also to the other slaves on the plantation and Chloe surely had broken a major law of the white man.  Before a white mob could come for them in revenge, the other slaves decided to take matters into their own hands. Later that night, pulling Chloe from her bed, they dragged her to a tall oak tree near the house and hung her until she choked to death. Just before dawn when they were sure she was dead, they cut her down and threw her body into the nearby river and let it wash away.

After the death of Sarah and the two children, Clarke left the plantation in the hands of a caretaker and moved with his surviving daughter to Covington, Louisiana and in 1834, sold the plantation, the house and the slaves to Ruffin Stirling. Before he and his wife Mary and their 9 children moved in, they spent a considerable amount of money remodeling and adding to the original structure. Renaming the plantation & house to “The Myrtles,” by the time they were finished, the house was twice as big. No matter as the ill will of the house did not abate. Five of the Stirling children died in the house at a young age and Ruffin himself died there in 1854.

In the early 1860’s, the eldest surviving Stirling daughter, Sarah, married William Winter and in 1865, Mary Stirling, who had inherited The Myrtles upon Ruffin’s death, hired William to manage the plantation. William and Sarah lived in the house along with her mother. The Winters, not faring any better than previous occupants, had a daughter, Kate, who died at the house from typhoid when she was only 3. Facing hard times after the Civil War, the family was forced to sell The Myrtles in 1868, but William began making a good living as a lawyer, won several big cases, and they were able to buy the plantation back by late 1870.

The following year, a man on horseback rode up to the house and called to William for the purpose of hiring him as a lawyer. When Winter came out onto the porch, the man shot him in the chest and rode off into the night. William staggered back into the house and, evidently trying to reach his wife who was upstairs, began climbing the staircase. He made it to the 17^th of the 20 stairs where he collapsed. Sarah ran to him and cradled his head in her lap as he died. The sheriff and the doctor were summoned and when they arrived, they found a sobbing Sarah sitting on the stairs still holding the corpse of her husband. When his body was removed, a large pool of blood remained on the step where he died. The gunman was never found, the case never solved.

The bloody history of The Myrtles did not end with William Winter’s murder. William’s widow Sarah remained at the house with her mother Mary until she died there in 1878. Mary died in the house 2 years later in 1880 and the plantation went to her son, Stephen. By this time, the plantation was heavily in debt and Stephen sold it in 1886. Shortly thereafter, a man was stabbed to death in the hallway over a gambling debt. The Myrtles then changed hands a number of times over the next few years until in the early 1900’s, the land was divided up among the last buyer’s heirs after he died and the house itself was sold to a new buyer. In 1927, the overseer of the large house was stabbed to death during a robbery attempt. With its history of violence and death, the house changed hands numerous times, seeming to bring ill will to most of its owners until the 1970’s when James and Frances Myers purchased it. After extensive repairs and remodeling, they turned it into the Bed & Breakfast it is today.

With all of the deaths experienced in the house, it’s no wonder the home has earned its reputation as being extremely haunted. Not long after the death of the slave girl named Cloe came the first reports from residents and visitors of an apparition wearing a green turban. She apparently is still hanging around and still very active over 200 years later. Many guests have awakened from a sound sleep to see the green-turbaned specter standing over them. Often, a baby’s cry is heard when Chloe appears. By standing over the person’s bed and gazing down on them, it is thought she is still carrying out her duties as a nanny, checking on the children she used to care for.

Two other spirits are sometimes seen looking through bedroom windows or standing at the foot of beds in the dark of night – two blond-headed girls with long corkscrew curls wearing antebellum dresses. Children’s happy voices are heard playing in the hallway, laughing and squealing as they invisibly run from one end of the hall to the other. Sometimes, guests return to their locked room after the service staff has carefully made their bed only to find the bed clothes rumpled with the unmistakable indention of a child’s footprint, as if a child had been jumping on the bed. Apparently, Cloe’s young victims are still hanging around.

One of the most reported mysteries is a thumping sound, as if someone is staggering across the foyer and climbing up the stairs. The sound always stops on the 17th step and then the thud of a falling body is heard. Upon investigation, there is nothing seen, nothing at all, except for the dark blood-colored stain on that step, and no amount of scrubbing or bleaching has ever been able to remove it.

Other spirits seem to have made The Myrtles their home as well. Guests of the current Bed & Breakfast have told the owners they witnessed a lady softly playing the grand piano late at night. However, the owners do not know how to play piano and when asked, none of the other guests at the time claimed to know how either. A slender young man in a fancy vest and top hat has been sighted on numerous occasions wandering around the grounds. The clothes and appearance of the man exactly match the description of the gambler killed in the foyer over his gambling debt. There is also the female apparition dressed in a long black skirt who floats about a foot above the floor, dancing to music nobody among the living can hear.  Occasionally, after everyone has gone to bed and all is quiet in the dark of the night, the sounds of laughter, music, and the clinking of glasses can be heard coming from the parlor. Perhaps the ghosts are enjoying a lively social gathering.

The media has often reported on the many phantoms at The Myrtles. It has been featured in Life magazine, Southern Living, and numerous tabloids. A number of television documentaries have featured the old house and its stories through the years. With its location on a Louisiana bayou, surrounded by huge oak trees, Spanish Moss hanging from their branches providing an eerie atmosphere, it has even been featured as the setting for a number of big-budget movies.

A group of paranormal investigators recently spent time at the place and with their video cameras and assorted electronic sensing equipment, they succeeded in documenting several paranormal phenomena. Unexplainable drops in temperature, tape recordings of footsteps in empty rooms and on the stairs, strange whistling sounds emanating from unoccupied rooms and video recorded glowing orbs of bright light strangely whizzing around unseen by the naked eye were a few of the things they documented. Two of the investigators were returning to the house after walking around the grounds when they noticed a gray cat looking at them from the porch. Not knowing what it was at first, they shined their flashlights on it. The cat did not run away, it just sat there looking at them. One of them said, “That cat is creepy” and then both noted something really strange – the cat’s eyes did not reflect the light the way a normal cats would have. One of them grabbed his digital camera and took a picture of it. As soon as he did, the cat disappeared. Looking at the picture later, there was no cat, just a small white orb that seemed to be streaking toward the edge of the photo. When the owners were asked about the cat the next day, they reported it was a family pet named Mert. There was just one problem – Mert had died the year before.