Showing posts with label ghosts. Show all posts
Showing posts with label ghosts. Show all posts

Friday, September 4, 2020

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.

Wednesday, June 26, 2019

Haunted Gettysburg

The Civil War battle that was fought at the small town of Gettysburg in July 1863 was the greatest conflict of the war. The fighting raged not only in the woods, fields, and hills around the town but up and down the streets and in the homes of the people who lived there. 

After three days of intense fighting with cannon, guns, and men often engaged in vicious, brutal, desperate hand-to-hand mortal combat, there were almost 7,100 dead, 34,000 wounded, and 11,000 missing (captured or dead with body not found). When both armies pulled back, they left behind streets and fields littered with the bodies of the dead slowly decaying in the heat of the Pennsylvania summer. The people of Gettysburg were left with thousands of wounded to attend to and homes and businesses were turned into field hospitals. One local woman recalled, "Wounded men of both armies were brought into our homes and laid side-by-side in the halls and rooms. Carpets were so saturated with blood as to be of no further use. Walls were hideously bloodstained as were books which were used as pillows for the suffering men. In the streets and fields, the rotting corpses, swollen to twice their original size, actually burst asunder. Outside a home, several human, or inhuman, corpses sat up against a fence, with arms extended into the air and faces hideous with something very like a fixed leer." There are still many places throughout the town of Gettysburg where spirits from the battle are said to linger: homes, shops, hotels, and restaurants are said to be infested with ghosts and the unexplained. 

People have on numerous occasions told of smelling peppermint in the air while walking around the area known as Cemetery Hill. Most have no idea that on the first day of the battle, the Confederates routed a large group of Northern soldiers who retreated through the town to a piece of higher ground where they made a desperate stand. The place where many of them died by the end of that day was Cemetery Hill. As the battles raged on for two more days, the bodies were left to rot in the hot July sun. After the battle was over, Gettysburg citizens had to retrieve and bury the decayed, rotting corpses. They were only able to withstand the awful stench by covering their noses with handkerchiefs containing pieces of peppermint. 

The small college now known as Gettysburg College is a quiet place today, but in 1863, the college campus found itself in the middle of the fighting. Consisting only of 3 buildings then, it was used as a field hospital for the wounded and dying. The buildings still bear the scars of fired bullets from those terrible three days. Constructed in 1837, Pennsylvania Hall, a large stately building with tall white columns was originally a dormitory. Today it houses the campus administration offices. The Confederates captured the building after a skirmish and used the tall cupola as a lookout as well as a field hospital. Men were stationed as lookouts and even General Lee himself climbed the stairs to the top in order to keep an eye on the progress of the battles. Students and staff alike have reported seeing the figures of soldiers pacing back and forth long after the building has been closed and deserted for the night. 

The terrible conditions of the field hospital are what have left the strongest impression on the old building. Many times people have reported hearing what sounds like men screaming. Most staff members refuse to work in the building after sundown. Two professors, both known to be honest, forthright, and avowed disbelievers of the supernatural, did work in the building late one night up on the 4th floor. When they entered the elevator to go down to the 1st-floor exit, the elevator for some reason passed by the first floor to the basement. The doors opened on a terrible scene. The basement storage room had vanished and in its place was the blood-spattered operating room during the battle. Wounded men were writhing in pain as doctors and orderlies in blood-soaked clothing operated on them with no anesthetic, dealing with bullet wounds by the preferred treatment of the time, amputation. Off to the side of the room was an area where men who could not be saved were laid, waiting to die. Next to the dying lay hundreds of amputated legs and arms. The professors said there was no sound, but in their heads, they could hear the horrible wails, groans, and screaming. They frantically punched the buttons of the elevator to shut the doors on the horrible scene, but they wouldn't close. Then, one of the doctors looked up after severing a leg and, while holding his saw in one hand and the amputated leg by the foot in the other, looked directly at the professors. He gestured for them to come assist in the operations that were taking place. The professors, frozen in fear, couldn't move. The doctor dropped the leg and his saw and began walking toward them. Mercifully, the elevator doors closed just before he reached them. The professors, although thoroughly shaken by their experience, continued to work in the building after that, but neither of them ever took the elevator again, preferring to exit the building by way of the stairs.


A widow lady by the name of Mary Thompson lived on a farm on the north side of Chambersburg Pike. During the battle, her home was used as headquarters by General Robert E. Lee. The house was also used as a field hospital for the wounded. The dead were moved into a barn across a dirt path from the house until they could be given a proper burial. As the battle raged, so many bodies were moved into the barn that they were "stacked up like cordwood," newer bodies piled on top of the previous ones in a grisly pyramid of the dead. Unfortunately, not every body piled there was dead. One of those men, so grievously wounded he was thought to be dead, was thrown onto the pile and soon became trapped beneath dozens of his comrades. At some point, he awakened to find himself alive but being almost suffocated beneath the weight of the grizzly remains. When the battle was over and northern troops began removing the bodies one by one three days later, one of them tugged on the leg of a body to disentangle it from the others. He was astonished when he finally tugged it free and the man's eyes popped open, his arms and legs began to twitch and terrible screams came from his lips. He had been alive, trapped beneath all those rotting bodies for four days, slowly going mad. A doctor was summoned, but nothing could be done. The man screamed and cried out incoherently for almost a week. He never regained his senses and died crying. 

In the late 1800s, the widow Thompson died and the barn burned down. New owners built their home over the barn site. Shortly after moving in, the family began reporting odd sounds coming from their basement which were not the usual creaks and groans of a new house settling. One night, a loud explosion, "like a furnace exploding," came from the basement. Then the whole house began shaking as if it was in an earthquake. "The appliances, dishes, glasses, and cutlery were shaking violently and falling off the shelves. Furniture in the hallway was moving from one side to the other." Loud noises continued to come from the basement so the family members went to open the door leading down. Before opening it though, the door began to bow outward as if there was a great force on the other side. It sounded as if someone with a sledgehammer was pounding it. This was enough for the family to flee in terror. 

The family refused to ever return to the house that had frightened them so badly. They did seek spiritual help from an old priest though and he went to bless the house. After his visit, he told the family that he had some experience with sending spirits on their way and he felt the need to perform a ceremony that would do this. He said he felt the house was haunted, not by an evil entity, but rather one they should pity. The spirit trapped in the house was a terrified young Confederate soldier who was desperately trying to free himself from the horrible place he was in before he died. A short time later, the priest performed the ceremony and marked the cellar door with a white cross with a circle around it. The family still refused to return to the house though and later sold it. The new family reported they never heard any suspicious sounds. The house is now owned by the Lutheran Seminary in Gettysburg and it remains quiet.

Another particularly sad story is associated with the old Jacob Hummelbaugh house. Located on Taney Town Road, it was just behind the Federal battle line. It was set up as the 2nd Corp field hospital. A Confederate general by the name of Barksdale was mortally wounded while leading his men in a charge against the northern troops. After repulsing the charge, Yankee troops collected the wounded and he was taken, still alive, to the Hummelbaugh house for medical treatment. According to written documentation, Doctors determined nothing could be done to save him so he was moved to the front yard and left to die. He repeatedly called for water so a young orderly fed water to him with a spoon until he passed. 

Several weeks later, General Barksdale's wife came to retrieve her husband's body to return him home in Mississippi for burial. Along with the wife and her male helpers on the trip was the general's favorite hunting dog. Once the shallow grave of General Barksdale had been identified, the dog smelled around for a few seconds then laid down and began a mournful howl. Even after his master's body had been dug up and removed, the dog continued to lay next to the grave and refused to leave it. Finally, with the body readied for travel, the wife felt she had no choice but to leave the dog behind. Over the next days, the faithful dog became a familiar fixture. He would occasionally let out a pitiful, heartbreaking howl that could be heard all around the area, but in spite of offers of food and water, he refused to eat or drink or leave the gravesite. He eventually died of hunger and thirst, stretched out over his master's now empty burial place. Over the years since, every July 2nd, the anniversary of Barksdale's death, it is reported that an unearthly howl echos during the night as the faithful dog still grieves from a place beyond this world.

Wednesday, January 25, 2017

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.

Thursday, September 29, 2016

Haunted Baker Hotel

The Baker Hotel, 2015.
The Baker Hotel in Mineral Wells, Texas was opened on November 22, 1929, just 3 weeks after the stock market crash of 1929. Known as the "Grand Old Lady," the hotel was a success as soon as it opened and was a top spa destination during the 1930s. When the nearby Fort Wolters closed down after World War II in 1946 however, both the Baker Hotel and the city declined. After the war ended and Mineral Wells was no longer the growing, bustling town it was before, the owners of the Baker Hotel did everything they could to stay in business, but costs exceeded income and it eventually closed for good in 1973.
 
The owner, Mr. Baker, moved into a fancy suite on the 10th floor with his family when the hotel opened. It is known he also maintained a suite for his red-headed mistress on the 7th floor. He lived in his hotel until his death in 1972. For the last 20 years of his life, he endured the decline of his fortune and watched the decline of his once luxurious hotel.

Just because the Baker Hotel has been closed to the living since 1973 doesn't mean it has been devoid of activity. The hotel remains a grand old structure containing thousands of stories of the people that stayed there - some during their last days as they sought cures for terrible illnesses. The reports of ghosts and hauntings began in the Baker long before it closed. A porter who worked there in the 1950s and '60s was the first known to witness the ghost of the woman on the 7th floor. She looks and dresses like the pictures of Mr. Baker's reported mistress. Rumors from the time say Mr. Baker refused her demands that he leave his family and marry her. Distraught, she jumped to her death from the top of the building. The year of the incident has not been verified but the room she stayed in was a suite on the southeast corner of the 7th floor. Many have reported smelling her perfume and her spirit is said to be quite flirtatious with men she may fancy.
 
Other records report that a drunken woman tried to jump into one of the swimming pools from the 12th-floor balcony and died in the fall. Another reports that a married male cook got into a huge fight with his girlfriend, who was a maid at the hotel. She threatened to tell his wife about their love. He lost his temper and control and stabbed her to death in the kitchen pantry. Recently a woman, who worked as a maid in the hotel, reported that on several occasions she found glasses in one particular room with red lipstick stains on the rims. This took place at times when no one was staying in the room.

The last manager of the hotel while it was still in business reported that one night he was near the main lobby on the first floor when he heard the distinct sound of a woman in high heels walking across the lobby. Thinking the footsteps to be those of his female assistant manager, he yelled out her name. The footsteps then faded away and upon further inspection, he found himself totally alone. Later he discovered that the assistant manager had not even been in the building that day.

On another occasion, he reported being on the 7th floor repairing an electrical breaker for the Christmas lights which continuously tripped every night during the display. As he was inspecting the fuse box, he heard the footsteps of an unseen person quietly walking up to his left as if not to bother him. A bit startled, he turned to look and saw no one. He said it certainly spooked him, but he spoke to the seemingly empty room and assured the possible ghost(s) that he meant no harm. After that night the lights never tripped off again.

Another incident occurred during a tour of the hotel by a group of World War II veterans and their spouses. As the group entered the empty "Brazos Room" on the first floor, which was the main dining room and dance area, a couple suddenly stopped. The woman looked at her husband and asked, "Do you hear that?" He replied, "I certainly do". About that time, several other people in the group began to hear sounds of dishes and silverware clanking as well as people talking with orchestra music in the background. Nearly all of the people there reported this event. It has never happened before nor since, but the witnesses were sure they were experiencing the ghostly echoes of a time long past.


A lady who worked at the drive-through bank located across the street from the empty hotel in the early 1990s reported that she and other tellers had their workstations facing the huge hotel. During slow times they noticed hotel windows open on various floors. Later they would notice these windows closed and others would be open. After a while, they began to take note and count which were opened and closed. One of the girls told the others "it must be the man who lives in the building and takes care of it." After that, the interest ceased and they stopped noticing. The strange thing is, no one has ever stayed in the Baker at any time since its closure in 1973 and there never was a caretaker.

A local Mineral Wells
woman who claimed to be a psychic told a reporter that ever since she was a young girl she had the ability to see spirits. She said she had been in the Baker many times and swore the numerous stories of ghosts and spirits are true. She said, "The Baker is very haunted, but not like we think. Most ghosts didn't necessarily die at the Baker, but returned after death because the hotel represented a wonderful time in their lives."


She went on to say that most of the spirits in the hotel do not want to be seen or heard with the exception of a small child. A little boy, about six to eight years old, was the only one to communicate with her. He told her he died in a hotel apartment in 1933 while his parents were seeking medicinal treatment for his leukemia. She also reported that a large shaggy dog always accompanied the child. She said he had bounced a ball to get her attention and " he was watched by an older woman who was always near him."

The psychic indicated the spirits don't necessarily look the same age as they were when they died. Some had been employees of the hotel years before they passed on and, in spirit form, looked like they did when they worked there. She said one of the resident spirits was a helicopter pilot who attended basic flight training at Ft. Wolters in the 1960s and was killed in a helicopter crash while at Ft. Rucker, Alabama. For reasons she doesn't understand, he had returned to the Baker
with his body in the same terribly mutilated condition that resulted from the crash.


In October 2000, two Paranormal Investigation teams, "DFW Ghostwatchers" from Dallas and "Lone Star Spirits" from Houston were contacted to perform a full-scale investigation. With over $100,000 of high-tech scientific instrumentation, the teams made three separate visits to the building. One of the investigators using a digital camera photographed hundreds of orbs. Orbs, according to many experts, are actual spirits of the dead. Orbs were photographed throughout the building with the largest concentration being in the basement and on the 5th, 7th, and 14th floors. She also captured what appeared to be 2 very distinct "ecto mist" apparitions in the 14th-floor ballroom. Another investigator was taking still shots with a high-end 35mm camera at the same time and captured what appeared to be another ecto mist above the first photographer. An independent psychic who accompanied the team reported "seeing" an old woman in a wheelchair in the southeast corner of the ballroom who kept saying, "I can't do it," "I can't do it".

The 5th floor was usually the most active. The psychic with the group felt uneasy and nauseous as she walked around at the west end of that floor. She felt that someone was trying to make the team "sick" so they would leave and she was too upset to go any farther in that direction. Later that night, other members of the team who visited the area began to choke and cough at the same spot. They had been on a different floor of the building and were totally unaware of the psychic's earlier experience.
           

Even during daylight hours and with a
professional-grade 35mm digital
camera, strange things happen and
strange images, unseen at the
time, are captured.
On the next visit, the psychic visited a room on the north end of the 5th floor and heard a young lady making rustling sounds with her dress. She sensed her moving back and forth while making sure her makeup was applied perfectly. The spirit would move around the men in the group and seemed to be in a flirtatious mood. The psychic also sensed a man was coming to escort her to dance in the Sky Room.

A second psychic arrived later, joined up with the group on the fifth floor, and reported sensing the same thing as the first psychic. When he ventured to the west end of the floor, he picked up on a feeling of  "disgust and discomfort." He said he felt as if the area was occupied by a large disgusting man who wanted everyone to leave.

A time-lapse video camera was placed in the doorway of the Brazos room on the 1st floor and during a 4-hour period recorded 151 instances of things moving. The room had been closed off to the investigative teams and entrance was not allowed by anyone "living." Some of the objects could have been simply dust motes reflecting light, but there was no wind that night and nothing in the room happened which would stir up the dust. Some of the objects were clearly orbs mysteriously moving around in the empty, undisturbed room.

           
An audio recorder placed next to the basement elevator captured the distinct sound of a man screaming in agony. A different group recorded the same sound on another investigation in June 2001. It would have been difficult for anyone in the team to mimic the sound since the area had been locked to keep everyone out. One of the expedition members gets nauseous when she gets around haunted places. At the Baker, she wasn't able to stay more than a few minutes before becoming so ill she was forced to leave. With so much activity in the building, it may be one of the most haunted places in Texas if not in the country. One psychic claimed to have counted at least 49 different spirits in the building.

Once the playground for cattle barons, oil tycoons, Hollywood celebrities, and military and political leaders, the decaying grand hotel sits slowly wasting away, a remnant of a bygone era. Gone are the starlets, the proud men in uniform, the big bands, the conventions, and others who made the Baker a memorable part of their lives. It seems some never left at all or have returned to forever experience a time when Mineral Wells was one of Texas' finest cities. If you get the chance to visit the beautiful old hotel, please have respect for those who are still there - the Baker's patrons who refused to check out.




 

Wednesday, August 31, 2016

The Angry Man in the Powhatan Courthouse

The old Powhatan Courthouse
The Powhatan, Arkansas courthouse, built in 1885, is a majestic building sitting on a hill overlooking the county it once served. The original courthouse on this site was built in 1873, but it burned to the ground and had to be rebuilt. In a little park next to the courthouse is the original jail. The building now houses a county museum and is part of the Powhatan Historic State Park, but the visitor's brochures don't tell you there is something very strange happening here; something unexplained; something sinister.

After years of whispers and rumors of ghosts being seen, unexplained moans and screams coming from the walls and mysterious lights in the locked building late at night, a well-respected group of paranormal investigators were invited to dispel the stories. What they experienced though was far from what the town's officials had hoped for.

Right after getting set up for the evening, one of the psychics claimed to have encountered the spirit of a young boy playing in a corner of the courtroom. The spirit told her he was sad because he had been murdered and that he stayed at the courthouse because that is where the man who killed him went on trial. He then said he was scared and broke off contact.

Several of the psychics reported unseen hands grabbing them the way a child trying to get an adult's attention would do. They heard muffled noises in almost every room, but when they went into the rooms to investigate, the noises completely stopped and no source could be found.

The most frightening encounter of the night happened in the belfry. One of the female investigators had climbed up the narrow, rickety stairs to see if there was anything up there. She asked out loud, "Is anyone here?" Suddenly she was attacked by an unknown, unseen entity. She began to have trouble breathing and felt as if there was an invisible hand closing around her throat! At the same time this was happening, she felt an overwhelming sense of sadness and heaviness, like a huge amount of grief had been suddenly cast upon her. She managed to run from the belfry and down the stairs to the courtroom where there were other people. As soon as she left the belfry, the feelings started to subside and she could breath again. The next morning, she and others found a bruise on her neck right where the invisible hands seemed to be attempting to choke the life out of her.

Later that night, with a video camera recording, several investigators heard heavy footsteps on one of the staircases. When they arrived at the foot of the stairs, the footsteps stopped. Several minutes went by and they were about to leave when the footsteps began again. As the investigators began climbing the stairs, they suddenly heard the high-pitched scream of a woman! They ran up the stairs to investigate the source of the scream, but after thoroughly searching the upper floor, nothing was found that could have made the heavy footsteps and no one that could have issued the blood-curdling scream.

Nothing else happened the rest of the night, but a follow-up session was planned. The 2nd night of investigation occurred two months later and just like before, there was no lack of paranormal activity. The first spirit that made contact was a black female who said she was going to stay at the courthouse with her brother until he moved on. According to her, he had been a young man who was falsely accused of raping a white woman and an angry mob of men had abducted him by overpowering the jail guard and had hung him from an oak tree. Although none of the psychics were from the area and knew nothing of the detailed history of the courthouse, later investigation into dusty records revealed that a young freed slave by the name of Andrew Springer had worked as a sharecropper after the civil war and had indeed been arrested for rape in an adjoining county and brought to the Powhatan jail for trial by that county's authorities who had been trying to keep him out of the hands of vigilantes. The vigilantes had taken him out and hung him from a nearby oak tree. The oak tree still stands today a few yards from the courthouse. The female spirit who claimed to have been Andrew's sister had died in the jail. Records indicated that after the lynching, she had attempted to kill several of the men who were suspected of being in the lynch mob. She had been arrested and had died of an unknown illness while awaiting trial.

The belfry where Andrew's spirit lives
Two of the psychics decided to investigate the belfry where the female psychic had been physically harmed during the first investigation. Almost immediately upon climbing the stairs the air became extremely dry and there was a high amount of energy that could be felt. It was almost as if a charge from a lightning strike was in the room. Then the temperature went up until both men were dripping with sweat. After a few minutes, the spirit communicated via a knocking sound and by moving metal rods held by the psychics. The spirit claimed to be Andrew and he did not approve of the psychics being in "his house." He admitted it was he who had attacked the female psychic the last time as he especially hated women because it was a woman who had falsely accused him of rape and had thus condemned him to a horrible death by beating and hanging. The Andrew spirit suddenly told them to leave or he would hurt them. One of the men then felt like there were fire ants crawling on him and furiously biting all over his body. Both men were by this time exhausted as they felt the spirit had been sucking their energy. They both were so unnerved by the encounter, more so than any they had ever experienced before, that they decided to beat a hasty retreat immediately. As soon as they had left the room and started down the stairs, everything returned to normal. They all packed up and left the building shortly afterwards.

Is the old Powhatan courthouse haunted? Those who don't believe in spirits hanging around after physical death will say no. Others will be unsure. But for a few psychic investigators who were brave enough to spend several long, dark nights there, the answer is an unequivocal yes.  
 

Friday, May 13, 2016

Rose of Sharon

At one time, the old home on Bryson Street in the town of Waxahachie, Texas had been charming and a welcome place to retreat from the daily struggles of life. It had been built in 1895 by F. P. Powell, a moderately well-to-do lawyer. He had recently gotten married and had it built with the idea of raising a family within its well-built walls. As it often happens though, life had other ideas.

His wife had born two beautiful daughters and their beloved home was filled with their happy laughter until 1912 when Powell was offered a great job with a large raise in Austin, Texas. The family hated to leave, but the opportunity was too great to pass up so they sold their dream home and moved away.

Unfortunately, the next owners were not as fastidious in maintaining the house. They only lived there several years before selling it. Once again, the new owners did not take good care of the place and soon they too sold and moved on. Over the next 60 years, a succession of owners moved in and out, always leaving the house in worse shape than when they arrived. At some point, the beautiful wrap-around porches, both upstairs and downstairs, were sealed in to make additional rooms and the house was turned into an apartment building. As it slowly deteriorated, the tenants did too until finally it was nothing more than a flop-house renting rooms by the week to those down on their luck. Eventually, it was abandoned.

It lay in this sad state until the early 1980's when Sharon saw it. Somehow, she could see past the sad, rundown condition it was in to the charming and elegant home it used to be. She had it inspected by a trusted builder friend who assured her the house was basically in sound condition, but it would take a lot of work to bring it back to livable condition and to meet current codes. For some reason she still can't explain, she wanted it.  A few weeks later, she became the newest owner. She began to research what it had looked like when it was new in 1892 and several months later, she had commissioned her builder to begin the restoration.

Just before the workers were scheduled to begin, Sharon was walking around inspecting each room. Without thinking much of it, she sat down her heavy purse on the floor of what used to be the dining room. As she continued on, she came to a room in the very back of the house which had stacks of old newspapers and magazines strewn around the floor. She sat down in the middle of them and began slowly flipping through the pages, fascinated by the fashions and history of days gone by. It began to get dark and she realized she had been there much longer than planned. She made her way back to the room where she left her purse and found it exactly where she had set it down. To her complete surprise though, there was something else sitting about 2 feet from the purse in totally undisturbed dust - a pair of 14 carat gold hoop earrings she had lost over a year earlier. She had loved and treasured those earrings and had searched everywhere for them for months. Eventually she had given up on ever finding them yet here they were in a house she had not even known existed 6 months ago! 

There is one room in the house, a large upstairs room which was once the master bedroom, where Sharon always feels she is not alone when she enters. She say's it's not spooky or scary, but rather warm and comforting. She also says she often catches glimpses of semi-transparent figures around her home - a woman wearing a long dress in the style of the late 1800's who usually appears to be accompanied by 2 little girls. For some reason, the small figures always appear with their backs to Sharon. She also often see's a man wearing a top hat. Sometimes all four of the figures appear together in one room or another. She has spoken to them numerous times, but they have never answered. Sometimes they stand still and the woman and man appear to look at her with serene faces, but then they either turn and walk away or they all slowly disappear as she watches.

On occasion, Sharon hears music, but can't tell exactly where it comes from. It sounds like string instruments, probably violins, playing a waltz. It's always barely heard, like it comes from somewhere far away. She often hears footsteps in the empty hallway and on the wooden stairs. She knows old wood will creak and pop, but the sounds of footsteps are unmistakable. 

In spite of the sightings and noises, Sharon is never afraid. Instead, she takes comfort in the presence of the spirits. She is convinced it is the Powell family and feels they are pleased with the restoration work which has made the house, the house they share, a lovely home once again.
 

Friday, April 29, 2016

Haunted Waxahachie Restaurant

South of Dallas, Texas is the charming little town of Waxahachie and just outside the downtown square is where the Catfish Plantation restaurant is located. It is well known for having perhaps the best Cajun cuisine outside of Louisiana as well as some of the best catfish found anywhere. And one more thing it is famous for - the three ghosts who have claimed it for their permanent residence.

The restaurant is in a house which was built in 1895 and is the birthplace of the great professional baseball player Paul Richards. The owners of the business opened the restaurant in 1984 and it was soon after when they got an inkling there was something not exactly kosher in the house. One morning as they arrived to prepare for business, they found a number of coffee cups neatly stacked inside a large tea urn. They had been the last to leave and had securely locked up the night before, leaving the empty tea urn in its usual place on a counter. They found the urn with the cups inside on the floor. After several weeks with nothing new happening, the incident had just about been forgotten, but then, once again arriving early to begin preparing the food, they found a pot of fresh coffee waiting for them. From that point, unexplained things began to happen almost constantly.

Water glasses sitting on a counter with no one near them would suddenly shatter. Several female employee's reported toilet seats flying up by themselves as they entered. They heard the toilets flush and upon entering the restroom finding nobody in there. Sometimes doors would open as people approached them and close behind them with no help from human hands - not living human hands anyway. On several instances when it was time to open, the front doors would unlock themselves even as a staff member was walking toward the door to do it. And evidently the spirits didn't like their house to be too crowded as often, on very busy evenings, the front door would lock itself as if someone was saying, "OK, that's enough people in here."

Often, the house would have a strong smell of roses even though there were no flowers of any kind present. So many other things happened almost every day that it's hard to list them all; decorative clocks that don't work would chime on the hour even though the hands haven't moved and don't point to the hour, a stereo turning itself on and off and the radio station changing itself, patrons and staff hearing the sound of a piano playing even though there isn't one in the house, strong breezes felt in rooms with no windows, cold spots felt by patrons and staff alike especially in the ladies restroom, knockings on walls, silverware and place mats carefully set the night before would be found in the morning crumpled and jumbled around the tables, dollar bills left by patrons as tips on the table for their waitress sometimes would be seen floating several inches in the air and cups, dishes and pots suddenly flying across the kitchen. One of the cooks abruptly quit when suddenly pieces of cheese and bottles of chives flew around the room. Another cook left when a basket of fries rose up out of the boiling grease, floating in the air beside him.

For a while, the owners tried to keep the mysterious incidents quiet, but eventually the sheer number of weird things that kept happening drove them to seek advice from a professional parapsychologist.
Within a few weeks, the house had been investigated five times by scientists, engineers, psychics and individuals with sound equipment, thermometer gauges, infrared cameras and laser lights. After spending days and nights investigating every corner of the house, they all agreed the place was haunted by 2 female and 1 male spirits.

One of the 2 females was identified as Elizabeth, a young lady who had been strangled to death in the dining room on her wedding day in 1920. She evidently was murdered by a jealous ex-boyfriend. Elizabeth appears to be a helpful sort. The male spirit is harmless and doesn't really do anything except quietly sit by the fireplace and watch the people coming in and out of his home. It is the female named Caroline who is the most active and apparently causes most of the mischief. The investigators agreed she isn't pleased with all the living humans in her home. It seems she doesn't mean any physical harm to anyone, but she does try to frighten people into leaving.

 
After enduring the pranks for a while, the owners, who did not believe in ghosts before, started talking to the spirits and told them they know they live there and are happy to share the place with them. They told them they no longer need to throw things or make noises so they would be recognized. Amazingly, soon afterwards, things began to calm down and they remain fairly calm. Every now and then though, it seems Caroline just can't help herself.

A young couple was eating a celebratory meal in The Catfish Plantation one recent evening. Just a few weeks earlier, they had been blessed with their first child and that night, grandparents were happily baby-sitting. It was the couple's first time going out since the birth - a date night. All of a sudden, they both shouted out in alarm and bolted from the restaurant without finishing their meal. What had startled them so? In the misted-over window they were sitting by, their baby's name had suddenly materialized.
 
 

Friday, February 19, 2016

The Island With No Heart


Hart Island
On the western edge of Long Island Sound in New York lies the small, uninhabited Hart Island. Just 131 acres, it was once known as "Heart Island," but somewhere in its sorrowful history it lost the "e." Nobody is allowed on the island today, nobody but convicts and the guards that supervise them. The only other people allowed are the ones who will make this island their forever home. They are the dead.

For a few months during the Civil War, the island was home to over 3,500 Confederate prisoners of war. It was filthy, unsanitary, full of misery and the men were given barely enough maggot infested food to live. Almost 10% of them died before the end of the war and the deceased were buried in unmarked graves on the island.

An outbreak of Yellow Fever in the 1870's resulted in hundreds of people being quarantined on the island. Most of those who succumbed to the illness joined the unlucky Confederate prisoners who would never leave the island. A women's insane asylum was opened on the island in 1885. This facility only accepted chronic cases and experimental "cures" were carried out there for a number of years, treatments that are now looked upon as barbaric and cruel. The poor women housed here endured untold suffering and anguish. Not all of them survived and they too joined those who had gone before them in the unconsecrated grounds in unmarked graves. In the early 1900's, the insane asylum was closed and a boy's reform school was housed in the former asylum building. The boys housed there were delinquents, most of them petty thieves, bullies and incorrigible. Punishment, both corporal and mental, were liberally doled out as the administrators thought warranted.

Hart Island Insane Asylum building today.
During World War II, the military took over the island and used it to house & discipline over 2,800 servicemen who had been court marshaled for offenses. In the years after the war, the island was used as a tuberculosis center and as a rehabilitation center for alcoholics. In every use of the island, suffering and sadness was a common theme. And most everyone who perished on the island, was buried on the island, usually dumped in a mass grave or at best, in an unmarked grave. This alone would be reason enough for the island to be haunted, but what came after the alcoholics were removed makes the island's history even darker.

 The New York City Department of Corrections was given oversight of the island and it was turned into the world's largest publicly funded potter's field - a graveyard for the homeless, the indigent, the mentally ill, the unknown, the unclaimed and the unwanted. Today, over 1 million bodies have been buried on Hart Island, all interred without a prayer said over them, with no remembrances, no marker. No friends, no relatives come to the burial. Convicts from Riker's Island prison come one day every other week to stack 150 adult coffins in each bulldozed trench. Little wooden coffins holding the remains of babies are laid in mass grave trenches dug to the size needed for however many little coffins there are. There are so many mass graves that the trenches are now dug over burial spots from 50 years before as enough time has gone by that the wooden coffins and bodies buried there have almost fully decomposed. Sometimes the convicts find bones in the dirt dug for the new trenches. They throw the larger bones in the trench before unceremoniously throwing the dirt back on.

Riker's Island inmates burying the dead on
Hart Island (Photo courtesy New York Post archives)
No doubt there are many restless, angry and insane souls on the island. The convict workers do not stay overnight here. They come early in the day and leave before dark. Even during daylight hours though,witnesses report feeling like someone is watching them everywhere they go; that eyes of the dead are watching them even before they get off the boat taking them to the island. The gutted and decaying buildings still bearing the disturbing graffiti of lost souls domiciled on the island over the years, are often reported to house shadowy figures, shadows only seen out of the corner of the eye, shadows that are not there when looked at straight on. It is said that whispers are often heard in these buildings, whispers that sound like children's voices.  

The only witnesses to these hauntings are the inmates and guards that come there to bury the dead. No others are allowed on the island. The No Trespassing rule is strictly enforced. Even people that have family members buried here have a hard time getting permission to visit their deceased relatives. The few that are granted permission are, once per month, escorted on a ferry to a pier and then restricted to a small covered gazebo about 20 feet onto the island. They are permitted to say a few words and are then escorted back to the ferry.

Many of the convicts refuse to come back after working the burial detail only once or twice . Some of these hardened criminals just can't take the number of babies being buried there. Handling and placing the little coffins by hand, one on top of the other in row after row, is too sad even for them. Others have an experience with the ghosts they don't want to take a chance on repeating. One inmate claimed he plainly heard children's voices crying out inside the old insane asylum building. He said it was children crying and begging for help. A lot of convicts simply say they will not volunteer for the work detail again and refuse to talk about the island or any experiences they may have had there.

Hundreds more unclaimed bodies continue to be buried here every month. More lost souls. More restless, angry souls. The dead never stop coming. The island may be off limits to everyone but the workers, the guards with guns, and the departed not to prevent vandalism, but for a whole different reason. You probably shouldn't attempt to find out.
 

Sunday, October 18, 2015

Phantoms of the Minot's Ledge Lighthouse

A mile east of Scituate, Massachusetts is a slice of rock that at low tide is just above the crashing waves of the northeastern coast. Now known as Minot's Ledge, when the first white settlers arrived in the area, they found the Native Americans to be terrified of it.

Their stories told of a man-eating monster that lived amongst the bluffs overlooking the ledge. They called him Hobomock and they believed when Hobomock grew angry, he unleashed terrible storms which often destroyed their villages and killed many of their people. To appease Hobomock, the natives made frequent offerings to him by paddling out at low tide to leave food, ornaments and flowers on the rock. Most of the time their offerings kept him happy and sleeping peacefully, but occasionally he woke up in a bad mood and rejected their offerings. He would then rise from beneath the waves, tear into the shore with ferocious winds and waves and cause the Indians to flee inland, away from Hobomock's terrible fury.

Of course the Europeans didn't believe the native peoples and never made offerings. For almost 300 years, they paid the price. Time and again Hobomock rose up to smash ships and drown sailors. During even the mildest of storms, the rocky ledge was covered with waves and impossible for the ship's captains to see and avoid it. Few, if any, obstacles along the east coast caused as many lost ships and took as many human lives as Minot's Ledge. When the count went over 400, there was great demand for the government to do something.

There was a reason no actions were taken previously. Building a lighthouse on the ledge, no matter how much it was needed, was considered impossible. Anything built there would be totally exposed to the full force of the ocean storms and would be battered to pieces. That is, until a lighthouse inspector named I. W. P. Lewis came up with a radical suggestion. Instead of the normal cylindrical tower built on the rocks, it was proposed this lighthouse be built upon eight iron pilings, each of which would be sunk 5 feet into the rocks and cemented into place. The theory was the lighthouse structure containing the light and the keepers living quarters would be high above any waves and the eight iron legs would offer almost no resistance to the crashing water.

With the great need for something to be done for the safety of ships and seamen, the Treasury Department authorized the funds and the building commenced in early 1847. Numerous times storms would sweep drilling rigs and construction equipment off the rocks and into the sea, but work was always started again. Finally, after 3 years of labor, the lighthouse was put into service on New Year's Day, 1850.

Mr. Lewis declared the structure would weather even the harshest storm with no damage, but the first keeper, Isaac Dunham, quickly declared his misgivings. Living in the lighthouse, he claimed he could feel it swaying in a strong wind and the iron legs would groan and bend as they were hit by waves. Many of his official reports indicated his concerns. His beloved assistant at the isolated lighthouse was a cat which helped keep the population of rats down and provided him with much needed companionship. His feline friend evidently felt their home was unsafe as well. He never seemed to relax and constantly alerted and ran from one room to another. One day during a storm, the lighthouse suddenly jerked as an exceptionally large wave hit it and the cat was so startled, it ran through a door which had come open and jumped over the rail. Unfortunately, there was nothing below but a raging sea and the cat was lost. When the storm finally abated the next day, Isaac rowed back to land in the station's boat and quit his post. He had been on the job for exactly 9 months.

Within several weeks, a man named John Bennett was hired to replace Isaac. Because of the isolation and damage the structure had suffered which needed to be repaired, two assistants were hired with him. A month after his hiring, John came back to town on shore to purchase supplies. While there, a vicious storm came up and he was forced to stay in town. The storm grew even worse and huge waves pounded the shore. Bennett began to wonder if the lighthouse and his two assistants, Joseph Antoine and Joseph Wilson, would survive. Bennett was looking through binoculars toward the lighthouse from the building where he had taken shelter when at 1:00 in the afternoon, he saw the iron legs begin to sag back toward land and he knew right off the lighthouse and his two friends were doomed. Within minutes the whole structure collapsed. Several days later, the battered and bloated bodies of the assistants were recovered from the rocks where they had been thrown by the storm.

Within a year, construction was begun on a new lighthouse, one that would actually be able to withstand the pounding of the ocean waves. Over the next 8 years, a tower was built with huge granite blocks laying in parallel on top of foundation stones weighing two tons each. Now, more than 150 years after it was put in service, the second lighthouse remains standing. Fully automated, the old lighthouse still sends out its light to warn ships and sailors to keep away, but even though living humans are no longer needed to keep the light burning, that doesn't mean the old station is not occupied.

For almost 100 years, lighthouse keepers, sometimes with their wives, lived in the cold, dank living quarters. Often stranded for weeks at a time due to stormy seas making the trip to land too dangerous in the station's small boat, they endured isolation and stifling boredom. One thing many of them came to agree on was that the old stone tower was haunted.

A look in the official logbooks reveals many strange occurrences. Keepers often noted a tap, tap, taping on the granite walls of the tower. They heard pounding on the doors even during storms when nobody could possibly be out there. And often, they heard voices which seemed to come from all directions at once. In a number of cases, keepers would abruptly quit upon being able to get back into town. Some would just say they didn't want to talk about it. Others said they had to leave before they went mad. A few said they couldn't stand the voices anymore.

Nobody has lived at the Minot's Ledge Lighthouse since it was automated in 1947, but fishermen who pass the lighthouse on their way into Scituate harbor often report seeing the dark figure of a man climbing the iron ladder leading to the outer door. They say the man calls out to them in a foreign language that sounds like Portuguese. Historians note that Joseph Antoine, one of the assistants killed in the collapse of the first structure, was born and raised in Portugal.

And sometimes, boaters who have passed the lighthouse say they have seen, and heard, a very wet and anxious cat standing on the station's boat landing, squalling at the top of its lungs.
 

Monday, July 6, 2015

Doing Eternal Time at Alcatraz

The end of the line for scores of America's worst criminals was the prison called Alcatraz, aka "The Rock." For almost 30 years, the damp, dank, fog-enshrouded prison on a rocky outcrop 1 1/2 miles out in the San Francisco Bay kept the public safe from over 1,000 of the baddest of the bad. With the heavy fog, the swirling currents of the freezing water of the bay which totally surrounded the rocky island, the searchlights sweeping the barred windows all night every night and the ominous foghorns, it was a most lonely place to be incarcerated. Those who survived often did so at the cost of their sanity. For some, the cost was even higher - their very souls.

Alcatraz tested the limits of men's endurance, both physical and mental. Over the years, many prisoners reached their limits and attempted suicide. Many of them succeeded. Many more were driven to insanity. One prisoner who worked in the machine shop took a hatchet and, placing his left hand on a wooden table top, methodically began chopping off each finger and then his hand at the wrist, all the while laughing maniacally. He then handed the bloody hatchet to one of the guards, placed his right hand on the table and began begging the guard to chop off his right hand while calmly saying he had no more use for hands. Another inmate used the small blade from a disassembled pencil sharpener to slice the inside of his arms into strips of spaghetti. A third man broke the lenses of his eye glasses and used one of the shards to cut open his jugular vein.

In May, 1946, six of the prisoners managed to overcome five of the guards in an organized escape attempt. The guards were locked in cells 402 and 403 and when the inmates could not find the key which would let them out of the cell block, they used rifles they found in the guards office and shot them, killing two and severely wounding the other three. Other guards, trained troops and even Marines were brought in and began firing into the doors and windows of the cell block. In addition to bullets, the cell block was barraged with tear gas and rifle grenades. Three of the convicts ran back to their cells and lay on the floor behind their water-soaked mattresses while the other three took refuge in a small corridor that ran off from the main passageway. After the guards retook the cell block, the bodies of these three were found riddled by bullets and shrapnel.

 Not long after, prisoners began complaining about noises, moaning and screams, which seemed to come from the corridor where the 3 men had died. Eventually, the iron door was welded shut. In 1976, long after there were no more prisoners or anyone living on Alcatraz, a night watchman heard strange sounds coming from behind the door. After much effort with special tools, the door was once again opened, but nothing was found. Several nights later, the guard heard the noises again and immediately opened the door. As soon as the door was opened, the noises stopped. Shining his powerful flashlight into the maze of pipes and conduits the guard found nothing that could have caused the noises. As soon as he shut the door, the noises began again. For several years, different guards all reported hearing the noises as they made their rounds, but the noises always stopped as soon as they opened the door and nothing was ever found. When the guards began to refuse to go into the area at night, authorities decided to re-weld the door shut. Today, Alcatraz visitors walk right past this door every day and never hear anything, but in the dark of night, long after the last visitor has left the island, guards say if you are brave enough to put your ear to the door, you sometimes will hear the muted sounds of moaning and desperate voices crying out.

Sounds coming from behind welded-shut doors are not the only signs of haunting. Through the years, night watchmen have told of hearing footsteps echoing from upper walkways and voices of long dead men talking. Upon investigation, no rational cause can be found. In the machine shop where the insane prisoner chopped off his own fingers, unexplained loud crazy laughter is often heard.

In the late 1990's, a female National Park Ranger told of working one cold, rainy day when the number of visitors was few due to the weather. She went for a walk in front of A Block and was just past the door which leads down to the infamous dungeons, the cells of solitary lockup where severe and unusually cruel punishment was administered, when she heard a loud scream from down below. Knowing this area was locked and off-limits to tourists, she ran away. When asked why she didn't report it , she stated, "I didn't dare mention it because just the day before, everyone was ridiculing another worker who reported men's voices coming from the hospital ward and when he went to check it out, it was completely empty."

A number of the Rangers and guards talk, off the record of course, about one particular cell in the dungeon, 14D. They all speak of a sudden feeling of intensity, a strange, heavy feeling immediately upon entering the cell. They all will tell you that cell 14D, even on the hottest summer day, is always cold, much colder than the other 3 cells right next to it. 

A guard who worked there in the 1940's told the off-the-record story of solitary confinement in cell 14D. About 1946, one particularly hardened prisoner was locked in 14D for some infraction. Within seconds of being locked in the dark cell, the convict began screaming in terror. Upon being looked in on, he was found to be shaking uncontrollably and crying. He said a a creature with fiery eyes was locked in the cell with him. He begged to be locked up in a different cell, but the guards, used to hearing claims from the prisoners about ghostly spirits walking the catwalks at night, ignored the man's pleas and locked him in the dark again. The man's screams continued on into the night, shouting that he was being attacked by "a devil." Finally, just before the sun rose, there was silence in the cell. When it was time for the man to be fed his breakfast of a single slice of bread and a cup of water, a guard found the man dead, his eyes wide open, a look of horror frozen on his face. There were clear marks of finger prints around his neck. An autopsy showed the man had been strangled to death, but the indention of the prints proved he could not have strangled himself in such a way. Rather than try to explain how someone could have strangled a man while he was by himself in a locked, tiny cell with multiple guards monitoring the cell door all night, his death was officially declared to be of "natural causes." Even stranger, the morning after the man's death, two other guards who had been informed of the man being sent to the dungeon but knowing nothing of his death, reported they were 1 over on their count as the prisoners lined up for their walk to the cafeteria for breakfast. They found the man who had been sent to cell 14D the night before standing at the end of the line. When they began to approach him, he vanished right in front of the guards and several of the prisoners standing close by.

Could it have been just a coincidence that cell 14D was the exact cell where a notorious bank robber and murderer, Henry Young, was locked up for several months after an escape attempt? Guards reported Henry had gone quite insane during his stay in 14D, his eyes "crazy looking" and constant incoherent babbling. He was finally moved back into the general prisoner population where he later murdered another inmate by strangling him. Did Henry leave a piece of his insanity behind in 14D? Or perhaps, did an evil something that already inhabited that place give a part of itself to Henry?

It is said the ghosts of people return to places where they suffered traumatic experiences when alive. Prison guards from the 1940's through 1963 when Alcatraz was finally shut down as a prison, told of experiencing many strange happenings. They told of hearing disembodied voices speaking out, of hearing sobbing and moaning, inexplicable smells, cold spots and spectral prisoners and soldiers who inhabit all parts of the island. Phantom gunshots sent seasoned guards ducking to the ground in the belief that prisoners had escaped and acquired guns. The deserted laundry room sometimes filled with the smell of acrid smoke, but upon investigation, the air would be clear with no evidence of fire. 

James Johnston, the first Warden of Alcatraz, did not believe in ghosts, but even he experienced several unexplained events.  He was once in the middle of personally giving a tour of the facilities to several important visitors when they all heard the unmistakable sound of someone sobbing as they walked past the 4 empty solitary confinement cells in "The Dungeon." Trying to find the source, the warden put his head right next to the wall before quickly leading his visitors from the area. He later swore the sounds were coming from the wall itself. 

One of the most famous prisoners on "The Rock" was Al Capone. Warden Johnston refused to allow any special treatment for Capone, insisting he be treated just like all the other criminals in his prison. As time passed, Capone had very few friends among the other prisoners because he refused to take part in several strikes the convicts tried to stage for better treatment and since he wasn't allowed any privileges the other prisoners didn't have, he wasn't able to dispense gifts or favors to anyone. One of the jobs he was assigned was to mop the halls and he was quickly given the nickname "the wop with the mop" by the other prisoners. Capone learned to play the banjo and for a short time, even played in the prison band, but as the years went by, he slowly began losing his mind due to the harsh conditions of confinement in Alcatraz and an untreated case of syphilis. He was finally admitted to the hospital ward where he would sit unresponsive to people, playing simple snippets of music on his banjo. Guards, tour guides and tourists sometimes hear soft banjo music coming from the hallways Capone called home and the infirmary where he spent his last days on Alcatraz before being transferred elsewhere. 

Could it be the famous gangster himself, his lonely and broken spirit returned to where he lost his sanity? Maybe it's the spirit of a long-forgotten soldier from the days when Alcatraz was a military fort. Or perhaps it's simply one of the other countless spirits condemned to eternally do time on The Rock.