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| Carlisle Hall |
There is a home in Perry County, Alabama known as Carlisle Hall. A fine mansion of a home built in 1858 on a 440 acre parcel of land, it was constructed in a unique Gothic design with Romanesque
arches, a Japanese temple-style hanging roof made of copper and a Moorish-type balcony rail. It was designed by a well-to-do cotton farmer and merchant named Edwin Kenworthy Carlisle who lived in the house with his family until he died in 1873.
After Edwin died, his family moved away and the house sold. Over the years, a number of people owned the house, but none stayed for long and rumors of ghostly doings began to circulate. Reputable witnesses told of seeing through the windows a pale blue lantern light floating around the bedroom previously occupied by Mr. Carlisle. Families who bought and lived in the house told of hearing footsteps coming down the stairs accompanied by what sounded like petticoats swishing and of mysterious cold spots on and around the stairs. Everyone thought it must be Edwin's beautiful daughter who fell in love with a Union Colonel she met when he was stationed in the area after the Yankees had driven out the Confederate forces during the Civil War. Her father did not approve of the relationship, but with the war going on, could do little about it. Every time the Yankee Colonel would come calling on the young Ms. Carlisle, she would put on a fine dress and rush down the stairs to meet him in the parlor. After the war, the Colonel left without her, but apparently she continued to rush down the ornate stairs long after the young lovers had parted this life years later.
In the late 1930's, the house was purchased by A. S. Hill right after he retired from the navy. He continued to live in a nearby apartment while repairing and modernizing the house. Before the repairs were completed and Mr. Hill moved in however, World War II broke out. The patriotic Mr. Hill went back into the navy and sailed off to fight on a warship in the Pacific ocean. Unfortunately, he didn't make it back.
The house sat empty until the late 1940's when it was purchased by a wealthy bachelor, Mr. W. E. Belcher. Mr. Belcher spent most of his time traveling and the house once again fell into disrepair. Squatters and vandals broke in and stole all of the furniture, paintings, books, and even the curtains. They broke all 56 windows, punched holes in the walls and broke the marble fireplace mantels. They even trampled and destroyed all of the flowers and plants in the formerly beautiful flower beds and gardens and uprooted trees for fires in the winter.
After one of his extended trip overseas, when Mr. Belcher returned home and saw the horrible condition of the house, he hired a family to live on the property and to begin repairs in order to sell it. Only three weeks after moving in, the caretaker's only child, a little 1-year-old boy, was killed when he fell down the stairs. A bloody stain was left on the floor at the foot of the stairs where his little body came to rest. Less than a month after the accident, the caretaker family left after telling of seeing the misty apparition of old Mr. Carlisle roaming around the upstairs hallway and then walking through the closed door of the room he used to sleep in. They also told of seeing a beautiful young woman dressed in a beautiful 1800's style dress who on most nights would glide down the stairs seemingly without touching the steps; the same stairs which killed their son.
After that, nobody was willing to buy the Carlisle Mansion, even at a drastically reduced price, so it sat abandoned until the late 1950's when a teacher, Ms. Kay Klassen, purchased the crumbling house just before it was condemned by the authorities and torn down. With her parents help, she spent over 7 years repairing and modernizing the home to bring it back to its previous splendor. As part of the repair work, they sanded and repaired every inch of the wood floors.
At some point before Ms. Klassen purchased the property, evidently both Edwin Carlisle and his daughter found their way to the other side as Ms. Klassen stated she has never seen Mr. Carlisle or his daughter or any mysterious blue lights. There was one thing that bothered her and couldn't be explained though. She found one particular section of the floor which had a curious nasty stain. She scrubbed it and sanded it until the stain was gone, but within 2 days, the stain reappeared. This was repeated numerous times over the course of several months with the stain always reappearing. She finally had to cut out the stained section and replace it with new boards. Today, if you take one of the guided tours of this restored mansion, look closely and you can see where the replacement section is located - at the foot of the stairs, at the exact spot where a dying baby's little body came to rest and he breathed his last breath all those years ago.
In 1918, a 17-year-old Japanese boy named Eikichi Suzuki who was in Sapporo for a marine exhibition purchased a 16-inch doll as a gift for his little sister. Having just turned 2-years-old, Okiku immediately fell in love with the little doll and carried it everywhere she went. At night, she slept with the doll right next to her. As her constant companion, she talked to it and played with it every day.
The next year, 3-year-old Okiku caught a bad cold which developed into pneumonia. She died holding her beloved doll. After her passing, the family placed the doll in the household alter and prayed to it every day in memory of Okiku.
Several months later, the family noticed the doll's hair had begun to grow. When bought, it had hair which was cropped short, but the hair was now almost 3 inches in length. Everyone took this as a sign that the spirit of Okiku had taken residence in the doll. The family continued to pray to the doll they now called Okiku every day and twice each year, they would take the doll from the alter and trim the hair back to the original length.
In 1938, the family moved to Sakhaline and could not take all of their possessions. The Okiku doll was placed in the care of the monks at the Mannenji Temple where it remains today. When the monks received the doll, its hair was short, but soon they too noticed the hair began to grow. They did not trim the hair back until it reached 10 inches long which is when they cut it back several inches.
The Okiku Doll's hair has continued to grow for almost 100 years now. The monks continue to trim it and they continue to believe the spirit of a loving little girl is within the doll. When they trimmed the doll's hair one time in the late 1990's, they gave the hair to a lab where scientist determined it was indeed that of a child. What the scientist and nobody else has been able to explain is how or why the hair grows when doing so is scientifically impossible. Or is it?
