The Breathtaking, Haunted Beauty of The Linn-Henley Library

Halloween is over.  It was an amazing Halloween this year.   For one, I got to speak at The Birmingham Public Library Archives or the Linn-Henley Research Library.   I have been fascinated by this old building and its hauntings and history for years so telling ghost stories in this library was like achieving a big goal for me.   The Birmingham Archives is a building of uncommon beauty.   When you step in, you are greeted by some of the most striking murals ever to grace the walls of an old building.   These murals were done by Ezra Winter and each scene represents the amazing literature of the world.  One mural shows a scene from A Thousand and One Arabian Nights.  Another mural shows a picture of Krishna for the Bhagavata Purana.   Walking through the library is like walking through a living, breathing work of art.

The beauty of the library is amplified by the uncanny quiet that fills the building like a tangible presence.  The silence makes the building feel haunted and this feeling is not false.  The staff at the library are happy to tell tales of Fant Thornly, a former librarian who wanders the halls of the old building at quiet moments.  Many have seen Fant wandering the archives.  The have smelled his cigar smoke lingering in quiet corners and heard him riding up and down on the elevators.  One electrician described seeing him standing in the very doorway of the room that I told my ghost stories in.   One librarian picked a picture of Fant out of a stack of old photos she was given and named him as the ghost she saw in the room I spoke in.

The Linn-Henley Research Library was built in 1927 and was the Birmingham Public Library until 1984. At this time the primary library was moved across the street into a modern building of glass and harsh angles. The two buildings are attached by a catwalk and the architectural differences between these two buildings that are connected like Siamese twins are so vast that they should be in different countries. But the two buildings are bound together by their common purpose.

In 1984 when the old building was partially abandoned it took on a new purpose and became the archives where the old books were stored and the history was kept. There are no stories of bizarre deaths here. There are no horror tales of Indian burial grounds or murdered children, but the ghosts that have been described in this building are so terrifying that some of the librarians have refused to go back into the stacks alone and without every light on. Many staff members know about the haunting in a general sort of way. They know that doors open and close on their own and phantom noises fill the building when it is empty, but a few report an even more active haunting. They describe seeing Fant in the shadows.

As I told my ghost stories on Halloween day, it was wicked fun to be able to share the tales of the ghost that haunted the very room we were standing in.   Some of the staff believe many of the tales told of Fant are fancy, but even the skeptics believe that there has been to much activity in the library to be able to explain it all away.   Fant still wanders the Linn-Henley building and I hope he was listening when I told my ghost stories.  That would be a real honor!

   

The Ghost and His Mullet

The Flora-bama sits on the boundary between Alabama and Florida near some of the most beautiful beaches in the world.   It is a unique cultural experience.  Stepping into the Flora-bama is stepping into the deep Southern culture that lives along the gulf submerged in bayous and sand.    It lingers in a place where rural Southern culture and massive tourism merge together.   It is a constant party that only stops for the occasional Hurricane.  It is also haunted.

The story of the ghost of the Flora-bama is a sad story.   Orville Stickenbacker was a shy boy that lived his entire life in Orange Beach and the surrounding area.  He had lost both his parents and didn't have very many friends.  Orville worked at a shop in Gulf Shores selling nick nacks to tourists.  He took his role in Gulf Coast culture seriously and tried to dress the part.  He wore brightly colored tropical shirts and had a pet hermit crab named Jezebel.

When Orville turned twenty-one he did what anyone would do and went to the bar.  Of course, Orville didn't drink, but he enjoyed the activities at the Flora-bama.   On Orville's first night at the Flora-bama, it was the night of Flora-bama's famous mullet toss.   On Orville's first night at the Flora-bama he fell in love with the mullet toss and he even won the toss.  It was the most fun he had ever had.

The next year was not kind to Orville.   Orville began to get sick.   He found a lump when he was taking a shower and began losing weight.   People noticed Orville's steady decline.  They begged him to go to the doctor, but for some reason, Orville refuse.   He grew sicker and sicker and Orville did nothing.  He wasted away without medical attention.  No one can say why he didn't go to the doctor.  Maybe he wanted to die, maybe he couldn't pay the hospital bills, but forever reason he just wouldn't get help.  

The next year Orville went to the mullet toss with his pet hermit crab, Jezebel in his pocket.   He participated in the mullet toss but did not win, so he asked if he could toss a fish.   He tossed the fish and with that action began the now famous fish toss at the Flora-bama.  When the night ended and all the fish and mullets had been throw, Orville walked out onto the beach.   He walked into the ocean and drown himself. 

People say that Orville still haunts the Flora-bama.  He sits on the back deck watching people throw mullets and fish.   He is often seen wandering the beach and walking towards the waves.

 *Story taken from "Alabama Ghosts" by Holly Smith

Visiting Haunted Shell Mound Park

Shell Mound is haunted by ancient ghosts.   They are ghosts from the Mississippian Period, 1100-1500 AD.  A lonely woman ghost haunts this historic site.  She dances on the mound at night bringing the sound of native music drifting through the hot night air with her.   When I visited Shell Mound Park,  there was no sign of any ghosts.   The only thing that haunted us is the brutal heat were the swarms of mosquitoes that descended on us in plagues.  They came and sucked us dry, sending me scurrying through my haunted exploration and making me somewhat blind to any ghosts that may have been chasing me. 

Shell Mound Park is a small park on the top of Dauphin Island.   For hundreds of years,  American Indians made pilgrimages to this site to eat oysters.   The evidence of this activity crunches beneath your feet as you walk through the park.  The hills that you walk across as you explore the park are made entirely of oyster shells.  If you dig down, you pull up a mixture of shell and soil.  This area is beautiful, if you can see past the sticky heat and mosquitoes.  Huge oaks drip with Spanish moss and hangs down so long it tickles the oyster shells beneath it.  It is easy to imagine a lonely ghost wandering this site.  It is easy to imagine an American Indian girl lingering in this swampy place, waiting to go home.

The Ghost of Shell Mound Park

The Beaches of Southern Alabama are littered with ghosts.  The shifting sands store untold tragedies and histories that collect ghosts like children collect coins.   Dauphin Island is no exception to this rule.  In addition to Fort Gaines, which is notoriously haunted, Dauphin Island is also home to Shell Mound Park.
Shell Mound Park holds old ghosts.

Shell Mound Park is the location of an ancient Indian archaeological site.   The site is from the Mississippian Period and dates back to 1100 AD.  The mounds were built over time.   Archaeologists believe that the Native Americans came to Dauphin Island periodically during the year to collect oysters.   It is believed that the natives came from the Bottle Creek site further North and gathered the oysters.  Oysters were a rare delicacy and worth the long journey to collect.  The mounds built up over centuries as the natives came, feasted upon oysters at this site, and then left their debris behind.  Over the centuries the oyster shells became large mounds.  When the natives stopped their feasting, nature took over and grew on the mounds.  Trees and grass grew on the shelly remains of the Indian's dinning site turning Shell Mound Park into what it is today.

There is an area amongst these mounds, that is devoid of trees.   Nature seems to avoid reclaiming this area and there is a desolation to it.   It is said that this is where the natives buried their dead.   Many locals and visitors to the park say that if you wander this area on a lonely night you can see a native woman standing in the middle of this quiet place, looking out.  Sometimes she can be seen dancing and the sounds of native music can be heard drifting out over the park. 

My Daily Bedlam and the Ghosts of the Lost Regiment

I have fallen quite behind on my blogging lately.  I have also fallen behind on my blog reading.  The world of haunted and dark blogs I usually keep up with has been lost in the fog of chaos that is my life.  This is not surprising since I can hardly keep up with the laundry and making sure I have all my clothes on right side in lately.  It is my goal over the next few weeks to pull things back together and start keeping up with things again, but I offer my apologies in the meantime. 

Several things have kept me away from my blog over the last several weeks.  One of the largest things was Haunted Chattanooga.  I have been working slowly on this book for History Press for a while and procrastinating with all the power in me.   The deadline was this month and all my procrastination caught up with me.  I had to write the book.  Thank God Amy Petulla of Chattanooga Ghost Tours is my co-author, because she saved me on this one.  She was organized and knew the ghost lore of Chattanooga like the back of her hand.  Besides writing her own portion of the book, she helped me pull my portion together in a way that actually made sense.  So I've been buried in ghost stories, but unable to write here.   A few other things have slowed me down a little.  My dog had puppies, which has kept me very busy, and I'm pregnant and the waves of morning sickness have been bad enough for me to take a few months off work to lay in bed and wonder why I thought having children might be a good idea. 

I've met my deadline now and I'm feeling a little better and I'm determined to catch up.  I want to catch up on my blog writing and reading.   For now, here is a small taste of Haunted Chattanooga in the form of one small tale from Lookout Mountain.  There are many, many ghost stories from Lookout Mountain, but this is one of my favorites.

It is not surprising that the Civil War left its fair share of ghosts behind on Lookout Mountain.  Many battles and skirmishes were fought in the mountain's massive shadow.  So many men died in the mountain's shadow that the soldier's sorrow has left an imprint in the stone. One of the more famous ghost stories of the mountain is a about a group of Union soldiers that got lost while fighting in the skirmishes at the base of the mountain. They became so lost that they wandered away from the battle to the other side of the mountain. They had already seen combat, so as they wandered the mountain they lost blood, food and morale. This was only made worse when members of their group began to die. Unfriendly locals helped pick off the gang of lost men, driving them deeper into the woods and further into a state of panicked madness as they realized that they might not ever make it off the mountain alive. The last that was seen of this lost regiment, there were only seven Union soldiers left alive. They were last seen in Blanche, Alabama, heading up the mountain. Residents of the area still say that they see the ghosts of the regiment, however. They say that they hear the soldiers’ ghosts crying out in the night. They say that the ghosts of the lost regiment still wander the mountain, trying to find their way home.

The Ghosts of Fort Morgan

The Fort Morgan area has become a vacation spot.   Its beaches sit overlooking the Gulf of Mexico and tourists come from all over to watch the  Dolphins and dip their toes in the sand.  The sands of Fort Morgan carry an older, forgotten history, however. Most tourists will never know that the sands they play in were once soaked in blood.  

Fort Morgan began construction in 1812 and was finished in 1834 and was widely regarded as the "finest example f military architecture in the New World."   The fort was constructed in a unique star shape that made it easier to defend.    Fort Morgan and Fort Gaines sat on opposing sides of Mobile Bay and acted together to close the Bay off and defend the waters.

Fort Morgan saw heavy fire during the Civil War.  I was used defensively by the Confederates and was also a starting point for blockade running ships.  The Union took the Fort during the Battle of Mobile Bay.  After Fort Gaines fell, Union soldiers laid siege to the fort an set the wooden parts of the fort on fire.  Many men died in this battle and the Confederate soldiers did not meet happy ends.

It is not surprising that this old Fort has more than its fair share of ghosts.  It has a long history filled with war and fire.  The old barracks are said to be one of he most haunted portions of the fort..  In 1916 or 1917 a prisoner hung himself in the barracks.  According to local lore, you can still hear the hanging man cry late at night.   He is not alone in his sorrow.  During the Civil War, a bomb went off in the fort and several men met a horrible fiery death.   The bomb went off in a room with a big fireplace and they say you can still hear the men screaming at night.

The final ghost comes from an unconfirmed story of woe and sorrow.   They say that some time in 19th a young woman was drug into the fort by unknown men.  The woman was beaten, raped and murdered.  According to legend, she still wanders the Fort looking for justice. 

Oddly, I've been to the beaches at Fort Morgan on many occasions, but never visited the old Fort.   I hope to fix that mistake this summer on my visit.   The very shape of the old fort seems to lend itself to ghosts stories and call to spirits to stay and linger.   I can't believe I missed this little gem.

Old Bryce Hospital for the Insane

Alabama Hospital for the Insane was designed to be a refuge for the mentally ill.  Its architecture was designed based on the ideas of Dorothea Dix and Thomas Story Kirkbride.  It was meant o be moral architecture that would contribute tot he healing process within the hospital   The hospital opened in 1861 and for a while it held to the ideals of Dix and Kirkbride.  The first superintendent, Peter Bryce, was an idealist and he had studied mental health in Europe.  He believed that patients should be treated with respect kindness.  He even abandoned the use of restraints.  The hospital was later named for Bryce and it went on to be the model for progressive mental health care.

Time quickly eroded Bryce' legacy, however.  By 1967, there were more than 5200 patients residing in a facility that was never meant to hold that many.  Observers described Bryce as a concentration camp and a model for human cruelty.  In 1970, one patient named Wyatt started a class action law suit against the Alabama's other mental hospital, Searcy State Hospital.  This lead to major change in the way the mentally ill were treated in Alabama.  The number of beds were cut drastically and humane treatment of the mentally ill became an absolute necessity.  The landmark Wyatt v. Strickney Casee would change Bryce drastically. Old Bryce was the African American portion of Bryce Hospital and was notorious for being even more cruel than its white counterpart.  After Wyatt v. Strickey and desegregation, Old Bryce was shut down entirely and other buildings were used.  The African American patients were integrated into the white population.  

Old Bryce still sits quietly deserted, however, as a reminder to the old days when patients were held like prisoners with no rights.   It is covered in graffiti and has been vandalized many times.  Its even been set on fire.  Trespassing is forbidden here, but the curious have reported seeing all manner of horrors coming out of the dark around Old Bryce.  Lights flicker on an off in the building that has no electricity.  Phones ring in rooms with no phones.  Phantom lights drift from room to room. Furniture moves on its own and footsteps echo through the abandoned hallways.  The living patients may be gone, but many believe Old Bryce is still filled with the ghosts of those who once suffered in its walls.

The Lonely Ghosts of Fort Gains

Everyone is writing about the civil war this week.  It is the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and I thought it would be appropriate to write something related.   Since I'm also planning my summer vacation,  I thought it would fun to write about one of my favorite vacation locations. Dauphin Island has long been one of my favorite haunts. It is a lonely, little island off the coast of Alabama that has beautiful, white beaches and great views of dolphins leaping just off the coast. It has been missed by much of the tourist trade that has made Pensacola and Gulf Shores unbearable for me. It is quiet and lovely.


The island itself has a long history that has shifted with the shifting sands of the island itself. Dauphin Island was initially name massacre island by the French until it was given a more comforting name by colonists. The French colony on Dauphin Island was short lived, however, and was the site of a notorious pirate attack that left the island abandoned.

The island's strategic positioning made it unforgettable, however, and it was taken by the US for the construction of a fort in 1812. The construction of this fort was as doomed as the the original French inhabitants of the island. Due to poor engineering, poor planning, and stupidity the fort was constructed in an area that was quickly flooded and reclaimed by the shifting waters of the gulf. In 1853, a new engineer was brought in and the construction had to begin again. The new engineer was not so dim as the first people to work on the Fort and construction of the new Fort Gaines was completed in 1858.

Fort Gaines was of critical importance in the Civil War and the Confederates used it as a base for blockade running. Fort Gaines was also important in the Battle of Mobile. Union Army commanders, Admiral David Farragut and Major General Gordon Granger, came through the bay amid fourteen ships, with the orders to shut down the fort. The guns in Fort Gaines fired doing damage to the Union Army. Then, Admiral Farragut gave the notorious order, "Damn the torpedoes! Full steam ahead!" The Union army succeeded in its task when Fort Gaines surrendered to avoid hand-to-hand combat. Eighteen-hundred men died in the Battle of Mobile despite the surrender of the fort.

Fort Gaines is one of the most popular haunted sites in the nation. The ghosts of dead soldiers have been captures on film by tourists and paranormal investigators. All types of visitors have reported hearing mysterious footsteps, voices, and seeing ghosts. MTV will even feature it on it's haunted television special. I have been to Dauphin Island and Fort Gaines numerous times with my family and have never witnessed any of this activity. More than anything I have been haunted by the lonely beauty of the island that has been ravaged by history and nature. It remains one of my favorite places and I will face all manner of ghosts to wander the quiet shores of this island.

Dead Man's Bridge

Ditto's Landing used to be a thriving port town.  It is now a ghost town.  It really isn't even that.  It has vanished completely.  In 1807 James Ditto started to ferry people across the Tennessee River from what is now Ditto's Landing.  This business grew and by 1827, the town of Whitesburg was born as a thriving port town.  Hundreds of tons of cotton went through Whitesburg every year.  They went up and down the river.   By 1907, the town was dead.  It was killed by trains and faster modes of transportation.  What is left at Ditto's Landing isn't much. It is still a pretty place.  The old Whitesburg Bridge still stands gracing the landscape.

The Whitesburg Bridge has had more than its share of tragedy.  In 1916 David Owen ran for the office of Judge.  He ran against Judge Lawler.   By some strange circumstances,   David Owen met Judge Lawler on the Whitesburg Bridge and shot him.  This would be the first of a series of strange deaths on the now quiet bridge.  The Sheriff then shot himself on the bridge.  His son shot himself on the bridge and a well known Lawyer shot himself on the bridge.  For whatever reason, the bridge seems cursed by death.

Today, you wouldn't have known that the bridge was haunted.  It was a quiet day and fisherman dangled their lines into the serene water beneath the bridge.   At night, they say the ghosts of the men who died at this bridge still walk.  You can hear their screams in the dark and a few fishermen even claim to have seen the ghosts of dead man's bridge.  Even in daylight, I caught a few peculiarities on film while photographing the bridge.  Strange lights appeared in many of my photographs.  The picture below shows my son standing next to one of a dozen strange lights I photographed on the bridge.

The Ghost of the Lynched

The Madison County Courthouse looks new.  It is the center of downtown Huntsville, Alabama and it is known for its interesting architecture and murals.  The structure that stands there today isn't more than forty years old.   Its uniquely modern architecture and style dates it, but it was not the first court house to stand in down town Huntsville.  Madison County dates back to the early 1800s and four courthouses have stood in the location where the current courthouse resides.  The County courthouse holds many ghosts, but the most famous ghost that still lingers in the courthouse is the ghost of Horace Maples.  

Horace Maples was lynched in front of the Madison County Courthouse in 1904.  He was a black man and the mob that lynched him was brutal and ruthless.   They beat him bloody and hung him from a tree.  They cut off his finger and in the night while he dangled, bleeding and helpless, he was shot three times.  The proceeding court cases and controversies made national news and I found numerous clips about the trials of those who were in the lynch mob in the New York Times.   Apparently, Madison County did not want to prosecute those that lynched poor Horace Maples.  Racism was deeply entrenched in Alabama culture and the locals didn't see it as a crime.   In order for the court case to carry on, the federal military and state militia had to be called in to keep the peace.  Nineteen members of the lynch mob were indicted for the killing of Horace Maples and this became a landmark case showing people throughout the South that lynching was a crime, no matter what the race of the victim.

Those who have stayed in the Madison County Courthouse lock up have described seeing men enter and leave through walls.  Ghostly figures have been seen throughout the courthouse accompanied by the usual strange noises, orbs, and odd lights.   It is hard to name all the ghosts that linger in the courthouse as many sad figures have passed in and out of its doors throughout its history, but Horace's ghost is the most frequently seen.   He forever lingers in the place of his tragic death. 

The North Port Ghost

My favorite ghost stories are the ones told to me by people.  I always like to think of ghost stories as the last oral traditions.  These days there a very few stories that are told around the table or camp fire like they used to before television and the Internet.  Ghost stories and urban legends are the last stories the cling to these old traditions and sometimes ghost stories and urban legends can become almost one.  Some friends of mine shared one their favorite stories from their college days with me over dinner this way.  The story was told to me two very different ways.  This is the risk of oral traditions.  They often are told very differently by each person telling them.

The first person who shared this story with me told me that the North Port Ghost was a real story.  He said that if you drive down a lonely road in rural Alabama you will come to a spot where many people have seen The North Port Ghost.    If you slow down,  you might see her wandering the road alone.   According to legend,  the North Port Ghost is the wife of a Confederate soldier.  She wanders the night searching for her husband.   He never came home from the war and she has never stopped looking for him.  Even in death, her lonely specter can be seen all dressed in white waiting for the return of a many who is long go.   She is a classic white lady, forever looking for love that will never come.

The second story I heard was much less fun but still interesting.  She said the North Port Ghost was a snipe hunt.   She claimed upper classman sent Freshmen into the country and told them to drive slowly down a hill while flashing their blinkers.  If this is done properly, the light will catch off a lamp post giving the affect of a ghost and scaring the crap out of the Freshman. 

According to Shadowlands Haunted Place Index,  The North Port Ghost was once commonly seen.   He was the ghost of a fallen confederate soldier who used to roam the area.   The ghost is not seen anymore and has disintegrated into a tourist attraction because the area has become over developed and is no longer rural.

So,  I love my oral traditions and I love this story because it is one that is told again and again, but the true story has been lost somewhere in the telling.  It has become a prank and a joke told to scare college students, but I like to believe the first story is true and that urbanization has driven the ghost away.

The Cathedral of Learning

 Last year I went to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for a writer's conference.  While I was there,  I met a young writer who had a passion for ghosts and ghost stories.  She was working on a young adult novel about a ghost hunter.   I was lucky enough to  have her give me a tour of her home town, where she had gone to school.   The first place the young woman took me was an amazing building called the Cathedral of Learning.   The Cathedral of Learning is the second tallest educational building in the world.  It towers above the landscape around it casting a long elegant shadow over the rest of the University of  Pittsburgh.  The architecture is all Gothic revival style so as you step into this tall building, you feel like you are stepping into a medieval Cathedral.   It is truly a Cathedral of Learning.

The Cathedral of Learning was begun in 1926 by Chancellor Bowman and community contributions helped him realize his dream.  The 42 story building contains classrooms, libraries, and a common room.   The most famous rooms in the cathedral are the nationality rooms.  These are a series of rooms on the second floor that have been decorated with historic pieces from numerous cultures so that each room looks like a room from the culture it represents.  According to my guide, it was one of these rooms that was haunted.

The Early American room  looks the part.  It is filled with historic pieces and has been decorated to look like it stepped out of time.   It is a shadowy room that feels haunted.   It isn't just the decor.   Many visitors to the Early American room have described having paranormal experiences.  The stories began 30 years ago, after  a woman donated several of her grandmother's items for the space.   The items had belonged to Martha Jane Poe, a relative of Edgar Allen Poe.  Many of the paranormal events described in the room seem to revolve around Martha Jane's wedding quilt.  One janitor described finding hand prints on the quilt when he was alone there at night.   Other visitors have seen doors open and close on their own and seen objects shift on their own. The baby cradle has been seen to rock when the room is empty and visitors that have spent the night in the room have reported feeling a cold spot.

According to Gretchen McKay of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette,  there are innumerable reports of ghostly activity in this old room and it may be that Martha Jane's ghost still stays with her things.  I didn't have any ghostly experiences in the Cathedral of Learning, but the building's decor certainly gives the building a chilling feel.  I know I would hate to be in the Early America Room alone after dark.

The Lonely Bridge

Haunted Bridges are a common thing in ghost lore.  Throughout the South, stories of cry baby hollows and  bridges that lead to hell can be found in every other town.  As a collector of ghost stories, I've heard so many of these stories they begin to blend together in my head so I can't remember which town and which bridge held which story of ghostly sorrow.  It is rare for one of these stories to stand out to me, but the story of a bridge in Gadsden, Alabama that I heard recently left an impression.  

According to local legend, there is a bridge in Gadsden, Alabama that is haunted.  It is an old bridge with an old history.  According to the story, there was a young couple who lived near the bridge.  They had just had their first baby and times were hard for them.  They were pressed upon by economic concerns and the stress of their newborn baby.  Such stress is common in young parents and it is also common for these stresses to lead to fights.  The couple had been fighting often enough, but one night the fighting escalated to a fevered pitch and the young wife couldn't take it any longer.   She packed up her baby and walked out into the night.  She stepped out to get away from the tension and get away from the fighting.

After a while, her husband felt bad about the fight and about his wife and child walking alone in the dark night.  He grew concerned and took the carriage out to look for his family.  His wife and daughter were just crossing over the bridge when he caught up with them in the carriage.   It was dark and his wife was in black.   In the darkness, the poor young man didn't see his beloved and it was his carriage that pushed her and her baby over the edge into the dark waters below.  Both wife and baby died that night on the bridge.    Since that time,  people have described seeing a woman in black wandering the area around the bridge.  She wanders the bridge looking for the baby she dropped in the dark.   People have also described hearing the baby cry out.  People have also seen the husband wandering the bridge looking for something, heard carriage wheels, and heard the sound of a lonely woman screaming in the dark.  Many locals also say that the house near the bridge that is thought to belong to the young couple is also very haunted.

The Haunting of Sherrod House

This story is one I am revisiting.  I posted this early on when I had very low traffic to the blog and I don't think many people read it.  I love this story so I'm giving it a second run.  A friend of mine who lives in a small town in South Alabama sent me the most wonderful pictures. In the one too the left if you look carefully you can see the face of a ghost staring out at you.   She moved into her century old home a few years ago and when she first moved into the house it was haunted by an irritating spirit. My friend sent me the story of her haunted house and since I don't think I could possibly tell the story as well as she does I have placed it in quotes and put it word for word here.


"The house was built in 1906, and is known as "the Warren House," although there is some dispute over who built the house. The Coles or the Warrens. Because of this dispute, we decided to put the name "Sherrod House" on our historical register sign. Next door is the McCleod house, built in 1903. When we moved here, 2 elderly McCleod sisters remained. Their story varied at times, but this is the best we could come up with from them.

In 1906 the Cole family (allegedly) built the house. Sadly, they died while their children were still young, perhaps in the flu epidemic of 1918. Naomi Cole, and perhaps some of her siblings, went next door and were raised by the McCleods. When she was old enough, Naomi married a man, Mr. Warren, and moved back into her family home. When her husband passed, and her children moved, she turned the house into a boarding house, and many of the people in our town have memories of living here, or visiting their grandparents here, etc. Naomi left (died?) sometime in the early 1970's. Incredibly, the house stood vacant until we bought it in 2003.

When we first bought the house, we loved it. It needed a lot of work- but we could see it's potential. My great grandmother was just moving into a nursing home, and we were blessed enough to get her old furniture. We visited the house at least once a month, while still living in Huntsville.

Almost immediately, we felt a presence, but weren't too threatened by it. We would hear things in the middle of the night. Footsteps in the hallway, that sounded like a man's boots, slow and steady. We would groggily awaken, think to ourselves, "oh, he's just checking up on things," and fall back asleep. I don't know why we were so sure that it was ok, but we were. At other times we would hear the back door open. We would go to check it, and it would still be dead bolted.

The activity began to become more common, to the point of where Michael and I were almost too spooked to stay in the house alone. A photo frame in the living room lifted itself from the mantle and flew across the room. One night, while MIchael and I were asleep, we heard very heavy determined foot stomping, across the length of the foot of our bed. It felt strongly like the spirit was trying to wake us up. Not knowing what else to do, Michael sat up in bed, said "Stop that! You'll wake the children!" The stomping stopped, and never happened again. But on another night, Michael woke up to someone pressing down on his chest. It took him a minute or two of struggling to sit up and breathe. It felt like something was trying to get our attention.

On one night we allowed Chloe to have a friend spend the night. All 4 older children slept in the boys room, which has a closet that connects it to Lily's room. The children woke us in the middle of the night. "The ghosts are bothering us." Not wanting to scare them, we assured them that there was "no such thing as ghosts," and sought to calm them down. We all went back to bed. Early in the morning, I woke to find the kids terrified in the room. I tried to settle them down again. I looked into the mirror above the fireplace, directly beside the closet, which was latched shut with a hook and eye closure. I told them "There is no such thing as ghosts!" The minute I said that, the hook very slowly released itself from the eye, as if by an unseen hand. Then the closet door swung open and and a burst of icy air came rushing out. I looked at the kids, there was no denying ghosts now I supposed!

Soon after this incident, we moved into the house full time. Lily was 3 years old at the time. At night, before going to bed, Lily would complain that there was a "grey lady" watching her. She always pointed to the same corner of the room, and told us that the grey lady would stand there when she was trying to sleep. Finally, in an effort to calm her, we began talking to the grey lady at bedtime. We asked her to please let Lily sleep in peace. After a week or so, this seemed to work, and that was the end of all the activity.

We feel now, that whatever was haunting the house is not here anymore. The "presence" is gone. We never felt threatened, only a little spooked, and for some reason, we always felt like the spirits (one man, one woman, is what we felt) were just checking up on things. They seemed to want to know that the house would be taken care of. They seemed attracted to the children. I feel like they have accepted us here, and have moved on. We haven't seen any activity since the fall of 2005.

What we have seen is a supposed granddaughter of Naomi. She showed up unannounced at our house while I was out of town on a business trip, and Michael spoke to her. She wanted to know if we had found anything that had belonged to her family in the house. She asked Michael if he had found a box of some sort. She kept pressing the point again and again, and asked Michael if he would be willing to sell the house to her. When he declined, she left. The McCleod sisters next door got very upset over this visit. They told Michael "whatever you find in that house is yours, and she has no business coming around here and bothering you!"

We don't know why the McCleods would be so upset over Naomi's granddaughter coming for a visit. We have been all over the house, including the attic, which is almost as big as the 1st floor, and have not found any boxes. The fireplaces seem to have stopped being used at some point, there are gas lines near most of them. We don't know if there is maybe something in a chimney. We also don't know the identity of the ghosts that were here, though it seems to make sense that it would be the original owners of the house."
Although the Sherrod's say their house is no longer haunted, the picture they sent me of a lonely ghost staring out the window still sends chills down my spine

The Many Ghosts of Sweetwater Mansion

One of  my favorite chapters in my book, Haunted North Alabama, was a chapter about Sweetwater Mansion.  Sweetwater Mansion is a once beautiful plantation house in Northern Alabama.   At its peak, Sweetwater housed Governors and saw such famous visitors as president Franklin D. Roosevelt.   It is home to a warehouse full of Southern history and  many stories of sorrow and tragedy.

It is also home to many ghost stories.  I was lucky enough to be invited to do a book signing at Sweetwater Mansion this weekend.  I had never been able to enter this house before, so this was very exciting for me.   The house was opened up for tours this October by the people that are renovating it and trying to document its history.  The tours include history and ghost stories and legends associated with this old house.  All funds raised by the tours will be donated to the continued renovation of this beautiful mansion. The house is in significant disrepair and has seen much abuse.  In the 1970's, a portion of the house caught on fire and in 2007 vandals broke in and stripped the mansion down to the bones.  The renovators certainly have their work cut out for them and they have already worked so hard.

As I signed books, I was able to talk to some of the tour guides and listen in on tours.    I heard many stories I hadn't heard when I wrote my book.  For instance,  I heard the story of the porcelain lady whose face in the wallpaper becomes more defined with every passing day.  The wallpaper changes and grows and as the porcelain lady's face becomes more define new faces are appearing behind her.   I was also told about one employee who took and extraordinary picture.   Apparently, everyone became aware of the smell of burning one day.  They followed their noses to the old kitchen that had been burnt down in the 1970s fire.  There was no fire, but one woman took several pictures of the kitchen.  In these pictures,  the kitchen was on fire.  Everyone who worked and volunteered at the mansion had stories.  There were so many I could hardly keep up.  The mansion has too many ghost stories to be told in at one time.

The group is now working on a book to document the ghost stories of Sweetwater and I can't wait to read them.  I know I barely touched the surface with my book.  Being in the mansion,  I can say that there is a tangible presence in the mansion.  There is a heaviness in the air and stepping from the outside into the mansion the temperature drops over 10 degrees.  I shivered and I'm always hot.  The old house is not what it used to be, but its beauty remains.  Bits of wallpaper and old rooms whisper of days gone by when it was the most extravagant home in the South.  Old pictures, faded by time, show what once was.  The house feels  trapped in time, perhaps it is held there by its ghosts.

Notice the Green Orb at the Top of the Stairs in This Picture.  If you look closely, you can almost see a face.

The Old Jail Ghosts in The Main Street Cafe

In the small town of Madison, Alabama there isn't much to the downtown.  The old buildings are reminders of quiet days when Madison was a tiny town unto itself.  These days Madison is more of a suburb than a town itself.  Everyone drives off to Huntsville to work and the little downtown area is mostly forgotten.  The Main Street Cafe in downtown Madison is one of the reminders of the old days.   It was the old jail house.  Inside the Main Street Cafe, the two chambers that used to be jail cells remain.  The doors have been removed but the barred windows remain.  You can eat in the jail cells.    The Main Street Cafe has been remodeled so the cells are the only pieces of the history to let you know that this  pretty, quaint eatery was once a jail.   Most people don't even know The Main Street Cafe was once a jail.  They enjoy the place for what it is.  The food is good and the atmosphere is pretty.   You can easily forget that the Main Street Cafe has a darker past.  The cafe was once a jail and it still has its ghosts.

According to employees of the pretty restaurant,  the old jail is haunted by a ghost they call George.   George isn't a particularly malevolent ghost, but he does like to mess things up.  He enjoys moving things so that when cupboards are opened in the morning everything falls out.  He enjoys moving objects in the kitchen so that the staff can't find them.  In general,  he just enjoys making a pest out of himself.   The staff didn't know who George was.  They weren't sure if he was a prisoner, but they know he likes to make life more difficult for those who have to work at this old jail.

The Haunting of Cedarhurst Mansion

Cedarhurst Mansion in Huntsville Alabama is home to one of the most famous hauntings in Alabama.   The mansion itself is hidden now.  It is part of a gated community and only those that live in the community can enter, but the old ghost stories linger.  They are legend.  Whenever I talk about ghost stories in Alabama,  someone always asks me if I have heard about this sad, lonely ghost.   Her story  is unforgettable and people always think of this ghost when they think of Alabama ghosts.

Cedarhurst Mansion was built by Stephen Ewing in 1823.   Since that time it has passed from owner to owner fairly regularly. Ironically,  it isn't someone who lived in this house that haunts it.   Sally Carter was just visiting Cedarhurst Mansion in 1837.  She loved the mansion and was very happy to visit it.  Sadly,  16 year old Sally died on November 28, 1937 of a fatal illness.  She died while she was at the mansion and she hasn't left it since.

Ever since Sally's death,  the stories of her ghost have been as thick as kudzu.  The most famous story was told  by a 17 year old boy visit in the house in 1919.  Alabama is prone to terrible storms and the night he stayed a storm raged outside.  He said that while he slept,  he was visited by Sally.  She came to him and asked him to fix her tombstone.  She said it had been knocked over in the storm.  Everyone laughed at him, but when they went out with him to fix the stone,  they found it had indeed been knocked over by the storm.

I love a site called citydata.com.  In that site, there are a plethora of forums on city places and event and invariably there are many postings on every haunted location.    The best thing about this site is that if you sift through the nonsense you can find people who have posted their first hand accounts with ghosts.  One posting on this site I read was posted by a woman who says her childhood friend used to live in Cedarhurst Mansion when she was a girl.   She was lucky enough to spend the night in the house with her friend and she describes seeing Sally standing above her while she was sleeping.  There are numerous stories like this about Sally.  Some have even reported seeing her walking outside the mansion.  Sally is still active,  she's just more hidden now.  But her story lives on.

The Ghost of Jeremiah Clemens

I will always believe that the best ghost stories come from parties and gatherings and other types of friendly get togethers.  People love to sit and chat and share a tale or two.  The people who tell stories at parties rarely believe in the ghosts fully, but love the stories themselves and the history they are steeped in.  One of my friends shared a story with me the other night.   We were eating dinner at his house and he said that the building he worked at was on the local ghost tour.  He hadn't been aware his building was haunted until he participated in the ghost walk and was surprised and intrigued by the information he learned.

According to the ghost tour,  his law office building on Pratt Avenue is haunted by the ghost of Jeremiah Clemens.   Jeremiah was a Senator and a novelist.  Politically, he was most know as a Unionist who did not support the civil war and was against secession from the Union.   Nationally Clemens was most known as a novelist and author of the books Bernard Lile (1856) and Mustang Grey (1858).   Clemens resided in the house on Pratt Avenue during his life in Huntsville, Alabama.

Apparently,  a psychic has been through this haunted law firm and she concluded that Mr. Clemens was a bit of a Lady's man.  He liked looking at the pretty ladies.  She said that he spent  most of his haunting time enjoying the pretty women at the firm and would probably have little to do with the men.  This didn't surprise my friend, because he said he's never felt anything resembling a haunting at his office.  However,  many of the female employees have reported feeling a presence in the building.  They describe feeling as if they are being watched.   I suppose there are worse things for a ghost to do, but I still don't think I'd want the man above ogling me while I worked.   The women at that office are stronger than me,  I think I might change jobs.

The Ghosts of the USS Alabama

I thought I would return to where I started tonight.   My first few blogs were about Alabama and the places I had been in Alabama.  The USS Alabama is one of my favorite Southern haunts.

The USS Alabama is a large and impressive ship that is a major tourist attraction for Mobile, Alabama. It has been retired and docked in the Mobile Bay and sees thousands of visitors every day. At night, the ship hosts many cub scout camp outs so the battleship is rarely empty or quiet. Despite the fact that officials claim the ship is not, nor has ever been haunted, many claim to have seen ghosts on this ship. There have been reports of phantom foot steps and odd noises. It is said that late at night bulkheads open and close by themselves and odd tapping noises can be heard throughout the ship.

The Battleship Alabama’s first two deaths were of men who were in the Norfolk shipyard as she was under construction. She was finished in 1942 and served 37 months without any deaths due to enemy fire. As for death under friendly fire, however, there were 8 deaths on gun mount #5 when gun mount #9 fired upon them. It seems that the safety feature that was supposed to prevent the turrets from firing upon each other had failed. The men were completely destroyed; the only thing left of the gun commander was his boots.

The USS Alabama staff does not allow anyone interested in the paranormal to spend the night on the ship, so few people can tell stories of what happens when night comes aboard this old bit of history.  My boys, however,  were fortunate enough to spend the night on this wonderful ship last summer. As cub scouts, they were able to camp out on the ship.  Women are not allowed on the ship after dark, so I had to abandon my men to the shadows and wait for their stories.  Both of my boys claim that they saw and heard ghosts the night they stayed on the ship. My oldest son says he saw a barefoot ghost by turret five.This is particularly interesting, because he didn't know about any ghost stories associated with ship or about the man who lost his boots at this turret.   I have attached a picture of their overnight t that shows an orb by one of the turrets. The orb is directly above my son's head.  I know orbs are nothing like hard proof of the paranormal,  but it is still an interesting picture especially since it was taken my gun mount # 5.

A Southern Farmhouse Haunting

Last Christmas, when I started blogging about ghost stories,   I had been inspired by the extraordinary wealth of folklore and ghost stories that the nurses where I work and where my husband work seem to possess.   In rural Alabama,  these stories are as thick as the humidity.    I would sit and listen to the nurses and other country staff tell their stories and I thought that someone had to write these stories down.   My husband brought back stories for me from the hospital he works in, which is much more rural than the one I work in.  Yesterday,  another nurse brought me another story.  Of course,  I'm pleased as punch.   She even had pictures with her!

This nurse is young and lives in a farmhouse way out in the country.  Her farmhouse is over one hundred years old and those that have lived there have kept up with it by rebuilding it and fixing it up with modern amenities as time has past. Originally the house was a log cabin and beneath the brick and modern additions,  the old logs still stand strong.  The old farmhouse has a layered effect that tells the story of the many generations that have lived there.  Within these layers,  are ghost stories.

The nurse says that she isn't convinced her house is haunted.   She's seen things that aren't right, but it takes more than that to convince her.  Even if it is haunted, she feels that whatever is in the house is harmless.   She isn't afraid.  Her husband, on the other hand, is unnerved by the presence.   He feels as if something is always watching him.   He feels like he is never alone and  he has suggested they leave because of this.

The story that is told with the house is brilliant.   Over a century ago,   when the country was still new,   a Native American broke into the farmhouse looking for food and money.   The owner at the time was prepared for this type of event and cut the intruders head off with an axe.    The intruder's head rolled down the stairs.    According to the legend,   you can still hear the head rolling down the stairs and it is this Native American's ghost that still haunts this farmhouse.   The nurse's father says this is all made up nonsense, but even if it is, there is something in the house and that something is always watching.