Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    America’s 100 Most Haunted Locations
    America’s 100 Most Haunted Locations
    America’s 100 Most Haunted Locations
    Ebook505 pages8 hours

    America’s 100 Most Haunted Locations

    By David Pietras

    ()

    Read preview

    About this ebook

    Visit even the smallest of towns in the U.S. and you’re likely to hear some local ghost stories and discover a few haunted houses. But some American cities have gained the reputation for being particularly ghost-ridden thanks to their rich and often bizarre historical backgrounds.
    Though only a few centuries old, America has amassed an impressive number of eerie residences, each deemed haunted due to paranormal activity or a frightful past. From spooky hotels in the north east to murder mansions in the south. From haunted cemeteries and historic military spots to grisly tales of suffering and death, we've collected the country's most chilling real ghost stories. These ghostly dwellings span from coast to coast.
    Haunted buildings and ghost sightings prove difficult to substantiate but whether you believe or remain skeptical, these encounters will certainly send a chill up your spine. The following 100 locations have the paranormal community buzzing.
    Whether you're a believer or not, America's towns are filled with true ghost stories passed down through time.
    Read on to see the list of America's 100 Most Haunted Locations . . . if you dare.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherDavid Pietras
    Release dateJan 14, 2019
    ISBN9781370763146
    America’s 100 Most Haunted Locations

    Read more from David Pietras

    Related to America’s 100 Most Haunted Locations

    Related ebooks

    Ghosts For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      "The Sum Of Our Fears"

      Jul 21, 2019

      "The Sum Of Our Fears"
      9 min read

    • Article

      Haunted Hotels

      Oct 15, 2020

      Haunted Hotels
      6 min read

    • Article

      Shock Proposal!

      Oct 21, 2021

      Shock Proposal!
      2 min read

    • Article

      Amityville Horror ends

      Mar 20, 2021

      Amityville Horror ends
      4 min read

    • Article

      Exorcist Boy Identified

      Jan 27, 2022

      Exorcist Boy Identified
      3 min read

    • Article

      The Ruskington Horror

      Jan 4, 2021

      The Ruskington Horror
      11 min read

    • Article

      Your Letters

      Aug 7, 2020

      Your Letters
      5 min read

    • Article

      A Murder Most Royal

      Oct 23, 2020

      A Murder Most Royal
      4 min read

    • Article

      Dramatic Setting

      Nov 3, 2023

      Dramatic Setting
      4 min read

    • Article

      To The Manor Born

      Oct 23, 2020

      To The Manor Born
      5 min read

    • Article

      The Jewels Of The Mile

      Jul 9, 2021

      The Jewels Of The Mile
      7 min read

    • Article

      Status Symbol

      Sep 18, 2020

      Status Symbol
      5 min read

    • Article

      Story Of A Street

      Oct 9, 2021

      Story Of A Street
      8 min read

    • Article

      Grand Designs

      May 22, 2019

      Grand Designs
      4 min read

    • Article

      A Theatre Of History

      Sep 30, 2020

      A Theatre Of History
      7 min read

    • Article

      When Ned met Auntie Bumps

      May 26, 2020

      When Ned met Auntie Bumps
      6 min read

    • Article

      Tragedy Of The Other PRINCE GEORGE

      Jun 8, 2023

      Fifty-five years before a car crash took the life of Diana, Princess of Wales, another shocking death saw the Royal Family lose one of its brightest and most popular younger princes under equally devastating circumstances. On 25 August 1942, Prince G

      4 min read

    • Article

      The PRINCE’S PALACE

      Aug 21, 2020

      The PRINCE’S PALACE
      5 min read

    • Article

      FACT or FICTION

      Jun 12, 2020

      FACT or FICTION
      4 min read

    • Article

      Munstead Wood Is Secured For The Nation

      Jun 7, 2023

      THE news that the National Trust has bought Munstead Wood in the Surrey Hills should—in Athena’s view—be greeted with rejoicing. Built by the young Edwin Lutyens for Gertrude Jekyll in 1896, Munstead Wood is a small, but outstandingly important house

      2 min read

    • Article

      Family Futures

      Feb 17, 2022

      Conquered by Eleanor Parker Bloomsbury, 272 pages, £20 We all know the 1066 story: Edward the Confessor dies; Harold Godwinson succeeds him; William of Normandy seizes the crown; England becomes Norman. So far, so obvious – but this excellent book of

      1 min read

    • Article

      The Duchess’s DOWNFALL

      Jul 8, 2022

      The Duchess’s DOWNFALL
      3 min read

    Related categories

    Reviews for America’s 100 Most Haunted Locations

    0 ratings

    0 ratings0 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

      Book preview

      America’s 100 Most Haunted Locations - David Pietras

      Prologue

      People often ask me why I chose to write about ghosts and haunted houses. Well it all started back in the early days of my childhood, at a place called Gelston Castle in Jordanville New York…

      Gelston Castle

      In 1739, King George II granted 16,000 acres of land to Dr. James Henderson, a Scotsman, for services rendered at the Greenwich Hospital in England. With dreams of building a country house, he traveled to America only to find the land was a wild and desolate area inhabited by Mohawk Indians.

      He decided instead to build Greenwich House, a home on Greenwich Street in an area now known as Greenwich Village in New York City. The acres granted to him make up much of what is currently known as Herkimer County. The Douglas brothers were industrious Scot descents who arrived in New York during the 1760’s destined to become wealthy. The Douglas fortune was mainly acquired through various businesses in New York and London, and by farming in Scotland. Of the four, two brothers returned to Scotland and acquired large tracts of land in Galloway.

      William Douglas built Gelston Castle in Kirkcudbrightshire and his brother James founded the town of Castle Douglas. George Douglas was the only brother to permanently settle in America and eventually married Margaret Corne.

      Margaret Corne was the daughter of Captain Peter Corne and a granddaughter of Dr. James Henderson. The royal grant was passed down to Margaret who was the first of Dr. Henderson’s heirs to take an interest in the lands up in the Mohawk Valley. With her husband George Douglas, she had some land cleared and surveyed, then had a twenty-four room summer Cottage built in 1787. Margaret and George Douglas had five children: Margaret (1787), Harriett (1790), George (1793), William (1795), and Elizabeth Mary (1799). George died of yellow fever at his wife’s home at King’s Ferry on the Hudson River.

      Known for her red-gold hair, Harriet Douglas was the social lioness of the 1800’s. She was perhaps the most strong-willed of her family, to the point that once she resolved something in her head, there was no stopping her. She spent most of her life traveling around Europe and America with her siblings circulating amongst the most elite of social societies collecting famous male acquaintances.

      She kept the company of famous names like Mrs. Anne Grant, with whom Harriet boarded while studying in Scotland and introduced her to the Literary Social Circle. Others include Maria Edgeworth who introduced her to Sir Walter Scott. William Wordsworth and James Fenimore Cooper were other names that frequented her company. Miss Douglas was called The Lion Huntress of the Social Jungles.

      On her 43rd birthday, Harriet married her on-again, off-again suitor Henry Cruger who was of the most distinguished of New York families. Their stormy marriage only lasted eight years on account of her independent spirit and strong nature that tried controlling their relationship from the start. Perhaps examples of her character can be noted in her insistence that Henry takes the Douglas name and they were known as Mr. and Mrs. Douglas Cruger. Cruger was not too happy about building a house in so wild and remote spot, but Harriett prevailed.

      When you think of the word castle your mind paints a picture of romance, bold knights, jewels, velvet and silks dripping off a castle's residents. Gelston Castle, or Cruger Mansion, has been called by several names and it is still the house built by Harriett Douglas Cruger, who is a story in herself. Gelston Castle, as it is called today, was one of the passions pursued by Harriet Douglas during her lifetime.

      It is said that her mother, Margaret Douglas, was the first of the Henderson heirs to take a real interest in the Henderson lands in the Mohawk Valley, and built a twenty-four room wooden structure referred to as the Cottage. Later in life the house has been referred to as The Henderson house.

      When she visited her Uncle Sir William Douglas’ residence, Gelston Castle, in Scotland as a young girl she vowed to one day build a replica of her own. As members of her family died, Harriett gained possession of the Henderson land and resolved to make her lifelong dream a reality and had a stone mansion built next to her mother’s cottage in 1833. To accomplish her unusual and unique design she insisted it be built with stone blocks to resemble the houses of Scotland, and had them carried all the way from Little Falls, fourteen miles in the snow. It was published that Gelston Castle contained over 20 rooms, including ten bedrooms and three sitting rooms. They used the large hall as a dining room and the basement had five rooms, a kitchen and sitting room. The castle was adorned with fireplaces throughout.

      At some point in time, an inspiration struck the grand dame: Her heart - and the rest of her too - could remain at the Henderson House forever. She ordered granite from Scotland for a grandiose sarcophagus. It was duly carved and installed in readiness for Douglas's demise and her instructions were spelled out in her will. It is thought that the frustration of her spirit may have been caused by the change in her plan for burial. Harriett was felled by her heirs. When the eighty-two-year old Douglas died in 1872, her family broke her will and gave her a thoroughly conventional burial at the family plot in a New York City churchyard. It was wondered what to do with the sarcophagus? Some practical soul had it hauled out of the cellar and installed outside, where it became a water trough for horses. Eventually the sarcophagus disintegrated. Some say years of freezing split the granite into pieces, while others report its destruction was due to a bolt of lightning. Harriett Douglas would have, no doubt, preferred the latter explanation. After her death, Aunt Harriet became a renowned poltergeist of the Mohawk Valley.

      Since Harriet had no children, the estate was passed down to Harriett’s niece, Fannie Robinson, born on April 14, 1824 to Elizabeth Mary Douglas and James Monroe, nephew of President James Monroe. Douglas Robinson, Fannie’s second cousin, was born on March 24 1824 in Lancashire, Scotland to William Rose and Mary (Douglas) Robinson. Fannie’s mother Elizabeth (Betsy) and Douglas’ mother Mary were first cousins.

      Douglas Robinson, educated in Edinburgh University, moved to New York City in 1841 to seek fortunes. Douglas and Fannie fell in love, but due to his lack of riches was considered an unsuitable match for her, so she was sent away to Scotland to visit relatives. Possessing the true female spirit, Fannie returned in 1850 and married Douglas.

      According to Miss Douglas, the biography of Harriet Douglas, the couple wed at Fanwood, the house the Monroes built at Fort Washington, then a secluded suburb to the north of New York City.

      After being wed the couple temporarily lived at 55 Broadway that was lent to them by Aunt Harriett, and then later moved to New Jersey. Also noted in the book were visits to Aunt Harriett at her big house on Fourteenth Street in New York City with their two children, Douglas (born January 3, 1855) and little Harriett. The children would enjoy play dates with Theodore Roosevelt, who was their same age, and his sister Corinne, who would eventually marry the young Douglas Robinson.

      March 1, 1873, The Metropolitan Museum of Art signed a lease for the Douglas Mansion, located at 128 West 14th Street in Manhattan. The rapidly expanding museum had outgrown its original location in the Dodworth Building in midtown and was in need of additional gallery space.
      The Museum's second home on West 14th Street was to be its base for the next six years, until 1879, while a permanent structure at the Museum's current location in Central Park was under construction.
      The Douglas Mansion, also known as the Cruger House and the Douglas-Cruger Mansion, was built in the early 1850s by Harriet Douglas Cruger, the daughter of a wealthy New York merchant.
      When she died in 1872, her nephew, William P. Douglas, decided to rent the property. At this time, the Museum's space constraints were preventing Museum Trustees from exhibiting artworks loaned from prominent New York collectors. In addition, the recently acquired collection of Cypriot objects from the American consul in Cyprus, Luigi Palma di Cesnola, could not be housed in the Dodworth Building, which made the move even more imperative. The Trustees jumped at the chance to move into the vacant mansion, signing a five-year lease for an annual rent of $8,000, which they later renewed for an additional year.
      Museum Trustees hosted a closing reception at the Douglas Mansion on February 14, 1879, and the Metropolitan's art collection was moved to its nearly finished building in Central Park soon after. The Douglas Mansion later housed a training school for the Salvation Army and was destroyed by fire in 1918.
      The Salvation Army’s Divisional Headquarters is now on that site.

      The Roosevelt family at one time owned the Castle and had a private cemetery in a back wooded area, where members of the Roosevelt family are buried.

      Although there is a popular family legend that said Harriett built an exact replica of the family home in Scotland, this is far from true. It had been over 20 years from the time she visited the sprawling castle in Scotland to the time she built Cruger Mansion. Her biographer said she had visited the castle as a girl and she had dreamed then of building, on the family estate in the Mohawk Valley, a house that would resemble Gelston. But the author and descendent states that the plans were no slavish copies of the Scotland castle - Gelston was on far too large a scale. Harriett's resolve to build a castle had been cherished secretly and tenaciously; it had been known only to her mother, who inserted in her will a clause giving Harriett the right ...to purchase from her estate, after her death the 14 farms on the Henderson Patent for $14,000.

      Robinson Cemetery

      The story of Robinson Cemetery begins with Fannie and Douglas who was the first two buried on the family estate in Herkimer. Fannie died on August 22, 1906 at her summer home, now known as Henderson House, which was the original 1787 cottage built by Margaret Douglas. Douglas Robinson died on November 30, 1893.

      Also buried in the cemetery are their son Douglas Robinson and his wife Corinne, who were next to inherit Henderson House and Gelston Castle.

      Douglas Robinson and Corinne Roosevelt

      It can be considered romantic that Douglas and Corinne would meet as young playmates, then later after married would make their summer home at the estate that their Aunt Harriett cherished so dearly. Corinne was born to Theodore Sr. and Martha Bulloch Roosevelt on September 27, 1861. She was the sister of President Theodore Roosevelt, Jr., and the youngest of four children. In her younger years, Corinne traveled extensively with her family throughout Europe and the Middle East, and had several volumes of poetry published. Amongst the names in attendance at her societal debut in 1880 were Astor and Vanderbilt.

      Her brother Theodore gave Corinne away in marriage to Douglas Robinson two years later in April 1882. Being a community-oriented couple, Douglas and Corinne were amongst the major donors to have the Jordanville Library built. President Theodore Roosevelt did the dedication in 1908.

      Theodore Douglas Robinson and Helen Roosevelt

      The eldest son of Douglas and Corinne, Theodore, was born on April 28, 1883. Helen Roosevelt, a step-niece of Franklin D. Roosevelt, was born on September 26, 1881 to James and Helen Astor Roosevelt. The youngest Theodore in the family kept up the family tradition of keeping the Roosevelt name in the family when he married Helen and they continued to live at Henderson House. Under President Coolidge, he was the Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He also devoted 14 years to service Herkimer County, first as State Assemblyman then as State Senator.

      Theodore and Helen had four children, amongst whom was a daughter named Martha Douglas Robinson that was born February 4, 1912, and was buried at Robinson Cemetery a month later when she died sadly on March 5.

      The heirs to the family estate who lived in the mansion end with Theodore who died on April 10, 1934 and Helen who died July 8, 1962; both of whom are also buried in Robinson Cemetery.

      Property Owners since 1962…

      The property was sold to Mrs. Jan Blair in 1962, who restored it to its beauty after years of neglect. She ran an occupational therapy home caring for elderly nursing patients and was regarded for the exceptional care she gave.

      In 1974, Mrs. Blair sold the property to the Asian Conservation Laboratory who used it as an institute dedicated to the protection of Asian and Western art; then turned around in 1975 and sold it to Mrs. Francis Kudla who also operated a retirement home facility.

      Mrs. Kudla sold the property in 1979 to Mstislav Rostropovich, the Russian cellist and later musical director and conductor of the National Symphony Orchestra (United States). He and his wife, the soprano Galina Vishnevskaya, constructed a million dollar 8,300 sq. ft contemporary residence on the sprawling estate grounds in 1983.

      The castle, largely unoccupied for most the second half of the 20th Century, fell into a state of complete disrepair with almost all of the structure now collapsed. After Rostropovich left the United States for Russia in the late 1990s, the whole estate was marketed for most of the 2000–2007 time frame as Gelston Manor. While the property amassed by Rostropovich was parceled off in 2006–2007 the castle has continued to be visited by Herkimer County Historical Society in recent years. That organization has held an annual Weekend at Gelston Castle.

      The Legend and Truth of Aunt Harriet’s ghost and the Gelston Castle

      It has been over 30 years since I have been to the castle. But the memories (and nightmares) that I hold will be with me forever.

      My aunt and uncle and their daughter, lived in a little house just across the yard from the castle. I was told that it was called the grounds keeper’s house. I remember that it was a nice little house. You would walk into the front door and the house was longer than it was wide. You would have to go down some steps inside the house to get from some rooms to others.

      And my aunt’s family lived at the house down by the main road that you came to first when you got there. It was called the Gate house.

      I really enjoyed the time that we spent at the castle. I grew up in Utica about 45 minutes west of Jordanville. Not quite the big city but definitely a bigger city than Jordanville.

      During the summer we would take weekend trips out to the castle. I really enjoyed the trip. I remember going along a gorge and my mom telling us about dead man’s curve. And who could forget all the beautiful Orthodox churches that we would see on the way.

      The area around the castle was known for the Russian immigrants that lived there. I remember on more than one occasion seeing a monk walking down the side of the road with his robe on and hood up. It looked like the Grim reaper to a nine year old. Then again as I think back now it still does. Every now and then my family would stop at a yard sale on the way home to buy something homemade from the Russians. I remember one day we got all the way home only to find out that my six year old brother stole a live chicken from the house we stopped at. But that story about the chicken in the city will have to wait till another book.

      My Memories of the castle itself

      We did not get to go into the castle much as kids. Our parents were not big into letting us go inside there. But when we did get a chance to in I vividly remember the red room with the walls that were like velvet. And I remember the piano, and if you looked closely you could see one of the keys had something that looked like a bloodstain on it.

      The castle always felt cold. I would guess being made out of stone would do that.

      When we were there the property was still owned by the college.

      Well I will try to tell you all about my family’s experiences at the Gelston Castle.

      First of all before we get started let me tell you that when we first started going to visit at the castle none of the adults ever told us about the ghost of Aunt Harriet. I guess they did not want to scare us. But before long we started to figure things out on our own.

      The first time that I can remember, was a time that I was in the big white building with my stepfather and Uncle Jim. He had an old International Scout that he was working on. My brother and I were down there just hanging out with him and my stepfather. My sister Karen was off someplace with my cousin Tina. My mom and my aunt Sherri where in the house. All of a sudden we all heard my aunt yell for my uncle Jim. Well he was in the middle of working on his truck so all he did was to start to yell back, WHAT DO YOU WANT? Well he did not get an answer so he just went back to working on the truck. About 10-15 minutes later we hear it again JIM! My uncle asked me to go to the house and find out what she wanted.

      So I headed up to the house. On my way there I see my sister and cousin in the front yard. I go into the house and head for the kitchen where my mother and aunt are drinking coffee and talking about whatever it is that mothers and aunts talk about. I walk into the kitchen and say to my aunt, Uncle Jim wants to know what you want. She looked at me and said, What are you talking about? So I told her that Uncle Jim sent me up to the house to find out what she wanted when she was yelling for him. She then told me that my Uncle Jim must be losing his mind because she didn’t yell for him. I asked her if she was sure because we all heard it. And she again told me that she was not the one who called him. Then I said that maybe it was my sister or cousin. But my mother told me that it was not them either because they just went outside a few minutes before I came in. All I could say is, OK and head back to tell my uncle that we must be losing our minds. On the way back to them I remember thinking that maybe it was something in the water that was making us stupid or something.

      When I told my uncle that nobody at the house called him all he did was look at my stepfather and give him a real strange look. At the time I didn’t know what that look meant, but now I can honestly say that I do.

      After the episode with the yelling it seemed that things started to get pretty strange around the house. Our parents would stop talking as soon as one of us kids walked into the room. And suddenly it felt like we were being watched whenever we went outside to play.

      A few weekends went by and nothing really out of the ordinary happened. At least not that I was personally aware of. Then one weekend it seemed as though all hell broke loose at the castle.

      The weekend started off pretty good. Me and my brother would go down to the old animal barn and check out all the animal bones. While my sister and my cousin hung out closer to the house. Sometimes we would head down and go inside the old Henderson house. It was painted yellow back then; our parents told us that the servants lived there back in the day.

      It was in shambles. There was old furniture and stuff like that all over the place. I always felt an uneasy feeling whenever I went into there. And no matter what the temperature was outside it was always cold in that old house.

      The Ghost in Henderson House

      One day when my brother and I were in the Henderson house just snooping around we both heard something move in another room down the hall. We thought that the girls must have either followed us down here or they don’t know we are here and they are just snooping too. We decided that this would be a great chance for us to scare them. We heard something fall in one of the other rooms. My brother and I started to sneak down the hall in our quest to scare the crap out of the girls. On the way down I remember telling my brother that it may be a raccoon. Which would of even been better than the girls. Every kid would love a pet raccoon.

      Well we get outside the room where the noise came from. We count to 3 and both rush through the door way yelling in hopes of scaring the girls on the other side. But to our amazement the room is empty. And when I say empty I mean empty. There was not even anything in the room that could have fallen over to make the noises that we both heard.

      Well we chalked it up to stupidity; maybe we didn’t actually hear anything. I am really starting to wonder about that water now. Anyways, we stayed in the Henderson house for about 30 more minutes and decided that we had enough if this and it was time to head back to find the girls.

      As we were leaving I remember that we were walking to the road in front of the Henderson house and there was a window just to the right of the door that we just came out of. I knew that I saw someone looking out the window at us.

      I told my brother that the girls must be in the Henderson house because I just saw one of them looking out at us. So we went back in to find them.

      When we opened the door I caught a movement out of the corner of my eye of what looked like a person walking into the room that we heard the noises in earlier. So we go in looking for the girls again. And again the room is empty. We didn’t think too much of it and searched the rest of the house for the girls but they were no place to be found in there. So we headed back towards our cousin’s house.

      Every now and then I sit and wonder what I might have seen that day inside the Henderson house. But I will say that I doubt that it was Aunt Harriet though. She was only seen by us inside the castle.

      The rest of the day we played in the yard with the girls with some lawn darts (Jarts) our parents bought us. Life was so much safer back then…. I remember that before the end of that summer I managed to get a lawn dart stuck in my shin and another stuck up in the tree in front of my cousin’s house. I got the one out of my shin but I always wondered if that lawn dart isn’t still stuck up in that tree.

      The haunting of Gelston Castle

      My cousin had this dog; her name was Choo-Choo. She was 12 German shepherd and half who knows what. But she was the sweetest dog you have ever seen. Choo-Choo would hang out with us kids all day, except when we went and played around the castle, which we did on a regular basis. My sister and her boyfriend would play Romeo and Juliet on the little balconies outside the windows. But I will save those stories for my comedy book. It wasn’t really strange at all that the dog never wanted to go near the castle. Even when we were walking down the road she would run past the castle at a full sprint and once she was clear of it she would stop and wait for us.

      Well, I remember one weekend it was a Sunday because we were getting ready to go home. My uncle came inside and asked if any of us kids have seen Choo-Choo. None of us have seen her in a while and to us that did not seem to strange. But for some reason our parents starting to give each other that look again and we all had to go out looking for the dog. Now Choo-Choo was real good about coming to my uncle if he called her. He was yelling to the top of his lungs and Choo-Choo was nowhere to be found. Then we heard my aunt yelling for my uncle. She was standing in front of the castle; we all went to see what happened. When we got there my uncle was up on the porch looking into the castle through the front door window. My stepfather went up to see what he was looking at. And right there on the other side of the door was Choo-Choo just sitting there about 10 feet from the front door.

      Now the mystery to us kids was’ how did Choo-Choo get inside the castle? because deep down we wanted to know too. The inside of the castle has always been off limits to us kids unless an adult was with us. And those times where few and far between.

      The only way into the castle was to go through the front door, but that was still padlocked and my uncle was the only one that had a key. The only other way in was to climb a fire escape and then a ladder and go in through a small window on the roof. Well obviously that was not how the dog got inside. So all the adults went around the castle looking for any open window or doorway that the dog used to get inside the castle. Nobody found any opening that the dog could have used to get inside.

      So, my uncle gets the key to the lock and unlocks the door to let Choo-Choo out. I remember standing on the porch and watching my uncle go inside the doorway and call Choo-Choo. But she just sat there not moving. She would normally come running when my uncle called her, but not today. She just sat in that same position; she would look at my uncle then turn her head real fast and look into the other room as though someone was standing there just outside of our view. My uncle walked up and started to pet her. She was shaking all over and she started to whimper a little, then I heard my uncle softly say, Oh my God, what happened to you? He grabbed her collar and guides her to the front door and once she was clear of the threshold she ran as fast as she could into our cousin’s house. My uncle told all of us kids to go to the house and stay there with the dog. And all of the adults stayed back at the castle. I remember going into my cousin’s house and finding Choo-Choo balled up on the living room couch and still shaking. I went over and started to pet her and tell her that she was ok. But she wasn’t, she had welts all across her back like someone had whipped her with a wire or some kind of thin stick.

      She was not bleeding but you could really feel the welts swelling on her back. And we knew that she was in pain.

      It wasn’t until I was about 17 or 18 that I asked my mom about what they did back at the castle that night. She simply said, We went inside to look for Aunt Harriet. Unfortunately this was not the last that we would have a run in with Aunt Harriet, and unfortunately it wasn’t the last run in for Choo-Choo either.

      Up to this point our parents still have not told us that the Castle is supposed to be haunted. But even for a bunch of kids we were figuring things out slowly but surely.

      Every now and then we would catch part of a conversation that we were not meant to hear that mentioned the name Aunt Harriet. At first we thought that this must be one of our relatives we just have not had the pleasure of meeting yet.

      I would say that it was probably a couple of weeks that went by that nothing really noticeable happened at the castle or the Henderson House.

      We did have these strange feelings still, like someone was watching us when we played outside of the castle.

      On a couple of different occasions we had went down to the Henderson house just to have something to do. And we could have sworn that we had heard soft muffled voices of ladies talking in the distance. And the noises like stuff falling were becoming a very common occurrence.

      But up until that point no one was actually having any direct interaction with any ghosts or demons from the beyond. But that would soon change, real soon.

      I remember this particular weekend because it was the last weekend we have ever been to the castle.

      You have heard the old saying; three strikes and you’re out. Well in the game of us vs. Aunt Harriet those three strikes all came in the same weekend.

      We were all playing on the front porch of the castle. (Even though our parents had forbid us to ever go back around the place). In our defense had they told us it was haunted we would of never been there.

      My sister and our cousin were in the middle of the drive way that runs in front of the castle. My brother was on the bottom step facing them. And I was on the top of the porch facing with my back to the front door.

      We were not doing anything any different than we have always done in the past. Just sitting around the castle talking and killing time. My sister and our cousin were talking about my sister’s boyfriend Matt. He was able to come up to the castle the weekend before and met my cousin.

      All of a sudden out of nowhere someone or something pushes me. I was shoved so hard that I missed the first couple of steps all together, and landed against the wrought iron fence that was next to the porch steps. My arm came down on the fence and it punctured through my arm. Not enough to get myself impaled there but just enough to bleed.

      At first everyone thought it was pretty funny but once they noticed that I was bleeding the laughing died down. We went into my cousin’s house to let our parents know what had just happened. When they found out that we had been playing on the porch of the castle the attitudes changed from caring about my cut to yelling at us for disobeying them.

      We all promised to stay away from the castle and after a couple of hours inside watching TV we decided to go back out to play.

      Now the age difference between all of us kids was not a lot but just enough so that it was hard for all of us to find something in common to play. My cousin was 8, my sister was 11, my brother was 6 and I was 9. Lawn darts was about the best thing that we all could do together and have some fun.

      So we set up the little rings on the ground about 15 feet apart. At this time we are not playing at the castle but we are obviously close enough to see it.

      To better understand the set up here I will add a picture to reference from.

      So in the picture here we are playing outside of the side of the castle. My brother and I are on the end with our backs to the castle and the girls are facing us and the castle.

      We are playing for about 20-30 minutes when my sister starts screaming and looking at the castle. My cousin sees what she sees and takes off running for the house. I turn just in time to see it too.

      Enjoying the preview?
      Page 1 of 1