Walsingham haunted house in Georgia

I ran across this story for the first time when I read Bernhardt J. Hurwood's Ghosts, Ghouls, and other Horrors. It's alleged to have happened somewhere in Georgia, though the area is never specified.

I just found it again, in a book called True Ghost Stories, by Hereward Carrington. This book was published in 1915, and contains at least one other story republished by Hurwood.  Carrington claimed that the story was originally published in The San Francisco Examiner. Edited to add: Carrington was telling the truth; the story was printed in the Examiner, on November 29, 1891. Since you need a subscription to view the story, I wasn't able to read it in full, but I saw enough to know that this is the same story.

According to the story, a family named Walsingham moved into a house that was horribly haunted. The usual supernatural occurrences were noted, such as footsteps, the doorbell ringing when nobody was at the door, and items knocked over. With time, the family found it impossible to sleep, as the visitants made too much noise. Screams, shouts, and groans were heard around the house, sometimes even from under the house.

The family dog, a mastiff named Don Caesar, hated whatever was happening in the house, and often growled and barked at something invisible to the family. One day, he tried to attack something in the hall, and fell back - dead. His neck had been broken. Weirdly, the family cat appeared to enjoy the entities, and often appeared to be enjoyed pets from unseen hands.

One evening, as the daughter of the house sat at her vanity table, she felt someone place a hand on her shoulder. She looked in the mirror and saw the hand, but there was no body. Her screaming alerted the family, but nothing (including the hand) was to be seen when they entered the room. Her father, on another occasion, watched as the prints of bare feet formed in the dirt alongside him as he walked through the garden.

One night, several guests who had been invited to dinner got much more than they had anticipated. As they sat at the table, a groan was heard from the room above. By that point, the vocalizations were so common that nobody thought much of it. Soon, though, a red liquid began to drip from the ceiling and soak into the tablecloth. It resembled blood so much that Mr. Walsingham and some of the guests ran into the room above the dining room and pulled up the carpet.

They found nothing but dust. Meanwhile, the liquid continued to drip from the ceiling of the dining room. The following day, the tablecloth was analyzed, and the liquid was found to be blood. Human blood.

That was enough for the Walsinghams, who moved out. Nobody dared move into the house after that, given its reputation. Ghost hunters galore went to the place, but not many had the nerve to stay there overnight.

One such man was a fellow by the name of Horace Gunn, who bet that he would be able to spent twenty-four hours alone in the house. Carrington's book speaks of Gunn in the present tense; for example, the book states that "he declares that there is not enough money in the country to make him pass another night there. He was found the morning after by his friends with whom he made the wager, in a swoon. He has never recovered from the shock of his horrible experience, and is still confined to his bed suffering from nervous prostration."

Gunn attempted to light a fire in the fireplace when darkness fell, but each match he struck went out; he claimed that the matches were blown out by something invisible. Gunn, resigned to passing the rest of the night in darkness, was almost asleep when all hell broke loose. A loud shout, seeming to come from under the house, was heard. Footsteps ran upstairs and down, as if one person was chasing another. Finally, the noise stopped, and Gunn dared to hope that nothing more would happen.

He was wrong. He saw a light manifest on a wall, and the light gradually turned into a human head. Just a head, without a body. The head had long, shaggy white hair, and an injury in the temple that was bleeding profusely. The eyes looked directly at Gunn, who was frozen to the spot.

When the head disappeared, the spirits began to scream and howl, shaking the house and making an incredible racket. Gunn decided to forget all about the bet and leave as quickly as he could, but the entities had other ideas. When Gunn had almost reached the door, an icy hand seized his ankle and pulled him to the floor, when other hands (or the same?) gripped him by the throat and choked him unconscious. Gunn's friends found him the following morning, his throat bruised by the marks of thin fingers with long nails.

So. What is the real story here? Did the Examiner print a fictional story for Halloween, only to have it taken seriously? If there is any truth to the story, where is the house? Was the family really named Walsingham, or was the name changed to protect their privacy? Was this simply a 19th-century hoax, like the Amityville story almost a century later?

Musical Ghosts

Given the fact that so many musicians have died young, it's hardly surprising that some of them haven't been ready to let go of this earthly plane.

John Lennon has been spotted at the Dakota, where he lived the last years of his life (and where he was shot and fatally wounded on December 8, 1980). Fellow Beatle Paul McCartney has claimed that Lennon appeared while he was recording one of Lennon's unfinished works.

Elvis Presley is said to haunt Graceland, along with his mother. His face has occasionally been seen in an upstairs window. A little girl who wandered away from her parents during a tour was later found in the adjoining cemetery. She claimed that a man in a white suit had taken her around the house and then out into the cemetery, to Elvis' grave.

Buddy Holly went to his doom in a private plane, along with fellow musicians Ritchie Valens and The Big Bopper. A ghost plane has been spotted above a field in Clear Lake, Iowa - the same field in which the plane crashed. Strange lights have also been witnessed in that field.

Jim Morrison is said to haunt Sunset Sound studios in Hollywood. Recording artists have reported strange occurrences, including lights going on and off, and instruments suddenly going out of tune.

Hank Williams has been seen backstage at Nashville's Ryman Auditorium, which once housed the Grand Ole Opry. This was a place where, in life, he performed frequently.

The Supernatural in Paris

During WWII, a French woman played a dangerous game. Her husband was in the Resistance, and the woman took a Nazi lover so that she could pass on information to her husband. One night, the woman came to the Pont Marie in Paris, where she had arranged to meet her husband. The man never showed up, and his wife froze to death. Her ghost is supposed to haunt the bridge to this day, eternally waiting for her husband to arrive.

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Pere Lachaise Cemetery has enough bodies in it to account for a plethora of ghosts. Among the specters seen there are author Marcel Proust (said to search for his lover every night) and rock star Jim Morrison.

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Parc Montsouris is one for the stout of heart. It is said that when the guillotine was first coming into common use, the current park area was used to test the new device. Now, the park may be haunted by the headless ghosts of the first victims of Madame La Guillotine. These gory apparitions are joined by Isaure De Montsouris, the man for whom the park is named. Evidently, he was murdered by bandits, and remains at the site of his untimely death.

Haunted Accidents

Haunted attractions - houses, asylums, hospitals, hayrides, and the like - are wildly popular in the United States (and in a few locations abroad). In October, guests flock to these places, eager to be scared out of their wits.

Some of them are scared even more than that. Haunted attractions are growing increasingly extreme, and actors often come into physical contact with the guests.

Blackout Haunted House is located in New York City. Its rules alone are frightening - guests must go through the "show" entirely alone; they must do exactly as they are told; they are not to speak unless told to do so. The website also warns that guests will encounter "sexual and violent situations".

Scare House is in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Its website makes it clear that this attraction is not for those who are pregnant or have cardiac or respiratory problems. The video on the home page is pretty intense.

The Tension Experience in Los Angeles takes two and a half hours. All guests experience the attraction differently, as the story depends on the choices they make. The storyline deals with indoctrination into a cult - a frightening enough experience in real life.

Miasma, in Chicago, is an invitation-only experience. You register on the website to receive your invitation. The website has a list of physical conditions that render potential visitors incapable of attending the experience, and a much longer list of things that may happen inside Miasma. These include graphic adult content, crawling, nudity, electricity, edible content, and "clothing removal and/or destruction".

As the saying goes, those who like this sort of thing will find that this is the sort of thing they like.

I'm baaaaack!

After a long hiatus - too long - I've returned for more ghostly hijinks.

I thought it appropriate, since it's Halloween.

Here are some stories to get you going. More to come!

The Unlucky Wives of Henry VIII

A man as determined as Henry to have just the right wife to bear one living son after another was bound to be bad news for the women around him, and he was.

The similarities are eerie. He divorced his first and fourth wives. He had his second and fifth wives beheaded. And his third and sixth wives died of puerperal fever, a streptococcal infection that often set in after childbirth. (Granted, his sixth wife outlived him, so she was married to another man at the time of her death, but she did have that connection with Henry.)

Of his wives, only one (Anne of Cleves) rests in peace. The others have been seen many times over the centuries.

Catherine of Aragon, rejected after many years of marriage for her younger and apparently more fertile lady in waiting, Anne Boleyn, was banished to Kimbolton Castle until her death. It is there that her ghost walks, in the chamber where she spent much of her time in life. Creepily, Catherine's death occurred just a few months before her successor's.

The ambitious, sharp-tongued Anne Boleyn was no more successful than Catherine at producing even one living male heir, let alone several of them. Beheaded on the grounds of treason and adultery (including a charge that she had had an affair with her own brother), she is perhaps the most famous ghost connected with Henry. She has been seen at the Tower of London, where she was executed and buried; at Blickling Hall, her father's residence; and at Windsor Castle, among other places. She is usually seen headless, sometimes holding her head under one arm. She is said to arrive at Blickling Hall on the anniversary of her death, in a coach drawn by headless horses and driven by a headless coachman. Her own head rests on her lap. 

Jane Seymour, who gave the King his much-awaited son, comes back to Hampton Court Palace on October 12, the date of the boy's birth. Dressed in white, she often carries a candle.

Silly, flighty, and fatally foolish Catherine Howard has been seen running frantically through the "haunted" gallery at Hampton Court. Legend has it that she slipped away from her guards and ran to beg Henry's forgiveness for her adultery (which, in her case, was true). The guards caught up to her at the doors and dragged her away. Evidently, she is never seen headless, unlike her first cousin, Anne Boleyn.

Catherine Parr has been seen at Sudely Castle, where she died. She wears a green dress.

Henry VIII is said to haunt Windsor Castle and Hampton Court. In 2003, a security camera aimed at one of the doors caught the image of a richly-dressed figure opening the doors, hesitating, then closing them again. Could this have been the ghost of Henry, able somehow to move solid objects?

A headless ghost in York

Powerful Catholic nobleman Thomas Percy was determined to overthrow the Protestant Queen Elizabeth I. He failed miserably, having to leave England and take refuge in Scotland.

Percy was betrayed and returned to England not as a victor, but as a traitor. On August 22, 1572, he was beheaded. As was fairly common practice in those days, his head was then speared on a spike on Micklegate Bar. Eventually, someone removed the rotting (or already rotted) head and buried in the churchyard of Holy Trinity Goodramgate.

Percy, however, still seeks his head, and often rises from the grave at night and fumbles among the tombstones in an attempt to find it.