Sandy Flash & Square Tavern

Square Tavern (photo by Mary Ann Fiebert of the Delco Times)

James Fitzpatrick was a highwayman who specialized in robbing victims traveling the West Chester Pike in the mid-to-late 1700s. He was popularly known by the name Sandy Flash, and although a royal pain in the behind to law officials, who he often contemptuously taunted, Fitzgerald was a bit of a folk hero, cast in the Robin Hood mold.

The gallant was reputed to have given gifts to the poor and was never known to steal from the needy or mistreat a woman; there were enough rich dudes running around to keep him rolling in pounds sterling. If business was slow, he'd ride into town and find a likely target to refill his larder.

In 1778, Flash went to the Square Tavern in Newtown Square and relieved its patrons of their cash. That led to his downfall, as he was finally captured after that last bit of larceny and sentenced to hang; his death warrant was said to have been signed by none other than Ben Franklin.

After repeated unsuccessful escape attempts, he was hung, more or less...actually, his legend goes that the rope was too long and his toes touched the ground, so the hangman jumped on his shoulders (kinda lazy, if you ask us) and in effect strangled the outlaw to death.

The Square Tavern is famous on its own merits. Built in 1742, it also is known as the Square Inn and the James West House, noted as the childhood home of American artist Benjamin West. It weathered some rough times, but after being restored in 1981 and again in 2008, the building on Newtown Square and Goshen Roads is a museum and home to the Delaware County Tourist Bureau.

Sandy Flash and the Square Tavern seem fated to remain forever linked. Visitors to the historic building have reported seeing mysterious lights - orbs, if you prefer - flashing through the windows. Local lore has it the lights are the spirit of Sandy Flash returning to the scene of his last crime.

Why would Flash gently haunt the Tavern? No one is really sure, but Widener University's folklorist Joseph Edgette, who related this tale to the Philadelphia Inquirer's Dan Hardy, said "...it's fascinating to know that Fitzpatrick's story is still alive today because of stories of the haunting."

And what better reason to haunt a house than to keep your name on people's lips through the centuries?

Cursed Bed of the Monongahela House

Abe Lincoln slept here (photo by Steve Mellon of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette)

This tale isn't too spooky; no ghosts and a curse that last worked in 1901. But it is a fairly well-known bit of Pittsburgh lore and rich in 19th century Steel City history that's still preserved today.

The Monongahela House in downtown Pittsburgh was once the Ritz of Three Rivers hotels. Built in 1840 at the corner of Smithfield and Front streets (Front later became Water Street and then Fort Pitt Boulevard), the five-story hostelry featured 210 rooms and was considered among the first of the grand hotels west of NYC. Pittsburgh's Great Fire of 1845 reduced the hotel to ashes, but by 1847, it was rebuilt at the same spot, bigger and better with nearly 300 grand rooms.

The hotel's diverse guest list of the famous included Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, Stephen Foster, PT Barnum, Henry Ward Beecher, Robert Ingersoll, Lilly Langtry, Buffalo Bill, Tom Thumb and Chang the Chinese giant. Politicos that slept there were Prince Edward (who became Edward VII) of Great Britain, James Blaine, Teddy Roosevelt, Ulysses Grant and Grover Cleveland.

Abraham Lincoln, who stopped overnight in 1861 on his way to his first inauguration, was a guest, and after his visit (the only time he came to Pittsburgh), the room was considered a special lodging where only the creme de la creme could stay. James Garfield and William McKinley met that criteria. They shared two fates with Ol' Abe: they slept in the same walnut bed at the hotel and later were assassinated. And that in a nutshell is the legend of the cursed bed.

(As a side note, Robert Todd Lincoln, Abe's son, may be even more intimately associated with the assassinations. He was supposed to be at Ford Theater when his father was shot, but returned to Washington late from duty as an aide to US Grant and instead turned in. Both Garfield and McKinley were said to have contacted him about dreams of future doom, having Lincoln-like premonitions of death, and he was present for both assassinations, arriving too late to speak to the presidents about their foreboding omens.) 

The bed those souls slept in went to a small county museum in South Park after the Monongahela House closed in 1935, ignominiously razed for a bus depot. That museum closed during World War II, and the bed was stored away in a county work shed until a carpenter discovered it in the early 2000s. Covered in decades of...well, you can imagine the detritus, it was positively ID'ed from old photos.

The County voted to send the bed to an appropriate space, the Soldiers & Sailors Memorial Hall & Museum in Oakland, and from there it went to the Heinz History Center in the Strip District. There, it was featured as part of a major exhibit during President Lincoln's 200th birthday in 2009, and is now included with the Special Collections display on the center's fourth floor.

So it's still there for the viewing over 150 years after Honest Abe laid his head to rest on its downy pillows. Oh, and a word to the wise...don't take a nap on it. Just sayin'...

Chestnut Hill College

Chestnut Hill College entrance: Image by Kiran from Wikipedia Commons

Philly's Chestnut Hill College is located on the northwestern edge of town on 75 acres overlooking the Wissahickon Creek. The College opened in 1924 as a Catholic school for women, then became Mount Saint Joseph College. The College was renamed in 1938 as Chestnut Hill College.

And that's given the school plenty of time to pick up an unexplained spirit or three to help expand the students' worldview...

Fontbonne Hall: The ghost of a girl who is thought to have died during the 1793 flu epidemic haunts the third floor, along with a male spirit. She isn't just seen in the hall, but it's claimed that she even appears in roomies' dreams simultaneously. There are also tales of poltergeist type shenanigans involving doord, windows and electronics. The hall has catacombs and tunnels underneath it that lead to the mother house and are allegedly haunted by a crying woman.

Fournier Hall: The "Red Eye Room" is located on the second floor, so named because at night, it's said that two red eyes appear floating throughout the room. One suite across the hall features paranormal phenomena like slamming doors, window shades that fly up and radios that turn on and off. The third floor is reported to be haunted by the ghost of a young boy, dressed in 1920's clothing.

Logue Library: Books move on their own, as do their carts. The library was allegedly built on top of a cemetery, which according to lore had to be relocated twice. If you're in the building after 11, it's said that you may share the stacks with some disgruntled spirits who were disturbed during the construction.

Lower Parking Lot: Located by the sports field, it's said to be haunted by the spirit of a girl that was raped and murdered at the site, near a marker erected in her memory.

St. Josephs Hall: On the fifth floor, you can sometimes spot the spook of a young sister in a long robe floating by, taking her suicide leap from the Bishop's Steps as she did many years ago when she found out she was bearing a priest's child. There are a set of locked doors with a crucifix above them that some say was where the sister put her newborn before her jump. The lore is that if you knock three times on the doors, you'll get three raps back in return. The basement is also haunted, and the fifth floor is supposed to be the realm of a departed art teacher.

And we're only tapping the surface. Other sightings have included visions of a young lady, a kindly old man in robes, little girls playing, and a boy with a hair of fire and emerald eyes. The mausoleum, the Chapel basement and the old gym in the basement of Fournier Hall are all supposed to have tales to tell, too.

And every year, CHC Student Activities hosts a lecture on ghosts and the paranormal, followed by a ghost hunt around the campus led by paranormal investigators.

The Screaming Tunnel

Screaming Tunnel image by Cathy Simpson, on file at the 

Niagara Falls Public Library

Slowly I turned...inch by inch...ooops sorry, not that Niagara Falls story. This one is much more gruesome, befitting a Halloween week. All it needs is a bit of sulphur...

The Screaming Tunnel is a small limestone channel running underneath what once was known as the Grand Trunk Railway line (now part of the Canadian National Railways), located outside of Niagara Falls, Ontario, just off Warner Road. The rough-cut tunnel, constructed in the early 1900s, is 16' high and 125' feet long.

Often thought of as a railway tunnel, in reality it serves as a culvert to divert water blocked by the raised RR tracks away from the fields. The water would follow the stone passage under the rail bed, and when dry, the channel was used by farmers to move goods and animals safely under the active railroad line.

The story goes that the tunnel is haunted by the ghost of a young girl. She escaped from her burning farm house (or barn), located at the south end of the tunnel, with her hair and dress on fire, and died within ithe tunnel walls after losing a race to douse herself in its water. (Look for a a small hill and a path that leads to where the girl’s home was; the structures are gone.)

Several offshoots of the legend exist locally. It's oral lore, and versions do mutate over the generations.

The most passed-along Plan B tale has the girl being set on fire by her unbalanced father, enraged after he lost custody of his children during a bitter divorce (a version, btw, supported by The Paranormal Seekers when they investigated). In this setting, he set the house ablaze and then ran down his fleeing daughter, catching her at the tunnel, where he splashed gas on her and incinerated the girl.

Another version claims that a young girl was raped inside the tunnel and her body burnt to destroy any evidence of the despicable deed. The most outre is a story of a girl who was kidnapped by a butcher and was held captive in his house near the tunnel. She escaped into the tunnel, where the butcher chased her down (wearing a pig's mask!) At any rate, he caught up to the girl and set her on fire.

But it always ends the same way, with a haunted tunnel. If you go into the middle of the passage and light a wooden match, it will be extinguished immediately by a puff of wind and then followed by the haunting screams of the victim. It is a good, spooky site. It's always cold (a condition shared by both spooked-out and normal tunnels), too desolate to see either end from the middle at night, and reportedly the site of give-away orbs flitting to and fro.

The tunnel was eerie enough to be used during the filming of David Cronenberg's 1983 film adaptation of Stephen King's The Dead Zone, a high compliment indeed.

As with most local legends, there isn't anything to collaborate the tale, like a juicy newspaper article. It has been said that the girl and her family are buried in the nearby Warner Cemetery, but without a name, it's hard to hang a hat on that tidbit. And we do have our mandatory nay-sayer.

Spoilsport Stephanie Lechniak of Haunted Hamilton has an alternate tale. At one time, there was a small cluster of homes on the other side of the tunnel, off the main road. One was occupied by a woman who was said to be a bit off mentally.

Whenever she would argue with her husband, she would walk to the middle of the tunnel and scream at the top of her lungs to vent (and maybe to get the last word in). Her cleansing act was what Stephanie believes to be the true origins of "The Screaming Tunnel."

Rolling Hills Asylum

Image by Sharon Coyle for Roadside America

Located between Buffalo and Rochester in East Bethany, Rolling Hills Asylum dates back to 1827 when it opened as the Genesee County Poor Farm, aka "The Old County Home." Its original building was a carriage house and stagecoach stop, operating since 1790, but the land was chosen because it was mid-county and accessible to all.

Its 200 acres (most are now a park) weren't exactly a nineteenth century government housing community. Rolling Hills' population was made up of paupers, debtors, the physically handicapped, unwed mothers, the aged, orphans, the chronically ill and the insane.

At any rate, the times weren't all that kind to folk on the dole for one reason or another. They worked the farm and did other chores, while the mentally ill were no doubt treated with the cures of that century, ice baths and electric shocks. It's thought that hundreds, if not thousands, may have died on the property, and many were buried in now unmarked graves (a memorial was later erected on the grounds)

In 1938, it became a sanitarium, and by the early 1950s, the facility was a nursing home that closed in 1972. After sitting empty for a couple of decades, the building was transformed into the Carriage Village mall. In 2003, it became the Rolling Hills Country Mall, a set of shops that dealt mainly in antiques that are now closed.

During its marketplace era, the shopkeepers and their visitors were spooked by some unexplained going-ons. The reports sure indicated that more than a pack of mall rats were haunting the place.

Doors and windows shut and opened by themselves. Many heard disembodied voices speaking (especially by the kitchen area). People have passed through cold spots, or worse, felt cold hands touching their necks. Hair and clothes are tugged at by unseen hands. Toys in the "Christmas Room" were moved and rearranged by themselves.

Knocks from the walls and footsteps were reported. The sounds of screams and sobs were heard coming from the building and fields, especially at night. It's said that a black mist can be found in the boiler room. Some claim to have seen people inside, staring out the windows when the building is empty. There are stories of shadows and a full-bodied male apparition who roams the hallways at night.

There are also outre tales of boys sold into apprenticeships or worse, Satanic cults, baby sacrifice and that sort of thing floating around that are associated with Rolling Hills. We kinda discount them. Heck, its band of bedraggled souls roaming the halls is plenty enough excuse for some psychic mayhem. And spooky lore suggests that those early psychiatric "cures" and unmarked graves usually result in ghostly blowback, too. It's just what you'd expect from orphaned, destitute and/or insane collection of spirits.

The building has been featured on shows such as the Sy-Fy Channel's "Ghost Hunters" and Travel Channel's "Ghost Adventures" while being probed by many paranormal groups.

Rolling Hills is now private property, owned by preservationist Sharon Coyle, but is open to the public on select dates and hosts some highly regarded evening and Halloween tours, so you have ample opportunity to check out one of New York's main spook centrals, if you care to dare (and call in advance).

Old Overholt Spirits

Image from Karens Barnches

 
"West Overton is the only pre-Civil War village still intact in the state. The exhibits explain the history of the family who first settled here and the thriving industrial complex it grew to be. Tours include the largest brick barn in Pennsylvania and the birthplace of Henry Clay Frick," per the state historic plaque that honors the distillery grounds, now home to a museum and some buildings amidst the historic district.

Around 1810, Abraham Overholt and his brother Christian began to distill whiskey at their family's farm in Westmoreland county. It started from a few barrels of hootch to a big business; the West Newton plant was expanded a couple of times to increase production, and was one of the first to go vertical, with its own supply of grain and lumber with grist and saw mills to make everything on site.

Abraham bought his brother out and went into business with two of his sons, Jacob and Henry.

In 1846, Abraham Overholt hired John W. Frick, a Swiss immigrant, to work in the grist mill located in the village. While working, he met Abraham’s daughter, Elizabeth, and they were married in 1847. On December 19th, 1849, their son, Henry Clay Frick, was born in the springhouse; maybe he picked up the his future business model from his thrifty and hard-driving grandpap. Frick eventually ended up owning the area coal fields, coke ovens, and the distillery, while his family set up the museum...but we digress.

In 1854, Jacob teamed up with his cousin Henry O. Overholt to open a new distillery in Broad Ford, near Connellsville. This, by the way, is where the famed rye whiskey known as Old Overholt was made (West Newton distilled "Old Farm"). It was said to be Abraham Lincoln's favorite whiskey, only taken, of course, in medicinal doses by Abe. (The Broad Ford distillery, abandoned for years, burned down in 2004.)

OK, if you all haven't headed to the nearest tavern for a quick snort, here come the ghost stories.

According to local lore, Jacob and his dad had an altercation over business and money while at West Newton; Abraham was said to be famously tight-fisted. During the fight, the father allegedly killed the son in the heat of the moment. Now we can't verify the legend; the best cause of death we've found in researching Jacob is that he succumbed to his "last illness." Don't we all? But the legend is a better tale, and we'll stick to that.

Anyway, following Jacob's 1859 death, Abraham inherited Jacob's 2/3 share of the Broad Ford distillery and added it to his operation. Soon afterward, workers reported seeing a figure who resembled Jacob watching over them, along with other unexplained phenomena. Two fires at the distillery, in 1884 and another in 1905, were claimed by some to be Jacob's revenge. Jacob Overholt is still said to been seen haunting the distillery.

But the star spook here is Clyde, the last Overholt to live in the ancestral house. He committed suicide by shotgun in his bedroom in 1919 after his older brother ended up with the Overholt estate following the death of their father. People have said over the years that they've heard noises in the attic and people running up and down the steps when they're the only ones in the house, along with other otherworldy mischief blamed on Clyde.

He's not entirely at fault for the spookiness, though. Tales claim that one Overholt hung himself on the property, and another died in a room now used as a storage area, with reports of his face peeking out of the room's window. There are also tales of a rude ghost that's found by the springhouse who reportedly asked an investigator "Why are you in my house?" There are also stories of floating objects and things disappearing from one place only to be found in another.

The ghosts and the legends are chronicled in the book "Weird West Overton" by Mary Ann Mogus and Ed & Brendan Keleman.

Looking for a day trip with a little history? Not only are their ghostly remnants of the old Overholt days, but the museum also features the rough-and-tumble steel making age of Henry Clay Frick. Frick? Hmmm, about that rude ghost by the springhouse...?

Charlie Schwab

 Charles Schwab from PA Libraries

Charlie Schwab was a lot of things in his lifetime. He was a business tycoon that ran Bethlehem Steel, philanthropist, the force who forged the city of Bethlehem out of four municipalities, theater lover, business wheeler and dealer, union buster, gambler, womanizer and ultimately a rich guy who died broke when the stock market crashed in 1929.

But it's his afterlife that interests us. He's known as "Schwaboo the Ghost" at Penn State and left behind a legacy of haunted houses. He's kind of an oddity in that he was was associated with several haunts during his lifetime, but has chosen not to spend eternity in them.

Maybe the everyday dead people they host are too low brow for a member of the gilded gentry to join with, but it's much more likely that he just didn't have much attachment to the rooms when he was alive. But he sure had a nose for places the otherworlders liked.

The most famous of the buildings is the Hotel Bethlehem. Schwab built it in 1920 so his business clients had a first class hangout when they came a'calling.  It was erected on the demolished bones of the Eagle Hotel, and that inn is the root of its spookery.

The Bethlehem is storied to be home to all sorts of paranormal phenomena, from poltergeist annoyances to mists and apparitions. Some spirits are seen regularly, and three are known by name. One is May Yohe, a stage actress who once lived at the Eagle. People have heard her singing and playing the piano while her specter has been reported in the exercise room on the third floor and in the lobby.

Another is Mrs. Brong, an Eagle innkeeper who was noted for going barefoot. Staff and guests have seen her ghost in the restaurant and kitchen, dressed in 1800's attire but sans shoes and stockings, giving her away. Finally, there's Daddy Thomas, an unofficial city welcome wagon type during his life, who resides in the boiler room.

Some as of yet unidentified spirits have been seen, too. They are a lady who is often spotted in the dining room/kitchen area, children playing throughout the hotel and another child on the mezzanine.

And if it's open, don't miss a chance to book Room 932, publicized by the Bethlehem as the "Room with a Boo." A man has been reported popping in on guests occasionally, and EVPs recorded the voice of a spirit named Mary. Paranormal phenomena is commonplace; we particularly like the wallpaper changing color.

Another of his haunted addresses was 114 W Fourth Street in Bethlehem. It was his in-laws' home, and Charlie and his wife Emma stayed there while waiting for their new house to be readied. Later, it was the the residence of Schwab protégé Eugene Gifford Grace, who became president and chairman of Bethlehem Steel.

It's the following act that's the likely source of the spooks, though - Cantelmi’s Funeral Home. No one spoke of spooks there; it was an occupational hazard, so why complain?

But the business that followed, Anna Mia's Restaurant (don't look for; it's been shuttered for over a decade) bore the brunt. The guests and staff heard unexplained music, footsteps, voices and found objects moving from place to place. As for spirits, well, that's up in the air. The owners were said to be fond of their friendly ghost, though others said there were no actual apparitions at the place.

A Moravian College student and her bud investigated rumors of Schwab's haunted barn on his former Bethlehem property after hearing old wives tales concerning its spookiness. They entered the gray, falling-apart shed, and the first thing they noticed was that no sound from the outside penetrated the barn, even though the doors were wide open - and they were as big as, well, barn doors.

Then they felt a cold spot. That was followed by raspy voices warning them to “Get Out” over and over, and they heeded the advice. Whether there's a rational explanation or not we'll never know; the rickety structure has since been demolished.

Ah, but there is one place that the specter of Charlie Schwab is thought to visit. That would be Schwab Auditorium at Penn State, built through a $155,000 donation by the stage-loving Scwab and his wife. It was the first PSU building financed by a private donor, and is still used by the Center for the Performing Arts for chamber music.

Now he wouldn't be the only ghost there; George Atherton, a college president buried outside the auditorium, is reported to be an ethereal visitor, along with a variety of mists and apparitions.

Schwaboo the Ghost's claim to fame: Performers have witnessed a seat in the auditorium go down as if someone were sitting on it, and then later rise, as if the invisible person got up and left. People believe that the unseen patron is Charlie, who loved theater. No report on he he feels now that it's a musical center.

So old Charlie may not be earthbound any longer, but he sure has left a trail of haunts behind him - his hotel, his temporary crib, the barn on his estate, and a college auditorium that we know of. Too bad he wasn't a medium back in the day. Charlie Schwab would have attracted the spirit world like a flower does bees.

Burlington County Prison Museum

The Burlington Prison Dungeon from the Burlington Prison Museum

Mount Holly Township is home to 9,500 souls, the county seat of Burlington County, New Jersey, and an eastern suburb of Philadelphia. It's also noted as one of the more actively haunted spots in the east, which makes sense as they trace their municipal roots back to 1688. If you want confirmation of that spooky factoid, just take a trip to 128 High Street and visit the Burlington County Prison Museum.

Built in 1811, following the design of the young and then unknown architect Robert Mills, the prison functioned from 1811 to 1965, making it the oldest continually operating lockup in America at the time of its closing. The smallish stone building (it held 100 prisoners in its heyday) not only looked foreboding, but also looked like a textbook haunted English manse. And its reputation has lived up to its looks.

Workman renovating the prison in 1999 for its conversion to the museum were the first to note some eerie going-ons. Their tools would disappear, to be found later behind prison doors that hadn't been opened in decades. They could hear footsteps where no one was at, and ghostly voices and moans added to the cacophony. Glimpses of shadow figures flashed by, caught just in the corner of their eyes. It got to the point where the work gang would leave the job site in a group; no one wanted to be left alone in the old jailhouse.

So whatcha gonna do? Well, what everybody does in those circumstances (at least in this blog) - they called in the paranormal investigators to get to the bottom of the situation. The ghost hunters poked and probed with their electronica, and came up with EVPs, orbs and mists, apparition sightings, temperature spikes and drops, and all sorts of anomalies. One set of investigators were followed by the scent of a burning cigarette that tailed them through the womens wing. The paranormal community confirmed what the workmen already knew - the prison was spook central.

Staff and visitors reported like phenomena (especially in the gallows and solitary confinement areas), and more - the senses of presence and depression, objects that move themselves, electronic malfunctions, moans and screams, but especially sightings. Shadow figures were reported from the first floor of the prison. There are tales of a spirit in the shower area who was kind enough to leave a footprint in the dust once. Others have claimed to see a legless ghost glide from the main gate toward the prison yard.

The basement is a hot spot; twice prison employees were killed near there by inmates during break-out tries. One cellar spook is thought to be that of murdered prison guard William Harry King, who has been reported roaming the lower level hallways of the prison.

But the star of the show is the otherwordly Joel Clough, who was sentenced to hang in 1833 for the brutal stabbing murder of a lover who had jilted him, convicted by a jury that didn't buy his insanity defense. He tried to escape - not much to lose, hey? - and for his efforts was tossed in the dungeon, a solitary cell with an iron ring in the middle that he was chained to while stark naked 24/7. Clough eventually had his neck stretched at a crossroads a few miles outside the jail in front of a large crowd, and was buried in the prison yard in an unmarked grave, the spot now marked by a tree.

Since his hanging, prisoners, guards, staff and regular folk have allegedly seen items in the room levitate, heard his moaning and rattling chains, and seen his apparition sitting in his cell. Security motion detectors keep going off there, even when the area is empty. Paranormal teams have all confirmed an active presence in and around the dungeon, so it looks like Joel Clough has claimed Burlington prison as his home for the afterlife.

The prison lore was featured in an episode of the SyFy Channel's "Ghost Hunters." It's included in Jeff Belanger's "Encyclopedia of Haunted Places." And if you want to catch it up close and personal, no prob. The museum (a National Historic Landmark) is open Thursdays-Sundays. If you're in the neighborhood during trick-or-treat season, they offer a "Haunt of the Prison" tour weekend evenings in October with a tricked-out Halloween prison yard.

See if you can tell the local actors from the local apparitions.

Back To Normal

Sorry, guys, the blog was hijacked earlier this week and it took ol' H&H a couple of days to root out the offending code. But we're back to normal, and we're sorry for the redirect.

The Deacon

The Depreciation Land Museum from Find A Grave

Photograph by David Briggs

In 1783, the Commonwealth set aside 720,000 acres of land in western Pennsylvania to compensate its Revolutionary War soldiers for their service. Since the dollar had depreciated drastically enough during the war to become virtually worthless, the land was offered in lieu of their pay. The area became known as The Depreciation Lands, and included all of the North Hills of Pittsburgh, along with parts of Butler, Beaver, Lawrence and Armstrong Counties. And a bit of it still exists today.

At the Depreciation Lands Museum, located on 4743 Pioneer Road off Route 8 in Hampton, you can visit the museum, housed in what was once the red brick Pine Creek Covenanter Church, built in 1837, along side its tree lined cemetery.

The grounds include a replicated one-room schoolhouse circa 1885, complete with a school bell, the Armstrong's log cabin that was built in 1803, a wagon house with a Conestoga and one horse sleigh parked inside, a working blacksmith's shop, outside baking hearths, a meeting hall and an old-timey herb garden. The staff even turns the museum into the "Talley Cavey Tavern" for grog and victual funders.

Oh, the Deacon is still there, too.

He was first noticed in 1973, when the deserted church was being fixed up after Hampton Township bought the property (It's operated by the Depreciation Lands Museum Association, a non-profit group). Workers said they saw a tall old man dressed in a long black coat, trousers and boots, the epitome of an eighteenth century preacher. He was seen often enough that they decided to give him a name, and the Deacon was christened.

Hard to tell if he's a jolly old soul, since he's never spoken. But unlike many spirits in renovated buildings, the Deacon seems pleased that folk are back in his church and polishing it up, even if it's for sightseeing, not soul saving. He's especially fond of the workers.

His first good deed was helping a volunteer who was replacing a window. She was having a tough time squaring up the frames, and was shaving the wood to get a snug fit. In the middle of her frustrating work, she saw the Deacon out of the corner of her eye, but he was gone in a flash when she turned toward him.  Going back to the job at hand, she caught a glimpse of him again, and again he faded from view.

Exasperated at her disappearing sidewalk foreman, the lady said "Don't just stand there. The least you can do is help me." And bingo, her knife sliced the frame perfectly and the window slid cozily in place.

A little later in the project, a youngster was on a ladder painting the frame around the stairwell. Other workers present said that his ladder slipped off the wall, then just stopped in mid-air and popped back up. Some of them believe the Deacon caught the ladder and saved the painter a nasty fall.

In fact, the Deacon may have been in the church before the Depreciation Museum staff. Karen Parsons, the volunteer coordinator, related to Deborah Deasy of the Pine Creek Journal that a visitor told her that his mom was churchgoer there, and fell off a ladder while cleaning. She landed gently on the floor, and he credited the Deacon with catching her and providing a soft and safe landing.

Sometimes he can be a little hard on the help, though. Parsons also told Deasy that an electrician left the museum in a huff when the light switch he turned on kept getting turned off - and no one was in the building but him (and the Deacon, we assume).

He's also a protector. The museum is only open on Sundays, but rents out the grounds to various tours and groups on other days. Once some Girl Scouts spent the night in sleeping bags in a utility room. Their adult mentors, in a different room, were awakened by an avalanche of noise. The original plaster ceiling had crashed through the newer dropped ceiling and its lowered light fixtures, showering the girl's room with debris. Not only weren't any of the scouts hurt, but many never even woke up during the collapse. Once again, it's thought the Deacon came to the rescue.

The Deacon has become quite the local celebrity. Beside Deasy's article, "Ghost Stories of Pittsburgh and Allegheny County" by Beth Trapani has a chapter on him. You can do one better by visiting the museum. Just bring a ladder and wobble - that should bring the Deacon running.

One If By Land, Two If By Sea

One If By Land, Two If By Sea from Restaurants In NYC

One if by Land, Two if by Sea is a restaurant located in the heart of New York City's West Village on Barrow Street. It's a romantic room, with rich wood decor, white linen tablecloths, ornately framed oil paintings of old dead people, a grand piano and ghosts...

Well, the ghosts may not be all that romantic, but they do add to the ambiance. Some of paranormal phenomena is just poltergeist pranking: picture frames tilting, devices turning themselves on and off, icy drafts (and we don't mean imported ales) by the bar, flying plates, chairs being pulled out from under people, flickering lights, footsteps heard coming from an empty attic, cold spots, staff members being shoved by unseen hands (sometimes down steps), orbs and that sort of ghostly tomfoolery.

Minor ethereal annoyances, to be sure. But the waitstaff has caught glimpses of shadows out of the corner of their eye, and waiters have even gone to serve customers who turned out to be hungry specters instead of warm bodies. It's enough that some workers have handed in their resignations on the spot.

But there are a lot more things going bump in the New York night than misty forms and incarnate mischief. Mediums have identified 23 spirits who call the restaurant home. The physics say they are from a variety of eras, but are all aware of one other.

In the Constitution Room, diners who are loud or argumentative usually request being seated in another of the restaurant's rooms without knowing why. The answer is simple. The room is the haunt of a former Ziegfeld Follies girl who passed away in the building and didn't approve of uncivil tongues. The staff lights candles for her gentle soul.

The Mezzanine is the stomping grounds of a lady entity in a nineteenth century black dress who appears late at night. One of the balcony tables is sometimes occupied by the specter of an African-American man. Another shadow is a woman dressed in a black gown who walks down the staircase, but never up. The speculation is that she broke her neck falling down the steps.

There's a spirit who inhabits the restaurant office. Another regular apparition is of a man who enjoys sitting by the fireplace, and yet another of a ghostie who is generally spotted by the front door. Others have noted the distinctive perfume scent of a dearly departed patron in the ladies’ room. Every nook seems to have its own lore...or at least 23 of them do.

But Aaron Burr and his daughter Theodosia Burr Alston are the pair most identified with the restaurant, and in fact the building is claimed to be Burr's old carriage house. There's a big honking portrait of Aaron in the house to drive home the connection. Yet with the proximity and all the baggage old Aaron carried around (that duel definitely brought on some bad juju), the jury is still out on whether he is one of the many other worlders who frequent the hideaway, although the court of popular opinion says yea.

Theodosia has quite a story, though. The tale goes that she traveled by ship from South Carolina to visit her dad at home, but was captured by pirates off North Carolina who made her walk the plank. But she made it to New York in spirit, and it's said she now has taken up residence in the restaurant, the closest remaining part of her home.

She's said to have a thing for jewelry, and her usual manifestation is to yank off the earrings of lady patrons, especially at the bar (although in this day and age, she may start targeting the guys, too.)

So if you're looking for a nice, lights down low dinner in the Big Apple with your inamorata, head to One If By Land. Who knows who the two of you will get to split that last bottle of wine with? Oh, and have her wear clip-on earrings, just to be on the safe side.

Hotel Wayne

 Hotel Wayne from Expedia

Charles Forbes built the first public house in Honesdale in 1827 on the corner of Park and Main Streets (1202 N. Main Street is its exact address). The two-story wood frame building, redone in brick in 1895, measured 50 by 100' with a livery stable in the rear and was then known as the Forbes House.

It shortly thereafter became the Wayne County House (or Hotel) and provided accommodations for the superintendents of the D & H Canal company and for travelers who stopped in at the popular stage coach station. It's now called simply the Hotel Wayne, a 20-room hostelry with the restaurant/tavern Bistro 1202 at street level.

The psychic Crystal Boehmer investigated the Hotel Wayne for paranormal activity. And boy, did she ever encounter a houseful of eerie guests!

Taking the grand tour, she first felt the spirit of a race horse in the Philip Hone room, which when the hotel first opened was a passageway to the stables. Boehmer even came up with a name, more or less - she thought the quarter horse answered to either "Sparky" or "Spartacus."

When she passed the office, she sensed a Civil War soldier who paced the Hotel and seems to be a chivalrous guardian for the womenfolk who visit the hotel. Boehmer also heard gunshots from the basement, and when she went downstairs, she could smell gunpowder.

Crystal also found the shadow of Paul, who provides a noticeable presence in the basement and likes to move things around. The hotel says that could be the spirit of their old cook who was named Paul and who spent a lot of his working hours in the cellar.

She had a talk with the spook of a young alcohol and drug abuser named "Cookie" who had OD'ed and died in one of the Wayne's rooms. Beohmer told him he was forgiven and to go to the light, so there may be one less spirit in the hotel to deal with if he took her advice. In Room 208, she discovered Margaret still occupying her old room, along with an elderly schoolteacher who likes to gaze out from the balcony overlooking Main Street.

On the third floor she found a prostitute in red, a much battered lady of the night who died there, possibly at the hands of a client. She kept referring to "the Captain," perhaps recalling her seafaring boyfriend.

There was lots more ethereal flotsam floating around the hotel. She also said that she found:

• A doctor in the bar area,
• An "Adams" and a "Smith" in the building, 
• A few children in the hotel, and
• A mother who sits in Room 210 singing "Rock-a-Bye Baby" to her child and cooking.

And hey, that's nearly not all of the haunted roster. A couple of paranormal teams have probed the building including “Ghost Finders,” who have their findings posted on youtube, and come away with readings, messages, EVPs and visions from the many spirits who are said to inhabit the Hotel Wayne. They added to the ghostly list:

• A tall man with a long beard who strongly resembles Abraham Lincoln (but isn’t),
• A baby crying in Room 208,;
• A man in Room 321 who told one of the psychics to “lie on the bed” in a chilling voice (maybe one of the lady in red's clientele), and
• Shadowy reenactments of lively parties that used to be held on the third floor in the hotel's main hall.

Hey, hotels are always hotbeds of paranormal activity. They're frequented by a transitory crowd, and those who meet their fate in one often have no where else to go until they cross over. So if you're in the mood for a weekender and don't want to risk feeling lonely on the trip, book a visit to historic Honesdale and get a room at the Hotel Wayne. You'll have lots of company.

Lilburn: Ellicott City's Haunted History House

Lilburn from Ellicott City Tourism

Lilburn Mansion, also known as Hazeldene, Hazelhurst and/or Balderstone Mansion, is one of the historic treasures of Maryland's Ellicott City in Howard county.

An Englishman from Berkshire, Henry Richard Hazelhurst (his name is sometimes recorded as Richard Henry), started out as a civil engineer and made a fortune dabbling in railroads and then from his iron foundry in Baltimore, which would become an especially lucrative business during the Civil War. Hazelhurst was part of the gentry; his name can be found in the nineteenth century "Blue Book."

In 1857, he and his wife Elizabeth built a 20 room Gothic stone mansion with a four story tower, surrounded by seven or eight acres of rolling land off Cottage Avenue. The amenities included seven marble hearths, a circular drive, a guest house, a carriage house, a smokehouse and a swimming pool.

Sadly, a big crib and blue blood doesn't always translate into domestic tranquility. The Hazelhursts lost three of their six children at home. Two were taken early by childhood accident and illness while the third died during childbirth. Elizabeth then passed away, and Henry joined her in 1900, giving up the ghost - maybe literally - at the age of 85.

The home sat dark and unoccupied for a couple of decades before the estate sold it to the Maginnis family in 1923. Well, maybe not exactly unoccupied...

Almost as soon as they moved in, the Maginnis clan heard unexplained footsteps throughout Lilburn and in the tower. Some of the family thought that it may be the spirit of Hazelhurst's daughter; others believed that it was Henry pacing the top floor of the mansion.

But they quickly had more pressing concerns than a Hazelhurst spiritual reunion. The structure caught fire around Christmas time that year, and while the family escaped unharmed, Lilburn was badly damaged. It was rebuilt almost identically to the original - except for the tower. Maginnis replaced the Gothic turret with  a stone parapet.

As you can imagine, the ghosties of Hazeldene were not pleased. A common theme of haunted homes is that family spirits are pretty resistant to change and not the least bit shy about letting their feelings be known to the renovators. The paranormal activity increased with the sound of bodiless footsteps echoing through the mansion and the widows of the new tower refusing to stay shut. But the Maginnis and Hazelhurst clans got along well enough, considering everything.

Beth Hillel Sanitarium bought it from the Maginnis family in 1930 - we'd bet a haunted house is just what the doctor ordered for the Sanitarium's patients - and it changed hands four more times over the years until the Balderstones purchased it in 1965. None of the other owners reported anything particularly out of the ordinary, but they may have just been playing possum, because the place became spook central after Balderstones got the deed.

The footsteps were back (if they had ever gone away), and doors would open, shut, and unlock themselves without any human help. A chandelier would swing wildly (once during a party with a houseful of witnesses) and cigar smoke could be detected, both by smell and sight, in the library. The aroma of food cooking from a deserted kitchen was reported. The sounds of a crying baby could be heard coming from an upstairs bedroom.  There was a small room upstairs that the family pooch refused to enter.

The housekeeper even reported an actual apparition of a man and little girl in a chiffon dress, suspected to be Henry and one of his daughters. Sometimes they're seen together, and other times separately, with the girl often seen playing in various spots around Lilburn. There's also a spirit named "Margaret" who is blamed for much of the mischief (as in "Margaret, quit playing with the chandeliers already!") We're not sure who she is, perhaps a daughter or one of their playmates who took a liking to Hazeldene.

Oh, yah, almost forgot about the tower. Those dang windows proved to be quite the poser for the Balderstones. They opened on their own, and no matter how often the Balderstones shut them, they ended up open again.The family even tied them shut with ropes; often by the time they reached ground level and looked up, the tower windows were untied and wide open again. We'd have gotten screens, but hey...

Anyway, the Balderstone era ended in 1977, when Dr. Eugenia King became owner. She reportedly had the same window problems in the tower and with the swinging chandelier as the previous tenants, with the addition of a little poltergeist play involving a dumped vase.

The good doctor sold it in 1983, and the house, even with some renovation work, has been quiet since, according to its owners (Hazeldene has had its deed flipped a couple of times since, so we suppose upscale Ellicott City, located between Washington and Baltimore, is a pretty sweet market for home sales.)

So maybe the Hazelhurst family has left this vale of tears and crossed over. Then again, maybe the  owners figure that things going bump in the night might be a drag on the return on their investment...

If you want the full scoop on Lilburn, get thee to a library or bookstore and pick up "Ghosts And Haunted Houses of Maryland" by Trish Gallagher and/or "Haunted Ellicott City" by David Ketchersid and Troy Taylor.

Columns Museum

The Columns Museum from Our Country Home

The Columns is a 1904 neo-classical mansion on Broad Street in Milford, built as a private residence and now the home of the Pike County Historical Society. And it houses some pretty outre - and out there - objects

It's main claim to fame is the "Lincoln Flag," the actual red, white, and blue banner that hung from the front of Lincoln's theater box and was used as a pillow for his head after he was fatally wounded at the Ford Theater. The bloody bunting was taken by the theater manager Thomas Gourlay, who gave it to his actress daughter Jeannie, who happened to be a player in "Our American Cousin" that fateful night. She married a Milford man, and the flag ended up with her son, Paul Struthers, who used to hang it on his porch every July 4th. He eventually donated it to the Society.

They have other stuff - the noose used for the only public hanging in Pike County history, an exhibit on Chief Thundercloud, who's visage may have been engraved on the Buffalo nickel and five dollar gold piece, William Jennings Bryan fedoras, a presentation of mourning clothes, a Gifford Pinchot area (he was a PA governor and conservationist whose family had an estate in Milford), an exhibit of the belongings of Charles Saunders Peirce, the mathematician and philosopher often called the "father of pragmatism" and his wife Marie, displays of Lenape artifacts, rooms dedicated to early wars...well, all kind of museum oddities, minus King Tut (after all, he wasn't from Pike county).

As you might imagine with a collection like that, there have been reports of some eerie activity from The Columns. And oddly, Old Abe isn't included in them; the White House halls seem to be his otherworldly hang out. But even without the Rail Splitter, paranormal groups visit the museum every so often with heat detectors, tape recorders, and video cameras to get in on the ethereal action.

Dark Illusions Paranormal Investigators filmed ghostly mists and forms in the Columns, and heard clicking sounds, like a woman's heels, walking from Mrs. Peirce's room to Chief Thundercloud's. They visited on a Friday the 13th, and their results are posted on youtube.

Banshee Paranormal Investigators recorded a voice saying, "This is mine," over and over in a room filled with old cradles, one of which was made by a slave. And they took sequential photos of the door to Mrs. Peirce's room, showing that it closed on its own volition.

Other people told of visions of a small woman in the basement, several dancers on The Column's main floor and the spectral scene of a woman falling (or being pushed) down the third-floor servants' staircase while a man at the top of the steps watched. Two volunteers reported unspecified creepy doings in the Music Room as well.

But the star of this show is Juliette Peirce, Charles' widow. She was by all accounts head-over-heels in love with her philosopher hubby, but he wasn't quite pragmatic enough to turn his considerable brainpower into folding green. He died impoverished, and she slowly sold off their possessions, even reading tarot cards (she was supposed to have the deck used to predict Napoleon's downfall) to make ends meet in her later years. The remains of their estate after she passed on went to the museum. Apparently, Juliette was pretty possessive of the few belongings she had left.

It’s said that her spirit roams the second floor hallway, and she doesn't always play nice with visitors who get too touchy with her things. It's been reported that a couple of guests have been sent scurrying down the stairs in terror after a run-in with Juliette.

Linda Zimmermann, ghost investigator and author, has been to The Columns a few times and believes she's made Juliette's acquaintance. She encountered Madame, her nickname from her fortune telling days as a tarot reader, on the main stairway on the second floor. The apparition was dressed in late nineteenth century style clothing, matching her era on earth. The spirit beckoned to Linda and led her to the back room, which housed the Peirce family artifacts.

The name “Beatrice” kept popping up in Zimmermann's mind, followed by her bumping into a painting of a woman named Beatrice Bailey hanging in the hallway. That led to a room where she found a portrait of Juliette Peirce, confirming that she was the woman who Linda saw at the stairs.

It's thought that Juliette is so attached to the remaining items from her and Charles' days in Milford that she can't bear to leave them, even to rejoin her hubby on the other side.

Most senior and long-time staffers pooh-pooh all the ghost talk, as to be expected. But they do occasionally give a nudge and a wink acknowledgement, using the lore for The Column's good. The organization held an event called “The Ghost Gathering” just six weeks ago. And Linda Zimmermann has The Columns included in her book “Ghost Investigator Volume 9: Back from the Dead.”

Hey, we like to believe that the ghost hunters were on to something. And we'd love to know why Juliette was visiting Chief Thundercloud on Friday the 13th; that sounds like a good storyline by itself.

Flinderation Tunnel

Flinderation Tunnel from Facebook

There's an old, out-of-commission railroad line that passes beneath the Flinderation Tunnel near Salem, West Virginia. Officially known as the Brandy Gap Tunnel, it's located just off Flinderation Road and hence its local moniker. The 1,086' long tube was built in the 1850s as part of a main line of the B&O/CSX system.

It's sited about an hour away from the Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, and in fact they were featured together on the same Ghost Hunters episode in 2009. The asylum is well known as one of West Virginia's hottest paranormal spots. Flinderation's claim to spooked out fame begins with a three-man track gang working in the tunnel, sometime in the late nineteenth or early twentieth century.

While the gandy dancers were doing their thing, a train roared through the narrow tunnel, its engineer unaware that there was any work going on inside. One man managed to escape the speeding train, but the other pair were mangled and killed by the Iron Horse.

The train itself derailed, and there are conflicting tales as to why. One story says it was because the track work wasn't completed; another says that it tipped off the tracks while dragging a worker's body under its wheels. No one has found any published verification of the train wreck story, but it was long ago and far from any large towns. Beside, a train derailment and a couple of railroaders accidentally shuffling off this mortal coil wouldn't have been big news during that era.

Another tale equally as gruesome claims that the tunnel was a regular gathering point of the KKK in the early 1900s. Not only did the klansmen meet there, but they used the dark tunnel as a lynching spot to create a little extra terror while performing their horrific deeds.

To add to the eerie mix, Travel Channel's Ghost Stories said that a cemetery once existed atop the tunnel. The show claimed that some of the coffins fell through the roof of the tunnel, and that a disinterred body may have once been lodged between the tunnel's roof and the cemetery above.

As you might imagine, Flinderation's karma took quite a hit because of these events, and the tunnel has the paranormal lore to back its hard luck history.

People claim to have heard phantom train whistles and have seen a ghost train (or at least its lights) rumble through the tunnel, along with the sound of metal scraping against metal. The spirits of a young boy and girl, giggling and laughing, have been seen and heard. Voices saying "Help me" and "Quit pushing" have been reported by paranormal investigators, apparently remnants of the long-ago derailment.

Other sounds such as deep grumbles, sobbing and screaming are heard as common occurrences and been captured by EVPs. Unexplained lights, bodiless footsteps, orbs and mists have been both sighted and photographed.

Flinderation Tunnel was officially closed and the tracks were torn out in the nineties. It was out of service for some time prior to then because of the decline of railroad traffic in general and, it's said, because the tunnel's dark tales made it a track that railroaders religiously wanted to avoid. Today, like so many other abandoned rail lines, it's a recreational run, part of the eastern end of the North Bend Rail Trail.

So you can lace up your Nikes, hop on your bike, or jump on your horse (it's also an equestrian trail) to check out the legends of Flinderation Tunnel. When you get inside, your creep-o-meter will red line. It's pitch black once you're a few feet in (and flashlight batteries are said to die inside), its path is muddy and treacherous, and water drips through the ceiling while the splashes echo noisily off the walls. Or is that a decomposing body falling through the roof...?

Heck, if you dig the chills and eerie ambiance of Flinderation Tunnel, you can "like" its Facebook page. Even apparitions know how to get out the word with social tools nowadays. And ain't that spooky?

Homestead Carnegie Library

Homestead Library from Library Journal

Built in 1898, the Carnegie Library of Homestead - actually, it's located in Munhall - was designed by Alden & Harlow and constructed by William Miller & Sons, both well known artisans from Pittsburgh, at a cost of $250,000.

This library was Carnegie's gift to the workers and families of the nearby Homestead Steel Works. It was small consolation for a community torn asunder by the bloody Homestead Strike of 1892. Many didn't even want to accept the building, though it eventually became a well-used neighborhood gathering spot with its books, pool, gym and music hall.

It didn't take long for some bad mojo to strike. Robert Peebles "was found dead in eight feet of water" in the pool on November 28th, 1899, "under mysterious circumstances" according to the Homestead Messenger. No one has claimed to see his spirit hovering, but there are plenty of other eerie experiences connected to the complex.

Books fly off the stacks and switch positions on the library shelves for no apparent reason, and doors open and close without any human intervention. Loud disembodied voices have been reported (no doubt drawing a frown and a "shhhh" from the not-easily-spooked librarians). The ghosts of old steel hands, still dressed in their sooty mill outfits, wander about the structure.

The library isn't the only hot spot for the unexplained. The housekeeper claimed to have seen a shadow moving in the back steps of the old music hall in the library; shadow figures of both sexes are regularly sighted in the building. The voices of ladies giggling in the basement locker room have been heard, and by no less than the Syfy Channel's "Ghost Hunters" squad.

The TAPS team visited the library in May of this year, and in September aired an episode from Homestead including Carnegie's building. And they confirmed most of the above phenomena to be active during their midnight expedition.

So if you ever stop by to grab a book or catch a show in the music hall, remember that the old steelworker standing nearby may not be on break from pumpin' iron and sweating steel, but an ethereal reminder of Homestead's misty past.

Mood Music

Ready to get your Halloween spook on? See if these tunes help get you in the mood:

Boris Pickett & the Crypt Kickers do "The Monster Mash":


John Zacherle, the Cool Ghoul, and "Dinner With Dracula":

Michael Jackson's "Thriller":

Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells" from "The Exorcist":

Halloween: Popes and Druids, oh my...

Most folk know that Halloween has morphed from the the old Irish festival of Samhain, which was the night when the world of the dead intersected with that of the living. To keep the spirits from roaming the earth (and to keep themselves from wandering into the otherworld) the farmers would gather around a bonfire, some dressed in masks and costumes, in an effort to get through the night with their ancestors by hook or crook.

But what many don't know is that the holiday thrived and survived thanks to the papal theory that "if ya can't beat 'em, join 'em."

In the middle ages when the economy was agrarian, pagan harvest rites like Samhain continued unabated no matter how much the Church tried to squelch them. All focused on the dead; after all, it was tied into the season when the earth's bounty began dying.

Surprisingly, it's thought by many that the All Hallows (Saints) holiday, the church's effort to co-opt the pagan rites, wasn't first aimed at the Irish, but the Romans.

In the early seventh century, the Romans celebrated the Feast of the Lemures, which featured rituals such as bean offerings to the dead, walking around in circles at midnight, banging brass pots and asking your departed relatives to stay wherever they were. And it culminated on May 13th, not the end of October.  

Pope Boniface IV decided to usurp the pagan's dead day with a Christian holiday, and declared an All Martyrs day on the same date. It seemed to work; after a century or so, Popes Gregory III & IV decided to try the same trick and moved the holiday to November 1st, not only to counteract Samhain but several other autumn pagan rituals common in Northern Europe. They renamed it All Hallows Day. (It was actually celebrated at the same time, as the Church holiday began at sundown.)

Our most recognizable Halloween custom sprang from the church-sponsored holiday. Catholic dogma taught of a nether world for the dead called purgatory, a not-so-pleasant half-way house on the way to heaven. And since the souls there couldn't do much to advance their cause, their fast track to the Pearly Gate was greased through prayers from the living.

So a custom sprang up called "souling." Beggars would door knock for sweets - a fruit cookie of sorts called a "soul cake" - and in exchange for the pastry promised to pray for departed souls. That practice morphed into today's trick or treating.

The church also introduced the association of witches with the holiday. They weren't really part of the culture until the witch hunts of the Middle Ages, although their familiars seem to have a long history of causing panic. The black cats were especially dreaded by the superstitious because all that could be seen of them at night were their seemingly disembodied glowing eyes.

But many of the customs remain from the old days as the church couldn't entirely dig out the pagan roots of Halloween.  Skeletons were used from the beginning, some even being propped up on window sills to keep the dead at bay. Ghosts and the undead, of course, were the reason d 'etre of the pagan rites. Costumes and masks were worn by the Druids and their followers. And the jack-o-lantern was handed down through Irish folklore.

So there it is. Halloween is a tangled weave of Christian and pagan ritual and belief. Still, it's kinda hard to imagine that a bag of candy and Freddy Krueger was what the Vatican and Druids had in mind all those centuries ago. C' est la vie.

A Couch Potato Halloween

Another quick PSA - TV Tango has a listing of all the October Halloween shows being aired during the 2011 Devil's Night season by the major networks & cable biggies. So if the weather outside gets frightful, you can get your ghoul on in front of the tube. It's pretty inclusive, ranging from Freddy to Charlie Brown.

Pittsburgh Things That Go Bump In The Night

Today's post will be a PSA for my Pittsburgh area homeys as the Steel City prepares for its annual descent into Halloween gore, featuring fright-nights and the Three Rivers' favorite undead, zombies.

First, the Post-Gazette covers all the fright night haunts in the region from Hundred Acres Mansion to the Demon House in Faith Cotter's article "Spreading Fear."

The Tribune Review posts its mansions of mayhem, too, including some that are gently haunted for the kiddies and a movie schedule in its piece "Scary Season." It also has an older story by Michael Machosky called "Pittsburgh's Obsession With The Undead" that gives a neat little background on "Zombietown, USA."

We'd be remiss if we didn't mention the Zombie Fest, which will be held at Market Square on Saturday, October 8th, featuring bands and fun events like the brain-eating contest. It starts at noon; after all, zombies need their beauty sleep.

Hey, hometown pride runs deeper than the sports teams in da 'Burg. In some circles, George Romero is held in higher esteem than Hines Ward and Mario Lemieux. So wave your freak flag proudly, Tri-State spook fans. It's your season to screech.