Ghost Story

London Free Press ^ | 30 Apr 04 | Ian Gillespie

[CurlyBill]

Ghost story

Several unexplained phenomena at the old courthouse in St. Thomas have sent chills through many.

Ian Gillespie, Free Press Columnist 2004-04-30 03:05:48

ST. THOMAS -- Somebody calls the newspaper with a tip and I find myself clambering up the steps of the old St. Thomas courthouse, thinking I'm wasting my time on a wild goose chase. Maybe a wild ghost chase.

It's a grand old building, to be sure. First built in 1852, it burned down in 1898 and was rebuilt the following year. Situated atop the hill on Wellington Street, the three-storey structure features five arches out front and a cupola on top.

The building, which is being renovated, holds a Crown attorney's office, a land registry office and provincial and Superior courtrooms.

Maybe the courthouse holds something else, too.

Several people tell me that years ago, a husband and wife team of custodians lived on the top floor. They say the wife died in a tragic accident and she has haunted the building ever since.

I tug on the door leading to the top-floor apartments, but it's locked.

I hear that, for years, there have been strange things happening here. Most of the people who tell me these tales don't want their name in the newspaper. Not in a ghost story, anyway.

One yarn goes like this: A caretaker, spooked by a vacuum cleaner that kept mysteriously turning off, finally lost his patience and spoke aloud. "Now look," he said. "The sooner you let me finish my work, the sooner I'll be out of here."

The vacuum immediately started up.

I'm told nighttime cleaners have found all the trash cans upended. I'm told a worker changed the brand of liquid cleanser she was using; later, she found all the new cleaning bottles on the floor, tops off, spilling into a drain.

I talk to a St. Thomas police officer in one of the courtrooms. He tells me that about 20 years ago, he and his partner responded to a possible B and E -- breaking and entering -- at the old courthouse.

It was a hot summer night. But, he says, as the two men climbed a rickety staircase to the top floor, the temperature suddenly dropped.

"It got so damn cold," he says, "it was like climbing into a fridge."

Then, he says, he felt a pressure on his left side and was shoved aside with such force that he would've tumbled off the steps if his partner hadn't grabbed him.

"That was my last experience being in here at night," says the cop. He laughs, but I don't think he finds it funny.

Then I meet a couple of electricians working on the renovations. Do they know anything about the ghost? One nods.

Dave Eels tells the story matter-of-factly, almost as if I'd asked him how to upgrade a fuse box.

Eels says it happened back in February. It was dark, about 7:30 p.m., and Eels and two other men were working in the courthouse. One of the guys asked if they wanted to go outside for a break.

Later, the man explained why he'd wanted to leave the courthouse: He'd been working alone in the basement when he felt something tug his overalls.

Then the room turned suddenly cold -- so cold, says Eels, the man could see his breath.

While they were standing outside, the three men heard a loud noise -- a sort of banging -- echo from the supposedly empty building. One guy figured a sheet of drywall had fallen. They heard more noises and went back to investigate.

And this is what they found in the small basement room where the one man had been working: They found the man's drill case, where he'd left it. Atop that they found the man's sweater, where he'd left it. And atop that they found a wooden chair, smashed to pieces.

Eels says the chair had been sitting, intact, in another room down the hall.

Eels shows me the broken chair. I ask if he believes in ghosts.

"Something was going on that night," he says.

Later, I re-enter the small basement room, with its curved, brick ceiling and old stone walls. I'm a skeptical guy. It's mid-afternoon. There are at least a dozen people upstairs.

Still, it feels good to get out of there. And I do. Fast.

[TN4Liberty]

Your new ping list sounds fun. Please include me.

Re: Specter (interestingly, another word for a ghost), as much as I dislike liberal repubs getting nominated, I believe the most important vote a senator casts is the vote for Majority Leader. If we lose that vote, we lose control of the agenda and nothing is accomplished. For all his faults, Specter has voted for the conservative/GOP choice in that regard, and conservative dems, like Zell Miller, have voted in a way that, in reality, supported a liberal agenda. It is half a loaf, I agree, but still better than none at all.

[Planet]

Please add me to that one as well.

Thanks.

[reformed_dem]

Add me please.

My brother and sil lived in a house where odd things happened. My sil often woke to a mist filling the whole house. She once saw a young girl era 1920's clothes, another time, a man standing at the foot of their bed - my brother never saw those apparitions. One time even, all the battery-operated toys in my nephews' room all went off at the same time in the middle of the night. Kids sleeping peacefully. My brother picked up one of the electronic devices and it hummed in his hand. They would often hear footsteps creaking across the living room. Once when he opened the medicine cabinet in the bathroom, one by one, everything in there flew off the shelves. Weird.

[auggy]

Cool air can be noticed all the time in the summer. Especially, in low lying areas.

My guess, is Heat Rises.

[CurlyBill]

Wow! I posted this article less than 48 hours ago, and we now have a ping list of over 60 people and climbing... many of them lurkers. I would never have thought it was this popular a topic.

[bigcheese]

Please add me to your ping list as well.

Well, now I will share my story ...it's a bit long due to the fact it is ongoing, and it will probably seem completely fabricated; but it is quite true:

Part I

Approximately 4 years ago, my mom (who is a live-in nurse), started telling me about supernatural 'going-ons' at the house of an older lady she was taking care of and living with. The lady's husband had died several years before, and my mom reported that when she slept at night, 'someone' would yank her covers off, or tug at the covers, or she would feel someone 'sit' at the side of the bed, but of course, no one would be in the room at any of these times. My mom is/was not prone towards these sorts of tales, so I believed every word she told me. It should be noted that the funniest thing to me and my mom at that time was my mom's attitude toward this 'visitor'... she was completely unafraid. Now, my mom unafraid at such happenings (!?!?!) ...I found this completely uncharacteristic of her, and served to only deepen my interest in this 'haunting'.

Over time, she related various activities this 'ghost' was doing (more of what I describe above, *some* hiding of things, more of finding things in locations that had already been searched, etc). To me, it seemed the ghost was acting friendly towards my mom... it seemed that, when my mom's days off or vacation time came up, that the ghost would become more vigourous in his activites and appeared not to want my mom to leave. Likewise, when she came back, the ghost would do activities that seemed geared to letting her know that he appreciated that she was back. None of the 'fill-in' nurses would be bothered by the ghost, and only one of them even suspected a haunting was happening there at this house.

In our discussions, I theorized that the ghost was the old lady's huband waiting patiently for his wife to pass on. My mom agreed with this and proffered that the older lady liked her more than any of the other nurses, so maybe this was the reason the ghost was attached to her ...that her husband, in ghost form, saw that my mom truly had his wife's best interests at heart, and so revealed himself to her.

Well, the time came that my mom was to leave this job for good. Activities around the house suggested that there was one upset ghost that did not want my mom to leave. I'm afraid I really do not remember what those ghostly activities were due to the fact that the 'haunting' did not cease when my mom left the house. All I do remember is that they were mischief type stuff, nothing really poltergeist-like. Anyway, now we move on to part two.

[auggy]

When people get as old as, some of us, it is likely they have experienced ,at least once, an event that can only be labeled as, defying logical explanation.

I have had several in my lifetime. My most recent one was about 4 years ago.
My wife and I had been in bed about 30 minutes. I had already drifted about 50% asleep. The time was 11:30 pm.
Suddenly, there was a noise, sounded like a crash, that immediately woke me up, and my wife too. I am very hard of hearing, but this was super loud. No one , but us live in the house. I jumped out of bed and grabbed my handgun. I then cautiously walked down the hallway into the living room. The crash was so loud, I thought I would see a car had crashed into the house. When I flipped the light on, one of two china cabinets doors were wide open, with the second,(from the top)shelf broken on the floor. The shelf was made of glass, and every item on the shelf was glass, all busted to tiny pieces.
I called for my wife, and we immediately started cleaning up the mess, without thinking how it could have happened.
It then hit me, no way this shelf could have come straight out of the cabinet and then fall straight down and bust on the floor without someone doing it.
The shelf above and below, were not damaged, nor were any glass items or trinkets damaged, not even knocked over. The items on the shelf below the one that had broken, were only about an inch from the shelf above it.
No way in hell, the shelf could have slid out or broken in the cabinet and then fall out, and not touch any of the items on the other two shelfs. The cabinet was actually, tilted backward slightly, up against the wall. That would have made it less likely to have slid out toward the front..
When this occurred to me, my heart felt like it had quit beating. To this day there is no explanation to how this could have happened.
One thing I have left out. My wife's aunt had passed away 5 years before that night. It was the aunt's birthday, on that day. Her aunt had left us with a fair amount of money. Two days after this happened we left on a cruise to Europe. We paid for the cruise with the aunt's money. She was a thrifty woman, who didn't go a whole lot, because she was too tight to spend the money.
Was she somewhat Pi$$ed, or jealous of us, for spending her money for to go on that cruise? It could have been her ghost that did this. Guess, we will never know.

[bigcheese]

Part Two

So, my mom is leaving this job, and the 'haunting' has increased. I tell my mom to tell the ghost, 'hey, I have to go, this is something I have to do.'. I also told her, jokingly, to tell the dead-husband-ghost that if he could find out the lotto numbers, to then find an attractive female ghost to come over, give them to me, and then hang around to clean my house :-)

Whether my mom told the ghost that or not, I do not know. After leaving that house, my mom moved in with me for a spell. Though the issue of her 'hauntings' at that house did not come up much at my house, I started to have 'someone' tugging at my feet when I was asleep and when I was laying around the house with my feet up. Soon, I would be sitting or laying on the couch, and someone would sit on the edge of the couch. No depression could be seen in the couch, but I could 'feel' the cushion next to me compress from weight on it. Likewise I would be laying in bed, and someone would sit on the edge. Through all this, I was completely astounded at my lack of fright... it was as if this all was quite normal and I was just observing these events from a completely tranquil mind.

My mom soon took another job, yet the 'haunting' did not quit. And they have not quit to this day (over two and half years later). I routinely have my toes tugged on. Once in a blue moon there will be some 'coolness' in the air, and even rarer, I have found traces of what must be ectoplasm. But the tuggin persists, and it seems to best like socks on my feet or a blanket over my feet. I do not know if this is due to some inability to directly touch living flesh, or due to my feet stinking :-)

I would pass off the quite occasional foot tuggin as a possible medical problem if it were not for the fact that the cushions on my couch routinely compress (again, not visibly). And someone decides to sit on the edge of my bed. Or for the fact that I have been slapped three times now --- not hard at all --- as I was resting and my face was either against the couch or against the sheets on my bed.

The slapping is strange... each time I believe I must have done something to upset my visitor, yet it was not a hard slap at all ... more of a playful one. The first time it startled me, the next two times I was half-asleep and I just joked 'is that the best you can do?'. And the slaps came from inside the bed and couch... again, not directly against my flesh. Rather, like someone moved their arm through the couch and slapped against the leather that my face was pressed up against.

Now, I realize this seems all very very weird. And if it defines me as such, so be it. Unfortunately, there have not been any lotto numbers and no cleaning of my house :-). There has been no visuals, except for pitch black shadow movements that could be nothing more than tricks of the mind and/or something rational such as a light far away out a window. No communication at all except tuggin at my toes. No voices, no definitive 'hiding' of objects (IOW, no one event that I can say was definitly a 'haunted hiding'), no things moved, nothing, nada, nada, nada.

I spoken with and/or investigated the writings of evangelical Christians, Orthodox Jews, New Agers, etc.... most I have spoken with immediately recoil at first mention, but then seem intrigued that really nothing has happened for the last 2 and a half years. Come to think of it, i believe it might be even longer than 2.5 years since 'it' has started.

Now, I am not telling you this to seek out a house 'salvation' or to have a long-distance excorism. Rather, it is to express the things that I have learned over the course of all this:

• We are not alone.
• Not everything that goes bump in the night can be explained.
• Not everything on the 'other side' is a long toothed demon just waiting to jump in and cause mayhem.
• Most importantly, it is possible for a person to be completely unafraid by such occurences. I often think that if I now witnessed something supernatural, I would not recoil in fear ...at all!

So, what is it? I have no earthly idea. Perhaps I will not know until it becomes my day to join the 'other side'. If then. All I do know is that after years of 'it' happening, I still see no reason to be afraid. Im at the office today, but Ill go home tonight, and it would not surprise me to have someone sit next to me on the couch as I nurse my nightly scotch on the rocks, or to have someone tug my toes. Questions... comments? Shoot. Ill answer them publicly.

[Ditter]

That is quite a story! So you think that the ghost that bothered your mom is now bothering you? Do you live with your mom? Has anyone else experienced or seen any of these things that are going on?

The slapping would begin to scare me. Maybe its time for an exorcism.

[Fester Chugabrew]

This has been an amusing thread to say the least. I appreciate the personal accounts found throughout.

I remember visiting a very old home in Naples, IL. Some friends introduced me to the folks who lived there. I'm not sure ow the subject of ghosts came up, but it did. The homeowners said, without reservation or drama, that, yes, ghosts have manifested themselves occasionally. One was a lady. The other a small boy. Both on or near the stairwell. They were not frequent occurences.

If it is true that ghosts typcally reside where great tragedies or violent deaths occur, one can only imagine what strange things will be seen and heard in the years ahead at the Pentagon and former World Trade Center locations.

[AnAmericanMother]

This is off topic, but the towboat that went under the Rooster Bridge at Demopolis was also a W&G boat. Everybody (astoundingly!) survived that one though.

[bigcheese]

I am not sure if it is the same ghost or not. My mom moved out to a new job shortly after moving in from the initial job I related in 'part one'. She is, however, back again as she prepares for a move to another state.

Other then my mom, no, no one else has experienced anything. Of course, I am not one to have friends over on a regular basis, especially due to the fact that in-between jobs, my mom usually stays at my house. No offense to her, it's just that I (a single man in his early 30s) prefers to go over to friend's houses at those times .. im sure you can read inbetween the lines on that ;-)

The really strange thing about all this is that if you had told me five years ago that I would be in the situation I am now with the 'haunting', I would have laughed at you for I was brought up to instantly fear any sort of paranormal activity... now that it has happened, it is really not that big a deal. I am not frightened of 'it', and I do not consider 'it' a nuisance, so I find it funny with your use of terms like "bothered" and "exorcism". No offense intended.

It really is a mundane 'haunting', so to speak. I have heard of people who grew accustomed to a ghost in their house, who would joke with it, get it to turn on the AC or raise/lower it... it seems I have adopted that attitude. Only I have yet to get the ghost, if it is even that, to raise or lower the AC. And yes, I have asked :-). Incredible? Perhaps. But I am really accustomed to it.

[TightyRighty]

Please add me to your ping list!

There was a ghost show back in October of 2000 on one of the major stations - they had interviews with people who had videotaped or photographed ghosts. They interviewed these two men who had videotaped an abandoned house that they heard had been haunted. They were videotaping the front of the house and caught a woman looking down at them from the second story window. They took the video to have it enhanced and you could see the womans face clearly. I love ghost stories but by the time they had told the story I couldn't get the nerve up to look at the picture and now I wish I had!

Does anyone remember that show?

[terilyn]

I'd love to be added to your list too!

[Ditter]

Your story reminds me of a book I read (can't think of the title now). A pioneer family in the 1800 possibly in Tenn. had a terrible experience, (true like yours) with a demon who came into their house & slapped one of the girl children around. It started off just making noise but became more & more violent. The story was quite famous & supposed to be a well know haunting. Of course, I don't know, I'm skeptical even tho it intrests me.

[Living Stone]

That is the MV Cahaba. I have been aboard that boat, several years after the incident.

[Ditter]

Are you any kin to LeftyLucy?


Sorry I couldn't help myself.

[CurlyBill]

Your story reminds me of a book I read (can't think of the title now). A pioneer family in the 1800 possibly in Tenn.

I think you are referring to the story of the Bell Witch.

[bigcheese]

Well, if it started breaking things / annoying me / waking me up / slapping me (hard) / etc, I would definintely have a radically different view. But I have not even had one of those light 'slaps' in a long, long time.

It's funny, I am not even sure 'it' has the capability to move an object. I could swear that sometimes it has close to ten pounds of pressure when it decides to really move my toes and feet back and forth. But it is real force? Or is it some type of psycho/motor influence? I tend toward the latter explanation since I have seen no evidence of levitation of objects, or pushing of objects.

Strangely enough, the amount of 'force' seems directly related to my mood/health at the time. For example, I gave up cigarrettes for quite awhile, and the 'force' seemed stronger during that time. Likewise, anything beyond one or two drinks greatly diminishes it (and no, I am not a heavy drinker and not one who is prone to seeing pink elephants :-). Stress is either a great diminisher of it, or great multiplier of it. I can come home sometimes pretty stressed out and swear the rocking back and forth of my toes and feet is some sort of massage.

I dunno. So far, it would appear tobacco and alcohol are not liked by it and/or it can not function as well when those are consumed. So, I am again left wondering what exactly 'it' is. It tunrs my early beliefs in paranormal --- aka, all 'demons' save for a few angelic activites --- on its' head.

[Ditter]

The Bell Witch, sounds right. Was that supposed to be based on a true story or was it fiction?