The terrible leprosy disease destroyed many lives throughout the ages. And in the city of Loja, The Hangman’s Tunnel in Loja, Ecuador is the place for one of the city’s tragic ghost stories.
The city of Loja in Ecuador was a place that people set out from to look for the mystical town of El Dorado in search of gold. Today it is more known as a place of culture, art and song. But even this bright singing city has its dark stories and legends.
A long time ago there was a leprosy colony at the asylum known as San Juan de Dios Hospital in Loja in Ecuador. Back in the day it used to be an incurable disease and the people suffering from it were put away far from other people fearing to catch the disease.
It is a horrible disease that causes severe disfiguring skin sores as well as nerve damage. It had a huge social stigma and those suffering from it were placed in these Leprocomio, or leper colonies across the world.
This was the place where Ana María grew up, as her unwed mother, Luz Marina had to take a job at the colony to support her daughter after she was kicked out of her family. Ana María grew up and received an education as a nurse as well, working closely with those affected by the disease.
She fell in love with a young law student named Luis Felipe. Over two years they met at their regular meeting place on the road leading to the hospital by a huge cliff known then and especially after as The Hangman’s Path.
After her mother died, Ana María hoped to marry, but found that she had been infected by the disease and had to be quarantined with the other infected away from everyone.
Unable to meet her fate, she decided to hang herself in a guabo tree near their regular meeting place. When Luis Felipe saw her hanging from the tree, he too chose to hang himself together with her.
Today, the hospital is known as Hospital Isidro Ayora. In 2007, they built a tunnel at The Hangman’s Path, now known as the Hansman’s Tunnel. It is a popular place for the locals to gather when playing with Ouija boards and claiming that they have seen the ghost of the two lovers, hanging from the tunnel.
Known as Canada’s most haunted object, the antique doll that follows the museums visitors with her glass eyes and cries in the night.
The haunted doll known as Mandy was donated to the Quesnel & District Museum in British Columbia, Canada in 1991 by a woman called Lisa Sorensen. The doll was from her grandmother that she found when cleaning out the house. She had just had a baby of her own, but didn’t want her daughter near the doll as she had noticed strange things about it.
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She told the museum when she donated the doll that it kept her up during the nights. In the night she would wake up in the night to the sound of a crying baby in the basement. But when she checked there was nothing there. The doll started to scare the owner and she decided to give it away. After she had given away Mandy to the museum, she no longer heard the cries of a baby.
The only connection the family now has with the doll is the name, which she gave after her own daughter: Mereanda, or Mandy.
Night at the Museum
Now Mandy the doll sits in a locked cabinet, her eyes reportedly following the visitors with her cracked porcelain face as well as the staff at the museum.
The staff remembers well when Mandy first came to them. They left her in the lab overnight when taking her pictures to add to the collection. When they came into work the next morning, they found the lab trashed, almost like a temper tantrum to a child. And since then, strange occurrences have only kept on happening.
Small stuff would start vanishing without a trace and even the staff’s lunches would start disappearing from the fridge and appear in random drawers.
Electronic devices are said to malfunction in the doll’s presence, especially when trying to get her picture your camera light will go off and on.
The museum gave Mandy a stuffed lamb to keep her company, but would the next day find the lamb tossed outside of Mandy’s locked cabinet. Although many of the practical people would dismiss these happenings as purely coincidental with a perfectly logical explanation, the legend of the haunted doll kept growing.
Haunted by the Grief of a Bereaved Mother
The doll is supposedly around a century old and even got to meet up with a medium to examine her past on a show. The medium was Silvia Brown and she meant that the doll had once belonged to twins that died of polio. And the energy that the doll gave off was that of the mother to the twins and her sorrow she somehow implanted the doll.
Frozen to death after being accused of witchcraft, the legend of Moll Dyer keeps haunting Maryland. It is said she placed a curse upon the land and seeks revenge on those that hunted her down.
In 1967 a woman known as Moll Dyer was chased from her home and into the woods on a cold winter night. She had been accused of witchcraft by the villagers in Leonardtown in Maryland. She was found dead a few days later in that forest, frozen to a large stone. But this was not the last the town heard of the accused witch according to the legend.
At one point, the legend of Moll Dyer was probably used to give a good scare, but these days it is probably just another entry in the horrid witch hunting of women in this time under the witch panic.
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Who Was Moll Dyer?
The legend of Moll Dyer has gone through many revorks and to this day it has many variants depending on who you ask. There are still old families named Dyer in the area and many claim to be descendants of her family.
In some variations she was either from Ireland, Virginia, Kentucky, New England or Connecticut coming to Maryland as it was considered to be more religiously tolerant towards catholics which she is in some of the stories.
Moll Dyer Road: Many places are named after the alleged witch today.
She has been presented as both a widow, a spurned lover and a mother of two sons that were left by her man. If Dyer was her maiden name is also up to debate. In some of the legends she wasn’t even a European immigrant, but a Native American that was abandoned by her European lover as soon as she gave birth to their love child.
What is a common denominator was that she was a lonely woman that lived an unusual and independent life far from the rest of the villagers. Which at the time was suspicious enough to be accused of witchcraft.
She is said to have lived outside of Leonardtown which was at the time known as Newtown. Many places outside of Leonardtown are named after her today, like Moll Dyers Road and Moll Dyer Run where her cottage is believed to have been.
Whoever Moll Dyer was or where she came from is really of no consequence as her ending would be just as tragic either way. She was described as an old hag that lived in the outskirts of the town in many of the early accounts. She was poor and lonely and was often seen begging for food or looking for it in the woods.
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Moll Dyer also had a reputation for her knowledge about herbal medicine, and the villagers would seek her advice for different maladies. This is especially told now in more recent times where the “old hag” version is both outdated and not very likely. She was for many years left to her own devices on her own in the woods and no one really thought much of it until that winter in 1697, which is the year she died in most accounts.
The Witch Hunt and the Haunting
It was a brutal winter and the crops were failing and the sheep and cattle died in Maryland that went through more than one tragedy. There was also a plague of influenza that took the lives of many in the whole county. This culminated in suspicion and desperation to believe that something supernatural was afoot. The town needed a scapegoat, and the lonely old woman would be a good victim to blame, even though she had spent her time to heal the villagers, perhaps even some of those that ended up chasing her.
Froze to Death: The chase of the alleged witch ended with her freezing to death in the cold.
The angry mob of villagers brought clubs and flaming torches to her small cottage in the outskirts to rid themselves of this supposedly dangerous witch on a cold February night. In the legend, she was chased from her cottage into the forest after they accused her of witchcraft.
Moll Dyer had no choice but to run away from the mob that was chasing her down with ill intent. She knew the forest around her cottage very well and escaped her mob. But when she finally had escaped them she was all alone in the forest without a home to return to as they burned it to the ground. The weather that night was so brutal with a harsh winter storm and she ended up freezing to death.
Many days later, a young boy was looking for his cattle when he stumbled over the dead body of the old woman that had frozen to death on a large rock in the middle of a river. After her body was found, the villagers probably thought they had chased the evil away and that that was the last they would hear about Moll Dyer. But alas, the place was later haunted by her spirit and the area around the parts where she lived and died has been said to be cursed.
It is alleged that the ghost of Moll Dyer is seen in the dead of the winter and in some cases, seeking revenge to this day.
She allegedly is looking for the very men that chased her from her home and caused her death. The very land around where her cottage stood is said to be cursed. It will never grow good crops and there have been reports about lightning striking the premises an unusual number of times.
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There is also the matter of the white dog that appears in the legends that are said to cause accidents on the Moll Dyer Road. Moll Dyer is said to only have had this dog as her companion in her later years.
In the 70’s, a hunter was hunting around the Moll dyer’s Run. he told of an “”very dense fog patch, cylindrical in shape, with the light emanating about eight inches down from the top…. It crossed the stream and went east … moving across the wind instead of with the wind … then turned and went south…. But what made it really strange was that it did it twice! … I’m not saying that it was the spirit of Moll Dyer. I just don’t know what it was.”
The Curse of Moll Dyer’s Rock
Moll Dyer Rock: The rock were she is said to have been found is still in Leonardtown to see.
Her name may not be printed in black and white in historic reports, but a large rock that is connected to her legend can still be found at Tudor Hall in Leonardtown in Maryland. According to the story, Moll Dyer was resting on this large stone before she died and still has her handprints engraved on it.
The location of the rock was for many years lost in history. Then in 1968, a writer named Philip H. Love found it after reading up on the legend and making the locals take him to the place they believed was the place she froze to death. They moved it to the town square of Leonardtown before it was moved to Tudor Hall in 2021.
According to the legend, the stone itself is a cursed one. People that have gone near it have reported feeling dizzy, even fainting when being in close proximity to it.
The Search for the Witch
Although this is a legend that has stood the test of time and is still printed in the local newspapers, told amongst the locals and has inspired several movies, books and other pop culture, there is no real evidence of a Moll Dyer ever having lived there.
In this time, if you came on a smaller ship across the ocean, there was often a case of them not keeping record of a passenger list, something that also clouds if there really was or wasn’t anyone by that name that came from Europe.
The courthouse burned down in 1831 and in that fire, many documents were lost. Perhaps also the documents detailing her life and what really happened. There are documents of different Moll and Mary’s (something that Moll is a nickname for) in this time.
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There are also existing documents of a cottage of a woman named Moll who was burned to the ground. In Maryland, there were several witchcraft trials from 1654, and the last being in 1712. For example was the woman named Rebecca Fowler hanged as a witch in Calvert County in 1685 in the next door county.
In 2013, Lynn Buonviri claimed to have found out who the real Moll dyer was and her story. According to her, she was born in England in 1634 and knew a thing or two about herbs and natural medicine. She didn’t go to the West Indies before she was 35 years old together with her brother where she served as a servant. She came to Maryland in 1677 and therefore had a short life in these parts before dying.
Inspiration to The Blair Witch Project
The legend of Moll Dyer and her death has inspired a lot of movies, books and music over the years. The legend about her tragic story as well as her haunting is still the topic of the locals. The most famous piece of fiction, the story of Moll Dyer, inspired the witch behind The Blair Witch Project. This movie legend created almost another legend by itself and has helped keep the story of Moll Dyer alive even in modern times.
What kind of tragedy can be so horrible that it is mostly silenced and forgotten by the world? The massacre of thousands of people that were found in the Gyeongsan Abandoned Cobalt Mine is one of them. But although often ignored and not talked about in the later years, the haunting rumors of ghosts from the past still has a firm clasp of the place.
There used to be an abandoned cobalt mine in Gyeongsan in South Korea in full operation and a little easier to access than it is today.
The Cobalt Mine was used during the Japanese occupation where the Japanese used Korean labor to mine gold, silver and then eventually, cobalt, but abandoned it when the mine was emptied.
During the Korean war, many people, civilians as well as convicts were accused of conspiring with the communists and North Korea. Many of them were brutally massacred in the area and their bodies were thrown into the mines to be forgotten in this so-called Red Hunt from July to September in 1950.
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The Massacre in the Gyeongsan Abandoned Cobalt Mine
It is believed that many of the victims were political prisoners that were supposed to be moved from Daegu Prison to Busan Prison and it is estimated that around 2000 to 3 500 people were murdered and tossed into the mines.
Gyeongsan Abandoned Cobalt Mine: A massacre is hiding inside the Gyeongsan Abandoned Cobalt Mine.
There is to this day not spoken a lot about the war crimes that happened and a lot of it has been silenced by both parties. Even by the families that were affected by the massacre as they even to this fear can feel fear of the guilt by association that many of the victims of the massacre was.
The families affected by this have still not gotten their apology and answers for what happened to their family members as most of the skeletons found have never really been examined and the entrance to the mines simply sealed off.
And most likely, what really happened probably never will see the light of day.
The Hauntings of Gyeongsan Abandoned Cobalt Mine
But their ghosts created legends of their own as sites of huge atrocities and tragedies have occurred.
Many legends surround the last owners of the mine that brutally died as well as factory owners of factories that were built close to the mine. One of the last companies to be in operation around the same parts as the mine was a glasses manufacturer.
The owner of said factury is said to have poured petroleum over himself as well as his sleeping employees before setting them all on fire. They all burned to death. However not really confirmed by any hard evidence.
Although sealed off and left to be forgotten, the locals are said to avoid the site of the abandoned mines, even to this day.
Some movies were made to make fun of overly serious documentaries, some were made under the disguise as a documentary to make the story more believable. This is a list of some of the best horror movies made in a found footage or a mockumentary style.
The rise of the found footage horror movie genre or the mockumentary style of storytelling has made it so the living legend of believing a story makes it better, especially before the time of the internet were the story wouldn’t be revealed as fake the second you did a google search and found the story behind it was fake.
The mockumentary type of telling a horror story has also made it so that production value is not the main point to make a movie successful or not, as many of the best found footage movies has been very low budget. This has also made the way of producing these movies more democratic and not necessarily having to depend on a big Hollywood studio to fund the production. This has made it so that diverse moviesand foreign countries has broken into the mainstream media on a global scale they probably wouldn’t have if the audience had expected a production of Hollywood money.
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The Blair Witch Project
To begin with the one movie that rules them all, the mothership of the mockumentary, especially the horror genre one, that made it into the mainstream box office and cinemas all around the world. The Blair Witch Project from 1999 made it big, and to this day have a lingering effect on the movies that came after as well as creating a legend of its own that to this day some people still believe.
The Blair Witch Project is thought to be the first widely released film marketed primarily by the Internet. During screenings, the filmmakers made advertising efforts to promulgate the events in the film as factual, including the distribution of flyers at festivals such as Sundance, asking viewers to come forward with any information about the “missing” students. The backstory for the film is a legend fabricated by Sánchez and Myrick which is detailed in the Curse of the Blair Witch, a mockumentary broadcast on the SciFi Channel on July 12, 1999. Sánchez and Myrick also maintain a website which adds further details to the legend.
Synopsis: It is a fictional story of three student filmmakers—Heather Donahue, Michael C. Williams, and Joshua Leonard—who hike into the Black Hills near Burkittsville, Maryland, in 1994 to film a documentary about a local legend known as the Blair Witch. The three disappear, but their equipment and footage are discovered a year later.
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Gonjiam: Haunted Asylum
This South Korean movie took an already existing legend of a haunted asylum that were popular and well known and turned it into a box office success, both at home and abroad. Before the release of the film, the owner of the asylum filed a lawsuit against the film being shown in theaters, claiming that the film will have negative effects on the sale of the building. However, a Seoul court in late March 2018 ruled in favor of the film being shown.
Synopsis: The narrative centers around a horror web series crew looking for the paranormal that travels to an abandoned asylum for a live broadcast in order to garner views and publicity.
Many movies on these entries were made on a low budget and by people that may not had broken into the field just yet. But then came Cloverfield that showed strong muscles and Hollywood heavyweights. J.J Abrams came up with the idea for the movie when he went to Japan and saw Godzilla toys with his son in shops. And thus, the American monster was born and a crossover between Blair Witch and a Hollywood blockbuster was made with a horror spin.
Synopsis: The film follows six young New York City residents fleeing from a massive monster and various other smaller creatures that attack the city while they are having a farewell party. We follow them as they try to survive and get to safety from the attack and monsters.
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[•REC]
This Spanish movie from 2007 was later given many sequels as well as American remakes in light of the first movies success. The film was a commercial and critical success. It is now recognized as one of the early successes, and one of the best films in the found footage genre as well as various list of horror movies at all.
Synopsis: The film follows a reporter and her cameraman as they accompany a group of firefighters on an emergency call to an apartment building. The situation quickly escalates after an infection begins spreading inside, with the building being sealed up and all occupants ordered to follow a strict quarantine.
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Willow Creek
On a fresh, but still a classic take on the lingering Bigfoot legend of America, the movie from 2013 has enough of flannel, pilot sunglasses and forest as far as eye can see, just like a classic American horror movie should have. The movie also came out in a time when the found footage movies was a more well established genre and showed that the audience were still up for a shaky camera angle, even though there was no rumours about the actors being dead or anything.
Synopsis: Set in Humboldt County, California, Jim (Bryce Johnson), a stout believer in Bigfoot, and his girlfriend Kelly (Alexie Gilmore) are traveling to Six Rivers National Forest in Northern California, where Jim plans to shoot his own Bigfoot footage at the site of the Patterson–Gimlin film.
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Paranormal Activity
Paranormal Activity used the hype of mockumentaries and took it all the way. And after a number of sequels, prequels and spinoffs, bot official and unofficial, we can safely conclude that this was a very successful franchise if nothing else. The producers used a home camera and relied heavily on improvisation from the actors to make it as believable as possible.
Synopsis: It centers on a young couple (Katie Featherston and Micah Sloat) who are haunted by a supernatural presence in their home. They then set up a camera to document what is haunting them. And through it, they find more than they ever could dream of as a demonic presence is getting to them.
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Troll Hunter
The Norwegian found footage movie has turned into a cult classic of working well as a huge dose of dry nordic comedy as well as a horror adventure movie. Combining modern bureaucratic Norway with its whimsical superstitious roots, the movie captured something about the old and past and how we as humans are still not over old folklore of the Trolls.
Synopsis: A group of students from Volda University College, Thomas, Johanna and their cameraman Kalle, set out to make a documentary about a suspected bear poacher, Hans. But they soon find out that it is not a bear at all he is hunting, but something far more dangerous and supernatural.
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What We Do In The Shadows
On a lighter note, this mockumentary by the New Zealanders Jemaine Clement and Taika Waititi is more of a comedy than horror flick that breathed new life into the vampire genre as well as giving old vampire tropes and lore a comeback in mainstream media.
Synopsis: Viago, Deacon, and Vladislav are vampires who are struggling with the mundane aspects of modern life in Wellington, New Zealand, like paying rent, keeping up with the chore wheel, trying to get into nightclubs, and overcoming flatmate conflicts as well as battling with immortality, the sun and the local werewolfs.
If we can call The Blair Witch Project the found footage horror movie’s parent, this movie can be called its ancestor.
It is considered by many to be one of the goriest movies that have been made. Ten days after its premiere in Milan in 1979, the film was seized by the Italian courts and director Ruggero Deodato was arrested and charged with obscenity and the murder of the actors, a rumour that would last for a long time.
In reality, the cast had signed contracts requiring them to disappear for a year after shooting to maintain the illusion that they had died. However, when he was arrested, Deodato contacted the actor Luca Barbareschi and told him to contact the three other actors who played the missing film team. When the actors appeared in court, alive and well, the murder charges were dropped.
Synopsis: During a rescue mission into the Amazon rainforest, a professor stumbles across lost film shot by a missing documentary crew that met an unfortunate and gory end.
PS! Although the deaths of the actors were revealed to have been a lie, the animal deaths in the film were real by the way.
On the highway in El Salvador, be vary of who you stop for along the way. Especially beautiful women that asks for a ride to a nearby place. It might very well be the vengeful spirit of La Descarnada.
On the long stretch of highway from Santa Ana to Chalchuapa in El Salvador, an old legend is just refusing to die. The legend of La Descarnada, meaning the fleshless in English. She is a vengeful spirit in female form that lures and seduces men that she meets on her way. At first she looks beautiful, young and healthy, but when she has the man in her claws she shows herself in her true form: a rotten living skeleton.
The tale of La Descarnada is a typical ghost legend that are told all across South America and share many similarities with the legends of La Sayona in Venezuela and La Llorona in Mexico for instance. Often her origin story is rooted in being a scorned woman that goes after any man as she wasn’t able to get revenge on the one that mattered. The legend of La Descarnada has also evolved from an old folklore legend to be more similar to the urban legends like The Vanishing Hitchhiker.
The Vanishing Hitchhiker is a well known urban legend throughout the world. Here is a Moonmausoleum original writings based on the Urban Legend – The Vanishing Hitchhiker
La Siguanaba of Central America
The Legend of La Descarnada also has a lot in common with the legend of La Siguanaba. Also known as Cihuanahual, Caballona, Chuca, Sucia, Bandolera, Macihuatli, Matlacihua, Tisigua, and more, is a legendary figure from Central American folklore. Her name, derived from the Quiché language, means “spectral sister of the abyss.”
The Siguanaba is known for her eerie encounters with men who cross her path. As the legend goes, she appears to men, but her face remains hidden. It’s only after she has ensnared a man’s attention that she reveals her true visage, which is often described as a horse or a skull in different versions of the story. This shocking revelation can lead to illness, madness, or even death. The origin of this myth is complex, with roots in both pre-Hispanic Mesoamerican cultures and European folklore. Over time, these beliefs have intertwined, creating a unique and haunting legend that has persisted through generations.
The Hitchhiking Ghost
Late at night on the highway she signals the passing cars to stop. If it is a man travelling alone, she asks for a ride. When he asks her where she is going, she mentions somewhere nearby on his way and it is too easy for him to say he will drop her off there.
Inside the car, she starts her seduction, looking at him provocatively and luring him in. The man doesn’t resist and gives in, starting to caress her. Then the transformation starts, and her beautiful silky skin starts to peel off, little by little and muscles and bones starts to appear under the man’s caresses.
When the man notices it, he freezes, but it is already to late. She continues to decompose right in front of him until she is left as a living skeleton. And those who live to tell the tale have no way of explaining just what happened to them. Although, according to legend they are the lucky ones, as La Descarnada is a folktale that usually ends in the men’s death.
The Legend of La Descarnada
As the legend of La Descarnada continues to send chills down the spines of those who hear it, there is no denying the cautionary tale it holds. The dark tale serves as a reminder to be wary of strange encounters and to trust one’s instincts, especially when traveling alone on long stretches of highway.
For those who have the misfortune of encountering La Descarnada, the outcome is often fatal. The men who fall into her trap are left scarred by the terrifying transformation they witness, unable to comprehend the supernatural force that just took place before their eyes. Their stories, if they’re lucky enough to survive, become cautionary tales whispered among friends and family, spreading awareness of the dangers that lurk on the roads of El Salvador.
And so, the tale of La Descarnada remains ingrained in the consciousness of those who traverse the highways of El Salvador. Her vengeful spirit forever entwined with the folklore of the land, serving as a reminder to heed the warnings of the past and to navigate the roads with caution and wisdom.
Sitting on the porch outside the historic John Lawson House, three mannequins sat on the porch for over a decade. No one really knew who lived there, or why the mannequins were there. And no one really saw when or if someone came and moved the mannequins’ positions, clothes and wigs.
The old house is found in Wappingers Falls in New York and has probably seen its fair share since it was first built. It is a really old house built in 1845 by a man named John Lawson that is not known much about and were the name comes from. What is known of this man is that he is descended from the one of the first Europeans families that took over the area. But who lived in this house now, is uncertain and up for a lot of speculation.
But one day something strange appeared on the poarch that caught the curiosity of the locals and made people speculate in the haunted rumours of the house. A couple of dressed up mannequins without any explanation suddenly appeared, and to this day, we still don’t know the full story.
Read More: Check out all of our ghost stories from USA
The John Lawson House, sitting by the road and letting the paint peel therefore has an old story, and the house would by its historic architecture and age be a breeding ground for haunting house rumors and paranormal ghost stories. But it was in recent times that the house really started to be known as the creepiest house in America.
Read More: Check out more ghost stories from haunted houses in the world.
The Mannequins on the Porch of The John Lawson House
In a span of a decade in the early 2000s, the house on 9A Main Street was known for housing a group of life size mannequins that sat on the porch of the house. In each of their rocking chairs the three mannequins sat in their vintage dresses, looking out on those passing the house.
The Mannequins on the Porch: The John Lawson House was for over a decade a place of wonder when three mannequins camped out on the porch and started a rumour of the house being haunted. They would be dressed up in different clothes, wigs and hold onto different accessories. It was a mystery as to who or why did this.
The mannequins on the porch of the John Lawson House were of the kind you would find in clothing stores. What is weirder is that someone would change their clothes and their wigs occasionally. In pictures they wore everything from vintage dresses to normal mainstream fashion, often according to the seasons as well.
The people orchestrating the mannequins would also get different props to hold in their hands like standard props like books opened for the mannequins to look like they just relaxed on their porch, reading as if they are taking the view in. There were however also occasions where the mannequins held onto things that made the weird sight, even weirder. Like when they held onto stuff like an empty birdcage or tool boxes.
Whenever there was bad weather in New Hamburg, the mannequins would disappear from sitting on the porch so they would not get caught in the rain, but come back when the weather cleared up.
What was this supposed to be? At the time, no one really knew who lived in the house, and no one really saw who changed the props or clothes of the mannequins in between sets. This of course led to people thinking the house was really haunted and people started to look to the old history of the house for an explanation.
The Haunting Accidents near The John Lawson House
There are mainly two tragedies from the past the locals used to explain the reason behind the supposed hauntings of The John Lawson House, although the most disturbing thing yet seems to be the thing sitting on the poarch that everyone can see and touch. But can we really explain it?
Historic Building filled with Dolls Living their Lives: The John Lawson House is thought to be one of the oldest houses in this area. According to some, this house is also a haunted one.
One of the dark legends connected to the John Lawson House comes from a terrible accident decades ago. Back in 1871 a freight train derailed close by the John Lawson House on February 6th. It ended up colliding with a passenger train that was unable to stop and it all ended in a big tragedy.
The train was carrying oil which caught fire and ended in an explosion only 200 feet from the John Lawson House. That night, 22 people were killed, and this is one of the events that are said to haunt the house. But what came first? Did the haunted legends fuel the urge to put eerie dolls on display, or did the dolls sitting there like the uncanny valley give a head start to the haunted rumours?
Another thing that is attributed to the haunting is the second fire that broke out in the neighborhood around John Lawson House. In 1877 on May 3rd, seven buildings burned to the ground and the John Lawson House was one of the few houses that survived the fire for some reason. There were at the time theories that the fire was arson and a very strategic one at that. If there were any casualties in the fire is unknown, but the ghost stories claim that there really was.
If there was any local legends surrounding the the John Lawson House before the mannequins showed up on the porch is unknown. Or if these two tragedies have been told as a ghost story before they started hanging out on the poarch, is also unknown. Most likely the stories have been used to create the legend of a haunted house, not just the house of an eccentric.
The Haunting Mannequins
According to the legends told, the mannequins were haunted by the spirits of those that died in those two accidents. But as the article has already have stated, what came first, the hauntings or the mannequins is a bit unclear.
There are also those that connect the dots that some of the mannequins are facing the site of the train derailing and others are facing the other historic house that survived the second fire. Coincidence? Like most things in life, most likely. Or…
The strange house has made many theories about what really went down in the John Lawson House. The most likely scenario is of course the house was owned by some really committed pranksters or just some with a strange hobby. And although one can very easily find out who lived in the house or occasionally comes to rearrange 3 real life dolls outside on the Main Street, everyone loves a good mystery without an unsatisfying truth behind. Could this be one of the cases were the locals simply don’t want the truth and full story, as the life in these parts are boring enough?
Read Also: Another haunted case were the locals didn’t want the truth to ruin the fun local legend is the case of The Anson Lights Highway Ghost in Texas.
The Disappearance of the Mannequins of the John Lawson House
Relaxing: The mannequins relaxing with a book and a coffee mug on the porch outside of John Lawson House before they disappeared in 2016.
This strange house with its strange inhabitants started to become more than just a local legend of the quaint town of New Hamburg and the story of the weird mannequins started to draw tourists wanting to have a look around The John Lawson House and see for themselves what the thing was all about.
What outfits would they wear? What items would they clutch in their cold and stiff hands?
But if you are curious about the house and the mannequins, you are now in bad luck most likely as it seems that the pranksters got tired of the constant upkeep of the dolls. Today there are no more mannequins sitting on the front porch of the house.
One day in the summer of 2016, the locals in the town found that the porch was empty and the mannequins had simply vanished during the night. Even when the weather cleared up, they were nowhere in sight. No one really knows where they have gone or why they were there in the first place.
Or is this simply another case of the: the story is better if we don’t know the truth? Because rumor has it they are found at a house near Route 9W, ready to create another urban legend, sitting ready in their outfits, reading a book and enjoying the nice weather outside.
Did you know that the famous Arthur Conan Doyle book about Sherlock Holmes: The Hound of the Baskervilles was based on a true legend? The legend about the evil Squire Richard Cabell and his hounds are still haunting the moors in Devon.
When Sir Arthur Conan Doyle stayed at the Duchy Hotel he heard the story of the evil Squire Richard Cabell that lived in the 1600s around those parts in Devon. This led him to write his famous story: The Hound of the Baskervilles which is the third of the four crime novels written by him about detective Sherlock Holmes. This installment of the detective turned out to be one of the most liked and popular book of Sherlock Holmes.
The Hound of the Baskervillesis not the only book that based itself on a true legend. Read here about how a shipwreck in Whitby inspired parts of Dracula in the MoonMausoleum.
The Legend of Richard Cabell
The legend tells of the local Squire that lived in the village of Buckfastleigh in Devon, England with a lot of rumors surrounding him. Richard Cabell lived for the hunt and was notorious for his pack of black hounds that were said to be extremely vicious, as the owner himself.
Sherlock Holmes: Illustration to The Hound of the Baskervilles.
He is though to be the inspiration for Arthur Conan Doyle to the character of Hugo Baskerville in The Hound of the Baskervilles and is remembered by Devon as: “the first of his family to be hounded to death when he hunted an innocent maiden over the moor by night”.
There are many rumours about him as a person and perhaps not all true. Not only did Richard Cabell have a legend about him having sold his soul to the Devil for immortality, but there was also rumours that he murdered his wife, Elizabeth Fowell as the locals wouldn’t put it past him knowing he was an extremely vicious man.
It is said he accused her of adultery and she tried to flee from him by running away. She was recaptured though and brought back were he murdered her with his hunting knife. This rumoured is to be believed if we ignore the fact that his wife outlived him by 14 years.
In any case if he did or didn’t kill his wife or it was mostly rumours that came from his unpopular political believes, he was described as a monstrous man and he only cared about hunting with his hounds and the other locals shied away from him and his hounds. After he died he was remembered as: Dirty Dick, feared as well as hated by the locals.
Haunting Hell Hounds
Hell Hounds: Illustration of the black hound in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
On the 5th of July in 1677, Richard Cabell died, but it was not the last the people of Dartmoor saw of him according to the legend. The night of his burial a pack of black hounds like he used to own and hunt with was seen on the moor, howling at his tomb.
From that night, they were often seen together, the phantom hounds and his ghost, mostly on the anniversary of his death. He would be seen leading the hounds back across the moor.
“It came with the wind through the silence of the night, a long, deep mutter, then a rising howl, and then the sad moan in which it died away. Again and again it sounded, the whole air throbbing with it, strident, wild and menacing.” ― Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Hound of the Baskervilles
The Devon Yeth Hound
In Devon folklore, it is often included a fearsome dog known as the Yeth hound and black hounds or Hell Hounds are often found in European Doom Mythology and used as the base of the mystery in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
In Akershus Fortress in Oslo, Norway, there are rumours about something strange haunting the former castle. There is a legend of a ghost of a dog haunting the place, called the Malcanis, or Evil Dog as it means.
This is one of the reasons why seeing someone with big black dogs could look so scary for people from Devon. The legend of the Yeth Hound is said to be a headless dog, often thought to be the spirit of an unbaptised child. The black hound that roams through the woods and over the moors at night making wailing noises much like the hounds of Richard Cabell or the mysterious hound we meet in The Hound of the Baskervilles.
To get peace from his ghost, the villagers built a large building on top of Richard Cabell’s tomb to stop him from getting out. It looks almost like a small prison with iron bars. This seems like a dramatic thing to do just because of some rumours.
Even with these measures, people have reported of strange stuff happening around the building as well from the inside.
A legend of the Ship of Death that foreshadows death and acts as an omen to those that sees the phantom ship has been told for a while along the Platte River in Wyoming. What is this ship that warns about your loved ones dying?
In Wyoming the North Platte Rivers follows the route through many states and the river itself was once used as a guide for the Oregon trail and the settlers way west into the country.
Since the mid 1800s, there have been reports about a ship in the mist along the Banks of the Platte River that today is known as the Ship of Death.
It will begin like a thick mist that slowly takes form and a ship emerges from the mist. Witnesses have reported that both the mast and the ghostly crew sometimes seen has been covered by frost.
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It is not really seen as a real missing ship, but considered to be a bad omen as it usually is, it has been known as The Ship of Death because it foreshadows that someone will die. The sightings have mostly occurred during fall and during daytime.
The Ship From the Fog
The first who reported seeing this Ship of Doom was a fur trapper named Leon Webber in 1862. When first seeing this strange phenomenon he went down to the water and threw a stone into the fog. His dog was whimpering behind Leon.
When the ship came closer he spotted the body of his fiance on the deck like she was sleeping on a canvas sheet. The worst thing about this fearful sight is that the very same day, his fiance died.
There was a long period of no one seeing the ship until a cattleman named Gene Wilson in 1887. He was working outside and led his cattle along the river banks when he saw the strange fog coming out on the river after his dog kept barking suddenly.
His horse refused to get closer to the water and he had to tie it to a tree and walk closer by foot. The ship came out from the fog and he saw his wife laying on the deck. And don’t you know it, the same day his wife really died as he found out as he rushed home to find his home burned to ashes.
In 1903 is the latest report we have of this sighting. It was a local man named Victor Heibe living by the river and he saw the ship when he was outside in his yard chopping down a tree. He was taking a break and smoking when the mist started gathering.
On a nice fall day a sudden fog came from nowhere and according to this man, he saw both the ship as well as a ghostly crew all covered in frost. He recognised a good friend hanging from a gallow on the deck. The very same day, the friend was dead after being recaptured after escaping from prison.
The Truth Behind the Ship of Death
It is said that the stories have been handed down since the mid 1800s. But there are several cracks in that story as the earliest written accounts started popping up in the mid 1900s. And Facts-Chology as well as Skepticalinquirer has a theory that they are all from the imagination and writings of a writer named Vincent Gaddis. A writer known for writing ghost stories that he passed off as true.
And if that is true, then that is exactly the blueprint of how you create your own legends.
Sometimes the sound of someone gasping for air is heard over the deep waters in Lake Lowell, Idaho. Some claim it is the ghost of a girl who drowned at Gotts Point a long time ago that is still trying to get to the shore.
The deep waters can be a treacherous place. One wrong move and you will never reach the shores of safe land ever again. Stories about ghosts of drowned are some of the oldest ghost stories we have and they come from all. From the deep blue sea, fierce rivers and the dark waters of lakes.
Read More: Check out all of the ghost stories from USA
Gotts Point is a place between Nampa and Caldwell in Idaho and bears such a haunting legend. The beautiful Lake Lowell is home to much wonderful wildlife as well as haunting stories of the people that drowned there.
The Ghost of the Lady in the Lake at Gotts Point
One of the ghosts that are said to sit under the surface of the water is that of a girl that drowned in the lake in the 1970s when she was water skiing at Gotts Point. She has later been dubbed Lady of the Lake of Lake Lowell to some when telling the legend of her ghost that are sometimes spotted by swimmers or those that walk along the shores.
The Lady of the Lake: at Gotts Point in Lake Lowell there are tales that a woman is haunting the lake after drowning. Her ghost have been dubbed the Lady of the Lake.
The reports include sounds of her gasping for air out in the lake late at night as well as seeing her sitting on a rock along the shore, but disappearing when you get close.
Her name as well as hard evidence of a girl actually having drowned at that time and place has not surfaced, but considering that many people drown in these parts every year when the summer comes and people are drawn to the water, a ghost of a drowned one doesn’t sound as far fetched at all.
An online magazine about the paranormal, haunted and macabre. We collect the ghost stories from all around the world as well as review horror and gothic media.
