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Hauntings at the Weston State Hospital or the Trans-Allegheny Asylum

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Many of the patients spent most of their lives inside of the walls of the old and overcrowded asylum then known as Weston State Hospital as well as the Trans-Allegheny Asylum. Some even say that some of the souls will spend the rest of eternity in this old asylum. 

The asylum was first built in the period between 1858 to 1881. During the Civil War it was used as a base for soldiers and the completion of the hospital happened first after the war. 

It was back then known as the Weston State Hospital, although it best known by its original name today: The Trans-Allegheny Asylum.

It opened the doors in 1864 with nine patients and was supposed to be a fresh start to cure the insane? But after it closed the doors, it became known as one of America’s most haunted places. How was it possible? For that we have to go back to when the now haunted asylum opened its fresh coated doors. 

Read about more haunted asylums around the world: Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital

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The New Era for the Insane

The man behind the building that is now filled with rumors of ghosts and ghouls was Thomas Story Kirkbride who is considered to be one of the fathers of the modern American practice of psychiatry. The building was built after what was known as the Kirkbride plans which was the golden standard for mental hospitals in the 19th century. 

The architecture was supposed to be spacious and receive a lot of direct sunlight to comfort the patients. The hospitals were usually built out in green and lush places. The very word asylum used to mean a place of comfort. The idea that they would remove the inflicted person from the environment, would supposedly help cure them. 

But although the base philosophy was moral care and kindness, the reality turned out to be something completely different as the spacious rooms became overcrowded with patients that never recieved their cure. 

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The Patients Haunting the Asylum

Although it was seen as an innovative and modern way of dealing with the mentally ill back then, today we look at it as quite barbaric. For instance the patients were admitted with diagnoses like hereditary, menstrual  and even masturbation, as they thought this habit caused mental illness.

Some of the more unusual listings but still accepted as diagnoses were: “novel reading,”  “doubt about his mother’s ancestors,” “marriage of son,” “Salvation Army,” “seduction and disappointment,” among some of the reasons we today would consider just silly. 

And the supposed cure they promised was reported as being at only 26 percent. Many succumbed to the horrible conditions at the hospital, suicide or even murder. Even the methods that were put in to cure your affliction could end up killing you. It is estimated that around 50 000 people died in the hospital while it was operating from 1864 to 1994. 

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Horrible Conditions

When the asylum was first built it was supposed to hold up to 250 people. It was built with a lot of space as the idea was that the patients should be able to roam about the premise free as part of their cure. 

But soon the asylum got crowded, at most it had ten times more patients than it should have. By the peak in the 1950s, the asylum housed over 2400 patients. They were sleeping maybe up to five people in dirty rooms on the floor in freezing rooms. The windows were almost blacked out by the dirt and mold with the wallpapers peeling in the decay. 

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The care for the patients also declined. And although the hospital philosophy was to use as little restraint as possible, it became increasingly more difficult as the overcrowding kept happening and only getting worse into the new century. And the use of straightjackets, cuffs, bed straps and cribs were frequent. 

It wasn’t only for the patients that the condition was bad. The staff also had its problems. There are several records of female employees being raped on duty. There is also a story about a nurse who went missing. They didn’t find the rotting body at the bottom of an unused staircase before two months passed. 

Lobotomies, Electroshock and Ice Baths

It wasn’t only the rooms and amounts of patients that were a problem at the asylum. It was also the treatments. When it was at its worst, the asylum was also a place where they began experimenting with some experimental lobotomies in the 1930s. 

These lobotomies left the patients, some even perfectly healthy before the procedure, with brain damage and hemorrhages. It is estimated that over 4000 of these experiments were performed at this asylum. 

There was also a spread of electroconvulsive therapy and hydrotherapy. Hydrotherapy was widely used in the first half of the 20th century and was a cold bath where the patient had to sit for hours, sometimes even days. 

Electroshock Therapy was given up to several times a day and some also suffered permanent brain damage from it in the long run.

The End of the Asylum

Although some were considered cured and helped during their stay at the hospital, many patients held great resentment towards the place and the staff. One even tried to burn it to the ground in 1935. 

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The asylum closed its doors for patients first in 1994. In 2007 it opened its doors for tourists and was renamed to Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum which was the original name when it first opened its doors. Here they host tours and overnight stays to tell the story, both the medical and the supposed paranormal ones. 

Ghosts Reported of in the Asylum

Lily

One of the most talked about ghosts in the old asylum is the little girl, Lily. The story differs slightly from who tells it, from her being a patient from the Civil War era that died from pneumonia when she was 9. Some even say that she was born in the asylum. 

She usually plays in a room on the 4th floor in Ward R. This was once a place for violent women. She is often seen in her playroom, where you can hear her both crying and laughing.

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There have been several claims to exactly who she is. In one paranormal investigation series, she featured in one of their episodes. There the psychist Tammy Wilson met a girl around nine years old wearing a white dress. Her mother started with the letter E came to the hospital already pregnant. Her parents died though and both her and her daughter had to live their remaining days at the asylum. 

According to the producers, they actually found records of a woman beginning with an E and gave birth in the 1920s. Could it be Lily?

Big Jim

One of the more scarier ghost is Big Jim, said to have murdered another patient with a bedpost. He is said to haunt the third floor together with a murdered man who was bludgeoned to death after the murdered failed to hang him. 

James

A ghost who is said to have died of a heart attack in the bathtub. 

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Ruth

On the first floor of the building you can find the ghost of former patient Ruth. She haunts this place which is called the Civil War Wing. Apparently she hated men and used to throw things at them, someone says she still does it to this day. 

Nurse Elizabeth

Another ghost that is haunting the third floor is that of Nurse Elizabeth. Not much are known of her. 

Civil War Soldiers

From its story stretching all the way back to the civil war, there wouldn’t be a story complete without a soldier ghost. Although not specified as being from the civil war in all the sources, there is a ghost named Jacob who are haunting the hallways of the fourth floor. 

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Slewfoot

One person nicknamed Slewfoot is said to haunt the upper floors. He is said to have committed many of the murders in the upstairs bathroom and supposedly haunts the area. 

Other Ghosts

In Ward 2 on the second floor there is a room where a man was stabbed 17 times by another patient and still haunts it. In another room there were two patients that hanged themselves from the curtain rods and have been seen as shadowy figures.

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References

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum one of WV’s most haunted spots (FlipSide)

 THE CIVIL WAR-HISTORY AND HERITAGE TRANS-ALLEGHENY LUNATIC ASYLUM

https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/ghost-tour-mental-hospital

Weston State Hospital

I Spent the Night in a Haunted Asylum and I Still Can’t Explain What I Saw – Washingtonian

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum and the Haunting Enigma of Lily

Trans-Allegheny Lunatic Asylum, Weston, West Virginia – Legends of America

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Yeongdeok Haunted House

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Named one of the most haunted houses in South Korea, this house has attracted its fair share of ghost tourists. But is the Yeongdeok Haunted House really haunted by the death of Korean soldiers during the war, or is it simply the decaying look of the house that made the legend?

On a 3 hour KTX ride from Seoul with a high speed train you will find the Yeongdeok haunted house (영덕흉가). Located in Gyeongsang Province, known for its beautiful nature and coastline. The house near the beach has in the later years taken the role as one of the most famous haunted houses in South Korea that are not yet demolished or revamped to something else. 

The ones said to haunt this particular basic building are said to be the student soldiers that lost their lives when almost 800 of them staged a diversion operation at Jangsari beach in Yeongdeok to draw the North Koreans attention away from the well known Battle of Inchon in the Korean War.

Read More: Check out the rest of our ghost stories from Korea

According to locals, around 400 to 700 soldiers lost their lives during this battle and were buried in this area during the Korean War. It is said that while 139 were killed and 92 were wounded, the rest just went missing. 

The house itself was built in October 1980 and supposedly the house is built upon a mass grave of the soldiers that died. Is this true? Some locals claim that no, it isn’t, but then again, the legends uphold the claim and the house has been featured on many lists as Korea’s most haunted.

The Ghost in the Staircase

After the war the Yeongdeok Haunted House, hauntings have been to blame when the owners of the house died in mysterious ways, although no real evidence of any of the owners having actually died has been presented. One variation is that the owner of the house in its earlier days was killed in a car accident and that those buying the house after this died as well. 

In all the legends surrounding the house though it is because of all the people that died during the war here, that it drove the price of the land down and some people saw the opportunity to get it cheap. But then, they didn’t calculate all the souls that came with it. 

The Haunted House: Years without anyone to take care of it has left the Yeongdeok Haunted House on the hill in decay and deterioration, fuelling the haunted house rumours. // Source

In one of the many haunted legends about the house, a young couple once bought the place to turn it into a seafood restaurant as they got it cheap because of the haunted rumors. But not soon after they opened for business strange things started to happen. 

The wife reported spotting a ghost in the staircase, descending from the second floor again and again with the hair hanging down and when she first saw it she is reported to have fainted at the spot by the mere sight of it. It all was too much and they ended up abandoning the place not soon after because of all the incidents that kept occuring in their home. 

The Shamanist Against the Ghosts

A new couple moved into the Yeongdeok Haunted House as the price of the house dropped even further. They were believers of traditional Korean shamanistic beliefs and tried to keep the ghosts at bay with their shamanistic items and rituals. It seems to not have worked as they also moved from the house not soon after. 

This story of shamanism inhabitants has contradicting variations. Some say that they ran away because of the ghosts, some say that they were kicked out because they were squatters, not real owners.

Read More: Check out all our ghost stories from Haunted Houses

Now the hype of the house started to pick up though, and the place attracted ghostbusters and shamans alike to have a look at the house and try to cleanse it as well as getting a few minutes of screentime on TV. 

One shaman that visited the place as a part of a TV show claimed that over ten thousand spirits were present in the house. During this part they supposedly got the hold of recording of voices they didn’t hear when they were on site, although speculations that it has something to do with the radio tower right by the house, is under discussion.

Visitors, or trespassers if you will, complain that a throbbing headache or an intense chill takes hold of them as they explore the abandoned building that is decaying and getting more and more of a haunted look as no one is taking care of the building. It is also rumored that machine equipment is malfunctioning while staying at the place. 

The Ghost of Student Soldiers: The ghosts that are said to be haunting Yeongdeok Haunted House are the dead ones from a battle at Jangsari Beach to lead the attention of North Korea away from Incheon. Here from the movie about the battle: The Battle of Jangsari. // Source

The Truth of the Legend Behind Yeongdeok Haunted House

The truthness to these haunted rumors though can be disputed. What we do know for a fact is that the owners moved to the US. Why? Perhaps not for the paranormal reasons the legend is insisting on. What is a fact though is that the uprooting of the owners led to the neglected buildings starting to deteriorate.

A little footage of the house from around 5 years ago.

The owner, in articles called Mr. Ham is currently residing in the US and is considering demolishing the Yeongdeok Haunted House as it seems to disturb the plans to create a memorial park for those dying in this battle were the supposedly haunting started from. 

So perhaps the same fate of some of the famous abandoned buildings with a haunting reputation will get another addition to the list when this house also gets flattened to the earth, soon to be forgotten.

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References

8 Haunted Places In South Korea You Didn’t Know Existed

Top 12 Most Haunted Places In South Korea!

The most haunted house in Korea – Captain and Clark

전국 3대 흉가 선정, 영덕 ‘귀신 나오는 집’ 헐린다

귀신 나온다는 ‘한국 3대 흉가’는 조작됐다 – 시사저널

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Poveglia Island — The Most Haunted Place in the World

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The haunted Poveglia Island has always been a place for the unwanted. It has been a place for plague victims, a psychiatric hospital and burial ground. Today it’s known for being one of the most haunted places in the world. 

Today, even fishermen avoid the Poveglia Island, not only because it is forbidden to go there. On clear days you can allegedly see skulls and bones under the surface. If a skull is caught in the fishing net, the fisherman will just dump it all back into the sea. There are no fish that are worth taking from the cursed plague island. 

The Plague Island

Most of the legends started when the government closed off the whole island because of cases of the plague. There have been found numerous plague pits of dead bodies. Over the years it turned into a dumping ground of the undesired to isolate them from the rest of the population. According to locals there have been over 160 000 deaths on the island of no return. According to the legends, the ground on Poveglia Island consists of half dirt and half human ashes. 

Read Also: The Plague of the Past?

The Plague Island: Plague mask and tools for disinfecting letters discovered on Poveglia island by Theodor Weyl in 1889.

People with the plague were shipped off to this island, both the dead as well as those still alive. From 1776 it was used as a quarantine station for ships that were coming and going from Venice, although it had been used as a quarantine station way before that as well. Most notably in 1348 when Venice was hit with the Bubonic Plague, more commonly known as the Black Death. It is said you had to stay on the island for 40 days to see if you would die or survive. The word quarantine comes from the Italian quaranta, meaning 40. 

The Vampires on Poveglia Island

Because of the death toll the island saw, the locals started calling it the Island of Ghosts. But it wasn’t the only fear the Venetians had of the dead that had their final resting place there. They were also afraid of Vampires living on the Poveglia Island. 

When people rediscovered these mass graves of the plague pits, they noticed something strange about some of the skeletons. Some were found with large rocks between their jaws, and it is believed that the Venetians did this because they believed they were vampires. 

A scientific explanation of this of course is the decomposition gasses that caused internal organs to rupture. Sometimes, blood came out from these organs and out from the dead bodies mouth. So when the Venetians opened up the plague pits to put more people into it, they were sometimes met with dead bodies with bloody mouths, looking like they had just been feasting on human flesh. That is at least what we hope happened, as the paranormal explanation is so much worse. 

The Mad Doctor in the Belltower

In 1922 the whole Poveglia Island turned into an asylum to hide away the mentally ill. Because a cursed island is not complete before having operated as an asylum. The patients supposedly reported seeing ghosts of the plague victims all the time, but who would take a pshycriatic patient’s visions of ghosts seriously in an asylum?

Read Also: Gonjiam Psychiatric Hospital

But it wasn’t only plague victims from the past that were torturing the patients. Their doctors were as well. According to legends, there was this one doctor who took to experiment and torture his patients in the bell tower. Apparently he used to do these crude lobotomies with a hammer and a chisel into the patient’s brain.  

Cursed Asylum: View of Poveglia in the Lagoon of Venice. Closeup of the Hospital and the belltower.//source//Chris 73

Exactly what happened in the bell tower with the patients, we will never really know. He himself died when he fell from that very same tower sometime in the 1930s. Some say he went mad and threw himself off, some say it was the angry spirits of those he tortured and killed who drove him to it. 

The fall from the tower itself didn’t kill him immediately, but he died from the wounds not long after. Together with his victims, he now haunts Poveglia Island that no one returns from. 

The mental hospital closed down in 1968 and Poveglia Island has been vacant ever since. Or has it? 

The Ghost of Little Maria

Although the fishermen in the lagoon try to stay away from Poveglia Island, it is impossible not to hear the screams and the moans coming from it at times. Even the bell from the bell tower can be heard at times, even though the bell was removed from the towers years ago. 

One of the more known ghosts is called ‘Little Maria’. she has been spotted on Poveglia Island for more than 400 years now and is considered to most likely have been one of the plague victims that never returned. She is forever doomed now to walk along the beach on Poveglia Island as she cries for help to get away. 

The Forbidden Island

Getting there is hard as Poveglia Island is off limits and its remaining buildings in desperate need of repair. This is fuelling the legends of the island being haunted. But does anyone really want to stay on the island themselves? It is said to be a haunted place by the locals, believing that the very soil, mixed with the ashes of people laid to rest there, made the very ground cursed. 

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https://no.hotels.com/go/italy/venice-haunted-spots

Poveglia Island – The Little House of Horrors

Inside Poveglia Island, Venice’s Haunted Quarantine For The Black Plague

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The Witches of the Black Diamond Mines

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Guarding the old mining community, these ghosts of these two women have been dubbed witches by the locals, feared as well as revered in their lives. Who were The White Witches of the Black Diamond Mines?

Before the place in the San Francisco Bay area used to be a bustling mining community at the turn of the century. The coal mines was operating until 1945. Now the mines are closed and the place forgotten, but the remains can still be reached an hour away from San Francisco. 

Although named the Diamond mines, there was no sparkling diamonds to be found in the mines. Instead it was coal, the black type of diamonds. It is here the legend of the white witches started to take hold of the mining community.

Overview

Type of Haunting:Female Ghost, Witches
Place:USA, North America
Other:Haunted Cemetery
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The Contra Costa County is ranked as the scariest place in California because of legends like the Black Diamond Mines and the White Witches that are said to be haunting the place.

The White Witch in Rose Hill Cemetery

Sara Norton worked as a midwife to the people living in the small towns across the bay area and she delivered over 600 babies in her time. She was a widow to Noah Norton that even got the town Nortonville named after himself. 

She died however in 1879 at the age of 68. She was on call at her midwife duties when she was thrown from a carriage to make a delivery in Clayton and was killed in the accident. 

According to the legend, Sarah was not a religious person and told her own kids that she didn’t want a church funeral. However, when she died that was exactly what they gave her and her spirit became enraged. On the day of the funeral a storm crashed their plan and they decided to go through with the funeral the next day. The next day however, another storm came crashing and ruined their plans. The townspeople took the hint and skipped the formalities and buried her in the Rosehill Cemetery. 

From then on the spirit of Sarah has been spotted in the old mining towns as well as floating around the tombstones in the graveyard. 

Mary the Wailing Witch in the Black Diamond Mines

Another lady that is haunting the place is Mary, who history forgot her last name. She was working as a nanny in the 1870s, but in contrast to Sarah that brought life into this world, her legacy tells that she put life out. 

All of her children that she cared for died of illness and it was not soon before she was accused of witchcraft after some local townspeople allegedly found evidence of her dark rituals that resulted in the death of their children. 

In some variations of the legend, she worked as a school teacher, not a nanny. And with the diseases of the times, it is not unlikely diseases went through the community, striking the kids at the same time. So was it a tragedy or witchcraft? The townspeople certainly was of the belief that it was and set out to punish her.

The legend differs from how Mary met her death. Although the evidence is lost to us, it supposedly was enough to hang her for her crimes in some versions of the story. In other version her dead body was found in the mines under strange circumstances. But it was not enough to bring her out of this world. 

To this day she is spotted guarding the mines wearing all white and seeking revenge for her murder. But there is also another side to her hauntings. It is said that it is mostly children that see her, and she pushes them out from the dangerous mines that are filled with harmful gasses and unstable tunnels. 

So the question remains, is she remaining in the world as a resentful witch, or as a protector of children that she wasn’t able to be alive?

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Haunted? Why East Bay’s Black Diamond Mines Are So Spooky To Some | Concord, CA Patch

Black Diamond Mines is Most Haunted Cave Near San Franciscoi

Black Diamond Mines Regional Preserve | East Bay Parks

Spooky Trails and Tall Tales California: Hiking the Golden State’s Legends, Hauntings, and History by Tom Ogden

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The Cursed Merchants at Campo dei Mori

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In the square of Campo dei Mori in Venice there are three stone statues placed in the. Legend has it that the three brother merchants were cursed and turned to stone, together with their camel. 

The Cursed Merchant: One of the brothers, Sior Antonio Rioba with his iron nose//Source//Wikimedia/
Doris Antony

In Venetian legends, there are many stories of people being cursed, often by greed, and this is one of them.  Around 1100 AD there were 3 rich merchants named Rioba, Afani and Sandi trying to sell fabric by Palazzo Mastelli at Campo dei Mori square.

Sior Antonio Rioba together with his brothers came from Morea which was the Venetian name for the Peloponnese in Greece. They were very rich silk and spice merchants of the Mastelli del Cammello family who built the entire area and had a house nearby named ‘the House of the Camel’. They were called Mastelli because they were known to have ‘Thousands of tubs of gold coins’.

However the fabric they were selling was poor quality compared to the price they tried to sell it for. In some variation of the legend, Sior Antonio Rioba and his brothers were also bankmen that scammed their customers by high priced loans. 

They tried to scam this local old lady to buy one of their fabrics one they, or give her a loan, depending on the variant of the legend. They told her that this ordinary fabric was the best yarn in Venice and the Lord could turn them into stone if they didn’t tell her the truth. She was recently a widow and took over a tailoring workshop, and she knew what a good quality fabric was. When she found out their plan, she cursed the money she gave them by praying to Mary Magdalene to help her. This turned the 3 men, along with their camel, into stone and are still standing there to this day. 

In the 19th century, one of the statues lost his nose and was replaced with a nose of iron. Venetians believe that if you touch the nose of the statue of Sior Antonio Rioba, you will have good luck in business. 

It is said that sometimes at night, you can hear Sior Antonio Rioba lamenting about his grief, and if you put your hand on his stone cold chest, you can still hear a heart beating forever confined to his corner at Campo dei Mori. 

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The Ghost Bride – The Book and the Real Ghost Marriage Behind it

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Ghost Marriage is not something we only read about in fictional books and watch in horror movies. Sometimes the fiction is inspired by the truth, like with the Malaysian book, The Ghost Bride from 2013.

Malaysian author Yangsze Choo (朱洋熹) heard many types of lore, legends and myths when she was growing up in Malaysia. Being a fourth generation Chinese Malaysian, many of the stories she heard were rooted in Chinese tradition. “As a kid, you’d sometimes hear, ‘So-and-so got married to a ghost or to a dead man.’ And that always really sparked my interest,” she told InsideEdition.com once.

And when she wrote her book, The Ghost Bride, she wrote a fictionalized version of a real thing based on the stories she heard about Ghost Marriages. The book was published in 2013, but painted a story from a very different time. 

Read More: Check out all ghost stories from Malaysia

The book The Ghost Bride is set in 1890s Colonial Malacca, a Malaysian Chinese woman accepts a marriage proposal from a wealthy family to be the “ghost bride” to their deceased son who died a mysterious death to save her family from going bankrupt. Desperate to escape the situation, she needs to battle both the dangers of real life as well as the dangers of the afterlife and the hauntings of the dead. 

Her book was a great success and even got its own Netflix TV-series adaptation. Although The Ghost Bride is a fictional story, the concept of Ghost Marriage is anything but.

Ghost Marriage or Mínghūn in Chinese Culture

The tradition of Ghost Marriage or Mínghūn 冥婚 is an ancient Chinese custom in China and among Chinese communities abroad, representing deep cultural beliefs surrounding death and the afterlife. In this unique ritual, the family of the deceased takes on the responsibility of arranging a marriage for their loved one who has passed away, ensuring that the bond continues even beyond the grave. This practice is believed to provide comfort and peace to the deceased, allowing them companionship in the afterlife, as it is thought that they will not be lonely without a spouse.

In more extreme cases, there is a living person that are to be married to a dead one. This happened more when parents had this choice or to send their children to brothels or servants. “In many ways, it is a choice between two evils. Never an easy choice,” Choo said.

Although Ghost Marriage is fairly uncommon, but these poignant ceremonies are still very much alive today, with families sometimes going to great lengths to conduct elaborate rituals and find suitable partners for their deceased relatives, demonstrating the enduring significance of family ties and filial piety even after death.

Read Also: Ghost Marriage — The Chinese Way to Marry the Dead

The Ghost Bride took three years to write and a lot of things inspired what would eventually be her book. When she researched for it she remembered all of these stories she had heard about and read in the papers. She also learned that her friend’s family had been involved with a Ghost Marriage many years ago in the 90s or early 00s. 

The Wedding of the Dead that Inspired the Ghost Bride Book

The Ghost Bride: The cover of the book that Yangsze Choo was inspired to write after the old tradition.// Photo

One night, Yangsze Choo’s friend’s grandmother woke up from a dream. She said to the family the next day that it was her son who had visited and told her that he had met a girl in the underworld and wished to marry. 

Her son gave his mother the girl’s name and address to her family so that the grandmother could go see for herself. So the grandmother went to the address she had gotten in her dream and according to the story, actually found the family. 

Read More: Check out the book The Ghost Bride

When she talked to the mother of the girl who had died, it turned out that she had the same dreams as the grandmother had. She had been visited by her dead daughter in the dream and said that she too wished to get married. 

The two families got together and held a wedding for their belated children. Just like they would have if they were alive they had a ceremony with Chinese bridal sedan chairs as well as a feast after they had taken their vows and they got their soul tablets. 

After the wedding the two families were joined and worked as any extended family would, joining them for large family happenings. 

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Featured Image: Netflix ‘The Ghost Bride’ (2020)

What Is a Ghost Marriage? The Real Story Behind the Unusual Practice in New Netflix Show ‘The Ghost ‘ | Inside Edition

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Ghosts in the Ann Starrett Mansion

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Refusing to leave their home, the ghosts of Ann Starrett mansion still reside in the Victorian house, haunting the place in Port Townsend. 

In the city of Port Townsend in Washington, the place is known for its many old Victorian and historical buildings. The place itself was once called, The City of Dreams and a safe harbor. 

It’s here a Queen Anne-style mansion that is said to house the dead stands. Built in 1889 by Georg Starrett for his wife Ann, it is said that even in their afterlife they spend their time in this Victorian mansion. 

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The House of Four Seasons

For many years the house was used as a motel, and the guests reported about a particular feeling when staying there. A haunting feeling for sure, but perhaps not of the spooky one. The beautiful frescos in the ceiling represented the four seasons and worked as a solar calendar, nicknaming the house The House of Four Seasons as well as Port Townsend’s most haunted.

The Starrett family was living in the mansion for many generations from then on and many will claim that they never really left. For more than twenty years they lived with their only son Edwin, two servants and their nanny, and it is said to have been a happy time for them. So happy that they never left?

The Ghosts in the Ann Starrett Mansion

The House of Four Seasons: The Solar Calendar fresco where the ghosts have been spotted.// Source

There is not only one ghost that has been spotted in the house over the years. The first one is a female ghost with red hair, believed by many to be Ann herself, still the woman in the house. It is said she is seen as a more peaceful spirit than a restless one and she is spotted more than once by the solar calendar that George built for her.

There also has been seen a man believed to be Georg Starrett that also lingers in their home, even after their death. He is often seen accompanying the red haired ghost in the halls and down the stairs. A sign that even in their afterlife, the happy couple stayed together.

The third ghost that has been seen is said to be the spirit of their son’s nanny and her presence has been sensed especially in her old bedroom with her face showing up in the mirror. This is the ghost that often is blamed when something of the more paranormal occurs, like pictures on the walls falling, turning on and off the lights when no one is in the room or smacking peoples head when they say something offensive. 

The Future Hauntings of the House

Although a beautiful thing to behold, the house has seen its difficult times being on the market, even though the haunting itself was not something that received any complaints from the owner themselves. For years it was used for a boutique motel before the owners wanted to sell. For twelve years in the early 2000s, they struggled to find a buyer for the house and one can wonder if the spirits in the house much preferred that. 

By 2022 though the house was back again as an airbnb for now, and it looks like the permanent residents will continue to be the original owners in the afterlife. 

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Featured Image: Airbnb

About The Starrett House

Ann Starrett Mansion

Ann Starrett Mansion – 15 Haunted Houses That Have High Style – Lonny

Old mansion gets new owners | Port Townsend Leader

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Fighting The Widow Ghost With Cross Dressing and Erect Penises

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When unexplained deaths of seemingly healthy and young men occur around the same time and same place there are many Thai people who believe it is the Widow Ghost who is after their men, and they have their own way of holding the seemingly paranormal death at bay. 

In some parts of rural Thailand, especially in the northeastern parts, men are afraid of falling asleep in fear of dying because a ghost sought them out as a mate. There are sometimes waves of panic where a fear of the widow ghost trying to take them during the night, are keeping them awake. 

But whether it is a paranormal explanation or a scientific one still has the local villagers and medical personnel divided. 

Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome or Lai-Tai

From time to time, there will be cases where more than one man in a geographic area will die during the same time, perhaps under mysterious circumstances at first glance. Like in the 1990s there were many unexplained deaths of a group of Thai workers in their sleep in the northeastern parts of Thailand. It was referred to as ‘Sudden Unexplained Nocturnal Death Syndrome’ by Thai doctors. 

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This particular syndrome (SUNDS), is a disorder found in southeast Asia, particularly Thailand, Japan, Philippines and Cambodia, which causes sudden cardiac death, mostly during sleep. In Thailand it also goes under the name lai-tai Lai (dreaming, screaming) Tai (death). It is however not the name of the Widow Ghost as it is cited as in many articles. But what is this ghost?

The Widow Ghost

The unexplained deaths got a more paranormal explanation to it and the legend of the vengeful spirit or the widow ghost fitted the narrative. She is an evil spirit that hunts men at night and steals the men from their bed. 

Protection from the Widow Ghost: A scarecrow dressed in red with an erect penis was considered the remedy when the fear of her reached Nakhon Phanom in 2018 // Photo: AsiaWire/thairath

The story about the widow ghost is not a particularly new one, but it definitely is one of the more persistent ones. Around the same time as this was happening in northeastern parts of Thailand, more of the same mysterious deaths occurred among Thai workers both in Malaysia and Singapore. What was this thing that took the lives of so many of their men? Over the years before there was anyone trying to explain this in a scientific way, they had figured out ways to protect themselves from the sudden deaths.  

To protect themselves from this, the men themselves as well as their mothers or wives took measures according to superstition to defend themselves and their men. Some put on lipstick or nail polish, or even dress up in womens clothing before going to bed. By doing this, they hoped to fool the widow ghost into thinking they were in fact women and would leave them alone. 

There was also a very traditional Thai way of protecting their home where they hung phallic symbols around their necks, over the doors and at the village gates for protection. Many Thai people believe that phallic symbols bring good luck and good business. The bigger the penis, the better the business. There is also the habit of putting scarecrows with erect penises to distract or even hunt the Widow Ghost. 

This is the case in Thung Nang Oak, a rural village in Thailand where they have a very phallic symbol for their commune, more than 3 feet long and weighing 22 pounds. One of the reasons for putting that on display was because of the terrible nightmares to the local men that was an indication that the Widow ghost was on her way. 

Deadly Health and Diets

However, even with this protection, there would still be death, and a man died in his sleep, even though he wore red nail polish. The Thai public Health Ministry concluded the deaths were not caused by a spirit, but a bad diet of carbohydrate and sugar worsened by both physical and mental strain. This was after the Thai health authorities investigated over 700 of these mysterious deaths from Thai  workers in Malaysia, Singapore and Brunei since 1983 to the 90s, and many more back in Thailand. 

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This seems extreme, but the fact is that at least back in the day, the Thai workers from the northeastern provinces lived on just white rice with a sweet syrup, overproducing insulin and lacking both potassium and vitamin B-1. 

Since then, the Public Health Ministry launched campaigns where they tried to advocate for the value of a more balanced diet with more nutrients to stop the panic. But did it work?

Fighting Ghosts with Phallic Symbols

Seems like this is not a problem that only existed, ‘back in the day’. In 2018, there was another wave of panic after five young men died in a few weeks. This was also in northeast Thailand in the remote Nakhon Phanom province. In a small village of 90 people, they resorted to old ways when five of their healthy and young men died suddenly in their sleep. 

They were otherwise seemingly healthy and went to bed after taking a bath as per usual. They were all found dead by their families the next morning. 

There are no man here: Red shirts are hung up in the fences, trees and doors. They are all trying to tell the widow ghost that there are no men in the house and urging her to pass on over to the next. //Photo: Sanook

The legend of the Widow Ghost came back and so did the old remedies to fight her and protect the men. Huge scarecrows with an impressive 80 cm erect penises were placed on the gates. They hung signs saying ‘There is no man here’ ( “บ้านนี้ไม่มีผู้ชาย”)  to confuse the ghost. Often they also hang out red t-shirts as it is a color for women and alludes to the fact that there are only women at home, in the hope the ghost will ignore the house and move on to the next. The men were dressed in dresses and painted with makeup to protect them from being stolen by the ghost in their sleep. 

As not a single man died the following week since the scarecrows were put up and the nails painted, they thought that it must have worked. 

However, in neighbouringing villages and other cities there were similar cases and panic about the widow ghost. Most of these deaths most likely didn’t have an official autopsy, as it often is. But authorities claim that there is a more logical explanation to it all. In many cases where they have done autopsies, there is the case of malnutrition as well as heart diseases, respiratory failure and other illnesses or accidents. 

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References

Thai villagers fears evil widow ghost will kill their men | Daily Mail Online

`SPIRIT` WON`T LET THAI MEN SLEEP – Chicago Tribune

Men Die Mysteriously In Thai Village, Locals Blame It On Ghost

Lai Tai, the Mysterious Death of Young Thai Men | SpringerLink

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The Lady Nak of Phra Khanong — Thailand’s Famous Ghost Mae Nak

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The story of The Lady Nak of Phra Khanong or Mae Nak Phra Khanong is a very popular ghost story in Thailand about a wife waiting for her husband even in her death. 

Mae Nak Phra Khanong (แม่นากพระโขนง), meaning The Lady Nak of Phra Khanong is one of the most famous Thai ghost stories. Her hauntings are retold in countless movies, books and series and even today, you can visit a shrine in her honor to give offerings in Thailand. 

The Story of Mae Nak Phra Khanong

During the reign of King Rama IV in the mid 1800s, there lived a woman named Mae Nak. She lived together with her husband, Mak on the banks of the Phra Khanong Canal in Bangkok until he was conscripted to fight in a war. 

In many versions of the story it was a war against the Shan tribe where he was wounded and had to spend time away to recover. He was sent to central Bangkok where he was nursed back to health before being sent home. 

During this time, Mae Nak was pregnant and waiting for her husband’s return, but the birth of their child would be struck with tragedy. While in labor, she died together with their child after a long and difficult birth. But instead of going to the afterlife, she turned into a powerful spirit called Phi Tai Hong Thong Klom (ผีตายโหงทองกลม), a vengeful and restless spirit of a person that suffered a violent or cruel death.

Finally when Mak returns home from the war after being healed from his injuries, he finds his wife and their child waiting for him and thinks they are alive and well as the news of their deaths never reached him. When neighbors try to warn him that they have already died, he refuses to believe them and lives together with his family in blissful ignorance.

Ghost Legend in Movies: The legend of Mae Nak Phra Khanong has been made into a movie on several occasions. Here actress Davika Hoorne in ‘Pee Mak Phra Kanong.

One day Mae Nak is preparing nam phrik, a type of Thai chili sauce, she drops a lime on the porch. The house was built in a traditional thai way with piles, so the lime fell on the ground under the house. Being a ghost, she makes her arm longer and picks it up from the ground. This is the moment when Mak realizes that his wife is in fact a ghost and his undying love turns to fear. 

He tries to flee the house without her noticing and manages to slip away when lying about going to the toilet. In the dead of the night he escapes. When Mae Nak notices that her husband has left her, she goes after him. Mak hides behind a Blumea balsamifera (หนาด) bush. According to folklore, ghosts fear this bush and he is protected. 

He finally reaches Wat Mahabut temple, a holy ground where ghosts cannot enter and is finally safe from the ghost of his wife, whose undying love for her husband is turning to anger and grief. 

Mae Nak’s Spirit in a Jar

Mae Nak uses her anger and in her grief, she starts to terrorize the people of Phra Khanong for helping Mak to see the truth and leave her. She is finally captured by an exorcist, trapping her spirit in a jar that is thrown in the canal. 

From there, the story has several versions for the continuing haunting of the ghost. In all versions though, some finds her jar in the canal and opens it and thereby freeing her. 

This time it was the famous monk  Somdet Phra Phutthachan that captured her spirit and trapper her in the jar. He was a widely recognized monk that they said possessed magical powers and confined her spirit in the bone of her forehead. He then binded it to his waistband. Legend says that the waistband is actually in possession of the Thai royal family. However, in other versions, the monk promised Mae Nak that she would be together with her husband in the next life, and she chose to go to the afterlife herself. 

The Shrine of Mae Nak Phra Khanong

The Shrine: Mae Nak Phra Khanong shrine in 2009, part facing the canal// Source: Xufanc

The shrine to Mae Nak was built at Wat Mahabut until it was moved in 1997 to central Bangkok near the Suan Luang District and is located next to a large temple on Soi 77 by the Sukhumvit Road.

The Mae Nak shrine has a statue of her and her infant son. People often make offerings to her, giving her clothes, toys for her child, fruits, lotuses and incense sticks. She even has a display of beautiful dresses behind her. The people giving these offerings to her often ask her for help, either to have an easy childbirth or to help their husband be exempted from military conscription. They also asks her for the lottery numbers. 

The Story Behind the Haunting

Although the legend of this Thai ghost story is well imprinted in the culture, there are no historical evidence of it being nothing more than a myth. But there are however, some similar stories.

In 1899 there was a story about the legend in the Siam Praphet newspaper. The author claimed that the story of Nak was based on the life of Amdaeng Nak (อำแดงนาก) that died when she was pregnant. Her living son was worried that his father would remarry and that he had to share his inheritance with his stepmother. 

To prevent this, he invented the ghost story and dressed in womens clothing. When boats passed the house he threw rocks at them to make them believe it was the ghost of his mother that did it. 

No matter the origin of the story, it continues to scare and inspire people and is an example of a living legend and Mae Nak’s story that refuses to die. 

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Ghost Marriage — The Chinese Way to Marry the Dead

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In China there was a tradition of ghost marriage where the family of the dead arrange a marriage from beyond the grave, and there are still cases where the old tradition is not quite dead. 

The practice of mínghūn (冥婚), yinhun (阴婚) or Ghost Marriage in China, has been practise for over three millennials in some form in the country. There have also been found forms of Ghost Marriages in Sudan, India and France, Germany in various forms, but not like in the traditional sense that mínghūn is considered to be. 

The mínghūn is used about a marriage when one or both of the parties in a marriage are deceased at the time of the wedding. The bride’s family demands a dowry, all in the form of paper tributes, which is what you offer the dead. 

Read More: Check out the article about the book about ghost marriage and the real history behind it: The Ghost Bride – The Book and the Real Ghost Marriage

There is even a ceremony and a banquet to marry the two for eternity. The one thing that sticks out from a normal wedding between two living people is the digging up the bones of the bride if she was buried to place them inside her new groom’s grave. 

Why Marry The Dead

The reason for the Ghost Marriages is so that the dead won’t be alone in the afterlife. Many elders particularly believe that people dying without fulfilling their wishes to get married will not rest and come back to haunt the living. There is also the case of connecting family bonds for the living. 

The Horror Marriage: The Ghost Marriage or mínghūn have strong traditional ties that are still hanging on in modern day China. It is often used a motifs in Asian horror movies and series. Here from the movie, The House That Never Dies (2014), featuring a Ghost Marriage. Read here about the haunted mansion it is set in.

One of the more practical reasons for marrying off your dead relative in a Ghost Marriage, was the custom that dictated that a younger brother shouldn’t marry before the elder one was. And if the elder brother was dead, a Ghost Marriage would be proper to not disturb the brothers ghost. 

In many cases, Ghost Marriages were and are means to bury their loved ones in a proper way. A nice idea and sentiment, but can this practice be dangerous for the living or even the unvilling dead?

An Old Tradition that Lives On

Although the origin of this practice and the ritual is mainly unknown, there are still some cases that still uphold the tradition of Ghost Marriage, especially in northern China and other more rural parts. 

Read More: Check out all our collection of ghost stories from China

In 2015, there were no less than 14 female corpses stolen in one village in the Shanxi province to meet up the demand of corpse brides. There was a market for it, and so was the opportunity of making money from it as the price of a corpse of a young woman has skyrocketed, and could go for up to 100 000 yuan, even if the sale of corpses was made illegal in 2006. 

The price is determined by how complete the bones are, how pretty she was, family background, and cause of death. For example would a woman that died of an illness be worth more than one that died in a traffic accident. 

Stealing and Murdering for the Dead

The Living Ghost Brides: In modern media, Ghost Marriages are often presented were a living woman is being sacrificed to a dead man as his wife. Here from the Filipino horror movie, The Ghost Bride (2017).

In 2021 the ashes of a popular live-streamer were stolen from Shandong province in eastern China. The internet celebrity named Luoxiaomaomaozi had taken her own life during a lifestream, but her ashes were stolen by a staff member of the funeral home to be sold to a local family as a ghost bride to their dead son. And this is not the only case in recent times where some went too far to get a body.

Like a case from April 2016 were a man was charged with the murder of two women with a mental disbility, claiming he wanted to sell their corpses to be used in ghost weddings. This happened in Shaanxi province, north-west in China, but it isn’t the only place. 

In 2015, a man in Inner Mongolia was arrested because he killed a woman so he could sell it to a family, looking for å ghost bride. The man, only known as Ma, had promised the woman to find them husbands, but ended up killing them instead to sell their corpses. 

Why are these cases so prominent in northern and central China such as Shaanxi, Shanxi, Henan and Inner Mongolia provinces? There are several factors included here as well as cultural beliefs and strong traditional practices. There are also very practical reasons. The ratio of men to females is extremely high, and the coal mining community sees many young men die before their time and before their marriage. A gift from a ghost bride seems like a small compensation.

How to Arrange a Ghost Marriage

Although the practice was banned in 1949 by the Chinese Communist government, there are still those who practice this in secret, and in many cases it is considered almost a profitable business. There are several ways the Ghost Marriage can be arranged. 

Often it is a standard arranged marriage where the parents seek a matchmaker to find a suitable spouse for their child. In fact, ghost marriage matchmakers have seen a big profit in their business over the years. 

Sometimes, the family of the deceased goes to a divination and hears about the wishes from beyond the grave that the family member is seeking to be married or they have a dream themselves. Then it is up to the family to seek out a suitable spouse the deceased already has pointed out or help in the quest of finding one. 

The Dangers with Ghost Marriage: Even though, in the rare cases it happens, most ghost marriages happens between two already dead children with both their parents consent to join the families. However, there have been instances with the corpses of women being stolen in order to use them as ghost brides.

Then when the two families are all agreed, it is just to host the ceremony, where they give gifts to the couple. They do this by burning either paper money or paper pictures of things they would need in their home, like a fridge, chairs, a bed, tables. They burn these papers as the costume is to bring it to the spirit world where they can use it. Then there is the banquet and a feast to join the two families. And then the similarities between the marriage of the living and the marriage of the dead ends. 

Then the rest of the marriage ceremony takes a darker turn. Because then all that is left is to dig up the corpses and bury the two dead together in a grave where they will be together for the rest of time. 

Variations of the Ghost Marriages

However, in recent times, some have begun to practice to marry off a living person to the dead. If the girl’s fiance died before their wedding, she could choose to go through with it to be married. This is not only seen in China, but also in places like Korea and Japan. Some would be hesitant to this though as it would require her to go through with a funeral ritual as well as take a vow of celibacy and live with his family. 

It is not only in mainland China where this practice is held. In Taiwan, there is also a tradition of marrying off an unmarried woman, although no bones dug up are necessary. 

In this tradition, the family of the woman places a red envelope with paper money, a lock of hair or a fingernail in the open and waits for a man to pass by and pick it up. The first man is the winner and it is seen as bad luck to refuse the marriage. He may be allowed to marry a living woman later in life, but the ghost bride should always remain as the first and primary wife. 

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References

China’s ghost weddings and why they can be deadly – BBC News

China’s ‘ghost marriages’ see dead dug up for macabre marriages despite government crackdowns | South China Morning Post

GHOST MARRIAGES IN CHINA | Facts and Details

Chinese internet celebrity’s ashes stolen for ghost marriage – Global Times