In Cannaregio district in the city of Venice, there is a burning skeleton of a mean man that is cursed to haunt the city around Campo de l’Abazia.
Walking around the picturesque streets and canals in Venice you might think you are so safe. There are people everywhere and the windows so close to the street are always open. Wandering over the curved bridges and walking over the old cobblestone, you might not even notice other people as you are so preoccupied by the wonderful old architecture in the Cannaregio district. But you should never feel too safe.
According to old Venetian legend, there is a story about the ghost of a man still haunting the streets, especially around Campo de L’Abazia where he made a sin so great, he was cursed to walk around the area for eternity. He comes in the shape of an old man with a big bag on his back, begging for help. According to legend you must never help him, and whatever you do, never look him in the eyes. If you do this, he will turn into the burning skeleton and frighten you, maybe even to death?
The skeleton is said to be of the usurer or a moneylender known as Bartolomeo Zenni that was so mean that he was condemned to be transformed into the burning skeleton. He lived in the 1400s, a time where Venice and Milan fought off territory in Northern Italy. Venice was at this time one of Europe’s wealthiest and most powerful cities. The Renaissance period which would change the world forever had just begun to take root in Italy and would bring them into a new area.
Amidst all of these world changing events, everyday life went on in the streets of Venice, for people like Bartolomeo Zenni on Campo de L’Abazia. But tragedy struck the small neighborhood.
On 13th of May in 1437, a fire broke out at Campo de l’Abazia and several of the houses were engulfed in flames. The neighbors of Bartolomeo Zenni asked him to help them, trying to save their children from the fire that was devouring everything. Bartolomeo Zenni refused to help his neighbors and instead grabbed all of his gold and jewels to save himself. Perhaps he escaped the fire safely, but in the afterlife, he will never escape from the fire as he was cursed to haunt these streets forever without a coin of gold to his name.
So if you walk these cobbled streets and someone asks for your help, do you offer it?
A paranormal investigator’s dream, the South Bridge Vaults in Edinburgh have been investigated for its hauntings on many occasions and many have left with a feeling of having experienced something paranormal and ghostly in the dark.
In the late 18th century Edinburgh was a growing community with a limited space in the Old Town nicknamed Old Reeky because of the bad smell and old buildings. The city is built around seven different hills and there are five main bridges connecting the slopes and hills of the town. That is also the reason for the high rise buildings of Edinburgh were they chose to build on top of the old to utilize the uneven location of the city.
The people of Edinburgh started to utilize the spaces under the South Bridge in the Old Town to make more room for business. The spaces within the archers under the bridge are also known as the Edinburgh Vaults or Niddry Street Vaults as well as just the South Bridge Vaults.
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They look like a series of chambers next to each other and are actually of the 19 archers underneath the South Bridge. It was supposed to be a place with respectable businesses, but ended up becoming some of the more haunted corners of the very haunted city.
The Cursed South Bridge
According to legend, the place was cursed already from the start. The South Bridge that was built to connect the old town with the new town was completed in 1788, and already at the opening of it the locals deemed it as cursed.
The South Bridge: The largest arch of the bridge, seen from the Cowgate.
It was seen as a grand opening and one of the respected Judge’s wives had been selected to be the first resident to cross the bridge as she was the city’s oldest resident. However, she died before the opening. To keep their promise to the elderly woman though, they decided she after all would be the first person to cross the bridge, although it was in her coffin.
The locals in Edinburgh were scared, now thinking that the bridge was cursed because of the unusual opening of the bridge. And looking back at all that happened on the bridge and in the vaults beneath it, perhaps it indeed was.
In the start, the South Bridge Vaults underneath the bridge were mostly used as taverns, workshops and as storage space for merchants. However it wasn’t long before the well respected businesses started leaving the area because of the poor facilities. The building of the bridge and the vaults underneath had been constructed on a low budget and even the construction itself had been rushed. Therefore they had taken no precaution to seal the surface against water and built it with porous limestone and the place became a damp and dark place which constantly flooded.
The Damp and Dark Underworld of the Vaults
No later than 10 years after the bridge and the vaults opened, respectable businesses like shoemakers, goldsmiths started leaving the area and those that could afford it relocated elsewhere as the murky vaults flooded and the sunlight never shone inside the South Bridge Vaults. It was a place no one wanted to be, and only those that had no other choice remained.
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There was also a slum where the poorer people in town started to take over as the surrounding Cowgate area had developed into a slum during the industrial revolution. Crime, filth, poverty and murders were key words to explain the place as no sunlight came through.
More illicit businesses started to pop up in the area like brothels, shady pubs, gambling dents and illegal whiskey distilleries, turning the place into the red light district of the town.
The Legends of the Serial Killers Burke and Hare
A lot of horrible things happened inside these vaults during this time. Most of it, we will never know for sure. Legends however will be told. The South Bridge Vaults were where the body snatchers Burke and Hare were supposedly finding their bodies as well as killing them to sell them off to medical schools.
The Burke and Hare murders: The serial killings were sixteen murders committed over a period of about ten months in 1828 in Edinburgh, Scotland. They were undertaken by William Burke and William Hare, who sold the corpses to Robert Knox for dissection at his anatomy lectures. Here depicted in an etching of Burke murdering Margaret Docherty (also known as Margery Campbell) by Robert Seymour.
Although this legend is often passed down as fact, there is no actual evidence that the South Bridge Vaults was the exact place they got their bodies from, although very likely. The place to find poverty struck people and those that no one would miss if they suddenly ‘disappeared’ was inside the dark and damp vaults.
The Rediscovery of the South Bridge Vaults
At one point during the 1800s, exactly when is unsure, they emptied the vaults for people and started to dump tons of rubble in the vaults, sealing them completely off and making them inaccessible for the public and were kind of forgotten for a long time.
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It wasn’t until the 1980s the tunnels to the vaults were rediscovered by a former Scottish rugby player named Norrie Rowan when he found one of the tunnels while he was renovating his flat. He spent the rest of his days excavating the vaults and rediscovering its history to make it accessible for the public once again.
The Ghosts of the South Bridge Vaults
There are many stories about who haunts the place today as the vaults have reopened and daily groups of tourists and paranormal investigators are taken down to the vaults to uncover the dark history.
Many people met their tragic fate on a daily basis down there in the vaults as well as suffered from horrible tragedies that affected the entire town. Like the Great Fire of Edinburgh that lasted for five days after it started in 1824 and took the lives of at least 13 people. There are many stories about victims that were trapped inside the chambers and suffered horrible consequences from then. Although there is no paper trail on this tale though.
There are many tourists that claim to have captured evidence of something paranormal going on, and they even make the newspapers from time to time. The same reports comes from the paranormal investigators that go down into the vaults and come back with what they see as proof of hauntings going on.
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Here are some of the ghosts that are said to haunt the vaults until this date and have gathered enough reports to be a part of the haunted ghost tour in Edinburgh:
The Aristocrat
One of the first ghosts that people have reportedly seen over the years is that of the Aristocrat. He is said to be a rich gentleman with a tall black hat and a beard. He is not seen as the most angry spirit as he is known for grinning at visitors while leaning against the wall. People do have a tendency to feel uneasy in his presence though, according to those who claimed to have seen him.
The Happy Shoemaker
There is also a room that is believed to belong to a shoemaker from that time that is said to still practice his profession as a shoemaker.
He is described as a man in his 50s and is one of the ghosts that are said to be friendly and are often seen smiling and laughing by visitors while he happily carries on with his shoemaking while wearing an apron.
The Veiled Woman
In the room with the shoemaker known as The Room of the Cobbler, there is a meaner spirit though and is known as the veiled woman. She is believed to throw small stones at visitors as well. She is seen as a young woman dressed in black while wearing a veil in the north west corner of the Cobbler’s Room.
Women have also reported about feeling an intense rush of grief, anger and a sudden and unexplained abdominal pain, which has left many to believe it is a woman that lost her child in a horrible way and she is still grieving.
The Caretakers Room
In one of the chambers there are reports of a man sitting by the fireplace. He apparently looks like one of the more chill spirits in the place as well with a drink in his hand and legs stretched out. By his side he has a dog that is reported to brush up against people’s legs or sniff them.
Little Jack
Then there is the small boy named Jack or James that are often spotted in the Wine Vault. He is mostly seen as a blonde curly boy around 6 or 8 years old, wearing a blue suit with the classic knickerbocker trousers. Some sources want to connect him to a missing child case from 1810.
He is often playing with a red ball at times and is known to try to hold the hands of female visitors and likes to play around if there are children around. Allegedly, if he spots a person he doesn’t want to enter the South Bridge Vaults he will tuck their sleeves or coat when entering the Blair Street Corridor.
According to the guides down in the vaults, he is afraid of one of the more well known ghosts wandering the narrow alleys and small chambers. And that is that of Mr. Boots or also known as The Watcher.
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The Watcher
Perhaps the most well known ghost in the South Bridge Vaults is that of The Watcher. There is a theory that he was a watchman and that is the reason he is known as The Watcher. Or maybe it’s because he always looks as if watching over something.
There are also alternative legends over the years that have tried to explain his presence, and many are also claiming him to be one of the slum landlords or even one of the body snatchers that hid his stolen bodies in the chamber known as The White Room. Today we can only speculate.
He is also called Mr Boots because of how many people in the vaults have experienced him. They can hear loud footsteps in The White Room or in the Niddry Street Corridor which is known as the most active place in all of the vaults.
His face has never been seen as it is hidden, blacked out or he is showing himself to the public with his back. He is supposedly this tall, slim and dark figure with a long flowing coat with his long hair in a ponytail. Sometimes he wears a hat and long boots. Sometimes he carries rattling keys and his breath smells disgusting of rotten teeth and whiskey.
People experiencing stuff within the vaults often get the feeling that he is trying to get them out from the narrow and claustrophobic spaces. Batteries on cameras die or malfunction when he’s present and he is known to push or pull people towards the exit as well as the phrase ‘Get Out’ has been heard on several occasions.
The Stone Circle
There are also rumors about an evil demon trapped inside one of the stone circles in one of the chambers. This is were the late Wiccan High Priest, George Cameron known as The Hermit set up his temple in the 90’s. It was in one of the vaults that have historic connection to the torturing of witches somehow.
According to him, he was trying to rid it from evil and built the stone circle which still stands today. He failed, however, to remove the evil that were supposed to be in the vaults and Cameron abandoned the room after he recommended to seal up the room to protect people from the evil within it. It is not sealed though as it is one of the stops on the tour through the vaults.
The Experience of the Hauntings
No matter the real story of the ghosts in the South Bridge Vaults and the true horror the people living there went through, the vaults itself are an interesting walk through time and history. And perhaps if you choose to go down into the dark chambers you too will hear the same that many claim to have on recordings and etched into their memories. The eerie sound of what can sound like children yelling and crying along with hushed voices and shuffling footsteps.
In what is now a place of religious worship there once stood a house plagued by demonic and haunted activity. And the legend from The Wizard of West Bow and his horror house in Edinburgh.
‘It is certain that no story of witchcraft or necromancy, so many of which occurred near and in Edinburgh, made such a lasting impression on the public as that of Major Weir. – Sir Walter Scott ‘Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft’, 1830
The West Bow House of horror is one of the houses that was known as one of Edinburgh’s most haunted. For a long time everyone thought the house was demolished, but traces of it can still be found on the jolly streets in Edinburgh’s Victoria Terrace.
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It used to be the home of Major Thomas Weir, also known as the Wizard of West Bow after his death. He lived with his unmarried sister, Jean, mostly known by Grizel, in their house in Old Town. Originally from Lanarkshire, their mother had a reputation for having The Second Sight, but they were mostly known as devoted Christians.
He used to be seen as an upstanding citizen as a Covenanter soldier with a good career in the army behind him. He was also a very strict presbyterian who would lead big groups of christians in prayer. In 1650 he was even appointed commander of the Edinburgh Town Guard. To everyone else, he was nicknamed as one of the Bowhead Saints. But look can be deceiving, and he hid some dark secret underneath the polished exterior. He has even been seen as someone that could have inspired the character of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
Demonic Confessions
Around 1670 people started to notice a shift in Weir’s behavior. At one of their prayer meetings, he stood up and started to speak. He was then around 70 and people noticed that he seemed ill. He didn’t pray that day though, but started confessing to heinous acts instead. This included everything from bestiality, incest, witchcraft and communicating with the dead.
House of Horror: The house of the Weir siblings at number 10 at West Bow.
In some versions however it was after Weir’s retirement after he fell sick these confessions started. And according to this version it was from the sickbed, not during a prayer meeting he confessed to his crimes.
They called a doctor, but his confessions kept coming, insisting that it was all true. Even the Lord Provost would not believe in the confessions at first as they all came as a big surprise. They wanted to dismiss it all as him being mentally disturbed instead, but he kept repeating his sins, refusing to back down.
Even his sister, Grizel, known as a quiet spinster, confirmed it all when they went to question her. Not even did she confirm what he had already said, but continued to confess more demonic activities giving testimonies of even more vile and exaggerating things.
According to her he had once been taken away by a demonic stranger in a coach on fire and taken to Dalkeith, a town bordering Edinburgh. Exactly why Dalkeith would be a place a satanic coach would drive were never really explained. She even showed a mark on her forehead that looked like the shape of a horseshoe. She apparently proudly said it was a gift from the Devil himself.
There he supposedly was given supernatural intelligence in the form of a walking stick by a servant of Satan. This walking stick had a carved human head on the top and was supposedly a gift from Satan himself and was the one he usually used when leading their prayers.
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Most cases of witches and wizards happened after someone else accused someone of sorcery. This case is a very different matter as they accused themselves. Why on earth would they further worsen the case for them, even Jean to the point of implicating herself in that manner?
They were then taken away to the Edinburgh Tolbooth by the baileys where they were interrogated and found guilty. They both received death sentences.
Executed for their crimes
Scotland was not a good place to be if you were condemned for witchcraft. Only Germany had more witch trials in Scotland during this time. Estimates reckon around 4400 witches were executed. And unlike England who hanged the witches, Scotland followed a more barbaric and continental law of burning them all.
Taken by Satan: Depiction of Thomas Weir in his fiery coach.
While they both were waiting for their execution they were held in a former leper colony below Calton Hill. Major Thomas Weir was executed in 1670 at the Gallowlee that literally means gallows field. He was garrotted and burned together with his demonic walking stick. It was said that both took an exceptionally long time to burn. He was asked for his last words, but chose to not beg for forgiveness. He reportedly said:
“Let me alone—I will not—I have lived as a beast, and I must die as a beast”
Grizel also died, but was hanged in the Grassmarket. According to reports her hanging was also dramatic and unrepentant. She supposedly tried to take off all her clothes in front of the crowd and refused to beg for mercy for her crimes.
Their bodies were buried at the base of the gallows at Shrubhill according to custom of that time. But their death apparently wasn’t enough to cleanse their house for paranormal activity.
Today we can only speculate about why he made those confessions. And even if some of them were actually true, why would he speak them out loud, and why would his sister also get implicated in it?
Was it to clear their conscience? Or perhaps a fit of madness or some sort of illness? Did it have anything to do with their mother, Lady Jean Somerville, who was a reputed clairvoyant? Or did the two actually dabble in the occult?
The Haunted House at West Bow
After their execution the house became abandoned and known as a haunted place where the locals reported seeing light in the windows although no one lived there as well as shadows moving around. There are also tales about music coming from the abandoned house. It stayed like that for over a century and legends surrounding the house continued to grow.
For example they told a story about a ghostly coach that was pulled by 6 horses spotted outside the abandoned building.
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A couple bought and tried to move into the house in 1780 by an ex-soldier named William Patullo and his wife, but according to stories, they never stayed there for more than one night. They claimed to have seen ghostly apparition of demonic entities in the appearance of a calf staring at them in their bed.
The house as it was was demolished in 1878 and the locals thought for a long time that they were done with the hauntings from the cursed Major.
The Rediscovering of the Haunted House
However, it was discovered that a new house was built on top of it, today used as the Quaker Meeting House on Victoria Terrace. This wasn’t known before 2014. Apparently, the part of the house that still remains is now the toilet area of the Quaker Meeting House area.
Today it is one of the more colorful streets of Edinburgh, with picturesque boutiques and cafes along the cobbled street. But the haunted rumors have still not died down. One of the staff working there claims to have seen the Major walking right through the walls.
Tucked away in the Old Town of Edinburgh, the Greyfriars Kirkyard houses even the restless spirits of the locals. Even a poltergeist known as George Mackenzie.
Cold spots, white figures behind the graves and knocking noises from below the ground, the reports about Greyfriars Kirkyard being haunted are endless. A haunted cemetary is a must for an old town like Edinburgh and just at the end of George IV Bridge by the Museum of Scotland you will find Edinburgh’s one. At Greyfriars Kirkyard the visitors will leave wondering if it was just the wind or something more.
The cemetery was built in 1562 by Mary Queen of Scots, also known as Bloody Mary throughout history. It is now one of the main attractions on the many haunted bus rides you can jump on in the old town. For good reason if we believe the locals.
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Even today there is gruesome stuff going on in the Greyfriars Kirkyard. Edinburgh was a notorious place where grave robberies of bodies happened as the demand for fresh flesh for the medical schools were in high demand. Something of the past, there are not many cases of grave robbery as this today. But as recently as 2003 two teenagers were arrested for grave robbery as they cut the head from one of the corpses and used it as a glove puppet.
Famous Graves
Many famous and notable residents of Edinburgh are buried in this place, including Hames Hutton, Robert Adam as well as perhaps the most famous local, the dog Greyfriars Bobby.
Greyfriars Bobby: Edinburgh’s most beloved dog, Bobby is laid to rest in the cemetery.
Greyfriars Bobby was a dog so loyal to his master that he never left his side, even in death as he watched over his master’s final resting place for 14 years until he died himself and is now buried beside him in the Greyfriars Kirkyard with the queen’s permission.
Even if they weren’t famous when they were alive, J.K Rowling made many famous today as she is said to have been inspired by the names on many of the tombstones.
Many ghosts have been reported on this graveyard from when it was first built, however, today the Mackenzie Poltergeist is perhaps the most famed one.
This is not the only supposed haunted graveyard we have written about. Check out these ghost stories set in cemeteries as well:
In the 70s, a deadly fire broke out at the Joelma Building in São Paulo, Brasil, killing many people. Later, the building is reported haunted, and the ghosts of the victims are crying for help from beyond the grave.
In 2000 the spiritualist Colin Grant tried to lay one of the restless spirits to rest in the cemetery. A few weeks later he died of a heart attack. After his death, many attributed this death to be caused by the poltergeist of the cemetery, Bloody Mackenzie.
Since the 19th century children believed that there was something off with this particular grave at Greyfriars Kirkyard. They used to run up to the keyhole and yell:
“Bluidy Mackenzie, come out if ye daur, Lift the Sneck and draw the bar!”
George Mackenzie was known as Bluidy (Bloody) Mackenzie when he was still living and was not remembered as a kind man. He worked as a lawyer for the King and imprisoned around 1200 protestant rebels that refused to pledge their allegiance to the catholic king.
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The nickname comes from the horrible torture he made the prisoners he held captive in an area in Greyfriars Kirkyard known as the Covenanters Prison. It was an open area closed off by the city wall. Hundreds of people died when they went without water, food and shelter from the weather.
It is said that by 1679 there were only 48 Covenanters left alive with the rest heads on spikes along the gate.
Although Mackenzie ran away to England and died there, he was sent back after his death. After his death he was laid to rest in a mausoleum located on the same place where so many of his victims met their unfortunate end.
The Black Mausoleum
Apparently the activity around the mausoleum never seems to rest. Dead animals turns up around it without an obvious cause of death and mysterious fires are also often blamed on the strange activity that seems to happen around the Black Mausoleum in Greyfriars Kirkyard.
The Black Mausoleum: The tomb of ‘bloody’ George Mackenzie in Greyfriars Churchyard from the 1840s.
The story is that a homeless man seeking shelter from the weather broke into the Mackenzie mausoleum known as the Black Mausoleum and disturbed the spirits there, making a poltergeist angry and releasing its fury. Allegedly as soon as the homeless man placed his hand on the grave the floor opened underneath him and swallowed him whole as it dropped him into a grave of plague victims.
Another version of the story is a criminal that hid inside the mausoleum for six months. John Hayes had apparently gone mad inside the mausoleum he only left to scavenge for food occasionally. According to him, the coffins in the mausoleum moved all on their own and he could hear Mackenzie turning inside his coffin.
It was also here the teenagers aged 15 and 17 broke in and desecrated the corpse inside. Apparently they are rumored to even have drunk wine from the skull after they cut off the head. This incident was one of the things that made the cemetery and the Black Mausoleum famous
The Poltergeist of the Cemetery
Since then, reports of scratches, bruises and burns on people that have been there as well as people collapsing for no apparent reason in the cemetery. They claim that between 300 and up to 500 guests from the 90s to 2006 felt like they were attacked by this poltergeist.
In a time when suicide was a sin, a man took his own life when he couldn’t have the woman he loved. His tormented soul is said to haunt the moors in Dartmoor in Devon, England were he was buried.
An unmarked grave outside the parish boundary lays the body of George Stephens that lived in Dartmoor in Devon, England. In some sources, he is called John. He committed suicide in 1763 or 62, depending on the sources, after his marriage to Mary Bray, a farmer’s daughter fell through.
There are conflicting variations as to why the marriage fell through. In some cases, it was the parents of the girl that rejected him because they deemed him unworthy of their daughter. In other variations of the legend though, she betrayed his love right before their wedding.
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The Haunting Heartbreak
In his mind, Stephens was so in love with Mary and there could only be her for him. In some accounts of the story he would walk outside her home every night to keep an eye on her. It was then he found out she was cheating on him with his best friend only a week away from their wedding.
The Grave: The grave to Stephens can still be seen out in the moors in Dartmoor.// Source
In some versions he only spots her with another man at a fair in their village after her parents tore them apart because he wasn’t worthy. No matter if they actually were engaged or not, the pain of him not being able to be with her was too much for him to bear.
In many versions of the tale, Stephens kills her after her betrayal. It is most often by poison. Either a poisonous apple or deadly nightshade.
In other versions though, he only kills himself with a sort of poison used for rats and Mary lives on without him causing her any harm. It is then said she lived to be very old, but never married.
The Ghost at the Grave
Because of the manner of his death when he took his own life, he was not allowed a proper burial by the church and was laid to rest near Peter Tavy Moor, only marked by a granite post that you to this day can still see.
Shortly after his death, locals began noticing strange things happening out on the moor. His ghost was seen several times and the sound of shrieking could be heard in the night at his anguish. It is even said that a certain Rev. Dr. Jago of Tavistock was summoned to lay his spirit to rest.
If it worked though is not certain as the locals continued to be afraid to walk the moors in the dark in fear of running into the restless spirit of the man so tormented, the pain of it all continued into his afterlife and never gave him the rest he craved for.
The Idanha Hotel has a long story of being haunted. And even after it was renovated to apartment buildings, the stories about the misty apparition, the elevator with a will of its own, and whispering voices in the halls still happens in the building.
The old hotel in downtown Boise, Idaho is a historic hotel that was built in 1901 with a long and supposedly bloody history that is still being told in the corridors and whispered about inside the apartments.
Today the old French-chateau style building has been converted to apartments, but until its renovation it was used as a hotel and restaurant that caters to wealthy people from all over the country as it was considered to be the hotel in Boise as a stop on the Oregon trail or just to have some fun downtown.
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During the renovation to make it from a hotel to an apartment complex, the workers reported on strange things happening around them as they worked. Lights turn on and off without someone there as moaning sounds from certain places in the building can be heard without no one there. There is also a strange gray misty apparition that has been spotted without a good explanation.
There are numerous reported sightings about the building and residents in the apartment building have connected their strange experiences to certain stories, where some of the stories they experienced supposedly made them so scared they moved out.
Haunting on the Upper Levels
Not all hauntings stay as just a misty apparition in the corner of the eye or a sound that you may or may not hear. There have also been reports about something sinister going on in the upper floors. People have said that a certain something pulls them out of their beds. But for whatever reason or what it can be is still to be found out.
One of the ghosts that are supposedly haunting the building is a bellboy that worked there in the 1970s. He was shot dead by a guest at work and has been to blame for the elevator malfunctioning. He is known to move the elevator up and down without any people going, especially to the fourth floor where he was reportedly killed.
Some residents have also claimed to have seen his ghost peeking around the corners of the building. Hard evidence that this ever happened has not surfaced though and the story usually ends in its own rumor.
Hauntings at the Lower Levels
On the second floor there is a story of a woman that was murdered by her husband in the 1920s. She was reportedly murdered with a pair of scissors and now is said to roam the halls. There are many stories of residents hearing, talking and walking outside their doors, but when they open, there is no one there.
In the basement there is also a legend that is told again and again. It is said a woman was killed and buried there. She still lingers there as her body is buried underneath the building as well according to the legend. There have never been found a body under the basement floor however that has been revealed to the public, and the story is just that for the moment – a story.
The Future for the Old Idanha Hotel
The building is considered to be one of the landmarks of downtown Boise and is beloved because of the fine architecture and local stories. The apartments have residents that stay for decades and it is a very difficult place to get into apparently.
But there are also stories that tell something else. Although a much sought after place to stay, some of the strange encounters the residents have experienced have supposedly made them so scared that they decided to move out, unable to stay in the haunted space for long.
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.
Now a quaint Bed and Breakfast, the old Myrtles plantation manor houses more ghosts than living guests.
The old splendor of a plantation in Louisiana, not so far from Baton Rouge, is still quite clear when looking at the Myrtles Plantation. The antebellum mansion was first built in 1796 and is decorated with hand-painted stained glass featuring a French cross to allegedly ward off evil, the walls filled with Aubusson tapestry and from the ceiling, Baccarat crystal chandeliers hang.
But among the Carrara marble mantels and French furnishing there is something more sinister, more primitive than any riches, gold and luxury can cover over — The blood stained history and the legend of ghosts still haunting the place.
The old plantation was handed down from many people and in 1950, the house was sold to Marjorie Munson. It was she who started noticing strange things happening around the Myrtles Plantation and started talking about ghosts, that we still talk about today.
And the tales that are told are many — supposedly, the old plantation is one of the more haunted places in America with reports of at least 12 ghosts inside this Creole cottage style manos sitting on a hill. Although it is only historical records about the murder of William Winter, the number of murders in the house is allegedly 10.
The Legend of Chloe
The most famous ghost on Myrtles Plantation is without a doubt Chloe, or in some records, Cloe. She was supposedly a slave owned by Clark and Sara Woodruff, who took over the plantationin 1817 after Saras father, General David Bradford, who first built the plantation.
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In 1992 a picture surfaced after the plantation took some photos of the property to send to the insurance company. When looking closer at the picture, something that looks like a girl can be seen. This is believed to be the ghost of Chloe, who still haunts the Myrtles Plantation with her green turban.
According to the stories, Chloe was one of the slaves that worked in the house rather than out in the field, which was a much more straining work than inside doing the cleaning and cooking. But perhaps it came with other dangers than grueling labor. According to the stories, she was forced by Clark Woodruff to become his mistress.
In some accounts though, Woodruff started having an affair with another girl and Chloe feared she would have to start working in the fields instead of in the house. And she started listening in on conversations to find out her faith or pick up on something that she could use against them.
In any case she was caught listening by the doors and punished by her slave owners. One of her ears was cut off and she wore a green turban to conceal it.
The Revenge
The Haunted Mirror: Where the spirit of Woodruff and her children lingers. Photo: Chris Light/1999
But it wasn’t the end at all, as Chloe planned her revenge on her slave masters. She baked a cake that she had poisoned with oleander leaves, which is extremely poisonous. Even the question of why she poisoned the cake is up for discussion.
Most accounts claim she did it for revenge after cutting off her ear. Another variant saying she was trying to gain favor with the family again as she was planning to cure the family for the poison and come out as a hero instead.
But according to the story, the plan backfired and only Sara Woodruff and the two daughters ate the cake and died from the poison. Chloe was then hanged by the other slaves and thrown in the Mississippi river, as a sort of final punishment for her or to not be punished themselves by Clark Woodruff for harbouring her.
A mirror in the house is supposedly holding the spirit of Sara Woodruff and her children. According to custom at that time, the mirrors were covered by a cloth so the spirit would not disappear into them. But after the poisoning, this particular mirror was forgotten and the ghosts of the victims can be seen in the mirrors and there are reports of handprints being left in the mirror, as their spirits are now trapped in the mirror.
The story about Chloe as a ghost is also told by the previous owner, Frances Kermeen, who also wrote a book on all the strange hauntings that she herself reported about experiencing on her second night in the house:
“I looked up and standing over me was a black lady. Her head was wrapped in a green turban,” I could see her [holding an] old-fashioned tin with the loop in it [through] the candlelight and I lost it. I started screaming…I reached my hand out to touch her, I could tell she was a ghost because she was see-through, but as my hand passed through her, she faded away.”
Do historical records support this though? There is currently not found any records of the Woodruffs owning a slave named either Chloe or Cloe. The legends say that Chloe killed both the wife and the daughters, but one of the daughters, Mary Octavia, survived and grew up to become an adult. And it is said that Sara and the other daughter, Cornelia, were not killed by poison, but by yellow fever in 1823 and 1824.
Either way, despite the historical records refuting the story, the legend about a woman wearing a green turban haunts Myrtles Plantation. Perhaps trying to tell a story that no historical records can?
The Other Ghosts
There are several pictures you can find on the postcards found in the souvenir shop at the plantation, the Chloe postcard being one of them. Another picture that stirred up quite some stories was the picture of a young girl dressed up in classic antebellum clothing that seems to look out from a window. She is now referred to as “The Ghost Girl” on the plantation.
Burial Ground
But the legend of Chloe is not the only claim of ghost sightings at the plantation among the Spanish Moss hanging from the giant oak trees. There is the classic tale that the house itself is built on an Native American burial ground, a trope of American ghost story tales that rarely can be substantiated. But even so, the ghost of a young Natice American woman has been reported.
In this case, the burial ground would be of Tunican tribes in the Mississippi River Valley, and the truth is that the land the manor now stands on used to belong to the Natives before being seized by the Spanish.
Civil War Soldiers
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Another legend is about the Civil War and about how the houses were ransacked by union soldiers, and three people were killed. But exactly who was killed? The soldiers or the people living in the mansion? At the time, it was then Ruffin Gray Stirling and his wife Catherine Cobb that lived on the plantation with their slaves. It is true that they were robbed of their fine furniture and luxury items.
According to some of the variations of the legend though, it was the Union soldiers that were shot dead on the premises by the Confederates.
But something that is more up for debate is the supposed blood stain in the doorway, around the size of a human body remains that never will be completley clean after the supposed murders that happened then, no matter how well you scrub it.
The Voodoo Practitioner
The plantation is also the home of the ghost of a young girl that died in 1868, sometimes thought to be the girl in antebellum clothes from the picture. She was treated by a local voodoo practitioner in one of the 22 rooms in the manor, but died. She appears now in the room she died in and has been reported to practice voodoo on people sleeping in the room.
William Drew Winter
One of the other ghosts haunting this place is someone that either staggers or crawls up the stairs. He always stops on the 17th step. This is rumoured to be the ghost of William Drew Winter, the verified murder victim in the house. He was shot on the front porch of the house by a stranger. To get away, he crawled up the stairs but only reached the 17th step before he collapsed and died.
Several guests staying at the now B&B have claimed to hear the crawling coming from the stairs, and believing it could be other guests have gone to check. But when reaching the stairs, they find that no one is there, or worse, the apparition of his ghost, begging for help.
Although here, we have discrepancies in the story as a local newspaper reported that Winter died of a single shot that killed him instantly, and he had no possible way of crawling the stairs after the shot. But did he manage to in his afterlife?
The Plantation
No matter the fact we can now verify, the stories found of plantations from way back cast long shadows. All from the first contact between the natives and Spanish, throughout slavery and a bloody war. The darkest chapters of this plantation, is most likely the stories that we don’t know about.
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.
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