haunted baltamore

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Haunted Baltimore: Prowling for Phantasms in Fell's Point and Beyond
by C.S. Pothitt

A man moves into a house on Lancaster Street, Baltimore. One day, he decides to take down the previous owner's kitchen curtains. He takes out a wobbly stool and steps up to remove them. Suddenly, he looses his balance and begins to fall. Then, a hand presses against his back, steadying him and he doesn't fall. No one else was in the room besides himself.

Later, he recounts the story to the woman who sold him the house. She replies, "That must be mom. She once fell from that stool and broke her arm. She must have wanted to prevent the same thing from happening to you."

This is just one of many stories you'll hear while taking the Fell's Point Ghost Tour. Fell's Point is riddled with ghostly happenings. Not only is it one of the oldest neighborhoods of Baltimore, Md., it also has experienced a lot of death. In both 1794 and 1797, many people died of yellow fever. So many, that the bodies piled up like cordwood in what is now Fell's Point Square, which may also be the site of their mass burial.


Establishments highlighted on the tour have had ghostly headless chickens running around the basement, an African American spirit who likes to move an ash can from the fireplace to the front door, and an apparition that walks down the street only to disappear in front of his grave.

"One of my favorite stories," says Amy Lynwander, co-founder of Fell's Point Ghost Tours, "is at Duda's where we talk about Doc, a retired seaman" who used to live there. He had a favorite polka that he played on the jukebox often. After he died, the polka was retired from the jukebox. However, some months after Doc died, "the polka spontaneously played for a group of regulars sitting at the bar." When they checked the jukebox, the polka was not among the selections available. "They thought it was Doc saying goodbye."

Maryland has a lot of ghostly activity, says Beverly Litsinger, co-founder of the Maryland Ghost and Spirit Association, an organization that researches and investigates ghostly paranormal phenomena throughout Maryland, "most likely because it has a lot of history."

The Fell's Point Ghost Tour lasts about an hour and a half and features about a dozen locations around the neighborhood. For a real ghost-hunting adventure in the Baltimore area, be sure to visit these places, as well:

* Fort McHenry, which was, in part, the inspiration for Francis Scott Key's Star Spangled Banner, is said to be haunted not only by soldiers who died defending the fledgling US, but also people who were detained in its dungeons at other points in the fort's history.

* The USS Constellation is said to be haunted by a young Naval officer or seaman who died in service to his country. One story also tells of a priest who was given a tour of the ship by an older man, only to find out later that no such man worked there as a guide.

* The Westminster Church and Catacombs, which is home to Edgar Allan Poe's grave, as well as other well-known historic figures, has a long list of spooky stories. Visitors have reported hearing hushed voices, feeling invisible hands touch them, and felt icy spots with no explanation.

According to Lynwander, October is the most popular time of the year to take her tour. However, she says, "September is a good time, too. It's the calm before the storm. It's dark when you do the tour and the weather is usually very nice." For more information, visit www.fellspointghost.com .


About the Author

This story was excerpted from the October 2005 issue of The Genre Traveler, the online travel magazine for science fiction, fantasy and horror fans produced by C.S. Pothitt. For the full story, including tips for ghost hunters and photographing ghosts, or to sign up, visit thegenretraveler.com.

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The Georgetown Castle - A Paranormal Investigation
by Sean Farley

The Georgetown "Castle" is located in an old industrial, red light district of Seattle, WA. A large 3 story, turn of the century, Victorian style home, was reportedly built in 1903 by Peter Gessner, who was a gambler and blackjack dealer at the famous Central Tavern in Seattle's Pioneer Square District. More...Having trouble with the local authorities for running "questionable" gambling and prostitution activities, he decided to move his operations farther out of town, to avoid too much unwanted attention, turning the home into an infamous brothel and gambling parlor. He died a gruesome death one year later, committing suicide in the house by drinking carbolic acid.

The home was then purchased around 1912 by Dr. Willis H. Corson who was a former superintendent and head coroner of the King County Hospital, located close by. This hospital and it's grounds, which at the time surrounded the house, served as the county poor house and tent city for tuberculoses patients, as well as a crematorium that was used to burn the bodies.

The house has a long history of paranormal activity and unexplained accounts. Numerous violent and supernatural events surround the home. A prostitute was reportedly murdered with a shotgun by her john "Manny" on the second floor. There are reports of a ghostly apparition of a woman in black, with burning coal for eyes grasping at her throat, waking tenants from their sleep on the top floor. She is believed to be the ghost of a previous resident, a "Spanish woman," who possibly killed her newborn babies and buried them under the stairs surrounding the home. Countless reports of strange sights, sounds, mysterious voices and hidden rooms make this definitely one of Seattle's most haunted places.

This was to be my first paranormal investigation and my findings convinced me that the world of the paranormal was indeed real. There is definitely something strange about this house...

We received the call around 11PM that the house was available for an investigation, so we quickly grabbed our equipment. Some friends of friends were moving out of the property so this might be our last chance to view the place before the new owners renovated it. Having never been on an actual investigation, we quickly grabbed what little equipment we had. A camcorder, a digital camera, a couple flashlights, our TriField EMF Meter and a digital minidisk recorder with an external stereo mic. Having not being ready for the call, we scrambled to find as many flashlight batteries we could grab and took about 20 minutes to charge up the cameras. Boy Scout motto..."always be prepared..."

Having heard stories about the infamous Georgetown Castle, yet never actually seeing it, I was surprise to find that it was nothing close to a castle. Just a large 3 story Victorian that sat just off the street in a somewhat run down residential neighborhood of south Seattle The view of the house was skewed by trees and unkempt vegetation. The only thing you could see from the street was the large dark tower looming from out of the trees. In a poor state of disrepair, the house was covered with nearly a century's worth of peeling and cracked pink paint and loose siding. Beyond a short, rusty, chain link fence, the front porch leaned slightly to one side. Our first gut impressions were that this place is totally haunted.

We met the current residents on the porch. They had "prepared" the house for us, by turning out all the lights and lighting some candles. Excellent.... The first half hour was spent having a smoke, readying our equipment and getting the short rundown on the history of the house.

Including the residents, there were seven people total. Everyone was outside talking and the house felt calm, but even though we were all outside, I had the sense that there were still people (possibly other residents) walking around inside. Not that you could hear them or see them, but just sensed a presence. Not a paranormal presence, just that maybe there were other people there, maybe in the back of the house, packing or making dinner, just normal activities. I asked if there were anyone else inside, but there were none. Ok... weird... I didn't voice this feeling at first. Just took a mental note.

We decided the first thing to do was take an EMF reading from inside the front entranceway. Entering the dark hallway you could see a large wooden stairway leading up and turning to the right into the darkness. I immediately had the sensation of being watched from beyond the stairs. Not sure if this is just normal paranoia and instinct when faced with the unknown darkness, but I think it's important on an investigation to open up your mind to first impression. We set up the meter, turned up the alarm volume and stepped back outside to wait. The meter screeched and squawked right away. Not sure if it was picking up us or if we had set it up wrong, but it definitely was picking up something. I quickly snapped a few pictures and walked in alone. Again the sense that there were other people in there, just doing normal things. Because of this feeling, I felt comfortable walking around the first floor in the darkness, through the hall, through the living room, then to the back where the kitchen was. There was nobody there.

I quickly snapped a photo of the living room and the dining room. In the photo of the dining room featured on our website (see below) there appears to be something near the floor. Some sort of moving orb thing or reflection or raindrop on the lens. I'm torn on the subject of orbs, so you decide.

As the others looked around inside, my colleague Matt and I took a minute to walk back outside and around the house. Following the porch around to the left, the side of the house had a long rickety stairway leading to the second floor. Was this the stairs where the woman buried the babies? Not sure. Around the back of the house, there was a large yard and a tall bare wall of the back of the house that went all the way to the third floor. I looked up at the top floor and snapped another picture. It was starting to rain, so in the picture there appears to be an orb near the window, but it was probably a raindrop. A dirty cellar door led down to the basement, but the stairway leading down was so covered with spider webs, we decided not to go down there. I hate spiders... At this point I had the sensation again of being watched from the windows of the upper floors. The back yard was creepy, but just a normal dark back yard sort of creepy. The upstairs of the house had an entirely different sort of feeling. "That's where I need to go", I thought, even though part of me wanted nothing more to do with it.

The house had definitely seen many remodels. The walls were decorated in some rooms with multiple layers of thick paint, some rooms in old newspaper, some rooms had strange boarded up walls that appeared to at one time maybe be connected to others, or perhaps to conceal hidden rooms. The second and third floors were large in volume, yet the rooms and hallways offered little access to so much space. There was a lot of space behind the walls in many places, so I'm pretty convinced that it held a secret passage or two. Having been a gambling den and brothel during the Prohibition Era, I'm sure there was some questionable remodeling going on to conceal some questionable items.

On the second floor there is a large red room that used to be the stage. A ticket booth with a coat check was located at the room's entrance. The second we all walked in, the door of a desk on the other side of the room flew open. Not sure if it was because of the vibrations of everyone walking in on the old floor all at once, or what... but still the timing was interesting. Snapped another picture.

Around the back of the second floor, there was another stairway leading up and a heavy door that lead to a blue colored room. This room is supposedly where a prostitute named Magdalena was murdered. The door to this room, unlike other doors in the house would not stay open. If you held it open, it would almost pull out of your hands and slam shut. I'll admit it was a heavy door, but the sensation was more than just the gravitational pull of itself. It was almost like it was being pulled shut. We stood in the room for some time and listened to one of the residents dictate the story of the murder. When I played back the audio of this, an interesting thing can be heard. As she says "a prostitute was murdered in this room with a shotgun..." you could hear what sounds like a voice on tape shouting "NO!" after the word room. While corroborating this with everyone who was in the house later, everyone denied saying it. Could this be my first EVP?

The other's went back outside for another smoke, so I used the opportunity to get some clear audio. I started to approach the stairway alone and up beyond the stairs somewhere I could hear the sound of someone stumbling around. It sounded like someone who was wearing shoes that don't fit right or maybe too large and awkward. A woman in high heels or boots perhaps? I thought maybe one of the residents had gone up there to change clothes or something. A perfectly natural sound so I at first ignored it. Unfortunately the audio was off at this point. Deciding not to take on the upstairs on my own, I asked Matt to come along. At the top of the stairs, there was a smaller hallway with 2 or 3 small closet like rooms, then leading into a very large room they call the gambling room. Next to it was a small bar and surrounding it were openings to the other parts of the house. No doors, just larger open areas.

Now, take note that we were both wearing heavy boots with rubber soles. On the audio, our footsteps, when we walk are dull heavy thumps. When playing back the audio later, I heard another interesting thing. As I approached the gambling room, I say "Third floor, gambling room" and right after that, you can hear what appears to be 5 or 6 quick footsteps in the same room walking away from us. Light clicking footsteps that sound like high heels. At the time we were both standing still right next to each other in the same room. The others were, at this point, back downstairs on the front porch. There were no other people in the house, no other people on the third floor accept us, and something else walking around in the same room!

It retrospect, I wish I had heard the footsteps while standing there, not just on the playback, or I would have spent more quiet time on the third floor. Again, the ambience in the place seemed so natural, it was difficult get a sense of something out of the ordinary. I think the fact that there were so many people there made it difficult to concentrate and the fact that the residents were in the process of moving out that night, we had limited time to spend investigating, or I am sure we would have come up with more evidence. I am sure that if I spent a night alone in the house, things would have made themselves known. Even with the place full of people, you can sense activity there.

As far as a quick run through on our first investigation, I felt satisfied with our findings and observations. Because of the time, we made no attempt to make contact with any spirits there directly, however I would love to return some day and do a further investigation, perhaps with more video cameras and equipment, as well as some psychic minded people to attempt contact. Following our visit, the house was sold and completely renovated. I'm glad to see such a beautiful old landmark preserved instead of torn down, however I am totally jealous of the owners because it must have been a real thrill tearing out those walls and discovering what secrets they concealed.




About the Author

Sean Farley works as a writer of topics related to conspiracy and the paranormal. He is also a writer and editor for The Midnight News website. You can read more of his work at The Midnight News Website: themidnightnews.com