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Visiting the old haunts
By
Herb Sparrow
Jack Richards had concluded one of his Ghost Talk-Ghost Walks tours of Roswell, Ga., in front of historic Bullock Hall, where he had recounted the story of lights being mysteriously left on in the house. Unbeknownst to Richards, the director of the house was on the tour. “She identified herself and said she had turned the light off in the attic and locked up the house to come on the tour,” said Richards. “She pointed out that the light was now on.” Dani Wilson, of Eureka Springs Ghost Tours, said she has had “tons of people catching light orbs with cameras, smelling something like pipe tobacco that is not there and hearing people talking to them when no one is around” on haunted tours of the historic Crescent Hotel and Spa. Ghost tours have become increasingly popular over the past few years. Although your group might not have a paranormal encounter such as those in Roswell and Eureka Springs, adding a supernatural flair to a trip can make for interesting conversation and fun. It doesn’t matter if members of your group are true ghost believers, full-fledged skeptics or somewhere in the middle. “We have skeptics and ones who see ghosts around every corner,” said David Ross of Magical History Tours in Des Moines, Iowa. “We don’t make judgments. We just present what we are told and let them decide.” “We approach it as entertainment for an hour and a half,” said Wilson. “We are not trying to change anybody’s opinion.” Haunts of the World’s Most Famous Beach Daytona Beach, Fla. “We have some very interactive ghosts,” said Doris Smith, who offers three different walking tours of the Florida beach resort. “By the end of the tour, most nonbelievers are believers.” Smith, who is a certified ghost hunter and true believer, said “education is a big part of our tours. We don’t just stand out there and tell people this is the haunting. We tell why she got there and why she is returning to the area.” Smith got interested in paranormal research after she took a ghost tour in St. Augustine on her birthday and found odd anomalies on the pictures she took. She later started her own tours of Daytona Beach to raise funds for research equipment. She now donates the majority of proceeds from the tours toward the upkeep of two historic cemeteries. “We have several love stories and stories about rum runners and gun runners,” she said. However, one of her favorite stories involves Brownie, a stray dog who became a fixture in the downtown business district from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s. “Tourists would shake his paw and take his picture,” Smith said. “He was a goodwill ambassador for Daytona Beach. He is buried in Riverfront Park.” Brownie even had a funeral, complete with casket, pallbearers and a eulogy from the mayor. Smith said that one time she was sitting on a park bench near Brownie’s gravesite when she felt a warm sensation on her left leg. She got up and took a picture. The print had an orb anomaly with a dog’s face inside. “So I have included him in the tour,” she said. “We bring him dog biscuits each week, and literally hundreds of tour guests have captured photos of him.” (386) 253-6034 www.hauntsofdaytona.com Fell's Point Ghost Walk Baltimore When Amy Lynwander was traveling around the country as a convention planner, she would take ghost tours in various cities. “Ghost tours are a lot of fun, and I always thought Fell's Point would be a great setting,” said Lynwander, a resident of the Baltimore neighborhood, which is in the historic Fell’s Point area. Lynwander recruited another Fell's Point resident, Melissa Garland, as a partner, and they spent three years researching the area’s haunted history before launching their company. Now in its third year, it has been named the city’s best tour in the local newspaper’s “Best of Baltimore” survey. Fell's Point, Baltimore’s oldest neighborhood, is a former maritime seaport that was a leading shipbuilding center. Today it has row houses and cobblestone streets on the Inner Harbor with many trendy restaurants and taverns. “We interweave the colorful history of Fell's Point with ghost stories,” said Lynwander. “We stop in front of the different haunted spots, which are a mix of taverns and residences, and tell the stories.” Lynwander said that although the guides wear black capes and clothing and occasionally carry lanterns, “our tours are not particularly scary. There are a couple of places that are really haunted, but we don’t have anybody jumping out at you.” The ghost of a retired seaman, Doc, haunts the tavern that he lived above from 1947 until his death in 1980. “He was happy-go-lucky, and everybody liked him,” said Lynwander. “He had a favorite polka on the jukebox, and after he was gone, they took it off the machine. A few months later, on a slow night, there were few people in the tavern, and nobody had fed the jukebox. “Suddenly, the polka started to play, and then the machine shut down dead.” (410) 522-7400 www.fellspointghost.com Magical History Tours Ghosts and Graveyard Tour Des Moines, Iowa From April through November, Magical History Tours runs two-hour ghosts tours to six locations, including houses and cemeteries, in the Des Moines area. “We have actor guides who go into character at the different locations,” said Ross. “They put on hats and different props. But we don’t try to scare anybody; that is not our intent.” Among the stops is the historic home of former Vice President and Agriculture Secretary Henry Wallace, which Ross said is “perhaps the most haunted.” He said one woman on a tour ran out of the library and returned to the bus, saying she felt too uncomfortable in the room. Another time, a heavy light fixture in the Wallace house flew off the wall. “We have a poltergeist, who can move things in the physical world, at one house, and we have others that are just seen for a moment and then vanish. There are some cold spots in some of the cemeteries that are pretty unusual and a heavy feeling in some of the rooms,” said Ross. He said several guests at a bed and breakfast reported shutters banging on the outside all night, although there were no windows on that side of the room. When the siding was taken off during a remodeling, they found a former window where the sounds were coming from. “I am still a skeptic, but I can’t explain some things that have happened,” said Ross. “You have to keep an open mind. Science doesn’t know everything.” Everyone on the tour is sworn in as an official ghost investigator and is given clues at the different locations about why a haunting occurred. Those who fill out the correct answers at the end of the tour are eligible for a drawing for a T-shirt that says “I survived the Ghosts and Graveyards Tour.” (515) 270-6654 www.magicalhistorytours.com Eureka Springs Ghost Tours Eureka Springs, Ark. The Crescent Hotel and Spa has a ghost who gets fresh with women guests. “Michael is the one most people come to see,” said Wilson. “He is in room 218. He originally was a stonemason who was brought in to help build the hotel. He is a poltergeist. He can open doors, turn on the water and open windows onto the balcony. “He is notorious for sticking two hands out of a mirror on the dresser at women while they are getting dressed.” Wilson said that although the hotel “is an extremely active building,” no one has gotten hurt, and most guests treat the ghosts as friendly. Many of the ghosts stem from the building’s days as a cancer hospital from 1937 to 1940. “We are just reporting things we have seen or that have been documented over and over,” said Wilson. “It is up to the individuals as to whether they want to believe or not. But we find people are having experiences they flat don’t understand.” The company will resume a cemetery tour in May that is more historical than haunted. “It is a good tour for senior bus groups,” said Wilson. “There are sightings in the cemetery, but the tour is more along the lines of history. “If you are looking for the history of the area and the people who were here 120 years ago, that is the tour to take.” (479) 253-6800 www.eureka-springs-ghost.com Roswell’s Ghost Talk-Ghost Walks Roswell, Ga. Jack Richards, an early pioneer in ghosts tours, started Ghost Talk-Ghost Walks — a name he has trademarked — in Savannah, Ga., in 1989 and expanded to Roswell four years ago. “We have a very simple formula that works well,” he said. “We tell a ghost story associated with the history or legend of a town.” Richards said that although his tours also discuss the techniques of paranormal research, “we do it very carefully, very sensitively, so people are not offended.” The Roswell tour, which begins at the Mill Village area, “is a mild, easy walking tour of about an hour and a half.” “Mill Village is a group of what I call temple houses, built in the Greek Revival style,” said Richards. “We talk about Mill Village hauntings, both old and new, but there are some very beautiful historic stories. “We weave in a lot of the history. It is deeply grounded in the legends that people in the community have shared with us,” he said. “Yes, some of the stories have gone into myth, but that is part of a community. You tell stories in the way you understood them.” The tour also includes the town cemetery. (800) 776-7935
