Haunted Row House: Philadelphia The particular story I collected takes place in Philadelphia, where ghost stories are plentiful. Philadelphia is an old city with a rich cultural heritage, and our founding fathers made history in the place that was once our nation’s capital (Eidmann). Many believe that their spirits and spirits of those from colonial times still lurk around. It is easy to feel like spirits are around when in a place where many people have lived and died before, and in a place that is filled with old buildings and landmarks. All of these factors make this city a perfect place for a ghost story. This story was told to me by a close friend, in my dorm room on a cold rainy day in April. My friend is a female of Columbian descent, 20 years old, who lives off campus in Silver Spring, Maryland. She is a sophomore and is currently studying journalism at Maryland. She heard this story about a year ago while she was with her mom, and it was told to them by a co-worker of her mother’s at a national magazine. This story was collected by tape recorder, which was held by the teller. So this past year I heard a ghost story from my mom’s coworker and friend. Her daughter recently purchased an old row house in Philadelphia. She lives there with her husband and they have a daughter, who was about two years old. They started to notice REALLY [eyes get large] weird things happening around the house, it was really eerie and started to make them nervous. Their daughter has a playroom in the attic, and she used to say, actually, she still says that there is somebody up there. She describes him as an African American male--well she says it’s a “Black man”--and she says he sits there and watches her play. When she told her parents... ... middle of paper ... ...just another person who wants to be friends and not think the ghost will hurt them or that there is anything scary about it. The tale capitalizes on the fact that an adult would be uneasy thinking that a child can play with a ghost without thinking twice, and even more uneasy that a child can see what they cannot, since adults are supposed to be wiser and more able to explain things. The imagination of a child, which can create some astonishing things, is a scary entity. Works Cited Bouldin, Paula. “An Investigation of the Fantasy Predisposition and Fantasy Style of Children With Imaginary Companions”. Journal of Genetic Psychology. 2006. 167(1): 17-29. Eidmann, Frank. “Philadelphia: The Capital City” National Park Services. 7 Apr. 2006. http://www.nps.gov/inde/phila.html. Juliano, David. “The Shadowlands” 7 Apr. 2006. http://www.theshadowlands.net/.
The story was told to me by one of my high-school classmates, who is a resident of the town of Atco. The nineteen year old young man is currently a sophomore at Clemson University and describes himself as being a Roman Catholic of half Italian-American and half Irish-American decent. The young man also noted that he is normally very socially conservative and a staunch Republican. His father is employed as a general contractor and his mother runs her own catering company. He describes himself as a “self proclaimed expert of all things related to the Atco Ghost.” He cannot remember the specific date when he first heard the story, but stated that he can remember knowing most of the details to the story for most of his life. He also claims to have attempted to see the ghost on only one occasion and after what he saw, he refuses to ever go back to that area of town at night. The following is an almost word for word account, which he checked to ensure its accuracy, of the lengthy story as he retold it to me ...
Since I come from the Eastern Shore of this state, I was surprised to hear a ghost story I was previously unaware of. The story takes place in a park in Salisbury. The person who told me the story is a 19-year-old sophomore at the University, and we spoke about it one evening after dinner. He believes it to be true, because one of his friend’s siblings has apparently experienced the ghost firsthand. I tape-recorded his narrative:
I was told a story about one of Cloudcroft's more famous ghosts when casually lounging in the undergraduate student physics lounge at the University of Maryland, College Park, with a group of students during a lunch break before class. This occurred during early April, 2005. I inquired whether anyone knew any ghost stories or folklore. A friend of mine volunteered that she knew several ghost stories from her travels. The storyteller was a 23-year-old Caucasian female from an upper-middle class family in Baltimore. She currently lives in Crofton, MD, and is a physics and astronomy major.
One night, around 1:00 a.m., my roommates and I were sitting in the common room, and I asked the group if they knew of a compelling ghost story. My one roommate, a 20 year old from Pennsylvania, said she had heard a ghost story at the summer sleep-away camp she had attended when she was younger. She heard the story around a campfire in the woods of Camp Tonikanee, which is in Quakertown, Pennsylvania. She described her story as one that the counselors would tell the campers to convince them the camp was haunted.
There’s a haunted house in Dover, Delaware called the Governor’s Mansion, where all of the Governors of Delaware have lived. If you go to the house yourself, you might see or experience a couple different ghosts. One evening, a guest to the house passed an old man dressed in old-fashioned clothes while going down the stairs for dinner. Once at the table the guest asked the owners who the person was. The curious owners asked for a description of the man. The description that the visitor sent chills down the spines of the owners, as it was an exact description of the owner’s father who had been dead for many years, and nobody else was in the house. The father had also been known for getting drunk a lot, so to this day he can still be seen drinking any liquor left out in the open. The mansion is also known for being a part of the Underground Railroad, so lots of slaves were always coming and going through the house at night. One night the house got busted and one of the runaway slaves ran and hid in a big tree in the yard. The slave was up there for a while and was already tired from his journey to the house.
This story, although somewhat unique in its exact plot, contains many elements that make it a typical and traditional ghost story. These elements suggest common fears in today’s society of people in general, and children specifically.
I searched until I heard a story that gave me the chills. It comes from right around the block from where I live on campus, at one of the sorority houses at the University of Maryland. I collected this story the weekend of April 2nd, at my fraternity house. I asked my friend, a junior from Pikesville, if she knows any ghost stories. Her face lit up as if she was dying to tell me this story since the first time we ever met. She asked “you never heard the story of the ghost in the sorority house?” I replied no. The normally quiet woman demanded my attention away from the TV and went into her story.
When one usually thinks of a hearing a ghost story, the setting is dark with flickering light (such as around a campfire or in a basement with bad lighting) and, of course, it is nighttime. Needless to say, when I heard this story during the middle of the day on a Friday, I was a little taken aback. When prompted for any urban legends or ghost stories a white, female friend of mine immediately responded with, “Have you ever heard of de Sales Academy?” With my negative response, the nineteen year old student jumped into her story:
This story was recounted to me by a 20 year old female student at my University. She is a Communications major, coming from an upper middle class family in the rural suburbs of New Jersey. I interviewed her in her apartment sometime in the late afternoon in an informal setting. Although she is skeptical about things such as urban legends and ghost tales, she explained to me that this story always unsettled her in an inexplicable way.
She knows of the story after hearing it from fellow students at the University of Washington, where she went for her undergraduate studies. The story was told during a regular hangout, by a girl from a town near Port Townsend. The person I heard the story from doesn't really pay the myth and "ghost story" idea any attention because of its common presence in that area. Washington state is a region known as the "Haunted North West." Capitol Hill has so many "ghosts" that companies offer ghost tours year round.
The Nelly Butler hauntings is referred to as the first recorded ghost story in American history (LiBrizzi 5), and possibly the most exciting hauntings to date as there are still many unsolved mysteries. The apparition appeared on more than 30 separate occasions to over 100 witnesses in Sullivan, Maine, just over fifteen years after the American Revolution (5-6). Although the Nelly Butler apparition is one of the most convincing ghosts of all time, it was subject to suspicions of fraud. These claims turn out to be groundless as the evidence reveals the ghost to be genuine.
When most people think of paranormal activity they instantly think of ghosts, spirits, or even demons. Paranormal activity is more than that. Paranormal is when something is beyond normal and activity is the state of being active. Some people like to say it’s their imagination, but me personally, I think it is much more than that. Paranormal is used to describe something unordinary that lack a scientific explanation (Cha Cha Inc., 2006). (McGuire, 2010) stated that supernatural or paranormal events which occur when people are not seeking them out can be very difficult and frightening. Most people wonder about the different ways paranormal activity can be explained. A few different examples of paranormal activity are ghosts, levitation, telegraphs, etc. Footsteps, abnormal sounds, shadows, and even moving objects are all signs of paranormal activity.
“A Haunted House” by Virginia Woolf is a short story about a ghostly couple that are wandering around the home they lived in before they died, searching for something they lost. They move round the house as quietly as they can without waking the new owners. The owner does not awaken, but subconsciously begins to wander and get confused along with the ghost. they enter the drawing room the word “safe” is chanted multiple times, allowing the couple to feel at ease and know that their search was not in vain and what they yearn for is safe. The story ends with the ghost being described about how they were before their deaths. The wife passed away first and her death leads her husband to travel and he eventually returned to their home. the story
For many years, people have debated whether or not spirits are real. Some people get scared at the fact that there might be something unknown lurking in their house in the middle of the night making their footsteps known to everyone in it. Maybe that person feels watched upon or feel some kind of presence in their home, or even sees shadows moving their way through rooms. Different people around the world have their own opinions based on religion and experiences when talking about angels, demons, and the spirits that have life after death. New technology is getting closer to detecting these energies happening in the world today. The history of haunting dates back many years, and more people want to get involved because of the new technology.
Everyone knows that whether it’s a true story or an imagined ghost story the settings are most often old abandoned mansions, castles or graveyards. Ghosts become guests in hotels, motels and taverns. There are some less common places which mention ghosts but the one thing that you most likely have never heard about is a ghost haunting a modern apartment or condominium.