The Book of the Bizarre: Freaky Facts and Strange Stories (3 page)

KING'S TAVERN, NATCHEZ, MISSISSIPPI

The story of the ghosts at King's Tavern in Natchez, Mississippi, dates back to the late 1700s, when a woman named Madeline, the mistress of Richard King, was murdered by King's jealous wife. For more than 200 years, the tavern's patrons have reported hauntings, including the ghost of a woman standing in front of them, angrily poised with hands on her hips.

In the 1930s, the skeleton of a woman was discovered sealed in a brick fireplace, a dagger in her chest.

SILAS OF KENNEBUNK

The Kennebunk Inn in Kennebunkport, Maine is reputed to be haunted by a friendly ghost named Silas. Among Silas's tricks are levitating glasses and throwing beer mugs.

REBECCA DORRINGTON'S FATAL FALL

In the High Sierra of California, among the pines and fresh mountain air, the little town of Dorrington is home to the Dorrington Hotel. The town is named after Rebecca Dorrington, who died in a fatal fall down a flight of stairs in the hotel in 1870. Today's hotel guests report banging doors, flashing lights, and furniture shifting. Some have even claimed to witness a phantom re-creation of Rebecca's fatal fall.

HAUNTED? A CHECKLIST

Here are six telltale signs that your house may be haunted, especially if any of the signs occur repeatedly:

1. Pets react with seemingly out-of-place growls, barks, or hisses to things no one else can see.
   
2. Household members have repeated nightmares.
   
3. Objects disappear, often to reappear somewhere else after some time. For example, a young woman living in an old railroad flat in Santa Fe has come home to find her ghost had moved or turned over her sugar bowl on numerous occasions.
   
4. Electrical appliances turn on or off by themselves. Faucets or toilets run or flush themselves.
   
5. The building has inexplicable cold drafts or cold spots.
   
6. Inhabitants hear footsteps, taps on walls or windows, and voices that cannot be attributed to other living people or sources in the house.
   

AS TOLD BY RAYMOND BUCKLAND

I first came to the United States in 1962. I lived on Long Island, New York, and then, about ten years later, moved up to live on the shores of Lake Winnepesaukee, New Hampshire. My wife and I purchased a house there, at Weirs Beach.

The house was built circa 1825. It was a beautiful two-story with an attached ell barn, stable, and outbuildings, set on a couple of acres. Right from the start we felt very comfortable and very welcomed in the house. It had a very large living room with a wonderful beamed ceiling. The room ran the length of the house on the west side. A staircase went up the center of the house; the front door was at its base, and there were four bedrooms above. On the east side of the house was the kitchen and my study. My study had two windows looking out to the front and one looking to the side. A later addition was a screened-in porch that ran across the full front of the house. The door at the east end of this porch opened onto a paved path leading to the garage and the driveway.

We quickly came to realize that the house was haunted. While we sat downstairs in the living room, we frequently heard footsteps walking about in the bedrooms. I particularly remember one time when the footsteps walked across the room above (my elder son's front bedroom) and then started down the stairs. My wife and I were sitting in the living room, and we both turned to see who had come down, since neither of my sons was home; we expected the person to come around the corner from the foot of the stairs into the living
room. But no one came. The footsteps had stopped at the bottom of the stairs. I got up out of my chair and went to look. There was no one there;the staircase was empty.

On another occasion my wife's grandmother was staying with us, sleeping in my elder son's bedroom. One morning she came down to breakfast and reported a nighttime visitor. She said that she had awakened in the middle of the night to find a woman standing at the foot of her bed. There was a night-light in the room, and she could see that the woman was wearing a long blue dress. The figure studied her for a few moments and then turned and simply disappeared, fading away to nothing.