WEBVTT - Six Impossible Episodes: Ghost Stories 0:00:01.320 --> 0:00:04.280 Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production 0:00:04.400 --> 0:00:14.680 of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V. 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:20.520 Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. Before we start, We're gonna 0:00:20.560 --> 0:00:25.560 go to Barcelona very soon. Yeah, just a few weeks off. Yes, 0:00:26.320 --> 0:00:29.479 we are going to Barcelona November two through ninth. And 0:00:29.560 --> 0:00:31.760 I know this is last minute, but I also know 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:34.919 there are folks who fly by the seat of their 0:00:34.960 --> 0:00:38.360 plants and make some travel arrangements late in the game. 0:00:39.240 --> 0:00:44.159 We do have still a few spaces available on that trip, 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:47.839 so if you've been thinking, man, I just need to 0:00:47.840 --> 0:00:50.320 get away and have a little time saved up in 0:00:50.400 --> 0:00:53.400 all of that, like, check it out. If you go 0:00:53.520 --> 0:00:59.680 to Defined Destinations dot com. Right on the homepage, just 0:00:59.720 --> 0:01:03.000 this trip says Barcelona six Night Adventure. You can also 0:01:03.040 --> 0:01:07.759 go to Defined Destinations dot Com slash Barcelona Dashed twenty 0:01:07.800 --> 0:01:13.120 twenty three. We are both very excited. We're getting to 0:01:13.160 --> 0:01:20.200 that point in the imminent travel of being excited and busy, 0:01:20.360 --> 0:01:23.760 if that makes sense. Yes, I we're in the fall, 0:01:23.800 --> 0:01:26.200 which is always my heavy travel time as I run 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:30.319 around and do various halloweeny events. So I have not 0:01:30.480 --> 0:01:35.240 let myself get completely Barcelona excited. Yet sure, because I 0:01:35.280 --> 0:01:41.319 have other trips, but every time I go somewhere, I 0:01:41.360 --> 0:01:43.400 end up telling someone that we're about to go, and 0:01:43.440 --> 0:01:45.520 all I hear is how much we are going to 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:47.200 love it. And I have not been in a very 0:01:47.240 --> 0:01:49.840 long time. So if you would like to love it 0:01:49.880 --> 0:01:54.840 with us, you still can right our tour planner Michael, 0:01:54.920 --> 0:01:57.840 who has made all these arrangements for us, has said 0:01:57.840 --> 0:02:02.760 that Spain is beautiful in nova, so very much looking 0:02:02.800 --> 0:02:05.240 forward to it. We have lots of walking tours, We're 0:02:05.280 --> 0:02:10.399 going to do food tours, a Flamenco show, breakfast ised 0:02:10.520 --> 0:02:14.600 is included every morning. And this is the third time 0:02:14.639 --> 0:02:16.639 that we've gone on a trip with Michael, and these 0:02:16.639 --> 0:02:22.040 are kind of a nice mix of scheduled, planned things 0:02:22.120 --> 0:02:25.640 to do and also downtime or explore on your own, 0:02:27.160 --> 0:02:29.560 and so we've had a great time all three times. Yeah, 0:02:30.320 --> 0:02:32.320 I know that I will have a great time because 0:02:32.320 --> 0:02:34.560 he is very good at giving you a balance of 0:02:35.200 --> 0:02:38.400 planned things and time to just hang out and do 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:42.000 whatever excites you the most. But rest assured, so Gratta 0:02:42.040 --> 0:02:46.079 Familia is on the list. So yes, one more time. 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:51.040 That is that defined destinations dot Com if folks have 0:02:51.240 --> 0:02:53.920 been thinking, hey, I need to do something with this 0:02:54.040 --> 0:02:58.160 time off before the end of the year, and now 0:02:58.200 --> 0:03:03.679 we can change the subject completely to today's episode. Over 0:03:03.720 --> 0:03:06.760 the years, we've gotten just a ton of listener requests 0:03:06.800 --> 0:03:11.000 for various ghost stories, and we have done some whole 0:03:11.040 --> 0:03:15.160 episodes on the ghost story theme, like the Greenbrier Ghost 0:03:15.200 --> 0:03:18.320 and the Bellwitch, and we've also talked about some places 0:03:18.360 --> 0:03:21.480 that are said to be haunted, like the island of Pavlia. 0:03:22.560 --> 0:03:24.880 A lot of the suggestions that we've gotten on the scene, though, 0:03:25.320 --> 0:03:28.519 don't really work out as a full episode, so October 0:03:28.600 --> 0:03:31.240 seemed like a very good time to do an installment 0:03:31.320 --> 0:03:35.280 of six impossible episodes when we talk about things that 0:03:35.960 --> 0:03:38.000 maybe are a little too thin to build a whole 0:03:38.040 --> 0:03:43.160 episode around. This time all about ghosts and hauntings, and 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:45.400 a lot of these are very well known in the 0:03:45.440 --> 0:03:48.600 places where they originated, but maybe not outside of those 0:03:48.640 --> 0:03:53.000 places unless you are just really into ghost lore. Uh. 0:03:53.560 --> 0:03:55.960 As a side note, when I was going through our 0:03:56.080 --> 0:03:58.920 many suggestions to pull this episode together, I noticed that 0:03:58.960 --> 0:04:04.920 we have a lot that are specifically about haunted hotels 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:08.880 and ghost towns. So there aren't any hotels or ghost 0:04:08.960 --> 0:04:13.160 towns in this episode, but those may come around for 0:04:13.240 --> 0:04:15.600 their own episode in the future, and just a heads up. 0:04:15.600 --> 0:04:18.960 As being a ghost episode, there is of course a 0:04:19.000 --> 0:04:22.680 lot of murder and violence happening and a number of 0:04:22.720 --> 0:04:27.320 these stories do also involve suicide in some way. So 0:04:27.480 --> 0:04:30.000 with that we will get started, and our first ghost 0:04:30.160 --> 0:04:33.400 is from New South Wales, Australia. This was suggested by 0:04:33.480 --> 0:04:37.520 Cay Scott. In October of eighteen twenty six, a farmer 0:04:37.640 --> 0:04:40.919 named John Farley was walking home late one night and 0:04:41.000 --> 0:04:43.640 he saw a man sitting on the railing of a bridge. 0:04:44.320 --> 0:04:47.039 As he got closer, he realized that that man was 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:50.440 someone he recognized, a man named Fred Fisher, who had 0:04:50.480 --> 0:04:54.640 been missing for about four months. Farley said Fisher was 0:04:54.680 --> 0:04:58.159 surrounded in a strange light with a bloody wound on 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.960 his head, and that he pointed in the direction of 0:05:01.000 --> 0:05:06.080 a nearby creek before fading away. When Farley had this encounter, 0:05:06.240 --> 0:05:09.640 most people thought that Fisher was dead. He had been 0:05:09.640 --> 0:05:12.600 born in London in seventeen ninety two and then at 0:05:12.600 --> 0:05:16.360 the age of twenty four, he was facing a fourteen 0:05:16.440 --> 0:05:22.240 year transportation to Australia after obtaining some forged banknotes in 0:05:22.320 --> 0:05:25.840 eighteen twenty two, after serving almost half of that sentence, 0:05:26.120 --> 0:05:28.719 Fisher applied for a ticket of leave, which was a 0:05:28.760 --> 0:05:31.159 document that could be granted to people who had been 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:35.440 serving their sentence in Australia with good behavior. A ticket 0:05:35.520 --> 0:05:39.760 of leave granted some rights that convicted people didn't have otherwise, 0:05:40.000 --> 0:05:42.799 like the right to buy property, the right for people 0:05:42.800 --> 0:05:46.000 to work for themselves, as long as the person that 0:05:46.080 --> 0:05:49.800 had that ticket kept following all the other rules and requirements. 0:05:50.400 --> 0:05:53.360 And once he had his ticket of leave, Fisher moved 0:05:53.400 --> 0:05:58.280 to Campbelltown became a prosperous farmer. Campbelltown is within the 0:05:58.320 --> 0:06:01.839 Sydney Metropolitan Area today, but at this time it was 0:06:01.920 --> 0:06:05.840 really just getting started as a town. In eighteen twenty five, 0:06:05.960 --> 0:06:10.120 Fisher hired a carpenter named William Brooker to build an 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:12.719 inn for him, and these two men got into a 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.600 dispute over money. Brooker took the matter to the magistrate, 0:06:16.640 --> 0:06:18.960 who found in his favor, but it seems like he 0:06:19.040 --> 0:06:23.440 thought Fisher still owed him money. One night, Brooker barged 0:06:23.560 --> 0:06:27.120 into the inn, apparently intoxicated, and demanded to be paid. 0:06:27.360 --> 0:06:32.000 This escalated into a physical fight in which Fisher stabbed Brooker. 0:06:32.720 --> 0:06:36.080 Fisher was charged with assault, and he was worried about 0:06:36.080 --> 0:06:38.919 what would happen to his property in farms if he 0:06:39.040 --> 0:06:42.040 was convicted, especially if he wound up with a lengthy 0:06:42.080 --> 0:06:45.839 prison sentence, So he gave neighbor and fellow ticket of 0:06:45.920 --> 0:06:49.320 leave man George Warrel, power of attorney so that Warrel 0:06:49.360 --> 0:06:53.040 could manage things for him. Warrel and Fisher were friends. 0:06:53.360 --> 0:06:56.920 Among other things, Fisher and his employees lived with Warrel 0:06:56.960 --> 0:06:59.640 because Fisher had not built a house on any of 0:06:59.640 --> 0:07:04.440 his arms. Ultimately, a court found that Fisher had been provoked, 0:07:04.600 --> 0:07:07.320 so he was given a lighter sentence than he was 0:07:07.400 --> 0:07:10.720 afraid that he would be facing, but he still was 0:07:10.800 --> 0:07:13.400 sentenced to six months in prison and had to pay 0:07:13.400 --> 0:07:17.440 a fine of fifty pounds. He was released from prison, 0:07:17.520 --> 0:07:20.240 but then in June of eighteen twenty six, he disappeared. 0:07:20.960 --> 0:07:25.480 Warrel told people that Fisher had left for England, maybe 0:07:25.520 --> 0:07:30.040 to try to escape another forgery charge. Soon, Warrel was 0:07:30.080 --> 0:07:36.679 also selling off Fisher's possessions. This seemed suspicious. In addition 0:07:36.760 --> 0:07:40.559 to his sudden disappearance, Fisher only had three years left 0:07:40.600 --> 0:07:44.280 on his original fourteen year sentence. It just didn't make 0:07:44.320 --> 0:07:47.720 sense that he would suddenly leave Australia and risk everything 0:07:47.800 --> 0:07:51.080 he had built. People also didn't think Fisher was the 0:07:51.200 --> 0:07:53.480 kind of man who would walk away from a bunch 0:07:53.520 --> 0:07:56.920 of valuable property in possessions just for someone else to 0:07:56.960 --> 0:07:59.480 profit off of it. On top of all of that, 0:07:59.680 --> 0:08:03.160 war had bragged to people about being given control of 0:08:03.160 --> 0:08:07.360 Fisher's interests before Fisher went to prison, and he made 0:08:07.360 --> 0:08:10.560 it sound more like a gift than a temporary arrangement. 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:15.040 The ship Warrel claimed Fisher had left on also hadn't 0:08:15.080 --> 0:08:19.840 actually docked in Sydney, so Warrel was arrested on suspicion 0:08:19.880 --> 0:08:23.840 of murder on September seventeenth, eighteen twenty six, and he 0:08:23.960 --> 0:08:26.880 claimed that four other men were actually the ones who 0:08:26.960 --> 0:08:30.400 had killed Fisher. All four of those men were arrested 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.640 as well, but there was no body There was no 0:08:33.880 --> 0:08:37.160 real proof that Fisher had come to some kind of harm, 0:08:37.280 --> 0:08:41.000 so none of the men immediately faced trial. Soon a 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:43.880 reward was being offered to anybody who could prove that 0:08:43.920 --> 0:08:47.040 Fisher had left the colony or could produce his body. 0:08:47.920 --> 0:08:50.720 As we said, it was in October of eighteen twenty 0:08:50.760 --> 0:08:54.359 six that John Farley said he saw this ghostly apparition 0:08:54.800 --> 0:08:58.440 of Fred Fisher sitting on the railing of a bridge. 0:08:58.480 --> 0:09:01.960 Farley ran to a nearby hotel called The Harrow and 0:09:02.040 --> 0:09:06.200 told people what he had seen, Eventually that included the 0:09:06.240 --> 0:09:11.680 police superintendent and the local magistrate. Farley seemed really sincere 0:09:11.840 --> 0:09:15.640 and genuinely shaken about this whole experience, but it's not 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:20.280 clear whether people entirely believed his account of this ghost encounter. 0:09:20.840 --> 0:09:24.800 Investigators did start taking a deeper look into Fisher's disappearance, though, 0:09:25.040 --> 0:09:28.120 prompted in part by a discovery that two boys made 0:09:28.120 --> 0:09:31.240 on October twenty fifth. They were cutting across one of 0:09:31.280 --> 0:09:36.040 Fisher's farms and noticed bloodstains on a fence. Soon, a 0:09:36.080 --> 0:09:40.280 lock of hair and a tooth were found nearby. Police 0:09:40.320 --> 0:09:43.880 brought in an Aboriginal tracker known as Namud Gilbert, who 0:09:44.000 --> 0:09:47.480 led them to a shallow grave containing Fred Fisher's body. 0:09:48.240 --> 0:09:50.680 It was by the creek that Farley had described the 0:09:50.720 --> 0:09:54.000 apparition pointing to earlier in October, and that is now 0:09:54.040 --> 0:09:59.080 known as Fisher's Ghost Creek. The body was too decomposed 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:03.360 for the features to be recognizable, but the clothing was Fisher's. 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:07.240 George Worrel was arrested and tried for murder. He was 0:10:07.280 --> 0:10:11.000 convicted on February second, eighteen twenty seven, and then executed 0:10:11.040 --> 0:10:15.079 three days later. He admitted to killing Fisher, but claimed 0:10:15.120 --> 0:10:17.840 that it had been an accident. He said that he 0:10:17.880 --> 0:10:20.640 had mistaken Fisher for a horse that had gotten into 0:10:20.640 --> 0:10:24.960 the wheat crop. People did not really buy this explanation, 0:10:25.760 --> 0:10:29.160 if anything, that raises more questions. This is one of 0:10:29.200 --> 0:10:32.280 Australia's better known ghost stories and it went on to 0:10:32.360 --> 0:10:36.520 inspire a number of stories, plays, in poems. There are 0:10:36.559 --> 0:10:40.160 also lots of variations on the basic narrative, many of 0:10:40.160 --> 0:10:44.760 them with slightly different names and places. Today, Campbelltown, New 0:10:44.800 --> 0:10:48.559 South Wales, holds a festival of Fisher's Ghost every November. 0:10:49.120 --> 0:10:52.240 This has been an annual event since nineteen fifty six. 0:10:53.280 --> 0:10:57.000 Our next ghost story is maybe more of an urban 0:10:57.120 --> 0:11:01.160 legend than a specific ghost story that was suggested by 0:11:01.280 --> 0:11:04.760 Rachel and it's from Japan. So according to the lore, 0:11:04.880 --> 0:11:08.000 if you go into a girl's bathroom on the third 0:11:08.080 --> 0:11:11.000 floor of a school and you knock three times on 0:11:11.080 --> 0:11:14.400 the door of the third stall and ask if Hanako 0:11:14.480 --> 0:11:19.360 san is there, a ghostly girl may answer you. This 0:11:19.600 --> 0:11:23.400 ghost is also known as tware Nohaniko or Hanako of 0:11:23.440 --> 0:11:28.240 the toilet. Exactly what happens next in an encounter with 0:11:28.320 --> 0:11:31.719 Haniko varies a little from place to place and retelling 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:35.880 to retelling. You might see a ghost or the ghost's 0:11:35.920 --> 0:11:39.120 bloody hand, or you might be yanked into the stall, 0:11:39.200 --> 0:11:42.600 where the toilet may be a portal into hell. In 0:11:42.640 --> 0:11:46.640 some areas, you might be eaten by a three headed lizard. 0:11:47.040 --> 0:11:51.559 There is also some variety in exactly which stall hanakohans. 0:11:51.760 --> 0:11:54.480 Some sources say it is the first stall, some the 0:11:54.559 --> 0:11:57.280 last one, not the third one, and some say this 0:11:57.360 --> 0:12:01.280 happens only at certain times of day, including between one 0:12:01.360 --> 0:12:04.040 and three am, which would of course make this an 0:12:04.040 --> 0:12:08.560 even creepier experience. Yeah, I kind of creeped myself out 0:12:08.600 --> 0:12:12.000 a little bit imagining being in like a totally deserted 0:12:12.080 --> 0:12:16.079 middle of the night, you know, say, elementary or middle school, 0:12:17.040 --> 0:12:21.839 knocking on the bathroom stall door. There are multiple versions 0:12:21.920 --> 0:12:25.679 to explain where this ghost came from. The story seems 0:12:25.720 --> 0:12:29.240 to have appeared first in Japan after World War two, 0:12:29.880 --> 0:12:33.080 and in some stories, Haneko was playing or hiding in 0:12:33.160 --> 0:12:36.760 the school and was killed in an air raid. In others, 0:12:36.800 --> 0:12:39.480 she was murdered in the bathroom, or she took her 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:43.560 own life because she was being relentlessly bullied. In addition 0:12:43.640 --> 0:12:46.800 to being a very well known and widely repeated story 0:12:46.800 --> 0:12:49.679 in Japan, Hanako San has been the subject of a 0:12:49.760 --> 0:12:53.920 number of films, anime and manga. One of them, titled 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:57.679 Toilet Bound Hanako Kun in English, is both a manga 0:12:57.720 --> 0:13:03.400 series and an anime adaptation, and it presents Henacho as Mail. Yeah. 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:05.800 I don't know if I don't know enough about this 0:13:05.960 --> 0:13:10.960 series to know if there's background on why that is, 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:14.560 but this reminds me a bit of here in the US, 0:13:14.760 --> 0:13:18.000 the saying bloody Mary looking in the mirror. In terms 0:13:18.000 --> 0:13:23.960 of like creepy ghost experiences, I like that it could 0:13:23.960 --> 0:13:29.800 be in any school. We will take a quick sponsor 0:13:29.880 --> 0:13:43.040 break and come back with some more ghosts. Our next 0:13:43.160 --> 0:13:45.800 ghost story is the only one in today's episode that 0:13:45.880 --> 0:13:48.480 is not from the audience mail bag. This one is 0:13:48.520 --> 0:13:51.360 from my own upbringing in North Carolina. It is the 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:55.160 make a Light. This was an eerie light or maybe 0:13:55.320 --> 0:14:00.280 lights in Brunswick County, North Carolina, west of Wilmington. As 0:14:00.280 --> 0:14:03.840 the story goes, there was a brakeman named Joe Baldwin 0:14:03.880 --> 0:14:06.760 who was working for the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad in 0:14:06.840 --> 0:14:10.280 eighteen sixty seven when he was beheaded in an accident. 0:14:11.240 --> 0:14:13.800 Since then, he's been on the tracks with a light 0:14:14.080 --> 0:14:18.400 looking for his head. There's also another slightly different version 0:14:18.440 --> 0:14:21.120 of this story, which is that Baldwin was alone in 0:14:21.200 --> 0:14:23.680 the last car of a train when he realized that 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:27.600 car had come uncoupled, so he was wildly swinging a 0:14:27.680 --> 0:14:30.360 light to try to warn another oncoming train that they 0:14:30.360 --> 0:14:34.040 were about to collide. When they did, he was killed. 0:14:34.080 --> 0:14:37.880 So he's like now in death, frantically swinging the light 0:14:38.000 --> 0:14:40.640 to try to warn the other train. There is no 0:14:40.800 --> 0:14:43.880 record of a train crash involving a Joe Baldwin in 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:48.200 eighteen sixty seven, but there was a real train crash 0:14:48.240 --> 0:14:51.840 in the area on January fourth, eighteen fifty six, and 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.600 it has some similarities to this story. The engine of 0:14:55.640 --> 0:14:59.280 a train had experienced mechanical problems near Mako, which at 0:14:59.280 --> 0:15:03.200 the time was now as Farmer's Turnout. The engineer had 0:15:03.240 --> 0:15:06.320 decoupled the last cars of the train, hoping the engine 0:15:06.360 --> 0:15:09.400 could get to Wilmington for repairs if it didn't have 0:15:09.480 --> 0:15:12.600 to pull the weight of those cars. But then when 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.760 the engine returned, it crashed into the cars that it 0:15:15.800 --> 0:15:20.240 had left behind. A male car attendant E. L. Sherwood, 0:15:20.320 --> 0:15:24.960 had minor injuries, but a conductor named Charles Baldwin, not Joe, 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.520 was thrown from the train and suffered a fatal head injury. 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.280 The coroner's jury found that the engineer was not responsible 0:15:32.320 --> 0:15:34.720 for this crash because there was no light at the 0:15:34.760 --> 0:15:36.880 front of the train, and that it had been the 0:15:36.960 --> 0:15:40.600 duty of the conductor, Charles Baldwin, to have hung one there. 0:15:41.640 --> 0:15:45.880 People started reporting seeing strange lights in this area in 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:50.000 the eighteen seventies. In eighteen ninety nine, President Grover Cleveland 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:53.480 was aboard a train that reportedly stopped at Farmer's turnout 0:15:53.520 --> 0:15:57.760 for wood and water. Cleveland noticed that a brakeman was 0:15:57.880 --> 0:16:02.479 carrying signal lanterns into few different colors, which was apparently 0:16:02.520 --> 0:16:05.360 not typical, and asked what that was about, and was 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:08.840 told that it was to keep engineers from being confused 0:16:08.960 --> 0:16:12.440 by quote. The ghostly weaving of the Joe Baldwin light 0:16:13.320 --> 0:16:16.640 most people described as a light as amber or red 0:16:16.800 --> 0:16:21.560 or occasionally yellow, hovering or swinging along the tracks. Some 0:16:21.680 --> 0:16:25.400 of the mundane explanations to the lights include static electricity 0:16:25.400 --> 0:16:29.360 discharges from the train tracks, reflections of lights from nearby 0:16:29.440 --> 0:16:33.280 US Highway seventy four seventy six and marsh gas from 0:16:33.320 --> 0:16:37.840 the surrounding swamps. The stretch of tracks associated with the 0:16:37.880 --> 0:16:41.200 Makeo Light wasn't far from the highway, and starting in 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:43.600 the nineteen fifties, going to try to see the Maco 0:16:43.720 --> 0:16:48.600 light was a popular nighttime activity for teenagers, or maybe 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:51.680 a pretense for teenagers to go out at night and 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:56.760 get into some mischief or pursue something romantic. The railroad 0:16:56.800 --> 0:16:59.720 tracks were removed in nineteen seventy seven, at which some 0:16:59.760 --> 0:17:03.080 point say the lights went away entirely. Uh, this was 0:17:03.160 --> 0:17:05.960 definitely still something people were talking about a lot for 0:17:06.119 --> 0:17:09.560 my whole childhood and adolescence. Though, So if the lights 0:17:09.600 --> 0:17:12.080 went away in nineteen seventy seven when I was to 0:17:13.040 --> 0:17:16.960 the lore around it sure did not. I wonder if 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:19.919 the was there more lighting along the tracks, and so 0:17:20.119 --> 0:17:23.520 whatever was causing those lights may have been obscured. Oh yeah, 0:17:23.560 --> 0:17:27.520 I don't know. Maybe maybe our next ghost story was 0:17:27.520 --> 0:17:30.879 suggested by Roman, and that is Resurrection Mary, a ghost 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.879 from Chicago. There are some variations here as well, but 0:17:35.040 --> 0:17:38.359 most accounts describe Mary as a young woman who died 0:17:38.440 --> 0:17:41.639 sometime in the nineteen twenties or thirties, when she was 0:17:41.640 --> 0:17:44.520 either killed in a car crash or struck by a 0:17:44.600 --> 0:17:48.040 hit and run driver. She is usually described as a 0:17:48.080 --> 0:17:51.760 fashionable young woman, maybe in her late teens or twenties, 0:17:52.080 --> 0:17:54.200 who had just been out for a night of dancing, 0:17:54.280 --> 0:17:58.760 so she's dressed up in her dancing clothes. Sometimes this 0:17:58.840 --> 0:18:01.800 is a ball gown, sometimes more of a flapper dress, 0:18:01.840 --> 0:18:06.000 but either way the dress is usually white. Sometimes people 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:12.000 just say old fashioned. Resurrection Mary reportedly haunts a stretch 0:18:12.000 --> 0:18:15.720 of Archer Avenue, which is outside the city limits southwest 0:18:15.760 --> 0:18:20.680 of Chicago. Specifically, this stretch of road runs from Resurrection 0:18:20.840 --> 0:18:24.879 Catholic cemetery and mausoleums through the village of Willow Springs 0:18:24.920 --> 0:18:28.600 to the side of the o Henry Ballroom. That ballroom 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:32.159 later became the Willowbrook Ballroom, but it burned down in 0:18:32.200 --> 0:18:35.280 twenty sixteen. So this is a stretch of road that's 0:18:35.320 --> 0:18:38.879 allegedly running from where Mary danced her last dance to 0:18:39.040 --> 0:18:43.119 where she was buried after she was killed. Most stories 0:18:43.160 --> 0:18:47.080 about Resurrection Mary follow the pattern of the vanishing hitchhiker 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:51.119 urban legend. So she flags down a passing car and 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:56.400 gets inside, but when the car passes Resurrection Cemetery, she disappears. 0:18:57.359 --> 0:18:59.480 A lot of the people who have said they've had 0:18:59.520 --> 0:19:02.760 the six pere are cab drivers, and there are also 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.679 tales about her being seen dancing in dance halls and 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:09.760 clubs on the South Side of Chicago. According to an 0:19:09.760 --> 0:19:13.480 episode of Unsolved Mysteries that came out in nineteen ninety four, 0:19:13.720 --> 0:19:16.960 the first person to see Resurrection Mary was Jerry Paullis. 0:19:17.000 --> 0:19:21.080 In nineteen thirty nine, Paulus spent an evening dancing with 0:19:21.160 --> 0:19:24.080 a lovely young woman named Mary, not at the o 0:19:24.200 --> 0:19:28.479 Henry Ballroom, but at Liberty Grove Hall and Ballroom. Then 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:30.520 at the end of the night, he offered to drive 0:19:30.560 --> 0:19:34.000 this young woman home, and she accepted his offer, but 0:19:34.119 --> 0:19:36.600 then changed her mind and asked him to drive her 0:19:36.640 --> 0:19:41.120 to Resurrection Cemetery on Archer Avenue instead. This is kind 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:44.679 of a strange request. The cemetery wasn't really close to 0:19:44.720 --> 0:19:47.120 where she had said that she lived, and then when 0:19:47.119 --> 0:19:51.080 they got to the cemetery, Mary disappeared. The next day, 0:19:51.119 --> 0:19:53.720 Paulus went to her address that she'd given him. The 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.239 woman who answered the door said that Mary was her 0:19:56.359 --> 0:20:00.199 daughter who had been dead for five years. According to 0:20:00.240 --> 0:20:04.520 that same episode of Unsolved Mysteries, Mary was Mary Brigovie, 0:20:04.640 --> 0:20:07.240 who was killed in a car crash in nineteen thirty four, 0:20:07.800 --> 0:20:12.040 shortly before her twenty first birthday, but the Chicago Tribune's 0:20:12.080 --> 0:20:16.280 reporting on this crash gives her name as Marie, not Mary, 0:20:16.520 --> 0:20:20.840 and her age is twenty one. According to the Tribune reports, 0:20:20.960 --> 0:20:24.159 the crash happened at the intersection of Lake Street and 0:20:24.240 --> 0:20:27.960 Whacker Drive when the driver, John Thole, ran into a 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:32.200 support for the L train. This intersection is inside the 0:20:32.280 --> 0:20:35.560 Chicago Loop, not outside of the south side of town. 0:20:36.200 --> 0:20:38.879 It's about sixteen miles away from the stretch of Archer 0:20:38.920 --> 0:20:44.359 Avenue that is associated with Resurrection Mary. So Marie's parents, 0:20:44.440 --> 0:20:48.679 Stephan and Joanna Brigovie are buried in Resurrection Cemetery, and 0:20:48.720 --> 0:20:52.480 there are some reports that Marie was buried there as well, 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:57.280 alongside her parents. Stephan and Joanna died in nineteen fifty 0:20:57.280 --> 0:21:00.879 one in nineteen forty five, respectively, and there her graves 0:21:00.920 --> 0:21:05.440 are marked, so if Marie really is buried next to them, 0:21:05.840 --> 0:21:08.320 it's not clear why she does not have a marker. 0:21:09.160 --> 0:21:13.240 Another candidate for the real Resurrection Mary is Anna Norkis, 0:21:13.320 --> 0:21:16.439 who took Maria or Mary as a middle name because 0:21:16.440 --> 0:21:20.720 of its religious significance. She died in nineteen twenty seven 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:24.000 in a crash that killed one other person and injured 0:21:24.040 --> 0:21:28.440 four more. This crash site was not far from Archer Avenue, 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.720 but Anna was only twelve, so not the young woman Resurrection. 0:21:32.800 --> 0:21:37.520 Mary is usually described as reportedly her father had promised 0:21:37.520 --> 0:21:39.680 to take her to the O Henry Ballroom for her 0:21:39.720 --> 0:21:42.640 thirteenth birthday, and they were on the way back when 0:21:42.680 --> 0:21:45.520 the driver had to take a detour and wound up 0:21:45.560 --> 0:21:48.560 on a road that was not well marked. He missed 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:50.960 the end of the road and plunged into a ditch 0:21:51.280 --> 0:21:55.439 and the vehicle overturned. According to funeral records, she was 0:21:55.480 --> 0:22:00.440 buried at Saint Casimir's Cemetery in Chicago. There are some 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:04.239 vague reports that Marie or Anna, or maybe both of 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:08.760 them were temporarily buried at Resurrection Cemetery due to grave 0:22:08.880 --> 0:22:12.280 digger strikes at the cemetery where they were really supposed 0:22:12.280 --> 0:22:15.200 to be buried, and that for some reason they were 0:22:15.200 --> 0:22:19.280 never exhumed and moved to their original planned burial site. 0:22:19.800 --> 0:22:23.119 I really wasn't able to substantiate any of that. It 0:22:23.160 --> 0:22:26.159 does seem like there were some grave digger strikes going 0:22:26.240 --> 0:22:31.480 on when Marie Bragovi died is not clearly substantiated. And 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:33.639 so there are some things here that make it seem 0:22:33.720 --> 0:22:37.040 like maybe they are things people are sort of trying 0:22:37.119 --> 0:22:42.520 to line up with the resurrection Mary story. Yeah, we 0:22:42.560 --> 0:22:46.960 will talk about two haunted places after a sponsor break. 0:22:56.800 --> 0:23:00.360 We will close out this installment of six Impossible epites 0:23:00.400 --> 0:23:04.680 with a couple of haunted buildings. The first is Rotherwood Mansion, 0:23:04.840 --> 0:23:09.200 suggested by Mary Grace. This is a private residence today, 0:23:09.320 --> 0:23:11.639 so you can get a view of the exterior of 0:23:11.640 --> 0:23:14.439 it from the green Belt in Kingsport, Tennessee, but it 0:23:14.560 --> 0:23:17.800 is not generally open to the public. I have the 0:23:17.800 --> 0:23:21.479 impression that the current owner finds the number of people 0:23:21.480 --> 0:23:25.159 who try to come get a closer look to be 0:23:25.200 --> 0:23:29.399 a little frustrating, So please don't do that. Yeah, this 0:23:29.560 --> 0:23:32.800 is the downside of having a cool haunted house. This 0:23:32.960 --> 0:23:36.399 mansion was built in phases starting in eighteen eighteen and 0:23:36.520 --> 0:23:39.160 named after the home of Cedric the Saxon in Sir 0:23:39.200 --> 0:23:44.640 Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. Its original owner was the Reverend Frederick A. Ross, 0:23:44.680 --> 0:23:48.920 a Presbyterian clergyman from Virginia, whose family was very wealthy. 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:52.720 Ross inherited the land where Rotherwood was built after the 0:23:52.720 --> 0:23:56.840 death of his father. Ross was apparently a big fan 0:23:57.000 --> 0:24:00.880 of Ivanhoe. One of its main characters is a princess 0:24:00.960 --> 0:24:04.520 named Rowena, and that was also the name of Ross's daughter. 0:24:05.560 --> 0:24:10.440 The workforce at Rotherwood initially included both enslaved and indentured workers, 0:24:10.520 --> 0:24:14.080 and Ross was also an advocate for the institution of slavery. 0:24:14.720 --> 0:24:17.960 In eighteen fifty seven, he published a book called Slavery 0:24:18.080 --> 0:24:21.480 Ordained of God, which compiled all of his pro slavery 0:24:21.560 --> 0:24:25.400 letters and speeches into one work that argued that quote, 0:24:25.400 --> 0:24:28.520 slavery is of God, and to continue for the good 0:24:28.560 --> 0:24:30.880 of the slave, the good of the master, the good 0:24:30.880 --> 0:24:34.920 of the whole American family, until another and better destiny 0:24:35.040 --> 0:24:39.520 may be unfolded. So as a side note, so many 0:24:39.760 --> 0:24:44.080 relatively recent articles about Ross and Rotherwood frame him as 0:24:44.119 --> 0:24:48.359 someone who treated his enslaved workforce with benevolence and point 0:24:48.400 --> 0:24:52.480 out that he manumitted some of them during his lifetime. Okay, 0:24:52.520 --> 0:24:55.600 even if that's true, it does not offset his advocacy 0:24:55.680 --> 0:24:59.399 of slavery or his participation in it, and some of 0:24:59.400 --> 0:25:03.320 that is really cherry picked. Like when Ross's father died, 0:25:03.480 --> 0:25:08.040 Ross did free about thirty people, mostly people who he 0:25:08.160 --> 0:25:11.879 described as old and infirm, along with some that he 0:25:11.960 --> 0:25:16.600 freed to avoid separating families. But he also sold about 0:25:16.640 --> 0:25:19.840 five hundred people who had been enslaved at his father's 0:25:20.119 --> 0:25:23.320 Oxford ironworks as a way to deal with his late 0:25:23.359 --> 0:25:26.760 father's debts. It plays into that hole. We would like 0:25:26.800 --> 0:25:28.800 to not think the worst of this person, So we're 0:25:28.800 --> 0:25:31.600 going to talk about how kind he was. Right, Slavery 0:25:31.680 --> 0:25:36.480