Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Tracy V.
Speaker 1: Wilson and I'm Holly Frye. Before we start, We're gonna
Speaker 1: go to Barcelona very soon. Yeah, just a few weeks off. Yes,
Speaker 1: we are going to Barcelona November two through ninth. And
Speaker 1: I know this is last minute, but I also know
Speaker 1: there are folks who fly by the seat of their
Speaker 1: plants and make some travel arrangements late in the game.
Speaker 1: We do have still a few spaces available on that trip,
Speaker 1: so if you've been thinking, man, I just need to
Speaker 1: get away and have a little time saved up in
Speaker 1: all of that, like, check it out. If you go
Speaker 1: to Defined Destinations dot com. Right on the homepage, just
Speaker 1: this trip says Barcelona six Night Adventure. You can also
Speaker 1: go to Defined Destinations dot Com slash Barcelona Dashed twenty
Speaker 1: twenty three. We are both very excited. We're getting to
Speaker 1: that point in the imminent travel of being excited and busy,
Speaker 1: if that makes sense. Yes, I we're in the fall,
Speaker 1: which is always my heavy travel time as I run
Speaker 1: around and do various halloweeny events. So I have not
Speaker 1: let myself get completely Barcelona excited. Yet sure, because I
Speaker 1: have other trips, but every time I go somewhere, I
Speaker 1: end up telling someone that we're about to go, and
Speaker 1: all I hear is how much we are going to
Speaker 1: love it. And I have not been in a very
Speaker 1: long time. So if you would like to love it
Speaker 1: with us, you still can right our tour planner Michael,
Speaker 1: who has made all these arrangements for us, has said
Speaker 1: that Spain is beautiful in nova, so very much looking
Speaker 1: forward to it. We have lots of walking tours, We're
Speaker 1: going to do food tours, a Flamenco show, breakfast ised
Speaker 1: is included every morning. And this is the third time
Speaker 1: that we've gone on a trip with Michael, and these
Speaker 1: are kind of a nice mix of scheduled, planned things
Speaker 1: to do and also downtime or explore on your own,
Speaker 1: and so we've had a great time all three times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I know that I will have a great time because
Speaker 1: he is very good at giving you a balance of
Speaker 1: planned things and time to just hang out and do
Speaker 1: whatever excites you the most. But rest assured, so Gratta
Speaker 1: Familia is on the list. So yes, one more time.
Speaker 1: That is that defined destinations dot Com if folks have
Speaker 1: been thinking, hey, I need to do something with this
Speaker 1: time off before the end of the year, and now
Speaker 1: we can change the subject completely to today's episode. Over
Speaker 1: the years, we've gotten just a ton of listener requests
Speaker 1: for various ghost stories, and we have done some whole
Speaker 1: episodes on the ghost story theme, like the Greenbrier Ghost
Speaker 1: and the Bellwitch, and we've also talked about some places
Speaker 1: that are said to be haunted, like the island of Pavlia.
Speaker 1: A lot of the suggestions that we've gotten on the scene, though,
Speaker 1: don't really work out as a full episode, so October
Speaker 1: seemed like a very good time to do an installment
Speaker 1: of six impossible episodes when we talk about things that
Speaker 1: maybe are a little too thin to build a whole
Speaker 1: episode around. This time all about ghosts and hauntings, and
Speaker 1: a lot of these are very well known in the
Speaker 1: places where they originated, but maybe not outside of those
Speaker 1: places unless you are just really into ghost lore. Uh.
Speaker 1: As a side note, when I was going through our
Speaker 1: many suggestions to pull this episode together, I noticed that
Speaker 1: we have a lot that are specifically about haunted hotels
Speaker 1: and ghost towns. So there aren't any hotels or ghost
Speaker 1: towns in this episode, but those may come around for
Speaker 1: their own episode in the future, and just a heads up.
Speaker 1: As being a ghost episode, there is of course a
Speaker 1: lot of murder and violence happening and a number of
Speaker 1: these stories do also involve suicide in some way. So
Speaker 1: with that we will get started, and our first ghost
Speaker 1: is from New South Wales, Australia. This was suggested by
Speaker 1: Cay Scott. In October of eighteen twenty six, a farmer
Speaker 1: named John Farley was walking home late one night and
Speaker 1: he saw a man sitting on the railing of a bridge.
Speaker 1: As he got closer, he realized that that man was
Speaker 1: someone he recognized, a man named Fred Fisher, who had
Speaker 1: been missing for about four months. Farley said Fisher was
Speaker 1: surrounded in a strange light with a bloody wound on
Speaker 1: his head, and that he pointed in the direction of
Speaker 1: a nearby creek before fading away. When Farley had this encounter,
Speaker 1: most people thought that Fisher was dead. He had been
Speaker 1: born in London in seventeen ninety two and then at
Speaker 1: the age of twenty four, he was facing a fourteen
Speaker 1: year transportation to Australia after obtaining some forged banknotes in
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty two, after serving almost half of that sentence,
Speaker 1: Fisher applied for a ticket of leave, which was a
Speaker 1: document that could be granted to people who had been
Speaker 1: serving their sentence in Australia with good behavior. A ticket
Speaker 1: of leave granted some rights that convicted people didn't have otherwise,
Speaker 1: like the right to buy property, the right for people
Speaker 1: to work for themselves, as long as the person that
Speaker 1: had that ticket kept following all the other rules and requirements.
Speaker 1: And once he had his ticket of leave, Fisher moved
Speaker 1: to Campbelltown became a prosperous farmer. Campbelltown is within the
Speaker 1: Sydney Metropolitan Area today, but at this time it was
Speaker 1: really just getting started as a town. In eighteen twenty five,
Speaker 1: Fisher hired a carpenter named William Brooker to build an
Speaker 1: inn for him, and these two men got into a
Speaker 1: dispute over money. Brooker took the matter to the magistrate,
Speaker 1: who found in his favor, but it seems like he
Speaker 1: thought Fisher still owed him money. One night, Brooker barged
Speaker 1: into the inn, apparently intoxicated, and demanded to be paid.
Speaker 1: This escalated into a physical fight in which Fisher stabbed Brooker.
Speaker 1: Fisher was charged with assault, and he was worried about
Speaker 1: what would happen to his property in farms if he
Speaker 1: was convicted, especially if he wound up with a lengthy
Speaker 1: prison sentence, So he gave neighbor and fellow ticket of
Speaker 1: leave man George Warrel, power of attorney so that Warrel
Speaker 1: could manage things for him. Warrel and Fisher were friends.
Speaker 1: Among other things, Fisher and his employees lived with Warrel
Speaker 1: because Fisher had not built a house on any of
Speaker 1: his arms. Ultimately, a court found that Fisher had been provoked,
Speaker 1: so he was given a lighter sentence than he was
Speaker 1: afraid that he would be facing, but he still was
Speaker 1: sentenced to six months in prison and had to pay
Speaker 1: a fine of fifty pounds. He was released from prison,
Speaker 1: but then in June of eighteen twenty six, he disappeared.
Speaker 1: Warrel told people that Fisher had left for England, maybe
Speaker 1: to try to escape another forgery charge. Soon, Warrel was
Speaker 1: also selling off Fisher's possessions. This seemed suspicious. In addition
Speaker 1: to his sudden disappearance, Fisher only had three years left
Speaker 1: on his original fourteen year sentence. It just didn't make
Speaker 1: sense that he would suddenly leave Australia and risk everything
Speaker 1: he had built. People also didn't think Fisher was the
Speaker 1: kind of man who would walk away from a bunch
Speaker 1: of valuable property in possessions just for someone else to
Speaker 1: profit off of it. On top of all of that,
Speaker 1: war had bragged to people about being given control of
Speaker 1: Fisher's interests before Fisher went to prison, and he made
Speaker 1: it sound more like a gift than a temporary arrangement.
Speaker 1: The ship Warrel claimed Fisher had left on also hadn't
Speaker 1: actually docked in Sydney, so Warrel was arrested on suspicion
Speaker 1: of murder on September seventeenth, eighteen twenty six, and he
Speaker 1: claimed that four other men were actually the ones who
Speaker 1: had killed Fisher. All four of those men were arrested
Speaker 1: as well, but there was no body There was no
Speaker 1: real proof that Fisher had come to some kind of harm,
Speaker 1: so none of the men immediately faced trial. Soon a
Speaker 1: reward was being offered to anybody who could prove that
Speaker 1: Fisher had left the colony or could produce his body.
Speaker 1: As we said, it was in October of eighteen twenty
Speaker 1: six that John Farley said he saw this ghostly apparition
Speaker 1: of Fred Fisher sitting on the railing of a bridge.
Speaker 1: Farley ran to a nearby hotel called The Harrow and
Speaker 1: told people what he had seen, Eventually that included the
Speaker 1: police superintendent and the local magistrate. Farley seemed really sincere
Speaker 1: and genuinely shaken about this whole experience, but it's not
Speaker 1: clear whether people entirely believed his account of this ghost encounter.
Speaker 1: Investigators did start taking a deeper look into Fisher's disappearance, though,
Speaker 1: prompted in part by a discovery that two boys made
Speaker 1: on October twenty fifth. They were cutting across one of
Speaker 1: Fisher's farms and noticed bloodstains on a fence. Soon, a
Speaker 1: lock of hair and a tooth were found nearby. Police
Speaker 1: brought in an Aboriginal tracker known as Namud Gilbert, who
Speaker 1: led them to a shallow grave containing Fred Fisher's body.
Speaker 1: It was by the creek that Farley had described the
Speaker 1: apparition pointing to earlier in October, and that is now
Speaker 1: known as Fisher's Ghost Creek. The body was too decomposed
Speaker 1: for the features to be recognizable, but the clothing was Fisher's.
Speaker 1: George Worrel was arrested and tried for murder. He was
Speaker 1: convicted on February second, eighteen twenty seven, and then executed
Speaker 1: three days later. He admitted to killing Fisher, but claimed
Speaker 1: that it had been an accident. He said that he
Speaker 1: had mistaken Fisher for a horse that had gotten into
Speaker 1: the wheat crop. People did not really buy this explanation,
Speaker 1: if anything, that raises more questions. This is one of
Speaker 1: Australia's better known ghost stories and it went on to
Speaker 1: inspire a number of stories, plays, in poems. There are
Speaker 1: also lots of variations on the basic narrative, many of
Speaker 1: them with slightly different names and places. Today, Campbelltown, New
Speaker 1: South Wales, holds a festival of Fisher's Ghost every November.
Speaker 1: This has been an annual event since nineteen fifty six.
Speaker 1: Our next ghost story is maybe more of an urban
Speaker 1: legend than a specific ghost story that was suggested by
Speaker 1: Rachel and it's from Japan. So according to the lore,
Speaker 1: if you go into a girl's bathroom on the third
Speaker 1: floor of a school and you knock three times on
Speaker 1: the door of the third stall and ask if Hanako
Speaker 1: san is there, a ghostly girl may answer you. This
Speaker 1: ghost is also known as tware Nohaniko or Hanako of
Speaker 1: the toilet. Exactly what happens next in an encounter with
Speaker 1: Haniko varies a little from place to place and retelling
Speaker 1: to retelling. You might see a ghost or the ghost's
Speaker 1: bloody hand, or you might be yanked into the stall,
Speaker 1: where the toilet may be a portal into hell. In
Speaker 1: some areas, you might be eaten by a three headed lizard.
Speaker 1: There is also some variety in exactly which stall hanakohans.
Speaker 1: Some sources say it is the first stall, some the
Speaker 1: last one, not the third one, and some say this
Speaker 1: happens only at certain times of day, including between one
Speaker 1: and three am, which would of course make this an
Speaker 1: even creepier experience. Yeah, I kind of creeped myself out
Speaker 1: a little bit imagining being in like a totally deserted
Speaker 1: middle of the night, you know, say, elementary or middle school,
Speaker 1: knocking on the bathroom stall door. There are multiple versions
Speaker 1: to explain where this ghost came from. The story seems
Speaker 1: to have appeared first in Japan after World War two,
Speaker 1: and in some stories, Haneko was playing or hiding in
Speaker 1: the school and was killed in an air raid. In others,
Speaker 1: she was murdered in the bathroom, or she took her
Speaker 1: own life because she was being relentlessly bullied. In addition
Speaker 1: to being a very well known and widely repeated story
Speaker 1: in Japan, Hanako San has been the subject of a
Speaker 1: number of films, anime and manga. One of them, titled
Speaker 1: Toilet Bound Hanako Kun in English, is both a manga
Speaker 1: series and an anime adaptation, and it presents Henacho as Mail. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know if I don't know enough about this
Speaker 1: series to know if there's background on why that is,
Speaker 1: but this reminds me a bit of here in the US,
Speaker 1: the saying bloody Mary looking in the mirror. In terms
Speaker 1: of like creepy ghost experiences, I like that it could
Speaker 1: be in any school. We will take a quick sponsor
Speaker 1: break and come back with some more ghosts. Our next
Speaker 1: ghost story is the only one in today's episode that
Speaker 1: is not from the audience mail bag. This one is
Speaker 1: from my own upbringing in North Carolina. It is the
Speaker 1: make a Light. This was an eerie light or maybe
Speaker 1: lights in Brunswick County, North Carolina, west of Wilmington. As
Speaker 1: the story goes, there was a brakeman named Joe Baldwin
Speaker 1: who was working for the Wilmington and Manchester Railroad in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty seven when he was beheaded in an accident.
Speaker 1: Since then, he's been on the tracks with a light
Speaker 1: looking for his head. There's also another slightly different version
Speaker 1: of this story, which is that Baldwin was alone in
Speaker 1: the last car of a train when he realized that
Speaker 1: car had come uncoupled, so he was wildly swinging a
Speaker 1: light to try to warn another oncoming train that they
Speaker 1: were about to collide. When they did, he was killed.
Speaker 1: So he's like now in death, frantically swinging the light
Speaker 1: to try to warn the other train. There is no
Speaker 1: record of a train crash involving a Joe Baldwin in
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty seven, but there was a real train crash
Speaker 1: in the area on January fourth, eighteen fifty six, and
Speaker 1: it has some similarities to this story. The engine of
Speaker 1: a train had experienced mechanical problems near Mako, which at
Speaker 1: the time was now as Farmer's Turnout. The engineer had
Speaker 1: decoupled the last cars of the train, hoping the engine
Speaker 1: could get to Wilmington for repairs if it didn't have
Speaker 1: to pull the weight of those cars. But then when
Speaker 1: the engine returned, it crashed into the cars that it
Speaker 1: had left behind. A male car attendant E. L. Sherwood,
Speaker 1: had minor injuries, but a conductor named Charles Baldwin, not Joe,
Speaker 1: was thrown from the train and suffered a fatal head injury.
Speaker 1: The coroner's jury found that the engineer was not responsible
Speaker 1: for this crash because there was no light at the
Speaker 1: front of the train, and that it had been the
Speaker 1: duty of the conductor, Charles Baldwin, to have hung one there.
Speaker 1: People started reporting seeing strange lights in this area in
Speaker 1: the eighteen seventies. In eighteen ninety nine, President Grover Cleveland
Speaker 1: was aboard a train that reportedly stopped at Farmer's turnout
Speaker 1: for wood and water. Cleveland noticed that a brakeman was
Speaker 1: carrying signal lanterns into few different colors, which was apparently
Speaker 1: not typical, and asked what that was about, and was
Speaker 1: told that it was to keep engineers from being confused
Speaker 1: by quote. The ghostly weaving of the Joe Baldwin light
Speaker 1: most people described as a light as amber or red
Speaker 1: or occasionally yellow, hovering or swinging along the tracks. Some
Speaker 1: of the mundane explanations to the lights include static electricity
Speaker 1: discharges from the train tracks, reflections of lights from nearby
Speaker 1: US Highway seventy four seventy six and marsh gas from
Speaker 1: the surrounding swamps. The stretch of tracks associated with the
Speaker 1: Makeo Light wasn't far from the highway, and starting in
Speaker 1: the nineteen fifties, going to try to see the Maco
Speaker 1: light was a popular nighttime activity for teenagers, or maybe
Speaker 1: a pretense for teenagers to go out at night and
Speaker 1: get into some mischief or pursue something romantic. The railroad
Speaker 1: tracks were removed in nineteen seventy seven, at which some
Speaker 1: point say the lights went away entirely. Uh, this was
Speaker 1: definitely still something people were talking about a lot for
Speaker 1: my whole childhood and adolescence. Though, So if the lights
Speaker 1: went away in nineteen seventy seven when I was to
Speaker 1: the lore around it sure did not. I wonder if
Speaker 1: the was there more lighting along the tracks, and so
Speaker 1: whatever was causing those lights may have been obscured. Oh yeah,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Maybe maybe our next ghost story was
Speaker 1: suggested by Roman, and that is Resurrection Mary, a ghost
Speaker 1: from Chicago. There are some variations here as well, but
Speaker 1: most accounts describe Mary as a young woman who died
Speaker 1: sometime in the nineteen twenties or thirties, when she was
Speaker 1: either killed in a car crash or struck by a
Speaker 1: hit and run driver. She is usually described as a
Speaker 1: fashionable young woman, maybe in her late teens or twenties,
Speaker 1: who had just been out for a night of dancing,
Speaker 1: so she's dressed up in her dancing clothes. Sometimes this
Speaker 1: is a ball gown, sometimes more of a flapper dress,
Speaker 1: but either way the dress is usually white. Sometimes people
Speaker 1: just say old fashioned. Resurrection Mary reportedly haunts a stretch
Speaker 1: of Archer Avenue, which is outside the city limits southwest
Speaker 1: of Chicago. Specifically, this stretch of road runs from Resurrection
Speaker 1: Catholic cemetery and mausoleums through the village of Willow Springs
Speaker 1: to the side of the o Henry Ballroom. That ballroom
Speaker 1: later became the Willowbrook Ballroom, but it burned down in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen. So this is a stretch of road that's
Speaker 1: allegedly running from where Mary danced her last dance to
Speaker 1: where she was buried after she was killed. Most stories
Speaker 1: about Resurrection Mary follow the pattern of the vanishing hitchhiker
Speaker 1: urban legend. So she flags down a passing car and
Speaker 1: gets inside, but when the car passes Resurrection Cemetery, she disappears.
Speaker 1: A lot of the people who have said they've had
Speaker 1: the six pere are cab drivers, and there are also
Speaker 1: tales about her being seen dancing in dance halls and
Speaker 1: clubs on the South Side of Chicago. According to an
Speaker 1: episode of Unsolved Mysteries that came out in nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: the first person to see Resurrection Mary was Jerry Paullis.
Speaker 1: In nineteen thirty nine, Paulus spent an evening dancing with
Speaker 1: a lovely young woman named Mary, not at the o
Speaker 1: Henry Ballroom, but at Liberty Grove Hall and Ballroom. Then
Speaker 1: at the end of the night, he offered to drive
Speaker 1: this young woman home, and she accepted his offer, but
Speaker 1: then changed her mind and asked him to drive her
Speaker 1: to Resurrection Cemetery on Archer Avenue instead. This is kind
Speaker 1: of a strange request. The cemetery wasn't really close to
Speaker 1: where she had said that she lived, and then when
Speaker 1: they got to the cemetery, Mary disappeared. The next day,
Speaker 1: Paulus went to her address that she'd given him. The
Speaker 1: woman who answered the door said that Mary was her
Speaker 1: daughter who had been dead for five years. According to
Speaker 1: that same episode of Unsolved Mysteries, Mary was Mary Brigovie,
Speaker 1: who was killed in a car crash in nineteen thirty four,
Speaker 1: shortly before her twenty first birthday, but the Chicago Tribune's
Speaker 1: reporting on this crash gives her name as Marie, not Mary,
Speaker 1: and her age is twenty one. According to the Tribune reports,
Speaker 1: the crash happened at the intersection of Lake Street and
Speaker 1: Whacker Drive when the driver, John Thole, ran into a
Speaker 1: support for the L train. This intersection is inside the
Speaker 1: Chicago Loop, not outside of the south side of town.
Speaker 1: It's about sixteen miles away from the stretch of Archer
Speaker 1: Avenue that is associated with Resurrection Mary. So Marie's parents,
Speaker 1: Stephan and Joanna Brigovie are buried in Resurrection Cemetery, and
Speaker 1: there are some reports that Marie was buried there as well,
Speaker 1: alongside her parents. Stephan and Joanna died in nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: one in nineteen forty five, respectively, and there her graves
Speaker 1: are marked, so if Marie really is buried next to them,
Speaker 1: it's not clear why she does not have a marker.
Speaker 1: Another candidate for the real Resurrection Mary is Anna Norkis,
Speaker 1: who took Maria or Mary as a middle name because
Speaker 1: of its religious significance. She died in nineteen twenty seven
Speaker 1: in a crash that killed one other person and injured
Speaker 1: four more. This crash site was not far from Archer Avenue,
Speaker 1: but Anna was only twelve, so not the young woman Resurrection.
Speaker 1: Mary is usually described as reportedly her father had promised
Speaker 1: to take her to the O Henry Ballroom for her
Speaker 1: thirteenth birthday, and they were on the way back when
Speaker 1: the driver had to take a detour and wound up
Speaker 1: on a road that was not well marked. He missed
Speaker 1: the end of the road and plunged into a ditch
Speaker 1: and the vehicle overturned. According to funeral records, she was
Speaker 1: buried at Saint Casimir's Cemetery in Chicago. There are some
Speaker 1: vague reports that Marie or Anna, or maybe both of
Speaker 1: them were temporarily buried at Resurrection Cemetery due to grave
Speaker 1: digger strikes at the cemetery where they were really supposed
Speaker 1: to be buried, and that for some reason they were
Speaker 1: never exhumed and moved to their original planned burial site.
Speaker 1: I really wasn't able to substantiate any of that. It
Speaker 1: does seem like there were some grave digger strikes going
Speaker 1: on when Marie Bragovi died is not clearly substantiated. And
Speaker 1: so there are some things here that make it seem
Speaker 1: like maybe they are things people are sort of trying
Speaker 1: to line up with the resurrection Mary story. Yeah, we
Speaker 1: will talk about two haunted places after a sponsor break.
Speaker 1: We will close out this installment of six Impossible epites
Speaker 1: with a couple of haunted buildings. The first is Rotherwood Mansion,
Speaker 1: suggested by Mary Grace. This is a private residence today,
Speaker 1: so you can get a view of the exterior of
Speaker 1: it from the green Belt in Kingsport, Tennessee, but it
Speaker 1: is not generally open to the public. I have the
Speaker 1: impression that the current owner finds the number of people
Speaker 1: who try to come get a closer look to be
Speaker 1: a little frustrating, So please don't do that. Yeah, this
Speaker 1: is the downside of having a cool haunted house. This
Speaker 1: mansion was built in phases starting in eighteen eighteen and
Speaker 1: named after the home of Cedric the Saxon in Sir
Speaker 1: Walter Scott's Ivanhoe. Its original owner was the Reverend Frederick A. Ross,
Speaker 1: a Presbyterian clergyman from Virginia, whose family was very wealthy.
Speaker 1: Ross inherited the land where Rotherwood was built after the
Speaker 1: death of his father. Ross was apparently a big fan
Speaker 1: of Ivanhoe. One of its main characters is a princess
Speaker 1: named Rowena, and that was also the name of Ross's daughter.
Speaker 1: The workforce at Rotherwood initially included both enslaved and indentured workers,
Speaker 1: and Ross was also an advocate for the institution of slavery.
Speaker 1: In eighteen fifty seven, he published a book called Slavery
Speaker 1: Ordained of God, which compiled all of his pro slavery
Speaker 1: letters and speeches into one work that argued that quote,
Speaker 1: slavery is of God, and to continue for the good
Speaker 1: of the slave, the good of the master, the good
Speaker 1: of the whole American family, until another and better destiny
Speaker 1: may be unfolded. So as a side note, so many
Speaker 1: relatively recent articles about Ross and Rotherwood frame him as
Speaker 1: someone who treated his enslaved workforce with benevolence and point
Speaker 1: out that he manumitted some of them during his lifetime. Okay,
Speaker 1: even if that's true, it does not offset his advocacy
Speaker 1: of slavery or his participation in it, and some of
Speaker 1: that is really cherry picked. Like when Ross's father died,
Speaker 1: Ross did free about thirty people, mostly people who he
Speaker 1: described as old and infirm, along with some that he
Speaker 1: freed to avoid separating families. But he also sold about
Speaker 1: five hundred people who had been enslaved at his father's
Speaker 1: Oxford ironworks as a way to deal with his late
Speaker 1: father's debts. It plays into that hole. We would like
Speaker 1: to not think the worst of this person, So we're
Speaker 1: going to talk about how kind he was. Right, Slavery
Speaker 1: is never kind. Roll stop. So. One of the ghosts
Speaker 1: most associated with Rotherwood is said to be of Ross's
Speaker 1: daughter Rowena. According to the lore, she was engaged to
Speaker 1: be married and her fiance drowned in the Holston River,
Speaker 1: either on her wedding day or just before it. That
Speaker 1: river runs right by the mansion, and in this story,
Speaker 1: Rowena saw the whole thing happen. Some sources say her
Speaker 1: fiance's body was never recovered, others say that it was
Speaker 1: pulled out of the river at the hour that their
Speaker 1: wedding was supposed to take place. Then, in eighteen fifty
Speaker 1: Rowena married Edward S. Temple, but he died of yellow
Speaker 1: fever in October of eighteen fifty two, when their only child, Theodosia,
Speaker 1: was about six months old. Rowena married again, this time
Speaker 1: to Wescombe Hudgens, and one widely repeated story is that
Speaker 1: not long after their marriage, the couple came to Rotherwood
Speaker 1: for a visit, and while they were there, Rowena became
Speaker 1: deeply depressed. Eventually, she put on the dress that she
Speaker 1: was supposed to wear for her first wedding and drowned
Speaker 1: herself in the river. Rowena did die on April fifth,
Speaker 1: eighteen fifty seven, at the age of thirty two, and
Speaker 1: according to a brief autobiography written by her father, she
Speaker 1: did take her own life, but this all happened in Huntsville, Alabama,
Speaker 1: not at Rotherwood. By the time Rowena died, her father
Speaker 1: didn't even own Rotherwood anymore. Tried to start a cotton factory,
Speaker 1: which failed and he lost most of his wealth and
Speaker 1: had to sell the mansion. So, in spite of those
Speaker 1: sort of factual discrepancies, Rotherwood is reportedly haunted by a
Speaker 1: lady in white who walks the grounds in the river,
Speaker 1: and sometimes there are also ghostly wet footprints from the
Speaker 1: river up to the back door. When Ross sold the mansion,
Speaker 1: it was to Joshua Phipps, who was described as Ross's overseer.
Speaker 1: A lot of sources paint Phipps as Ross's opposite in
Speaker 1: terms of how the enslaved workforce was treated, like Ross
Speaker 1: was supposedly kind while Phipps was a monster. This sort
Speaker 1: of sidesteps the fact that if Phipps worked as Ross's overseer,
Speaker 1: then Ross was employing a man who was cruel toward
Speaker 1: the same people that Ross was supposedly kind to. So
Speaker 1: there are also a lot of ghostly stories about Rotherwood
Speaker 1: that surround Joshua Phipps, like his daughter Priscilla reportedly fell
Speaker 1: in love with a man that Phipps didn't approve of,
Speaker 1: and Phipps arranged for someone to kill that man in
Speaker 1: battle during the Civil War. So that's awful. And then
Speaker 1: on top of that, he gloated to Priscilla about having
Speaker 1: orchestrated his death. She either took her own life or
Speaker 1: died of grief, and now some people say you can
Speaker 1: see her ghost at one of the front windows waiting
Speaker 1: for her beloved to come home. According to the lore,
Speaker 1: Phipps became ill in eighteen sixty one and died in
Speaker 1: a swarm of flies that appeared out of nowhere. People
Speaker 1: said this was evidence of a curse that was placed
Speaker 1: on him by the mansions enslaved workforce. A storm blew
Speaker 1: in during his funeral and the horses that were pulling
Speaker 1: the cart carrying his coffin started straining as though it
Speaker 1: was getting heavier and heavier. Lightning struck a nearby tree,
Speaker 1: causing it to fall across the road, so the pallbearers
Speaker 1: had to carry the casket the rest of the way
Speaker 1: to the gravesite, and a giant black dog described as
Speaker 1: a hound of hell, burst out of the coffin as
Speaker 1: it was about to be buried. So there are lots
Speaker 1: of stories about nightmarish incidents at the mansion attributed to
Speaker 1: the ghost of Phipps and this devil dog. After Phipps's death,
Speaker 1: Rotherwood passed through a series of owners and at some
Speaker 1: points it was vacant. It fell into deep disrepair before
Speaker 1: being purchased in the nineteen eighties and then restored over
Speaker 1: a period of years. In a televised interview with WJHL,
Speaker 1: the current owner was described as something of a ghost skeptic,
Speaker 1: but she did say that on her first night in
Speaker 1: the house, she very loudly announced that if there were
Speaker 1: any ghosts they could stay as long as they left
Speaker 1: her alone. I'm trying to imagine what I would do
Speaker 1: in that scenario, and it's slightly different. And lastly, we
Speaker 1: have Larnick Castle, suggested by Becky. This is billed as
Speaker 1: New Zealand's only castle and it was built in eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy one by William Larnick, something that took two hundred
Speaker 1: workers in more than three years to complete. William Larnick
Speaker 1: had been born in New South Wales, Australia in eighteen
Speaker 1: thirty three and was of Scottish descent. He became wealthy
Speaker 1: through his work as a banker, thanks in part to
Speaker 1: being pretty much at the right place at the right
Speaker 1: time for gold rushes in both Australia and New Zealand.
Speaker 1: He went on to become a merchant, a speculator and
Speaker 1: a politician. He held a series of roles in the
Speaker 1: New Zealand government, including being a member of Parliament and
Speaker 1: holding multiple cabinet positions. He built Larnick Castle as his
Speaker 1: dream home for himself and his family, choosing a site
Speaker 1: near Dunedin that had beautiful views of the harbor and
Speaker 1: the ocean, but it was on ground that had to
Speaker 1: be leveled extensively before construction could even begin. In addition
Speaker 1: to the three years it took to build the structure,
Speaker 1: it took another twelve for craftspeople and designers to finish
Speaker 1: the interior, and it was all very extravage However, by
Speaker 1: the end of the nineteenth century, the family had been
Speaker 1: struck with tragedy and scandal. William's first wife, Eliza, died
Speaker 1: in eighteen eighty at the age of thirty eight, when
Speaker 1: their youngest child was still a baby. He married her
Speaker 1: half sister, Mary, who died in eighteen eighty seven, also
Speaker 1: at the age of thirty eight. William's favorite daughter was Kate,
Speaker 1: and he added a massive ballroom to the castle as
Speaker 1: a birthday gift for her when she turned twenty one,
Speaker 1: but she died in eighteen ninety one at the age
Speaker 1: of about twenty eight. The same year that Kate died,
Speaker 1: William married again to a woman named Constance, who was
Speaker 1: more than twenty years younger than he was. There were
Speaker 1: rumors that Constance had an affair with Douglas Larnock, who
Speaker 1: was William's son with his first wife Eliza. William was
Speaker 1: also facing serious financial problems. He had lost money as
Speaker 1: a speculator. Banks he had been in charge of collapsed,
Speaker 1: and businesses he had started had just failed. He suspected
Speaker 1: and sometimes accused of mismanagement and malfeasance. In eighteen ninety eight,
Speaker 1: Larnick was serving as a member of Parliament and he
Speaker 1: took his own life in the Parliament offices on October
Speaker 1: twelfth of that year. By that point he was financially insolvent,
Speaker 1: and he died intestate, leaving his surviving family members to
Speaker 1: just fight over what was left of the property. They
Speaker 1: sold the castle in nineteen oh six, and it became
Speaker 1: increasingly run down as it passed through a series of owners.
Speaker 1: Afterward and the years after the family sold it, it
Speaker 1: was used as an asylum and as housing for soldiers,
Speaker 1: and at some points it was just vacant. Larnick Castle
Speaker 1: was purchased by Barry and Margaret Barker in nineteen sixty seven,
Speaker 1: and at that point it was almost in ruins. The
Speaker 1: Barkers and their family undertook a massive restoration project involving
Speaker 1: the structure and the grounds. Today it's a historical site
Speaker 1: and a tourist attraction, and the gardens have been named
Speaker 1: a Garden of inter National Significance by New Zealand Gardens Trust.
Speaker 1: There are also accommodations on the grounds, but not in
Speaker 1: the castle itself. This is why this is not going
Speaker 1: to the list of haunted hotels. That may be an
Speaker 1: episode later. D's Castle is reportedly very haunted. A New
Speaker 1: Zealand TV series called ghost Hunt ran for one season
Speaker 1: and covered Larnak Castle as its very first episode. So
Speaker 1: in this episode, paranormal investigators visited the castle. A tour
Speaker 1: guide told them about being pushed down the stairs by
Speaker 1: an unseen force while joking about ghosts. This episode is
Speaker 1: full of strange noises, inexplicably stuck doors, strange handprints on
Speaker 1: the outside of a window, eerie looking photos, and some
Speaker 1: jump scares as the investigators startled themselves in the dark
Speaker 1: in various ways. Visitors have described feeling like they're being
Speaker 1: why doors opening and closing by themselves, strange noises, and
Speaker 1: just a sense of ominous foreboding. In nineteen ninety four,
Speaker 1: a play about the Larnick family called Castle of Lies
Speaker 1: was staged in the Grand ballroom, and an enormous storm
Speaker 1: blew in. Just as the play started. The wind blew
Speaker 1: down the chimneys, sending soot and ash everywhere, and just
Speaker 1: at the moment in the play that Larnick was about
Speaker 1: to take his own life, lightning sparked through the room.
Speaker 1: One room, where Constance's wedding dress is on display, is
Speaker 1: purportedly haunted by a malevolent spirit. People say this is
Speaker 1: either Constance, who's angry that there are so many visitors
Speaker 1: coming through the house all the time, or Eliza, who
Speaker 1: is angry about Constance's presence in her home. There's also
Speaker 1: the ghost of William himself, with visitors reporting a male
Speaker 1: figure roaming around the castle. Some attribute his restlessness to
Speaker 1: the fact that his tomb has fallen into disrepair and
Speaker 1: been repeatedly vandalized over the years, including at one point
Speaker 1: in the nineteen seventies when his bones were removed from
Speaker 1: their resting place and his skull was taken. They were
Speaker 1: all eventually replaced. Becky, who sent us this request, described
Speaker 1: staying there on the grounds at the age of thirteen
Speaker 1: and being truly terrified by all the potential ghost sightings.
Speaker 1: So those are our six ghost stories. For this October episode,
Speaker 1: since we talked about how we're going to go to Barcelona.
Speaker 1: At the top of this I picked a listener mail
Speaker 1: that's from a couple months ago, but is on that theme.
Speaker 1: It is from Alicia, who says, Hello, Holly and Tracy.
Speaker 1: I am writing exclusively to give you a tip that
Speaker 1: is so unique to the curious minded like us. I
Speaker 1: went to Barcelona at the end of twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: and made a silly choice that paid dividends that I
Speaker 1: encourage you to try. I, like a huge dork, brought
Speaker 1: my mom's high end pocket binoculars to the Sigratto Familia.
Speaker 1: Best choice ever. Seriously, I highly encourage everyone to take
Speaker 1: binoculars for trips to see tall buildings from now on.
Speaker 1: For Goudy's work in particular, you can imagine the benefit.
Speaker 1: I'll pop a photo of how excited, excellently dorky I
Speaker 1: was on site too. There are so many far away
Speaker 1: details you get a chance to see that would have
Speaker 1: been missed. It was amazing. I know you'll have so
Speaker 1: much fun on the trip this sere thanks for the
Speaker 1: excellent podcast. Pet photo Scruffy small dog is reny It.
Speaker 1: It's the nickname that a great antie named Irene used,
Speaker 1: and the chunky shepherd is Charlie. So number one. That
Speaker 1: is a great tip about the binoculars I often bring.
Speaker 1: It's been a while since I have gone to the theater,
Speaker 1: but I pretty much always bring binoculars a little opera
Speaker 1: glasses because I am often sitting like farther toward the back,
Speaker 1: and it lets me sees things on the stage so
Speaker 1: much better. I had not really thought about it in
Speaker 1: terms of like sight seeing tours. I even have a
Speaker 1: little tiny pair of pocket binoculars like in the pack
Speaker 1: that I take with me, like my daypack when I
Speaker 1: go hiking. I don't know why I never thought of
Speaker 1: it in terms of like I'm going on a trip
Speaker 1: somewhere now I will, And boy, these are some very cute,
Speaker 1: very cute animals. So thank you so much for the
Speaker 1: tip and the photos. If you would like to send
Speaker 1: us a note about this or any other podcast or
Speaker 1: a history podcast at iHeartRadio dot com, you can find
Speaker 1: our podcast on the iHeartRadio app wherever else you like
Speaker 1: to hit your podcasts. You can also, at least theoretically
Speaker 1: find us on some social media like Facebook, Twitter. That's
Speaker 1: not a thing anymore. It's called x now, I guess,
Speaker 1: Pinterest and Instagram, and that's missed in History is the name.
Speaker 1: You'll find us under all those places. Stuff you Missed
Speaker 1: in History Class is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.