From a huge man dressed in black who haunts a former funeral home to a long-ago railroader who appears then seemingly melts into the pavement, Newport is home to many unexplained phenomena.
Anne Miller, an English teacher at Newport High School, and founder of Candlelight Ghost Walks of Historic Newport, calls the borough one of the most haunted small towns in America. An old canal town and railroad town, Newport has been witness to fires, floods, and many plagues, Miller says.
She leads seasonal ghost tours of about 20 sites with proceeds benefitting the Newport High School yearbook.
"Why are we so fascinated with ghost stories?" Miller asked a group who took a tour on Friday the 13th.
Ghost tours are on the rise and becoming one of the No. 1 tourist attractions in many towns and cities, she said.
"I think we are looking for a touchstone to the past," she said.
Newport High School begins the tour. Two corridors in the old part of the school are haunted, Miller said. At night, custodians will hear conversations coming from the corridors when no one is there. A teacher once saw a silhouette of someone marching -- about three feet off the floor of the auditorium.
Miller thinks the ghosts are some of the Perry County boys who trained as National Guardsmen near the high school site in 1917. Of the first 39 who trained, only 10 came back alive from France.
"My theory is that they are drawn back to the youthful energy" at the school, she said.
Built in 1840, the railroad came down Third Street with two train stations near Third and Walnut streets.
At least 10 people have seen a railroader with a dog near Third and Walnut streets who "just melts into the macadam" after a few seconds, Miller said. "When he starts to melt, a bright, cobalt blue ball breaks apart into fairy dust."
A similar apparition of a railroader has been seen up the street at the Moose lodge.
Miller thinks the first apparition is 19-year-old George Grubb, a railroader who was killed in 1898 at the Third and Walnut street site. She thinks the second ghost is Ludwig Geibel, another railroader who was killed near the present site of the Moose.
The Towpath Hotel has its share of ghosts. New waitresses often will approach a husband, wife and child before they disappear. Miller sympathized with the ethereal family "stuck for eternity in a bar in Newport."
Many years ago, Miller herself saw a huge, menacing man dressed in black come out of a window at the Hoeffel-Kell funeral home and flip around the corner where he disappeared. Twenty-five years later, a friend moved into the upstairs apartment at former funeral home where she would see a similar man in the hall. Her baby started having night terrors and talked about the "bad man." When the family moved, the child never had another night terror, Miller said.
Ann Wysocki, on the tour for the first time with her daughter, said she enjoyed the tour very much.
"I like seeing the houses and hearing the stories about the hauntings," Wysocki said.
Tours, by reservation only, begin at 7 p.m. at Newport High School, Sixth Street entrance, Friday and Saturday through October. Call 567-2545 for ticket information and reservations.
http://www.cumberlink.com/articles/2006 ... news09.txt
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