Delaware is full of ghosts and haunts. Sitting next to us at Dead Presidents. Hanging around at the Deer Park. Helping out the interpreters at Fort Delaware. We talked to folklore expert Ed Okonowicz to get the lowdown on the most haunted spots in Delaware. The very spot where you're standing right now could be haunted, because there are about 500 lost burial grounds scattered over the state. You might be standing on a paved-over burial ground. Creepy. Check out our haunted spots, take some pictures, find some orbs. We did.
HAUNT ONE: FORT DELAWARE
It's time for a quick lesson, for those of you not lucky enough to take a field trip to Fort Delawarein elementary school. Fort Delaware sits on Pea Patch Island, just off of Delaware City. It was built in 1848 and though it was never attacked, served as a military fort until 1943 when it was decommissioned. At one point, there were over 16,000 people and prisoners on the tiny island.
There aren't any people left living at Fort Delaware -- just the ghosts.
One of those lost souls is a woman. We don't know her name, but she is one of the civilians who lived in the fort and acted as a cook for one of the officers. (The officers had their own kitchens, separate from the kitchens where the enlisted men ate.)
George Contant, the historical manager of Fort Delaware, tells the tale. A group of historical interpreters were working in the kitchen one day about 15 years ago, re-enacting a day in the life of a kitchen worker at the fort. The women were working at the stove when they saw someone they didn't recognize dressed in period clothes. She walked to the stove, looked in some pots and at the arrangements on the table, smiled at the interpreters, turned around and walked straight through the wall next to the pantry.
Since that incident, ghost hunters have measured that corner as a cold spot, a portal to another dimension. About six years ago, a camera crew went to the fort to film a segment to run with an Addams Family marathon. One cameraman stayed in the kitchen to shoot some extra footage while the rest of the group moved on. He went into the pantry, and heard a woman's voice, telling him to get out. He did. And when he came back a few years later to film another segment, he wouldn't go in the pantry.
Interpreters have also had things move around on them. One woman was sewing and dropped her needle, but since she was rushing for the last boat out, she decided she'd just look for it in the morning. She was the first person back the next day, and when she went into the room where she was sewing, a piece of fabric was sitting on the table, her threaded needle in it. Other interpreters reported spoons being moved in the kitchen and once someone moved a wooden spoon off the hot stove before it caught fire.
Other visitors report seeing General Archer, a prisoner captured at Gettysburg who had plans to take over the fort. After those plans were foiled, he was thrown into a powder magazine for the summer. A powder magazine is completely dark, with only thin slits in the brick walls to let air in. He was released, but after he died, his spirit came back to haunt the magazine.
Daniel Citron, the lead historical interpreter at Fort Delaware, said he and two other guys were putting things away for the season, when they heard a little girl giggling. They were the only people on the island. There weren't any children.
HAUNT TWO: HEADLESS HORSEMAN OF WELSH TRACT ROAD
Next time you're getting some chicken and garlic potatoes at the Boston Market on Rt. 896 in Newark, keep your eyes peeled. You're in the Headless Horseman of Welsh Tract Road's territory.
During the Battle of Cooch's Bridge during the Revolutionary war, part of the battle took place where the Boston Market stands now, all the way down Welsh Tract Road to the church.
A 16-year-old volunteer named Charlie Miller was riding through the cemetery during the battle. Just as he passed the church, a cannonball took off his head, kept going, and knocked a hole in the wall of the church.
Charlie was a brave volunteer, and continued to soldier on as a headless horseman. The night before the battle of Chadds Ford, snipers lined up to shoot George Washington. Those snipers never got a shot off, and the next morning were found, headless. Charlie was also responsible for the 38 headless soldiers found at Valley Forge.
He still rides around the area where he lost his head, and if you go to the church, you can see where the cannonball that took Charlie's head went through the church.
HAUNT THREE: PATTY CANNON'S HOUSE
Patty Cannon was a six-foot, 230 pound murderess. She used to take boarders on in her house, but the boarders would mysteriously disappear during the night. Legend was that she would open a secret bookcase, drag the boarders through and kill them, then dump them in the basement.
She also ran a slave trade, kidnapping free slaves and selling them back into slavery. By all accounts, she was not a nice woman. Her house is in Reliance, Md., and almost straddles the Delaware/Maryland line. People used to report her to the police, but if she saw a Maryland sheriff coming, she'd just walk over the line to Delaware. If there was someone from the law in Delaware coming, she'd walk over the line to Maryland. Finally someone found a body in her basement, and took her in.
It was going to be a big trial; all the town turned out to watch. But Patty Cannon killed herself before the trial started. She was left in a pauper's grave, and her skull was later stolen. It's in the library in Dover now, but Patty Cannon's ghost still haunts her house, perhaps searching for her lost head.
HAUNT FOUR: LEWES FERRY TERMINAL
If you've ever parked your car in Lewes to take the ferry over to Cape May, your car was sitting on a burial ground. That's right, in 1964, they needed a parking lot for the ferry in Delaware, so they paved right over the Unknown Sailor's Graveyard. The historical marker behind the gift shop is the only indication that dead soldiers lie beneath the blacktop.
There are stories of haunted copier toner forming the shape of a monk, sightings of a woman scrubbing the floor when there's no cleaning crew on premises, and one woman feeling like there's an arm holding her down.
HAUNT FIVE: ROCKWOOD MANSION
The ghosts at Rockwood aren't lonely. There are plenty of spirits around to keep them company. One of the ghosts is believed to be named Mary, one of the last Renhurst daughters that lived in the house. She lived at Rockwood until she was 100, and died in the mansion. Philip Nord, the museum director at Rockwood, said people smell a lady's perfume and see a woman in the room that was Mary's. (The psychics and ghost hunters that frequent Rockwood report that the ghosts don't mind people being there, but Mary doesn't particularly like people being in her private space.)
One of the psychics had conversations with several of the ghosts there, Phil said, including a young girl who had been jilted by her boyfriend and an elderly man who didn't know why he was dead. There are also several ghosts who don't live there, but pass through from time to time.
Phil said that he was at Rockwood for an evening program once, when he felt like he was hit by a cold, wet cloud. He was spooked. Add that to the apparitions and it sounds like we've got ourselves a ghost. Or several of them.
HAUNT SIX: TURNQUIST
On Delancy Road, just off Rt. 40 at the Delaware/Maryland line, is a neighborhood called Turnquist.
In 1963, a plane with 81 passengers was flying over the Maryland/Delaware border when lightning struck the wing and ignited the plane. The plane crashed and the 81 people all died. Their bodies were scattered all over a field on Delancy Road.
Turnquist was built on that field, and residents report many strange happenings, noises and sightings. All that remains of the ground where those bodies fell is a remembrance plaque, right next to the sign for the neighborhood.
HAUNT SEVEN: THE TICKING TOMB
In the mid-1700s, Charles Mason and Jeremiah Dixon were staying in Delaware while they worked on their famous line.
Mason was also working on another project -- a chronometer, basically the original version of a watch.
He'd perfected his invention and wanted to leave to go back to England and collect enough money to be rich for the rest of his life.
But he left the chronometer in a tent that he and Dixon had set up, and went to get some fresh fish from the fish market. While he was gone, a fatty little kid crawled into his tent and ate everything he could get his grubby little paws on, including the chronometer.
When Mason realized what happened, he tried to get the chronometer out, but it was too late. The chronometer was gone. Mason raised a toast that the fatty keep the chronometer with him until the end of time.
The kid grew up to be a clockmaker, and was buried in the graveyard at the London Tract Church in Landenberg.
His grave is a flat marker, next to a crumbling heart tombstone. If you lay on the ground and put your head to his tombstone, you can still hear the ticking of Mason's chronometer.
HAUNT EIGHT: DEAD PRESIDENTS
Ever feel the hairs stand up on the back of your neck while you're sitting at the bar at Dead Presidents? Don't blame the beer.
Blame a customer who frequented the tavern in the 1950s. He was a prankster, always playing jokes on the staff and other tavern regulars.
The poor prankster didn't get the last laugh. He slipped in a puddle of urine in the men's room in the late '60s and died. But he liked the place so much he decided to stick around -- as a ghost.
HAUNT NINE: DEER PARK TAVERN
Back in the day, slaves were traded on the porch of the tavern, and some spirits may still linger there. (Before it was the Deer Park it was the St. Patrick's Inn, which burned down.)
Edgar Allen Poe visited the inn on Dec. 23, 1843. He was trying to get out of his carriage and get up the steps to the inn, when he got stuck in the mud and fell.
Not one to just get up and brush himself off, Poe put a curse on the building. The curse lingers, and people who have had a little too much to drink have been known to blame their stumbles up and down the stairs on the curse.
HAUNT TEN: GHOSTS AT UD
There are several resident ghosts at the University of Delaware. They must have gotten ghost tenure.
A man named Edward Roach was murdered on the steps of Old College. (Old College is the building on Main Street, right across from South College Ave.) People have seen his ghost on the steps there and in the lobby.
In Mitchell Hall, a ghost named Elmo roams. Mitchell Hall has an upper level and a tall dome. The story is that Elmo fell from the dome to his death on the floor of Mitchell Hall.
Residents of Warner Hall, a girls' dorm, report hearing banging during the night. There was a girl who lived there who committed suicide and her ghost stayed behind. Now the ghost spends the nights banging against a false wall somewhere in the dorm.
HAUNT ELEVEN: OLD NEW CASTLE
Old New Castle is riddled with ghosts. There are the ghosts of people who were hung and burned at the stake in front of the courthouse lingering.
The most popular, and most seen ghost in Old New Castle is a resident of the Amstel House, Bruce Dalleo, the director of the New Castle Historical Society said.
Many people tell stories of seeing a woman in blue in the windows of the house when there is no one there. The woman in blue has been seen for more than a century.
In the 1940s, a caretaker who lived in the house was interviewed for a newspaper about the woman in blue, and seeing an apparition walking around the house with her.
No one is positive who she is, but something must have happened to her there that was strong enough to bring her back to it.
One woman named Elizabeth gave birth to a child in the house. The child died after a few days and Elizabeth died because of complications from the birth within a few weeks. Her husband has a mourning ring made and inscribed with the words, "I mourn thy virtue lost to me." That ring is still on display in the house.
Another was a woman named Anna Finney, who was engaged to a British officer killed in 1755 at the Battle of the Wilderness outside of Pittsburgh.
She was devastated, and so grief-stricken that she took to her bed and refused to marry. Her father had other plans and married her off to her cousin -- making her Anna Finney Finney.
There was another Elizabeth who lived there and watched as her husband and two of her three children died of TB in the house. After their deaths she moved in with her husband's family and rented out the house.
Maybe the woman in blue is one of them.
HAUNT TWELVE: THE VALLEY
Though the Valley is mostly urban legend, it still has to be addressed here. There's a house on Cossard Road called the Demon House, where ghosts peer through the windows.
While you drive up to the Demon House the trees look like they're moving, and bending away from the house and whatever is in it.
Legend has it that if you get too close, black SUVs will chase you away. We don't want to get close enough to find out.
HAUNT THIRTEEN: WOODBURN MANSION
There are ghosts, then there are our kind of ghosts -- ghosts that like to drink. Woodburn Mansion in Dover is the governor's mansion, and also home to four ghosts.
Our favorite ghost is known as the "tippling ghost." The afterlife apparently could not quench his love of good wine. If you're in Woodburn and happen to leave some wine out overnight in a glass, when you wake up in the morning it will be gone.
One night two residents sat at a table with wine in front of them, and were determined to stay up all night to see the ghost come and drink their wine. They fell asleep in their chairs, but when they woke up the wine was gone. This ghost takes down entire decanters of wine, and may have made a trip down to the wine cellar. (Our question for the tippling ghost is -- are there hangovers in the realm where you live?)
Another ghost is a man, dressed in turn-of-the-century garb (breeches, puffy shirt, that kind of stuff) who is seen going up and down the stairs. He's joined by a little girl who appears to float across the reflecting pond.
The fourth ghost at Woodburn is not as good -spirited as the first three. (Probaby because he never gets any of the wine.) He is the ghost of a slave-napper, who used to kidnap freed or escaped slaves, chain them up and then hide them until he could sell them back into slavery.
One night the slave-napper was being chased, he hid in a poplar tree on the grounds of Woodburn. He hid so long that he fell asleep and accidentally strangled himself with his chains.
The poplar tree is gone, but the ghost is still there, rattling his chains during the night.
TAKE A GHOST TOUR TOURS AND LECTURES WITH ED
If you want to take a tour or lecture with Ed, our folklore expert, make sure to go to his Web site, www.mystandlace.com for pricing and reservation information.
Curses, Superstitions and Friday the 13th
Friday, Oct. 13, 7 p.m.
Historical Society of Elkton, Md.
410-398-1790
Cemetery Tour of Old Drawyers
Saturday, Oct. 14, 5:30 p.m.
Corbit-Calloway Memorial Library, Odessa
378-8838
Civil War Trivia, Legends and Ghost Stories
Tuesday, Oct. 17, 7 p.m.
Felton Historical Society, Felton
284-9365
Haunted Lighthouse Takes and Sea Supersitions
Wednesday, Oct. 18, 6:30 p.m.
Westminster Village, Dover
Delmarva Ghost Tales and Legends
Thursday, Oct. 19, 7 p.m.
Brantwyn, DuPont Country Club
421-1747
Tales Tombstones Tell
Friday, Oct. 20, 2 p.m.
Heritage at Dover
Possessed Posessions
Wednesday, Oct. 25, 7 p.m.
Rockwood Museum
761-4343
Civil War Trivia, Legands and Ghost Stories
Thursday, Oct. 26, 7 p.m.
Bellevue Mansion
793-3046
Ghosts and History on the Green
Friday, Oct. 27, 8 and 10 p.m.
University of Delaware
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs ... 10310/1129
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