That's what the woman scrawled across the top of the guest book page in one of Ocracoke's oldest houses -- "House is Haunted!!"
Then she added the following:
"No kidding!! Seriously, the last night we were here...my dad saw a tall gentleman dressed in an old fashion 3/4 piece suit (probably the 1900 or late 1800 era). He [the father] was in the bedroom upstairs.... He woke up at about 3 am to use the bathroom and as he opened the door...he saw a man dressed as described above. He froze! All the hairs on his arm raised and then the man just vanished!.... My brother, who slept in the very back bedroom (next to the graveyard) said he felt someone pat his leg/hip one night."
Ocracoke is full of ghost stories, especially related to old island homes and late night strolls along narrow paths & down Howard Street. The creepy stories add spice to the lives of residents and visitors alike.
If you look forward to encountering ghosts at Ocracoke, read no further.
On the other hand, if you would like to read the article, "Catching Ghosts," by skeptical paranormal investigator Joe Nickell, click on this link: http://www.csicop.org/sb/show/catching_ghosts/. As Mary Roach, in the last paragraph of her book, Spook, put it, “The debunkers are probably right, but they’re no fun to visit a graveyard with.”
Our latest Ocracoke Newsletter is an article written by my Uncle Marvin Howard in 1954. You can read it here: http://www.villagecraftsmen.com/news102111.htm.
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A couple years ago my wife and I rented "The Huntly House" I believe it's called. It's located at the entrance to the old Ocracoke graveyard with the cement walls at the entrance. One particular early evening, as we were returning from an excursion around the island, we saw an elderly couple, walking arm-in-arm, into the cemetary past the walled entrance. They were dressed in heavy, early 1900's period clothing. He with top hat and jacket, her with full length dress, shawl, and gloves. They seemed terribly over-dressed for such a warm, humid, July Ocracoke evening. When we parked the car we both followed them into the graveyard to see if they were perhaps visiting a lost friend or relative. And that perhaps this was why they were dressed in their "Sunday Best." In the literily few SECONDS it took us to park the car and walk to the entrance they had vanished!! My wife is convinced we saw ghosts returning "home" from an evening stroll around their ole neighborhood..... Who's to say she isn't correct....
ReplyDeleteGraveyards are no "fun" in the daylight either. Will you be trick or treating with Lachlan?
ReplyDeleteI am a skeptical beleiver. while many many things can be explained, many can not. and having grown up in an old plantation home, I've witnessed both.
ReplyDeleteA subject which begs the question of one who lives in those environs: What are your thougts, Philip?
ReplyDeleteI will probably walk along with Lachlan and his family for Trick or Treat. Sometimes I don a costume, sometimes not. For the school Halloween Carnival Lachlan was Spiff the Spaceman (from the Calvin & Hobbes cartoons). He simply made "goggles" from red pipe cleaners. The rest of his costume was all in his head...but he was Spiff!
ReplyDeleteNow about ghosts -- I love the island ghost stories. Enough said!
It's the electrical bonds that help hold the sand together--they also do strange things to space and time!
ReplyDeleteMwahahahahahaha....
Glad you could use the journal entry Phillip! You didn't even need to embroider it! In the 2 weeks we were there we saw nothing so amazing but heard a lot of odd things. And, the fans did turn on mysteriously! Sue M!
ReplyDeleteThat entry in the Journal was my sisters when we stayed at the house on Ocracoke. And i was the unlucky brother who stayed in the bedroom near the grave and was molested by the ghost -__-
ReplyDelete