The House of the Seven Gables (also known as the Turner-Ingersoll Mansion) is a Colonial mansion built in 1668 and can be found in Salem, Massachusetts found at 54 Turner Street.
The house is the oldest surviving 17th century wooden mansion in all of New England and is reputed to be one of the most haunted places in Salem.
The house became famous following the book by Nathaniel Hawthorne “The House of the Seven Gables” in 1851. Later it became famous following the successful 1940 film of the same name starring Vincent Price.
Photo courtesy of aresauburn
The house was originally built in 1668 by Captain John Turner, a sailor of some years. The original house had only three gables with the other four being added in the following years.
After one of the Turner sons lost the family fortune, the Ingersoll family purchased it. They had also made their money from the sea.
When Captain Ingersoll died, Susanna (sometimes also spelled Susannah) Ingersoll, who was Hawthorne’s cousin, lived in the house until she was 72 years old
Whenever the young Nathaniel visited the house, he was told stories of the history of the house by Susanna and the family. Horace Ingersoll told Hawthorne a story of Acadian lovers that later inspired Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s 1847 poem Evangeline.
Susanna told Hawthorne about a secret staircase and other oddities of the house, including the now missing gables (due to remodelling by the Ingersoll family).
Following Susanna’s death, the house was purchased by a Hawthorne fan, Caroline Emmerton, who became the founder of the House of Seven Gables Settlement Association, and she restored it from 1908-1910 as a museum whose admission fees would support the association.
It was after the death of Susanna that the new owners started getting strange reports of unexplained things happening.
People standing outside the house would often see the form of a woman peering out of one of the windows. After a few seconds, the woman would vanish. This woman has also been caught on camera a few times. Continue reading »
In the pantheon of Las Vegas mobsters, Benjamin “Bugsy” Siegel is perhaps one of the most well known – not so much for his crime, but rather for his death.
On 28 February 1906, Bugsy was born in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, to a poor Jewish family as Benjamin Siegelbaum. As a young boy he was exposed to crime and soon joined a gang on Lafayette Street on the lower east side of Manhattan.
It was here that Bugsy befriended Meyer Lansky, who was forming a small mob whose activities expanded to gambling and car theft.
By the 1930′s, Lansky and Siegel built ties to Charles “Lucky” Luciano and Frank Costello, future bosses of the Genovese crime family.
It was Bugsy’s move to Las Vegas in 1946 that cemented his reputation, fame and eventual murder.
The early years of Las Vegas were a fantastic time for mobsters looking to expand into new territories and rackets. Bugsy and his mob decided to hedge their bets on a new hotel and casino – the Flamingo.
By November 1946, Bugsy had spent vast amounts of money to get the casino running and his mob partners were getting very impatient.
In an effort to generate enough from the casino to complete the project and repay investors, Bugsy was forced to open the incomplete hotel on December 26.
After two weeks the Flamingo’s gaming tables were $275,000 in the red and the entire operation shut down in late January 1947.
Mob bosses were extremely upset and were planning on ordering a hit on Bugsy. By begging the mob bosses to give his friend a second chance, Lansky got an extension for Bugsy.
By the time Bugsy managed to get the profits rolling in, it was too late. The mob bosses had lost patience. Continue reading »
![Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas [Blu-ray]](http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/515rCKqiSsL._SL75_.jpg "Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas [Blu-ray]")
During Civil War times, with her husband fighting in the war, Sara Jane and her newborn lived alone in a house out in the woods on a wagon trail along the Neches River, Texas.
One day she received word that the Union soldiers were on their way, so she placed her baby in a wicker basket and set the basket under the wooden bridge that was near her house and returned home.
Once the Union soldiers had left, Sara Jane made her way back to the bridge to retrieve her baby, but when she got there, the baby was nowhere to be found. The Neches River had risen and carried the baby away.
Sara Jane searched the banks of the river for hours, screaming and crying, but to no avail. Grief striken and unable to find her child, Sara Jane hung herself from a tree which hung low over the small wagon trail near the wooden bridge.
On certain nights if you stand on the bridge at midnight, you may see the light of a lantern flickering in the woods and hear Sara Jane as she moans and calls for the baby she left under the bridge. The unlucky few can sometimes also hear the cries of the baby in the distance. Continue reading »
There is a strange phenomena which is often overlooked on websites dealing with the paranormal or cryptozoology – the mysterious Tulpa from Tibet.
Tibet has long been thought of as a mysterious, spiritual place where the strange is commonplace. And it is here that we find the Tulpa. The word Tulpa is from the Tibetan language and refers to any entity that attains reality solely by the act of imagination. This entity can be seen by not only the creator, but by other people as well.
There are some problems associated with creating a Tulpa if you do not know what you are doing. The biggest problem is that as the Tulpa is given enough vitality and life, it tends to free itself from its masters control, much like a child when it leaves its mother’s womb.
Tibetan mystics often tell of a Tulpa which has been sent out to do a mission, failing to return on completion of its task. Rather it chooses to go out and become a half-conscious entity capable of all kinds of drama. This can often happen if its creator dies before dissolving the entity back into the land of thought.
In some cases the entity behaves like a rebellious child and the mystics report cases of great struggles between the master and the Tulpa. Often the Tulpa seriously injures or even kills its creator.
One scary aspect of this is that sometimes a Tulpa can be created unconsciously. When this happens it is often difficult to get rid of it because the creator doesn’t know what they have done. This seems to be similar to cases of poltergeist activity and its relationship with girls going through puberty.
As a general rule the Tulpa entity disappears on the death of the creator or gradually vanishes over time as its life-giving energies are depleted. But as we have seen – sometimes this does not happen!
The creation of Tulpas are not only limited to Tibetan Lama mystics but has also been documented by certain westerners. Alexandra David-Neel is one such person. Continue reading »
La Llorona is the legend of a woman who drowned her children, and who can be heard, and sometimes seen, weeping in the night for her dead offspring.
La Llorona (meaning “She who weeps” in Spanish) is in most stories said to be Mexican. However stories of her are told also in USA, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Panama and Chile. It is often stated to be the number one Latin American urban legend. Sometimes La Llorona is also known as the ‘Woman in White’ or the’Weeping Woman’.
As with most urban legends, there are many variations of La Llorona, but the central plot remains intact: The woman has lost her children, usually because she herself has killed them because she wants to marry a man who doesn’t want any children.
She is so guilt-ridden and distressed by these unfortunate circumstances that she kills herself as well, and is therefore doomed to roam her native land forever, weeping and wringing her hands. Often she is seen along rivers and streams.
Although the legends vary, the apparition is said to act without hesitation or mercy. The tales of her cruelty depends on the version of the legend you hear. Some say that she kills indiscriminately, taking men, women, and children. Others say that she is kills only children, dragging them screaming down to a watery grave.
No one really knows when the legend of La Llorona began or from where it originated. There are accounts which suggest that the legend was already in common circulation at the time of the conquistadores.
Here is a typical version of the La Llorona legend:
Maria (La Llorona) thought she was very beautiful, and she wanted the handsomest man to marry. So she got what she wanted. Once they were married, they had three children, first a son, then a daughter, lastly another son. Continue reading »
In St. Francisville, Louisiana, there is an inn which is reputed to be the most haunted place in the USA. Exactly how many ghosts are said to haunt The Myrtles plantation is unknown, but it seems that the number is around 12 to 15 of them.
According to legend, the plantation house was built in 1794 by General David Bradford on top of an old Indian burial ground. General Bradford is also reportedly the first person to have seen a ghost in the house. It is said that he saw the ghost of a naked Indian girl, which is still seen on occasion today. When the General died, the management of the estate passed on to his daughter, Sarah and her husband, Judge Clark Woodruffe. Together, he and Sarah had three children, Cornelia Gale, James, and Mary Octavia. Judge Woodruffe eventually bought out the plantation from his mother-in-law before she died in 1830.
Judge Woodruffe was apparently not very faithful to his wife, taking on a mistress. Her name was Chloe and she was one of the plantation slaves. After some time the Judge tired of his mistress and she began to worry about her eventual fate. She started listening at keyholes to try and hear what would happen. One night the General caught her eavesdropping and as punishment cut off her ear. Due to the disfigurement, Sara took to wearing a turban to hide her mutilated ear.
Chloe decided to try and ensure her continued place in the home by pretending to save the family from harm. She decided to poison a cake with Oleander leaves and then nurse the family back to health – thus becoming the hero. Unfortunately her plans went awry and Sara and her two daughters died from the poison. The Judge did not eat the cake so was spared an agonising death.
Chloe was terrified that she would get found out and rather than face the wrath of the community, she fled to the safety of other slaves. When the other slaves heard what had happened, they turned on Chloe, dragging her out of hiding and hanging her from a tree. They then weighed down her body and disposed of it in the Mississippi river. Since then the ghost of Chloe has often been seen wandering around the Myrtle plantation.
According to the present owners, Teeta and John Moss, Chloe helps to keep their children safe, but also often peers in at guests while they are sleeping. No one knows who she is looking for but they all agree that Chloe is not a bad spirit, she seems to be wanting redemption by watching over the kids.
The murder of Sara and her daughters are not the only murders to have occured at the plantation. Since the building of the house, there have been at least 10 other homicides or suicides on the property.
In 1834, the plantation was purchased by Ruffin Grey Stirling. From that time the family was often the victim of great tragedies. Four years after buying the property, Stirling died of consumption. Of nine children, only four of them lived to be old enough to marry. His oldest son, Lewis, died the same year as his father. His daughter’s husband was murdered in the same year on the front porch. Their ghosts are said to still haunt the homestead. Continue reading »
