The Midway Cemetery Ghost Girl

     I had learned about Midway Cemetery during a ghost tour in St. Simon's island when I was eleven years old. The grave yard is filled predominantly with the bodies of the children who had perished to the yellow fever epidemic. Naturally, me being me, I thought to myself: "Neato! I wanna go there!"
     Flash forward to a year later. My mom had gotten into photography (her current vocation), and my family had discovered the magic of digital photography. My mind was blown when I got my first camera: it seemed like such a leap from the disposable ones I had used all of my life, and being able to double-check my pictures on the screen seemed like such a luxury. I went crazy with that camera when I first got it.
     My family had just happened to find ourselves in Midway that summer (which is only about forty five minutes outside of Savannah), and as we ate out lunch in a restaurant we found off of the road, I suddenly remembered the ghost tour I had gone on the previous summer, and the story of the cemetery full of the deceased children. I suggested we stop by on the way out of town, and my parents, in no hurry to get back hoe, agreed that that might be fun, so after asking for some directions, we pulled in front of the crumbling wall of the boneyard.
     I really hadn't expected anything to happen. I have always found cemeteries to be hauntingly beautiful, not scary, and with my new toy, my only intentions were to get some photographs of the old graves. As my family went off one way, I wandered, all of the way back in the cemetery, snapping away. There was a row that I paused in front of, and began to walk. I was idly admiring the headstones, when suddenly, I came across one that I liked especially well. It was old, but unlike the others, this one had roses carved into the epitaph. Her name had been Louisa, and she had died when she was only seventeen.
     I raised the camera to my right eye (My mom had warned me to never keep the screen and use it as a viewfinder, or else my battery would drain faster.), I focused the picture, and click. There was a slight whirring sound as the shot was taken, and the camera processed the image. I lowered the camera from my face, and automatically pressed the PLAY button to review the picture. However, when it appeared, I found that the image was too blurry, even though I had tried really, really carefully to keep my hands still. With a frown, I tried again, and got the same result. This repeated for about seven shots, and I was getting frustrated, because all of my other photos that I had taken that day had come out crystal clear, and I was positive that I hadn't been moving the camera.
     I found my mom, who was photographing herself, and told her that something must have been wrong with my camera, because every single picture was coming out blurry. To show her, I aimed the camera at the nearest tombstone, and snapped a shot, but this time, when I pulled it up o the screen, the image looked perfect. Surprised, I tried again, and again, it was a beautiful shot.
     I apologized, and walked away, thinking that maybe it had just been a temporary fluke. I still really wanted a picture of Louisa's grave, though, so I retraced my steps back to the rose-imprinted stone, and once more, I aimed and shot.
     I shouldn't have been so upset to find that the pictures were blurry again.
     By this point, I was starting to get a weird feeling...I knew that something was off, and my intuition was very strongly telling me that it wasn't my camera. On a whim, I went back to the first blurry picture, and began to scroll through each one after it, examining each picture with a different curiosity. When I got to one in particular, I froze, and my eyes widened at what I was looking at.

     It seemed to me that there was very clearly a face in the bottom right corner...it was a girl, and I could distinctly make out the shape of her head, her nose, her smile, her teeth...she was smiling at the camera! After staring it, I realized that she could very well still be standing in front of me, so without another thought, I hurried away.
     Was this Louisa's ghost, or another girl lost in the graves, who had just become a ghostly presence? Was she one of the yellow fever victims? Did she realize what the device was that I was holding in my hand, and is that why she's smiling?
     It has remained one of the coolest experiences of my life, and it was something that I just wanted to share! She certainly looks like she wants to make her presence known!

     Amy

Growing up with a Ghost

     I have grown up with ghosts, in a way, and not just through books. The house that my family and I moved into in Savannah when I was two was a cute Queen Anne with turrets on either side and a wrap-around porch in the front. It wasn't a large house, nor do I personally have any memories of any hauntings, but my parents do. Although I strongly believed in ghosts, I had never had a ghostly encounter, which saddened me to a great deal...I felt a bit jipped, to be honest. 

     It was until I was seven, and we moved out of that house into our current one that my parents revealed to me that strange things would happen in that house...things would up and disappear with virtually no cause. Ironically, they didn't want to tell me or my brother of this phenomena, for fear of scaring the two of us. Little did they know that that kind of information would have made me ecstatic! 

     Now, here's the kicker...about a year after moving with my family, we happened to pick up a book by local author Al Cobb: Danny's Bed, which is a well-known read around Savannah, as it documents one man's personal experience with ghosts in his family, as well as other haunted locations in Savannah. Guess whose old house made it into one of the chapters? Yup: apparently, the guy who had built the house had died of a massive heart attack in our--err--his kitchen. Creepy.

     Anyways, I truly would have not suspected anything weird to happen in my new house, but I was sort of in for an interesting experience. The reason for that was because we actually built that house in a wooded lot, a mere two minutes away from my old house. A gorgeous yellow Georgian styled home, it was the last place I would have expected to deal with paranormal activity, but after researching this city a bit, it seems to me that it would be hard for a place not to be haunted in the city limits...

     You see, Savannah, itself, is built wholly on three separate cemeteries. Gettit? On top. That's not even counting the Native Americans who were laid to rest on the land long before James Oglethorpe sailed into the Savannah River, bringing fleets of Englishmen with him. 

     So, essentially, the whole city has broken every rule of what the movie Poltergeist told us not to do, so, in return, we can't be too shocked when our five year old home starts to experience some poltergeist activity, itself. In reality, it drives me crazy when people say that a young house can't be haunted! Yes, an older house is a more likely candidate, but they're not even putting into consideration the centuries old land that the house was built on top of, or the furniture in the house (unless you exclusively buy everything from Target or Ikea, no exceptions.) But come on! I'd say that, in a country that has experienced so much war, aggression, illness and bloodshed in an attempt to just make it an individual country, the bigger question is: How do you know that your house isn't haunted? 

     Sorry, I'm done with my rant, for now. Anyways my family moved in '99: my dad, mom, little brother, and me! Shortly thereafter, my mom became pregnant with my youngest brother, and the house was never quiet again. Off the top of my head, I do not remember anything significant happening in the house beyond the usual creaks and noises that at the time, I assumed were just my imagination. Nothing big started happening until I was thirteen, but since that moment on, it has stopped.

     My very first memory os this entity happened while I was in the library of my middle school. I will go ahead and say that these hauntings have not at all happened exclusively in my house: they have followed me to school, to other people's houses, and later, to my college dorm room. But the first time it happened, I heard my name being called in the otherwise empty room.

     "Amy...!"

     Naturally, my first thought was of a guy, who had been there not five minutes before, but a quick search turned up the fact that I was very alone. Naturally, I went with the most obvious assumption: my imagination was playing tricks on me. I didn't feel scared or threatened, just curious. It wasn't big enough, though, for me to claim that it had been a ghost, so I went on my merry way.

     This "voice" called to me a few more times, and always, it was so insignificant, that I began to ignore it. I could tell you exactly what it sounded like: it was always of a young girl, not a child, but maybe a teenager. Creepily enough, at the time, when I'd hear it, my first thought would be: "That sounds like my voice!" It didn't scare me, though: it seemed so bizarre and unreal that it would only reinforce the idea that it wasn't real! However, me ignoring it didn't seem to make it happy: form that moment on, this spirit (if that is what it is) found ways to make itself more known by my other family members.

     I had a full breakdown during the summer of my thirteenth year. I was in my bathroom, brushing my hair, when suddenly, I heard the voice again, only this time, it was much louder, and more substantial than it had ever sounded before. It was in my room, and my heart nearly stopped in my chest when I heard it!

     "AMY!" It was only a hushed toned, but man, I heard it, and my immediate thought was that my brother was trying to play a prank on me. That's what I wanted to believe, anyway.

     I ran through the house, looking for him, finding him on the playroom, playing a game (there was no way he would have gotten there that fast), and I sort of exploded, yelling at him to stop scaring me, and he began to cry, because I was yelling, and he really didn't know why. I knew it hadn't been him...it was wishful thinking, because the voice had absolutely terrified me, and I really didn't know what I'd do if it hadn't been Jeremy...I wasn't five, anymore: ghosts scared me, and I'd seen enough movies to know that they weren't all Casper the Friendly Ghost. My mom, hearing me yelling at my poor brother, intervened, and calmed us both down, but still, the experience stayed with me after all of these years.

     After that, weird things began to happen to other people. My best friend told me that she saw a figure standing in me bedroom window when we were outside in the backyard. My brother said that he had seen the same thing, and at the time, I had still somehow managed to convince myself that they were both just seeing things, and that there was nothing in the damned house. The first time that anything happened to all of us was about a year later, when, around eleven thirty at night, a vase in our foyer fell and smashed in the ground. Everyone showed up to find the source of the noise, but what we found was that the vase hadn't just fell...it was a good few feet away from the table, as though it had been pushed. I'm still willing to believe that it wasn't anything supernatural, but hey, it wouldn't be the weirdest thing to have happened. 

     I also made the mistake of playing with a ouija board with a friend after everything started happening. It wasn't at my house, but we specifically tried to talk to the spirit that appeared to be following me. I made a huge mistake that night: the spirit asked us, via the board, if it could "use my energy" to manifest, and I said yes. It seemed harmless enough, and about a minute afterwards, loud footsteps started to echo around my friend's bedroom, inside of the bedroom. It was bizarre, and neither of us had ever heard those kind of sounds at her house, before. A few minutes after that, I began to get a head ache. At first, it was a small-scale one, but it rapidly turned into a full-fledged migraine. I felt sick, and we stopped, but the occurrences didn't.

     The weird thing was that the activity would get quiet for months at a time, and I'd always think that it had stopped. The one thing that would remain constant were the footsteps that my mom and I heard. I always heard them specifically in mine and brother's room, and most predominantly, I'd hear them in my walking closet when I was below it, in my parent's bathroom. That's when they're the loudest. For reasons I cannot explain, I have always been...nervous around my closet. It's very large for a closet, sort of making it its own room, and I don't feel comfortable in it. I can't just be in the room unless the door to the closet is closed, and if I just see it open, I immediately close it. It's truly the only spot of my house where I don't feel comfortable being, and I really, truly, can't explain it.

     Ok, flash forward a few years, past the weird footsteps. I was a junior in high school, and it was Thanksgiving break, meaning that my house was filled with family members. However, it was a rare moment in the house where everyone, sans my mom, had left to get into some sort of shenanigans. According to her, while we were gone, a foil pan in the kitchen suddenly, and strangely, flew off a shelf, onto the floor. If that hadn't been weird enough, she also watched as a figure's reflection walked in front of the flatscreen TV in our living room. The TV was off, and no one else was around to have had their image reflected in the surface other than my mom, who watched it happen well across the room..

     At those times, things had happened to other people, and I had not even been present. Things became quiet again, for a while. I went off to college, and came back home two months later my freshman year for fall break. I got a call from my mom during the drive, where she relayed something odd that had just happened in the house.

     She and my youngest brother had been in the kitchen, scrambling eggs, when the front door of the house opened, on its own. Now, each door in my house that leads to the outside triggers an alarm when it's open a certain amount: two, short beeps go off, and they can only go off if the door has been shut completely, and then opened at least a few inches. When my mom and brother went to go see why the door had opened, it stood completely ajar. They shut it--and locked it--but had a repeat performance a few minutes later. Somehow, the lock had remained intact, but the door had still managed to open up. It has not happened since.

     Also, a few days later, on the night before I was supposed to return to school, I was watching TV with my mom in her room around eleven at night. No one else was downstairs. Suddenly, the door to her bathroom, which stood open, slammed shut with a force that was so strong, that it clicked into place. Both my mom and I silently turned to give one another a look, acknowledged what had happened, and went back to watching TV. In a strange way, it was hilarious. At this point, the strange phenomena in my house had just become routine. 

     Things got really weird my sophomore year of college, when the dorm room I moved into with my roommate (a complete skeptic) experienced some activity of its own...for a period of about a  week and a half.

     The first thing to happen (which was something similar that had happened to me in my house in Savannah, as well, and always seemed to be the first sign that the activity would start up again), were tings disappearing, and reappearing right under my nose. It's only happened a few times in my life, but I'll lose something important to me, and it will reappear shortly thereafter in plain sight, in an area I've searched a hundred times, with no cause. At my house, the object had been my beloved, childhood blanket, at school, it had been my ID card, which I needed vitally to get into the cafeteria, dorm, and my dorm room. It disappeared one weekend when my roommate went out of town, and after cleaning the whole room out and going to bed, it reappeared on my desk, sitting  right next to my half-functioning, back up card. Seriously, I had been doing work at that desk the night before, and I swear it hadn't been there.

     The next three things to happen did not happen exclusively to me. I was walking with a friend back to my room to watch a movie, when, upon arriving to the door, he informed me that someone else was already in there. I heard it, too: a woman's voice, talking, non of my neighbors. I opened the door, and as I cracked it open to go inside, the voice drifted out, clear as day, and my friend and I exchanged uneasy glances. However, as soon as the door opened fully, it was gone, and did not come back. We had both heard it.

     Two days later, another friend and I were watching TV (The Big Bang Theory), when suddenly, the screen went to complete static, which it had never done before. I stood up and crossed the room to fix it (Although, I had no idea of what I planned on doing. Hitting it, maybe?) when suddenly, the absolute most terrifying thing happened in my life. You may not believe. I'm not sure that I believe myself.

     A woman appeared, through the static, not apart of the show at all. She was there for only a minute, but she was clearly reaching out towards me, and suddenly, she was gone, and the show came back on the TV. My initial thought was: "I've been watching too many horror movies.", fully thinking that it hadn't just happened, but when I turned around and saw my friend, she was staring at the screen with a wide-eyed expression of pure fear. Her face had drained of color. We made eye contact, and finally, I broke the silence.

     "Ok...did you see that?" I demanded, my voice cracking a little as the realization hit me that it hadn't been my imagination.

     She looked down, and nodded, slowly.

     "Ok, ok...just tell me what you saw! I'll tell you if I saw the same thing!"

     She seemed to think about it, and then responded. "I saw a woman..."

     "Was she...reaching out towards us?"

     Again, another nod. We were both a little speechless, and could not explain what had happened. That sort of thing did not make a repeat performance, and I cannot say that I'm unhappy about it. That experience, more than anything else, seemed to have materialized out of a horror movie, and scared me the most.

     The next morning, I beat my roommate up (as usual), and headed out of the room to grab some breakfast. I ended up staying out for two hours (10 to 12) talking to classmates, and returned to the room a while later to find that my roommate was just getting out of the shower. I greeted her, and she said good morning, but had a slight furrow in her brow.

     "You weren't here, like, an hour ago, were you?"

     I glanced at the clock. "No. I've been gone since ten." I paused. "Why?"

     I could tell that she was a little discomfited. "I woke up about an hour ago, and went to use the restroom, and while I was in there, I heard someone in the room, going through drawers. I thought it was you, so I went out to say "good morning", but no one was here..."

     Creeeeeeeepy! As mentioned before: she does NOT believe in ghosts, but she also won't say that it wasn't a weird experience. That seemed to be the last of it, though. It stopped.

     Since then, I've come home, and have only heard the weird footsteps in my house. I don't know what it is I've been experiencing for the past some odd years, only that it's never consistent, and gets a little more prevalent each time. I am now a mere twenty four hours away from moving into a townhouse of my own, and had to admit that I'm curious as to what will follow into a space that I move myself into, completely. Am I being followed? Or do I just keep going to places that are more haunted than usual?

     If you've had any experiences similar to these, I'd love to hear, but in the meanwhile, I probably need to pack! Have a wonderful week, everyone!

Amy

The Forsyth Park Inn

I feel that this heartbreaking story deserves so much more recognition than it often gets. Even among Savannians, it is not well known, and though the building now stands as a successful, quaint B&B around the famed Forsyth Park, the tragedy held within the walls has been muffled through the generations. Let's bring it back to light.
You would be amazed at the events that transpired in the Forsyth Park Inn. Looking up at the Queen Anne Victorian styled, yellow structure, it would seem the epitome of the beautiful south, surrounded by Like Oaks, with its own little garden/courtyard. It's one of those rare homes that has stood the test of time, and only seems to become lovelier and grander with age. It's a gem.
However, perhaps, upon entering the front door, you can sense the sadness of this house's past. In the long hallways and dark rooms, something horrible happened...something that left its indefinite print on the estate.
In 1893, the home was built by the well-reputable Captain Aaron Flint Churchill. Captain Churchill had been a very successful man, captaining his own crew at the age of twenty one, and owning his own steamship line in Savannah. Having hailed from Nova Scotia, Churchill was said to be a very kind employer, having worked his way from bottom to top. He and his wife, Lois, lived in the house, then called "Churchill Mansion", and as happy as they were, they had one unhappy inconvenience: they could not have children.
In compensation, the two ended up adopting Lois' young niece, Lottie. Lottie loved her Aunt Lois and Uncle Aaron fiercely, and the bond between the three of them became a father-mother-daughter relationship. In short, Lottie was happy with her life at the Churchill Mansion. However, that all changed when another girl arrived at the front door.
A second woman was invited to live in the house with Lottie and her family, when the young girl was fourteen. The pale, thin, young woman was introduced to Lottie merely as her Aunt's sister, and nothing more than that. She had been suffering from a long illness, which was why Lottie had not met her, before. Anna and Lottie became inseparable, developing a sisterly relationship that only strengthened Lottie's love for her home. To her, Anna was truly the sister that Lottie had never had. All seemed right...for a little bit, anyways.

One night, while wandering around the expansive house, Lottie happened to peek into a bedroom, and at first glance, thought that she saw her Uncle Aaron and Aunt Lois passionately embracing. It must have been a sweet sight to the young girl, who believed so strongly in her Aunt and Uncle's love, and she stepped forward to greet. As she looked closer into the room, however, she saw something that made her blood turn cold. It was Anna, not Aunt Lois, in her Uncle's arms.
She watched, and saw the heat that ran through them that was more than mere, familial love. Managing not to be be seen or heard, she turned away, leaving the two to continue, blissfully unaware that they had been caught. Lottie hurried back to her room, and closed her door...for the whole night, she lay in her bed, thinking about how her happy, little world was about to come crashing down. Should she tell Aunt Lois? Confront Uncle Aaron? Confront Anna? She didn't know what to do! All she knew was that she couldn't just turn her head and go on as though nothing had happened! She needed to so something! She needed to do something...it must have gotten her thinking about how angry she was at Anna, for coming and ruining everything, and how she just wished that Anna had never come to live with them in the first place.
That must have given her an idea.

The next day bloomed normally enough for everyone else. Aunt Lois and Anna sat in the lovely little courtyard, chatting, when suddenly, Lottie appeared with an impromptu snack. She set the tea down in front of the two ladies who, pleasantly surprised, genially thanked Lottie, who had begun to pour their individual cups. She smiled at the two woman, and then swiftly disappeared inside the house. Anna picked up her own steaming cup, inhaling the fragrant smell, and took a delicate sip. Their conversation continued, normally, only, Aunt Lois noticed that Anna was becoming quieter and quieter. Her sister lifted a palm to her mouth as she coughed, softly at first, but again and again with growing force. Her face was turning a frightening shade of maroon, and Aunt Lois shot up from her seat, knocking over her own teacup in the process. Anna was keeling over, unable to catch a breath, and Aunt Lois could do nothing but helplessly hold her baby sister close as she coughed a final time, before drawing in one, last ragged breath.

From her window, Lottie smiled as she watched Aunt Lois cradle Anna. Oleander was a particularly poisonous plant, and a little went a long way. She had been surprised at how fast it had worked, though that didn't bother her at all. Instead, she thought about life without Anna, with Uncle Aaron and Aunt Lois back in love. The thought made her smile, despite the crime she had just committed, and as Aunt Lois began to scream for help, she was careful to wipe it from her face, and switch it with one of fear and confusion. She hurried downstairs to see what had happened.

The funeral was held a few days later, and Lottie did her best to appear sad in front of all of the guests. Uncle Aaron cried, and Aunt Lois was beside herself. With tears in her eyes, she pulled Lottie to the side at the conclusion of the ceremony, and delivered the news that shook Lottie to the core: Anna had been Lottie's true mother.

She was moved into an institution, where she ended up dying as an adult. Guests still claim to see the girl's ghost, as she is forced to wander her childhood home and relive the painful memories of her biggest mistake.

The house experiences activity both of the residual and intelligent variety. A young woman--presumably Lottie--walks around the courtyard, crying. A figure can be seen standing on the staircase. People's names are called, but seem to have no physical source. However, Lottie does not appear to be a frightening presence: she has been known to be helpful with employees in recovering lost items, and is quick to disappear when spotted. Is she punishing herself for the crime she committed all of those years ago? Is she trying to atone for it? Her family forgave her for what she did, and yet, she cannot seem to find peace, herself.

If you visit, be sure to let Lottie know that she's been forgiven.

The Forsyth Park Inn is located on 102 W Hall Street in Savannah, GA.

An Introduction

Hello, and welcome to my blog! My name is Amy, and this is Southern Hauntings!
What sets me apart from most of the other ghosts enthusiasts that I know is that I cannot remember what triggered my love for the paranormal. I have been a HUGE believer for as long as I can remember, never once doubting the existence of ghosts. I do not say this to sound smug or to tell you that "my belief is stronger than yours"; it is merely a fact about myself that has led me to ask a lot of questions that I have yet to answer.
Here's a little secret about myself...I lived by a mantra that I followed very, very closely when I was about two years old...it was a very strong belief for me that I never once considered to be anything but truth: "Ghosts can save ya."
I repeated it to my parents time after time, and whenever they asked me "What do you mean?", I had no answer. Of course I didn't! I was just a toddler, who had latched on vehemently to an idea. I have no idea why I thought that, but since that time, I have felt unusually calm in the presence of spirits...actually, "calm" isn't even the accurate word. I feel safe in haunted locations.
Originating from Northern Virginia and living in Georgia, I have lived in the South for my whole life. For those reasons, I have a strong respect for history, and a genuine love for olden times. The South, as you may or may not know, has a very strong, cultural connection to the spirit realm. I grew up around a city that clung to its haunted reputation like a safety blanket.
Ok, fine, I'll drop the name of my hometown, just so you'll see where I'm comin' from: Savannah, Georgia!
I LOVED growing up in Savannah. I loved the live oak coverage, the antebellum manors, and the slower life that the south is so famous more. I grew up living a fairly charmed, southern life, sitting on the porch with my family drinking lemonade (and then beer, as I got older), thinking about how one day, I would move to a bigger city. Savannah is so unique because it has remained true to the culture that colored it so vividly, and yet, the small city remains in motion with the current times everyday, sometimes a few steps back, but even more often, several forward. It's my town.
As beautiful of a place as I painted it, it has a very dark side, too. Having worked as a ghost tour guide in the historic downtown district, I've gotten a first hand experience at just how terrifying this Southern Belle can be.
Savannah is a city rooted a past of fires, murders, illness and poverty. I spent my childhood diving head-long into it's fascinating past, and the stories I will bring to you will show you exactly what I'm talking about...
More to come, but for now, I am moving in two days, and need to get some shut eye. Sweet dreams ;)

~Southern Hauntings