Haunted Eastern Shore: Ghostly Tales from East of the Chesapeake

by Arcadia Publishing

Overview

Restless spirits walk beside the murky waters of the Chesapeake Bay, linger among the fetid swamps and roam the manor halls.

These are the tormented souls who refuse to leave the sites of their demise. From pitiless smugglers to reluctant brides, the ghostly figures of the Eastern Shore are at once terrifying and tragic. Mindie Burgoyne takes readers on a spine-tingling journey as she recounts the grisly events at the Cosden Murder Farm and the infamous legend of Patty Cannon. Tread the foggy lanes of Kent Manor Inn and linger among Revolutionary War dead to discover the otherworldly occupants of Maryland's most haunted shore.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781596297203
Publisher:	Arcadia Publishing SC
Publication date:	09/25/2009
Series:	Haunted America
Pages:	160
Sales rank:	1,003,706
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.37(d)

About the Author

Mindie Burgoyne is a travel writer, blogger, author, tour operator and speaker. Her tour company includes Chesapeake Ghost Walks, which features ten regional tours on Maryland's Eastern Shore. She is the author of "Haunted Eastern Shore: Ghostly Tales from East of the Chesapeake." Her articles and photographs have been featured in the Baltimore Sun, CBS News, Maryland Life Magazine and What's Up Eastern Shore, among others. Helen Chappell is a writer and columnist based on Maryland's Eastern Shore. She is the author of "The Oysterback Tales" and "Chesapeake Book of the Dead."

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

HOLLY HALL

Elkton, Cecil County

The northernmost county on the Eastern Shore is also the only one joined to Maryland's mainland. Cecil County has high ground, rolling hills and endless agricultural land clipped and cut by tidal water. Elkton, formerly known as Head of Elk, is the central town. Holly Hall figures prominently in its history.

James Sewell, the builder of Holly Hall, was the descendant of Charles Calvert, Third Lord Baltimore. Sewell's wife, Anne Marie Rudulph, inherited land near Elkton from her father. It was on some of this farmland that the Sewells built Holly Hall about 1810. Shortly after, the town of Elkton sprang up, and James Sewell became a prominent member of both the local community and the American colonies. He served as brigadier major of the Maryland Militia from 1805 to 1841 and commanded the Second Battalion at Fort Defiance in 1813, preventing the British from reaching Elkton. Additionally, he served as clerk of the court in Elkton and was one of the founders of the Trinity Episcopal Church (1832).

We know that Mr. James Sewell was a member of the Whig party and that he entertained many visitors at Holly Hall, some of whom were quite prominent in political circles. Holly Hall became a symbol of the elite class in the Upper Shore region. It was considered a mansion in its day, designed in the Federal style with many extras and set amid beautifully landscaped gardens dotted with holly trees. It was the holly trees that compelled the owners to call the estate Holly Hall. Some of those holly trees and some of the old boxwoods still stand today in the shadow of the now vacant and derelict Holly Hall.

Everyone with whom I spoke in Elkton who knew about Holly Hall knew that it was haunted. The stories vary, but most refer to Mr. Sewell rejecting his son because of political differences and that same son cursing his father and the house with his dying breath. James Sewell built a brick burial vault into a slope west of Holly Hall some years after the house was finished. It had an iron door and a stone inscribed with "James A. Sewell's Family Vault — 1838." Mr. Sewell died in 1842.

The following is an account of the haunting of Holly Hall as told by Mrs. Ralph Gray Davis to a Salisbury University folklore student on March 13, 1974:

In Elkton, the quiet little capital of Cecil County, there's an old family residence, now unattended ... called Holly Hall, once the home of several of the most prominent families of the country but now fast ... fast falling into decay. Now this was in a Baltimore newspaper dated 1894, so that's 79 years ago. The old house which still retains evidence of former grandeur, a stately appearance, is the subject of a peculiar superstition and many tales are told of the curious chains of happenings which gave rise to the belief in the unnatural influences supposed to hang over the mansion and those who lived in it.

Holly Hall was built about a quarter of a mile from the village that is now Elkton. It was built on big Elk Creek. The builder could not have selected a more gloomy site for a dwelling — in front of a dense wood (which you don't see now ... it's all gone) that gradually sloped down to the marsh that edged the creek and shut out all of the view of the house on the water side. On the side towards the village, a bleak and barren area of marshland, inexpressibly dreary, stretched to the margin of the creek that separated it from the Head of Elk. The house was built on a slight rise of ground. At the back door, the ground descended suddenly into a dense, tangled swamp whose sinking vegetation concealed the hidden pools and treacherous mud upon which even a dog was afraid to walk. The only approach to the dwelling was over a narrow road which in a roundabout way made the village accessible by connecting with the country road which crossed the creek to the north east of Head of Elk.

The Sewell family was the first to live at Holly Hall, and there were rumors of stormy scenes between the father and a son — for there was at least one son and one daughter in the family. During a grave disagreement the father told his son that he (the son) should never enter the doors of Holly Hall again saying, "even if you die, your body shall not lay in a room of this house." The sister pleaded in vain for her father to recant, but he would not and the son left Holly Hall forever. The father then pronounced, "He is no longer my son ... not even a picture shall remain to gloom the walls of my house." There were several pictures of the young fellow in the house and with his own hands, the father destroyed them all. But the daughter concealed one picture from him. It was a portrait of her brother when he was at school at William and Mary College in Virginia. The young fellow had dressed himself in a military costume, much affected by young gallants in those days. His head was covered with a three corner hat, from which hung a sweeping ostrich plume. His shoulders were covered with a long Spanish cape descending to the waist and looped at the side to give a glimpse of a handle of a handsome sword and knee breeches, long shoes with toes turned up completed the rather fanciful costume.

This portrait, the loving sister concealed in the garret — a spot to which her father's aged stiffened limbs seldom attempted to climb. There the girl, faithful to the memory of her playmate and brother would go and gain many a stolen glance at the portrait. Through a fence, she received an occasional letter from the absent one. At last, a longer interval than usual elapsed between these communications. The sister grew alarmed and wrote along to an officer of her acquaintance in the company in the Continental Army. The answer almost set her wild with grief. Her brother was alive but in a hospital in Philadelphia, suffering from severe wounds and quick consumption which he had contracted from the awful exposure of the winter camp. Saying she was going to visit a friend in Philadelphia, the girl gained her father's consent and hurried to her brother's bedside. She found him wounded and helpless. His accommodations were meager as the suffering company could afford no better. The sister was determined to take her brother home, and was counting on forgiveness of her father when he saw the weak and shattered wreck of a young man — his son. She did not write to her father, afraid he would not understand the importance of the case. A carriage was hired and the son was placed on it and the homeward trip began and lasted five days. The carriage entered the gloomy drive of Holly Hall and stopped at the front door. Two servants tenderly lifted the almost unconscious youth from the vehicle.

No sooner had the carriage stopped than the door was opened by the father. The unusual sound of wheels on the drive had brought him out to see who the invaders of his property were. A flood of light streamed from the open door to light the steps up from which the wounded boy was carried. His father recognized him and before an explanation was spoken he broke out in a torrent of curses. "Oh, father he's dying!" implored the distressed sister. "Let him die on the road, for I swore he should never gain entry into my house — living or dead" was the only reply she received. Knowing that it was useless to parlay with her father, the girl had her brother put back in the carriage and started back towards the house. He died the next morning with a curse upon his lips against the house which had refused him asylum.

After his death, strange stories were told about the house and its occupants. The young lady never left her room, the servants said. Her father grew more morose each day. One of his peculiar fantasies was the building of a vault that was not a stone's throw from the mansion. It was right across the road where a small hill was dug out. In the vault built of stone and cement, the earth was filled in again and the gloomy place was ready for its solemn departures. The first to find place in it was the old gentleman. Shortly afterwards his daughter followed. The mansion was unoccupied for many years. Then one of the most prominent families in the country — the Barrols — moved into it. While they lived there, their family affairs were the talk of the neighborhood. They quarreled among themselves — husband with wife, sister with brother. They were wealthy.

By unfortunate speculation, they lost their horses and their cattle wasted with a mysterious disease. The place is cursed they said. "We will leave." Before they did, two of the family slept in the vault. Well the key and right to the vault went with the house and land. When they did leave, the family was completely wrecked and torn with quarrels. The house was again left to rats and owls for eight or ten years. Another family moved in — a husband, wife, and two children. The wife, a brilliant, beautiful woman was fond of gaiety and social life and the house was filled with young people. One day, the servant was sent up to the garret. Hardly had she been absent a minute before a terrific scream resounded through the house. Several young men rushed up the stairs and found the girl unconscious at the foot of the garret steps. When she recovered, she told them that as she reached the head of the stairs, she met a young man dressed in a three-cornered hat, knee pants, buckled shoes with a long cape muffled around his face. Thinking it was one of the merry young men masquerading, she stepped aside to let him pass. He stepped up to her and with a gesture, let fall the cape from his face. It was the face of a dead man, drawn and white. She screamed and fell to the floor.

The garret was ransacked. Covered over with some loose boards, they found the portrait of the young officer. It had lain there many years. Strange to say, it had been undisturbed by rats or mice. It was placed against the wall and left in the garret and the searchers returned downstairs, impressed with the affair.

Another night, the young lady walking alone in the shrubbery screamed and rushed into the house. She said she had met the counterpart of the portrait and had seen his ghostly face. These tales grew so frequent that it was hard to find servants willing to work for the family. Then the master and mistress of the house fought over the attention of a young man and the latter. The affair reached its climax when the two men met on the staircase. The husband cowhided the other. The combat aroused by the occurrence caused the family to leave the county and the house was left vacant again after being occupied for five years.

It was rented again as a laborers boarding house by a man named Levit. Then the ghost stories began again. Men boarding at the house swore they met the spirit about the house and grounds. He was always dressed the same ... always uncovered his face with the same gesture described before. At nights, sobs and groans issued from the vault and the iron door was sounded as though struck heavy blows from the inside. Reports grew so frequent that the noises coming from the vault were investigated. The vault was opened for the first time in ten years. The coffins were found in an excellent preservation but frequent high tides from the river had entered the vault and floated the caskets from their original resting places. The caskets were rearranged and the door locked. Shortly afterwards it was again opened to receive the body of a descendant of the original owners. The ghost of the portrait made its appearance so frequent that no boarders would stay in the house. The people running it lost money and it was left vacant again.

The Jeffers moved in and the curse that had rested on the place increased malignant. The family consisted of husband, wife, and the husband's sister. A girl about eighteen years old, standing on the porch watching a thunderstorm that had seemingly passed over was killed by a bolt of lightning — a bolt of lightning in a perfectly clear sky. Two months afterwards, horses were killed of the same destroyer while huddled together in a field during a storm. The entire family and several friends almost died from the effects of drinking milk from their own cows, which contained some mysterious poison that an analysis could not discover.

Sickness played a heavy hand on the entire family and at last — dislocated and broken — they left the place. Through all this, the portrait stood undisturbed in the garret. No one felt that they had a right to destroy it. The house is vacant at present and if it was to be rented free, no one would live in it. The vicinity is shunned by everyone. The high tides enter the vault and the coffins float about in the water. The boxwood around the mansion have grown large and ragged. They were once the finest boxwood around this part of the country. The gray exterior of the house adds to the air of general desolation, and like a dark cast, seems to hover over the entire place. The house is tended by no living creature save bats and owls. Yet there is one other tenant — the portrait in the garret — fast fading with age. It holds sway over the echoing rooms.

The property was lately sold at auction and was purchased by Colonel William Singerly, proprietor of the Record. It is not likely that its present owner will ever live in the old mansion. The house and its grounds are too gloomy for the Philadelphian, who would rather spend the night in his pretty Queen Anne's cottage in the town than in the bleak house whose floors resound to feet that make no imprint ... imprint in the dirt that covers them and whose halls are ever silent save for the noise of rats crawling in the plaster, scampering away from the unreal figure that descends from the haunted portrait.

Additional accounts of the haunting of Holly Hall address the sister of the young man in the portrait who cursed the house with his dying breath due to his father's rejection. It is told that the young woman never forgave her father and retired to an upper room in the house, refusing to speak to anyone, so consumed was she by grief. Her only companion and friend was her little dog, which stayed with her faithfully. The young girl's father died and was buried in the vault on the property. Shortly after, she herself collapsed, slipped into a coma and died. She was buried in the vault with her father. The night after the burial, servants saw the little dog yapping and barking outside the vault and trying to dig. The dog was inconsolable and would not leave the vault or stop his erratic behavior. The next morning, the servants found the dog exhausted, lying on his side by the vault with his little paws raw and bleeding from digging so hard. Curious, the caretaker had the vault opened, and inside they found the body of the young woman, who evidently had not been dead when placed in her coffin and sealed in the vault. She had climbed out of the coffin and was found dead at the vault door, with her fingernails scraped off from trying to dig herself out. There are both verbal and written accounts of people seeing the young girl with her dog roaming the grounds of Holly Hall on moonlit nights.

Whether these accounts are true, partially true or untrue, Holly Hall has been known to the locals in the Elkton area as a haunted property for over one hundred years. There are verbal accounts given as recently as two years ago of phantom images appearing on the lawn in the evening, mysterious crying sounds coming from the property and images appearing in the upstairs windows. Haunted or not, the place is a site where many mysterious happenings have been witnessed over the years.

Today, Holly Hall still stands derelict, abandoned to the forces of nature and the encroachment of modern times. Vandals have broken almost every pane of exposed glass. There is a huge padlock on the front door similar to ones seen on old jail cell doors. Most of the windows are boarded up with plywood. The sprawl of development, with strip malls, concrete and asphalt, intrudes on the once peaceful home that stood on the undeveloped fringes of a small Maryland village. Noise from traffic where two busy state highways intersect overlays the already crowded surroundings of present-day Holly Hall. The entry to its once regal, tree-lined drive is flanked by a shopping center marquee listing offices and stores and a commercial "Space for Lease or Rent" sign. It looks as though the house was carved up into apartments, evidenced by several electric meters attached to the rear façade. The boxwoods are overgrown but are still present at the edge of the property. I noticed an overcoat, hat and several food rations stashed under the boxwoods when I visited Holly Hall while researching this book. It seemed as if someone was living there.

There is one constant on the property besides the house itself: the trees that loom over the front and rear lawns. Even some holly trees from whence the property took its name still stand after several hundred years, stately and unmoved by their encroaching surroundings. It is comforting to recall that these trees were here when Holly Hall was built and when Mr. Sewell allegedly rejected his son. They were here when the forlorn sister tried to claw her way out of her tomb. They were present when all of the subsequent families who lived here bore the burden of living in a house alleged to be cursed. They are the silent witnesses of Holly Hall's seen and unseen past.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Haunted Eastern Shore"
by .
Copyright © 2009 Mindie Burgoyne.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
Holly Hall,
Old Bohemia Church,
Mitchell House,
Cosden Murder Farm,
White House Farm,
St. Paul's Cemetery and the Ghost of Tallulah Bankhead,
Kitty Knight House,
Kent Manor Inn,
Bloomingdale,
The Tale of Wish Sheppard,
The Murder of Sallie Dean,
Athol — Child's Ghost in Henderson,
Willson's Chance and the Ghost of Annie Belle Carter,
The Lost City of Dover,
Whitemarsh Cemetery,
The Wilderness,
The Tunis Mills Hanging Tree,
Shoal Creek Manor,
Suicide Bridge,
Patty Cannon's Trail of Tears,
Green Briar Swamp and Big Lizz,
Tales from Down Below,
The Ghost Light Road,
The Cellar House,
The Ghost of the Snow Hill Inn,
Ananias Crockett's House,
Holland's Island — A Ghost Island,
Afterword: Living in the Vance Miles House,
Selected Bibliography,
About the Author,