Jack's Review: Haunted History: New York has a slightly different feel to it; with the story of a haunted 20th century ship and accounts from people who actually lived in these haunted places, it has a bit more of a modern touch, somehow, than its brethren. (That might just be my feeling, and you're welcome to disagree.) However, as the true stories in New York involve such historically important events as the Revolutionary War and World War II, not to mention a small-scale eighteenth century exercise in Manifest Destiny, it is a welcome addition to the series.
Merchant's house, 29 East Fourth Street
This 19th century five-story brownstone was the home of Gertrude Tredwell, who was born in 1860. When she was in her twenties, she met and fell in love with a medical student named Lewis Walton, a Catholic. Her father, a strict Anglican, forbade them to marry, and, despondent, Gertrude never moved from the house, living there--and dying there--when she was ninety-three. Now, the house is a museum, and visitors have reported seeing a figure "gliding" across floors and up the stairs, and photographs taken in the house sometimes take on strange affects. Guests have also claimed to hear sighs and moans, and, most notably, the sound of a piano--an instrument Gertrude was fond of playing in life.
USS The Sullivans, Buffalo and Erie County Naval Park
In World War II, the five Sullivan brothers, who, believing nothing bad could happen to them as long as they were together, enlisted in the US Navy on one condition--that they serve on the same ship. The Navy went against policy and agreed, placing all five brothers on the USS Juneau. Tragically, on Friday, November 13, 1942, the Juneau was sunk by a Japanese submarine. Four of the brothers died; only the endest, George, survived the attack. He spent days going from liferaft to liferaft, searching for the brothers he didn't want to believe had died, as around him, the survivors of the Juneau were, one by one, eaten by sharks, the victims of a country which had chosen not to rescue them. Days after the attack, George Sullivan attempted to swim for a distant island--and was eaten by a shark.
After the country reacted in horror, a ship was named for the brothers. The first in the US Navy to have the word "the" in its name, the USS The Sullivans served with distinction for more than twenty years, finally being decommissioned in the sixties. Interestingly, no one in The Sullivans crew was ever killed in duty while on the ship. Now part of the Buffalo and Erie County Naval Park, The Sullivans is the site of much ghostly activity. Poltergeists leave locks undone, throw items, and restart radar that isn't under electrical power. A phantom bloodied face that once appeared after-hours caused a worker to quit his job. And, perhaps most interestingly, when photographs are taken of the picture gallery in which hang the portraits of the five Sullivan brothers, all come out clearly--except the picture of George, the one who couldn't die with his brothers.
Beardslee Castle, Mohawk Valley
Now a restaurant, Beardslee Castle (also known as Beardslee Manor) was built in the 1780s by John Beardslee. His grandson, Guy Beardslee, a collector of memorabilia including sacred Native American artifacts, added electricity to the castle in the early twentieth century, making the property the "first rural electrification." 1919 saw all of Guy Beardslee's belongings burn in a fire, an event some blame on his disrespect for Native American beliefs.
Beardslee Castle was opened as a restaurant in the 1940s by a couple named the Christensens. In the mid-fifties, Mr. Christensen apparently hanged himself, and the haunting began not long after that. From the 1950s through the 1970s, there were six or seven car accidents nearby. That would not be unusual were it not for a common story some of the people tell--they claim to have run off the road avoiding a child carrying a lantern. Glassware and table settings would change positions on their own, strange sounds would ring through the rooms, and the shadow of a man would appear on walls. In the 1980s, people using a Ouiji Board in the castle were met with the message "leave," and one of them was hit by an invisible force. Other visitors to the castle have heard horrible growls and screams and have felt an unknown force pursuing them. In 1989, Beardslee castle was gutted by fire, but it was rebought in 1992 and made into a restaurant, a purpose it still maintains.
Billup House, Staten Island
Billup House, which was built in 1680, has a long history--it was the site of the 1776 Staten Island Peace Conference--and a long history of hauntings. A child who used to live there often talked at night to a ghostly soldier and was able to describe the apparition in greatly accurate detail. A female ghost has also been seen signalling by a window, creating a cold spot. She is thought to be a servant of Christopher Billup, a British man who, convinced the girl was helping the Colonial soldiers in a plot to kidnap him, killed her and left the country. In 1895, many years after Billup left the house, it was abandoned, not to be reopened until 1937. In the 1970s, Vincent and Maureen Malone lived in the house. They report experiencing poltergeist activity, seeing lights flashing items moving around. Most disturbingly to the couple, a sourceless cool breeze once ran through Maureen Malone's hair, an experience that left her feeling violated.
Ramapo Valley
One night, shy Jimmy and his friend, the outgoing Jackie, are going stag to their prom. They spot a well-dressed girl on the side of the road and decide to pick her up. She accepts their ride, and the first thing they notice about her is that she is cold, very cold. When they ask her name, she responds, "Lavender." Jimmy and Lavender dance all night at the prom and have a wonderful time. On the way home, Jimmy offers Lavender his jacket, which she accepts. She then asks Jimmy and Jackie to drop her off not at her house but at the bridge where they had first seen her.
The next day, Jimmy realizes that the mysterious girl still has his coat, so he and Jackie drive to the section of town where she said she lived. They ask around and finally locate what they think is her house. Their knocks on the door are answered not by Lavender, but by an older woman. She listens to their story, then shows them a picture inside the house--a portrait of Lavender. When asked who Lavender is, the woman responds that she was her daughter--and that she had been killed by a truck years before. The only place Lavender could now be found is in a nearby cemetery. The two boys travel to the cemetery . . . only to find Jimmy's jacket hanging over Lavender's tombstone.
The urban legend of the ghostly hitchhiker is by no means a new one. This particular permutation--a man picks up a mysterious woman and takes her to a dance, only to find out later that she was a spirit--is a common one, found perhaps most notably in tales of Chicago's Resurrection Mary. (See Unsolved Mysteries: The Unexplained for more information.)
