Category: Paranormal Reader Stories

Status: Unverified — the ghost stories were promoted for tourism, and a scholar argues they reflect real violence against enslaved people.

The Myrtles Plantation was built in 1796 by General David Bradford. It was worked by enslaved people, and the house has changed hands many times since. It has been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1978 and now operates as an inn with tours.

The house was already called “haunted” in a 1948 book of Mississippi ghost stories, and a 1960 Louisiana state publication said it was reputed to have at least one ghost. It later became heavily promoted as “one of America's most haunted houses.” The best-known tales, about women called Chloe and Cleo, are mostly told from the point of view of the owners. The scholar Tiya Miles has written that these stories are really about violence against Black women.

That is worth keeping in mind. The ghost stories are folklore built on a real history of slavery, and the historical record behind them is thin.

Sources: Wikipedia: The Myrtles Plantation

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Status: Unverified — centuries of stories, with the earliest named witnesses from the 1810s; none is backed by independent evidence.

The Tower of London has been a fortress, palace and prison since it was founded after the Norman Conquest in 1066. Among those held and executed there was Anne Boleyn, beheaded in 1536, and the “Princes in the Tower” disappeared there in the 1480s.

The Tower has a long list of reported ghosts. Anne Boleyn is said to haunt the Church of St Peter ad Vincula, where she is buried. In January 1816 a sentry outside the Jewel House said he saw a bear-like apparition and reportedly died of fright days later. In October 1817 the Keeper of the Crown Jewels, Edmund Lenthal Swifte, claimed to see a glowing tube-shaped shape floating over his wife's shoulder.

These are some of the earliest named ghost reports in this collection, but they are accounts people gave, not tested evidence. The Tower is a working heritage site run by Historic Royal Palaces.

Sources: Wikipedia: Tower of London

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Status: Unverified — a folklore legend whose main written source dates from 1894; some skeptics treat that book as fiction.

About the pin: Pinned near Adams; the farm and cave locations are not marked.

The Bell Witch is a legend from northwest Robertson County, Tennessee. It says that from 1817 to 1821 the family of farmer John Bell Sr., near the present town of Adams, was attacked by a mostly invisible entity that could speak and affect objects around the farm.

The main written source is Martin V. Ingram's 1894 Authenticated History of the Bell Witch. In it the spirit called itself “Kate” and focused on John Bell and his daughter Betsy. Some skeptics see Ingram's book as historical fiction or fraud, while others view it as a record of what people in the region believed in the 1800s. Some accounts say Andrew Jackson was intrigued by the story, but that detail is part of the legend.

The Bell Witch Cave became a tourist attraction in the 20th century, and the story has inspired books, films and music. It is a legend: much-loved, widely told, and not independently documented.

Sources: Wikipedia: Bell Witch

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Status: Unverified — stories from visitors and staff; no evidence beyond personal accounts.

Eastern State Penitentiary opened on October 25, 1829. Designed by John Haviland, it is often called the world's first true penitentiary: a wheel of corridors where each prisoner lived in near-total isolation. It was the largest and most expensive public building in the United States when it was finished.

Famous inmates included Al Capone, who served time in 1929, and bank robber Willie Sutton. The prison ended its isolation system in 1913, closed in 1970, and briefly held city inmates in 1971. Today it is a National Historic Landmark and a museum.

Visitors and staff have long said they see shadowy figures, hear footsteps and whispers, or feel watched in the cellblocks, and the site has become a popular place for ghost hunters and Halloween events. These are personal reports, not recorded evidence.

Sources: Wikipedia: Eastern State Penitentiary · Eastern State Penitentiary Historic Site

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Status: Unverified — stories passed down in memoirs and retellings; none has been documented by independent evidence.

The Lincoln Bedroom is part of a guest suite in the southeast corner of the White House's second floor. The rooms are named for President Abraham Lincoln, who used them as his office. During the Civil War his wife Mary Todd Lincoln, grieving the death of their son Willie, was reported to have held seances in the White House.

Over the years, visitors and staff have told stories of seeing or sensing Lincoln in the house. Famous names are attached to these stories in popular accounts, including a queen of the Netherlands and a British prime minister, but the retellings vary and the original sources are hard to pin down.

The White House Historical Association has plenty of history about the rooms. The ghost stories are an old Washington tradition, but they are tradition rather than evidence.

Sources: Wikipedia: Lincoln Bedroom · White House Historical Association

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