The Silver Path

Continuing the series of Ghost Stories in St. Augustine.

My freshman year we experienced several ghostly encounters in the dorms. There were many nights where we were plagued with the sounds doors opening and closing at random which might not be unexpected in a dorm room where people are coming and going at all times of the night but these were doors banging quickly when all the doors in the dorm were hampered by plush carpet and really hard to open and shut.

Besides that there was an instance where in our room with no air conditioning and a stuck window I went to open the door to dash in and get a course book I had forgotten before heading down to lunch when there was an emphatic NO from inside the room and the door slammed shut in my face and locked. Both my room mates were downstairs at the cafeteria waiting for me!

We also had an instance where the door locks refused to open. We had two doors in our room and our room mate was on the other side having forgotten her key and my other room mate and myself were trying to open the doors for her but both of them had shut and stuck.

The elevators were another story. There were many jokes about the west elevator and it’s mysterious tendency to go to the Forbidden Fourth Floor, however I never experienced that. We did hear that our Dorm Mother had at one time been using the west elevator when she turned and saw a woman dressed in blue Edwardian style clothing in the empty elevator and that was why it was shut off at night so no one could ride it.

The east elevator, the one that we primarily used, was also only able to be set off by a key. It would not come down to the ground floor unless the key was used or someone was inside it. There were many times that it would open at the ground floor without being called and a lot of our dorm mates reported hearing a “there you go” in a male voice when the doors opened. This ghost, who it was collectively decided, was a former hotel worker was especially handy on days you’d forgotten your keys.

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This may well be a series of personal anecdotes from the three and a half years that I lived in St. Augustine which is widely heralded as one of the most haunted cities in the States. My various roommates and I had several ghostly encounters over the years we were there, including a haunted table and a mysterious smoking man. It’s easiest just to start from the top of the weirdness and begin with my Freshman year.

It’s a bit of a hazing tradition to hear about the creepy things which happened at your school. I know my first week at high school (in the U.K.) several helpful fifth years told us that there was a ouija board in the upstairs toilets, a student who was walled up into the drama room and a spirit in the bell tower above the assembly hall who had hung herself over her O-Level results. All very tragic tall tales. Probably.

Anyway, this meant it wasn’t surprising to hear various stories of terror surrounding Flagler College. There are quite a few rumors that Henry Flagler built the college in certain ways because he was into black magic and also that one of his wives believed she was talking to the Tsar of Russia through a ouija board and thus stabbed her husband in the leg with scissors. There are tales of the fourth floor ballroom being so haunted by dancing guests that they cannot use it for the students, and that on certain nights the elevator will mysteriously take people up to the fourth floor where they are overrun by the ghosts. Then there’s the story that Flagler kept one of his wives locked up in the Mirror Room at the front of the third floor (where the girl’s dormitories are) surrounded by, not surprisingly, mirrors, and that she went mad and killed herself either by jumping out of the window or by cutting her wrists and/or neck with one of the broken mirrors.

Adding credence to this tale is the fact that the Mirror Room was not used as a dormitory while we were there. As Freshmen we were told the Mirror Room was storage, so naturally, my room mates and I had to go check it out. We sat outside the room trying various ways to peek in and see what was in there and given that area of the corridor was ten times cooler than the rest of the, at that time, non air conditioned dorm we would gather around there and read tarot to each other and chat. We discovered that there was nothing spectacular about the room but that there was also nothing in it.

However, sadly we didn’t have any ghostly encounters either. I never did experience anything at the Mirror Room in all my three years — on the Mezzanine, however.

When you come into Flagler College from the main entrance you are faced with a double stair case which goes up and then curves around the entry way. If you only go up that first flight of stairs you go straight into what is now the dining hall. If you follow the stairs around to the first floor they take you up to a large landing where there is a television and chairs flanked by two fire places. This is the Mezzanine.

During one of those college nights where you stay up the entire time studying I was up on the Mezzanine with my friends whom I’ll call M & G. We were on the Mezz because M was helping us study and guys are not allowed into the girls dorms and there was too much football crowd noise in the open halls in the guys’ dorm lounges. By this point there was no one else in the Mezz and the fourth time G fell asleep M left her to it and we sat for a while talking about random things. I kept feeling like someone was watching me from behind to the point that I moved to the other side of M so I could face that side of the landing but all that was over there was an empty fireplace with a shield over the top of it.

“What is going on?” M asked me.
“There’s someone watching me. Don’t you feel it?”
He shook his head, “No. People always seem to feel freaky (stuff) going on around me but I never see it. Tell me what you’re feeling.”
“Like there’s someone watching me from over there.” I pointed.
“P always says if he half closes his eyes some times he can sorta see the ghosts.”
Me being me I tried it. I didn’t see anything but I suddenly felt like I wanted to burst into tears. I opened myself to it the way I do when I’m reading the tarot and then it became clearer. I told M about the woman she was horribly upset because she couldn’t find her child and she was going to keep waiting for him because he was supposed to be up there but she couldn’t find him.
I return my focus to M and find him staring at me like I have two heads. There’s about five minutes of back and forth where he accuses me of winding him up and goes on about campus urban legends.

Eventually I find out that there’s a story which goes around the girls’ dorms of a little boy who fell off the Mezz during the time the college was a hotel and how he’ll go into the girls’ dorms and move things around and how some of them but little toy cars and things out for him. The story is that the mother was not paying attention as he was playing up there and his ball fell down through the Mezz railings and he went right over after it.

The impression of the lady is one of the tamer experiences that I had while living in St. Augustine but it’s also the first so I hoped it would be a good place to start.

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In honor of the season of Halloween I thought I would start the ball rolling on some ghost stories. Hopefully we’ll have one or two a week. If you have any favorite spooky stories do tell them!

Owd Nance is one of my favorites ghost stories from my childhood. However it is a bit dark and gory as you might imagine from the title. It’s greatly paraphrased from what I remember reading in a book at least ten years ago. Still you have been warned!

The story takes place in Yorkshire, England. Ann, called Nance, was one of three sisters who built Burton Agnes Hall. Anne had taken great pride in the building of their home, consulting with many architects and builders and loving every moment of the construction.

One day when she was walking home from visiting some friends in Harpham, she found tramps sitting by a well on the side of the road. She was nervous to approach them but she had her dog with her so felt it would be okay. The asked her for some money and she took out her purse to give them a few coins. As she did so they saw a ring she was wearing and demanded that as well. The ring, while cheap, was a keepsake from her mother so she refused which prompted them to take it by force.

The dog tried to help but the tramps drove it away by hitting it with a stick. When Anne screamed for help they beat her with the stick as well; but her screams had attracted the attention of villagers who came to her aid driving the tramps away. Anne was unconscious and bleeding from the large wound in her head. The villagers carefully carried her to her home, which she loved greatly, where she was put to bed.

Unfortunately Anne’s condition deteriorated despite the care of her sisters and them bringing in many brilliant doctors. Anne spoke often to her family about their beautiful house and the pride she had in it. Realizing she was dying she called her sisters to her bedside once more and told them, “I will not sleep peacefully in my grave unless I, or part of me, remains in our beautiful home. Promise me that when I am dead my head shall be taken from my body and kept within these walls. It must remain here. Make known to those who own the house in the future that if they disobey this request my spirit shall make such a disturbance that the house will be uninhabitable as long as my head is kept from its home.” Her sisters were terrified by her request but she was most insistent. To calm her they agreed to do as she asked but decided that she was feverish and sick and didn’t know what she was asking. When she died they buried her at a nearby church and mourned her. She had been the most cheerful of them and they missed her desperately.

A week to the day after her death they were going to bed when they heard a loud crash from an upstairs room. They rushed to the stairs and were joined shortly by the servants who had also heard the noise. The sisters ordered the servants to go upstairs and find out what had caused the noise. They found nothing out of place. The disgruntled group went back to bed.

A week later in the dead of night they were again woken by strange noises. Sounds of doors being slammed shut in every part of the building. Keeping together sisters and servants searched the entire house but every door was shut fast. Crashes and banging echoed around them from whatever part of the house they were not in. Just as suddenly the noise stopped but they huddled together exhausted and afraid until finally one of the servants said:

“It seems finished.”
“Do you think?” asked one of the sisters, “That it’s really done?”
“Last time it stopped it didn’t start again.”

Still they listened a while longer. The house stood silent and they slowly returned to their beds to lie sleepless until morning.

Next week like clockwork the household had their sleep shattered. Noises of people running up and down the corridors and stairs. The house shaking and thundering with the noises until they suddenly stopped and a spine-chilling groan echoed down the halls. More running and stomping. Silence. Another groan. Again and again this went on. This time however everyone stayed terrified in their rooms as the noises went on and on past midnight. The next day the servants packed up their things and left. The sisters tried to persuade them to stay but they refused to stay in a house tormented by such ghosts.

“There has to be a simpler explanation.” The sisters insisted.
“What else could it be but a tortured soul?” The servants replied and walked out.

The sisters, at wits end, called the vicar to visit them. They told him everything that had happened. During the course of the visit one of them remembered the promise they had made to Anne as she lay dying and made another horrifying connection. That the disturbances were occurring on the weekly anniversary of her death. The sisters and the vicar tried for many hours to wrap their head around the idea that Anne’s spirit was indeed making the house uninhabitable and to come up with some way to satisfy her wish if that was the case. In the end the vicar suggested that they do the unthinkable and open her grave. Reluctantly the sisters agreed.

The next day they met with the vicar and a gravedigger to open the coffin. When they reached the lid and opened it they were met with a ghastly sight. While the majority of Anne’s body lay there putrefying her head was severed from its body and the flesh and skin had all rotted away leaving just her skull. This was enough for them and as horrific as Anne’s wish seemed she got her way and her skull was brought home. All the while it was there the house had peace free from ghostly interference and so it stayed.

Every once in a while someone would try to get rid of the skull but always the knockings, door slamming, clatter of footsteps and blood curdling groans would return and it was hastily brought back.

There was one story of a maid throwing the skull from the window it a passing manure cart. The horses stopped stock still and refused to move despite their driver whipping them and shouting. The maid confessed what she had done and had to climb into the cart to retrieve the skull and bring it back inside. Then the horses continued on their way.

The skull remained at the house until the sisters passed, and it is said any time one of the new residents tries to remove “the hideous thing” from the house the commotion starts up all over again.

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