Haunted American History

Deep in the Appalachian Mountains, families once believed that death could announce itself long before it arrived.

A bird flying into the house. Three mysterious knocks at the door. A dog howling through the night.

And sometimes, hidden inside the feather pillow of a dying person, a tightly woven ring of feathers known as a death crown.

For generations, the people of Appalachia passed down stories of witches, restless spirits, supernatural warnings, and strange rituals meant to protect their homes and families.

Tonight, we're exploring the dark folklore of the Appalachian Mountains.

From the Scots-Irish settlers who carried centuries-old superstitions into the American backcountry to the witch doctors who supposedly broke curses with silver bullets, we'll uncover the beliefs that shaped everyday life in the mountains.

We'll also investigate the Greenbrier Ghost, the remarkable case of a murdered woman whose alleged return from the dead helped expose her killer, and examine the histories behind the Bell Witch, the mysterious Brown Mountain Lights, and the legendary Mothman of West Virginia.

Finally, we'll trace the connections between Appalachian folk traditions and the Halloween customs still practiced today, including fortune-telling games, carved lanterns, and a particularly unsettling ritual involving an apple, a candle, and a mirror.

Because in the mountains, the supernatural wasn't always something hiding deep in the woods.

Sometimes, it was waiting inside your own home.

Welcome to Day 29 of 31 Days of Halloween

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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

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In August 1872, the Chinese community of Los Angeles gathered on a street where, just ten months earlier, a violent mob had murdered approximately eighteen Chinese men and boys.

They weren't there to celebrate.

They were there to feed the dead.

According to traditional Chinese beliefs, those who die violently, far from home, or without proper burial can become restless spirits. Hungry ghosts who wander among the living, searching for food, comfort, and a way home.

And every year, during the seventh month of the Chinese lunar calendar, the gates of the underworld are believed to open.

Tonight, we're exploring the history and supernatural traditions of the Hungry Ghost Festival.

From the ancient Buddhist story of a monk attempting to save his starving mother to the elaborate offerings, ghostly performances, and unsettling superstitions surrounding Ghost Month, we'll discover how communities across Asia have welcomed the dead back into the world of the living.

We'll also investigate the legend of the Jiangshi, China's infamous hopping corpse, and the mysterious corpse drivers who supposedly transported the dead through mountain villages under cover of darkness.

Finally, we'll return to America's forgotten Chinese communities, where immigrant families exhumed their loved ones, carefully packed their bones, and sent them across the Pacific so they could finally rest at home.

Because in these traditions, the dead don't always return to frighten the living.

Sometimes, they're simply trying to find their way back.

Welcome to Day 28 of 31 Days of Halloween

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verbenergy.com/haunted

Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

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On July 10, 1706, a woman named Grace Sherwood was bound and thrown into the Lynnhaven River in colonial Virginia.

Her neighbors had accused her of witchcraft.

According to the beliefs of the time, an innocent woman would sink beneath the water. A witch would float, rejected by the same water used in Christian baptism.

Grace Sherwood floated.

And with that, she became the central figure in one of the strangest witchcraft cases in American colonial history.

Tonight, we're investigating the true story of Grace Sherwood, better known as the Witch of Pungo.

From accusations that she transformed into a black cat and tormented her neighbors to the invasive examinations ordered by colonial authorities, we'll follow the surviving court records through her extraordinary trial by water.

We'll also explore the legends that developed around her, including a voyage across the Atlantic in an eggshell, a mysterious disappearance after her death, and the ghostly light said to appear over the waters where she was thrown.

But behind those stories was a real woman who spent years defending herself against accusations that threatened her freedom, her livelihood, and her life.

More than three centuries later, Virginia finally acknowledged the injustice.

And according to local legend, Grace Sherwood still returns to the river.

Welcome to Day 27 of 31 Days of Halloween

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verbenergy.com/haunted

Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

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YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory

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In February 1855, mysterious hoof-shaped footprints appeared across the snow-covered countryside of Devon, England.

They stretched for miles, seemingly crossing rooftops, walls, and other obstacles no ordinary animal should have been able to navigate.

Terrified residents believed the Devil himself had walked through their villages.

But across the Atlantic, New England had its own stories about the Devil leaving his mark.

Tonight, we're exploring the strange history of the Devil's footprints and the supernatural legends that took root in colonial America.

From a Massachusetts preacher who supposedly threw Satan from a church steeple to wealthy men accused of selling their souls, we'll investigate the mysterious marks left in stone, the bargains that allegedly ended in damnation, and the places where the Devil was believed to walk among ordinary people.

We'll also uncover how English colonists transformed Indigenous spiritual traditions into stories about Satan, why the Puritans outlawed Christmas, and how New England's forgotten Pope Night celebrations shared surprising similarities with the Halloween traditions that followed.

Because in early New England, the Devil wasn't simply a figure from the Bible.

He was a stranger on a lonely road, a footprint in the rocks, a noise beneath the earth, and sometimes an explanation for things people didn't understand.

Welcome to Day 26 of 31 Days of Halloween

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verbenergy.com/haunted

Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

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YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory

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In the winter of 1879, a Cree hunter named Swift Runner returned from the Canadian wilderness without his family.

He claimed they had starved to death.

But when investigators followed him back into the forest, they discovered something far more disturbing.

Swift Runner had murdered and consumed members of his own family. He claimed an evil spirit had driven him to do it.

For generations, Indigenous communities across the northern forests and Great Lakes had told stories of a terrifying being associated with insatiable hunger, cannibalism, and the darkest months of winter.

They called it the Wendigo.

Tonight, we're investigating the history and folklore behind one of North America's most frightening supernatural legends.

From early accounts recorded by French missionaries to the horrifying crimes of Swift Runner, we'll explore the beliefs surrounding the Wendigo and the people accused of becoming one.

We'll also examine the remarkable story of Jack Fiddler, an Indigenous leader who claimed to have defeated fourteen Wendigos, the controversial history of so-called Wendigo psychosis, and how Hollywood transformed an ancient figure of hunger and greed into the antlered monster recognized today.

Because the original Wendigo wasn't simply something waiting in the wilderness.

It was something a person could become.

Welcome to Day 25 of 31 Days of Halloween

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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

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YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory

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In February 1927, William Fuld fell to his death from the roof of his factory in Baltimore.

Years earlier, Fuld claimed that a Ouija board had told him to build that very factory, promising him a future of enormous success.

It was a strange ending for the man who helped turn a simple talking board into one of America's most recognizable supernatural objects.

But the Ouija board wasn't originally designed to summon demons.

It was a business.

Tonight, we're tracing the history of the Ouija board from the rise of American Spiritualism and its mysterious naming in a Baltimore boarding house to the bitter family feuds, lawsuits, and tragedies surrounding the people who manufactured it.

We'll explore the mediums who claimed to channel entire books through the board, the real-life exorcism that helped inspire *The Exorcist*, the Hollywood movies that transformed a parlor game into an object of terror, and the strange modern legends surrounding demons like Zozo.

And we'll examine the science behind the moving pointer, including experiments suggesting that a Ouija board may reveal information buried in our own minds.

Because the most unsettling thing about the Ouija board might not be the possibility that something on the other side is answering.

It might be that the answers are coming from us.

Welcome to Day 24 of 31 Days of Halloween

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verbenergy.com/haunted

Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

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In the winter of 1590, an elderly Scottish healer named Agnes Sampson was brought before King James VI of Scotland.

She had been accused of witchcraft, tortured, and forced to describe an extraordinary gathering that supposedly took place on Halloween night.

According to her confession, hundreds of witches had sailed across the sea in sieves, gathered at a church in North Berwick, and met the Devil himself.

Their purpose was to bring about the death of the king.

James initially dismissed the accusations. But then Agnes whispered something into his ear, repeating words he had supposedly spoken privately to his new wife on their wedding night.

The king was astonished.

What followed was one of the most notorious witch hunts in Scottish history.

Tonight, we're investigating the North Berwick witch trials, the accusations against Agnes Sampson, Geillis Duncan, and John Fian, the brutal interrogations that produced their confessions, and the extraordinary Halloween gathering described in the surviving accounts.

We'll also examine how these trials influenced King James's beliefs about witchcraft, helped shape the imagery of witches in Shakespeare's *Macbeth*, and left behind a mystery that has endured for more than four hundred years.

Because while the alleged meeting with the Devil may never have happened, the people who died because of it were very real.

Welcome to Day 23 of 31 Days of Halloween

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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

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In 1967, the RMS Queen Mary arrived in Long Beach, California, after more than three decades crossing the Atlantic.

Not long afterward, a marine engineer working deep inside the ship claimed to hear the sounds of tearing metal, rushing water, and screaming men.

He would later connect those sounds to a terrible wartime disaster.

On October 2, 1942, the Queen Mary collided with HMS Curacoa, a British warship escorting her through dangerous waters. The massive ocean liner sliced through the smaller vessel, sending hundreds of sailors into the North Atlantic.

The Queen Mary never stopped.

Today, the ship is celebrated as one of America's most haunted attractions, with stories of drowned children, mysterious figures, haunted staterooms, and the ghost of a young crewman killed by a watertight door.

But how many of those stories are true?

Tonight, we're investigating the real history and alleged hauntings of the RMS Queen Mary, from her days as a luxury ocean liner and wartime troopship to the tragedies recorded in her logs, the paranormal investigators who helped build her reputation, and the Halloween attractions that turned her ghost stories into an industry.

Because the Queen Mary doesn't need invented ghosts to have a terrifying history.

Welcome to day 22 of 31 Days of Halloween

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verbenergy.com/haunted

Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

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YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory

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In Savannah, Georgia, ghost stories are everywhere.

In Wright Square, a woman is said to wander the night asking strangers if they've seen her baby. Her name was Alice Riley, and nearly three hundred years ago, she was executed in the very square where her ghost supposedly appears.

But Alice Riley is only the beginning.

Tonight, we're exploring the history and hauntings of Savannah, the city famously dubbed America's Most Haunted City.

From the devastating yellow fever epidemic of 1820 and the graves of Colonial Park Cemetery to the haunted halls of Moon River Brewing Company and the disturbing legends of the Sorrel-Weed House, we're separating historical fact from the stories that generations of ghost tours have passed along.

We'll also explore the Gullah Geechee traditions of haint blue and the terrifying boo hag, the real murder behind *Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil*, and the surprising history of how Savannah earned its haunted reputation.

Along the way, we'll uncover stories of tragedy, exploitation, forgotten history, and the people whose lives became something much larger after their deaths.

Because sometimes the most unsettling thing about a haunted place isn't what people claim to have seen there.

It's what actually happened.

Welcome to Day Twenty One of 31 Days of Halloween.

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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

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YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory

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On November 13, 1974, a young man ran into a bar in Amityville, New York, shouting that his parents had been shot.

When police arrived at his family's waterfront home, they discovered six bodies.

Ronald DeFeo Jr. had murdered his parents and four younger siblings while they slept.

Just over a year later, another family moved into the house.

George and Kathy Lutz knew about the murders, but they believed they could make a new life there. Within twenty-eight days, they had abandoned the property, claiming something terrifying had happened inside.

They described mysterious voices, unexplained noises, strange substances appearing throughout the house, and a supernatural presence that seemed determined to drive them away.

Their story became The Amityville Horror, one of the bestselling haunted-house books of its time and the inspiration for a horror franchise that continues to this day.

But how much of it actually happened?

Tonight, we're investigating the real murders behind the Amityville Horror, the twenty-eight days that supposedly transformed an ordinary family home into a supernatural nightmare, the lawsuits and conflicting testimony that followed, and the people who spent decades living in the shadow of America's most famous haunted house.

Welcome to Day Twenty of 31 Days of Halloween.

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verbenergy.com/haunted

Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned

YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory

TikTok - @hah_podcast

hauntedamericanhistory.com

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