Pleasing Terrors

Harry Houdini and the Halloween Séance.

An unexpected return to a very creepy place to do a very foolish thing.

This episode features The Wizard of Oz, Greek mythology and a famous unsolved murder.

Episode 30: Resurrection delves into the history of Chicago's most famous ghost: Resurrection Mary!

I am with Alyson Horrocks of The Strange and Unusual Podcast. It's the evening of August 20th, 2017. We are in Danvers, MA which was previously known as Salem Village. We are visiting the Samuel Parris archeological site. Surrounded by a rail fence there are two stone lined cellars marking the location of the house that once stood here. Next to this location is a grassy path that leads to the back of a house with a wolves head door knocker.

A wolf can be a monster of many faces and a bad omen. This is one of the hidden places of American history. A place where the horrors of yesterday have cast a long shadow. The bright memory of a day spent walking the sunny streets of Salem have suddenly grown dim. Even though the sun has not yet set, we are surrounded by darkness.

• This is the birthplace of the evil that enveloped Salem in the year 1692 and claimed the lives of over 20 people.
• This place is of particular significance to Alyson, because one of the people killed was her direct ancestor Elizabeth Howe.
• This was the home of Reverend Samuel Parris of Salem Village in 1692.
• In 1692, it was believed that the devil took possession of many of the people in Salem Village.
• Cotton Mather believed that there was a war going on with spirits trying to steal souls and witches roaming free and trying to set up Satan's kingdom.
• The story of Martha Goodwin and Cotton Mather's observation.
• Witchcraft and Ann Glover sentenced to death and hanged on Boston Common in 1688.
• Her children were in the front row.
• The Goodwin children suffered seizures which were likely caused by witchcraft.
• The curse followed the Parris house from Boston, and the Parris children began to have the seizures.
• Evil hands and supernatural afflictions.
• A visit by Sarah Good and her daughter.
• The Parris children accused their servant Tituba, Sarah Osborne, and Sarah Good of being witches.
• The shattered mind of an imprisoned four-year old and Mercy.
• Elizabeth Howe the wife of James Howe and mother of six children.
• In 1682, Elizabeth was accused of being a witch by feuding neighbors.
• As accusations spread, she realized the last 10 years had only been a reprieve.
• She was arrested and her trial began in 1692.
• She was found guilty and sentenced to death.
• The testimony of Ann Putnam and the trial of George Burroughs.
• There were really no witches in Salem, but there was a conspiracy that was Satanic in nature.

Resources:

Point Mystic

The Strange and Unusual Podcast

A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials

Cotton Mather

Horror Never Sleeps

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Alyson Horrocks from the Strange and Unusual Podcast took me on a tour of a historical site with a dark past. The site sits in a town called Danvers, but it was once Salem Village. This site was the culmination of a strange mix of religion, superstition, folklore, slavery, patriarchy, truth, and lies.

A place where people's imagination or secret motives ran wild and story or lie or desperate attempt at redemption led to the basis for one of the darkest times in colonial American History. What started as a search for freedom to pursue religion and all things good, and ended in a nondescript historical site and archaeological dig, has a sinister history with a story that is hard to tell and even harder to understand.

• Salem Village was settled in the late 1600s
• In 1970, Richard B. Trask started excavating the "Danvers Dig"
• 1688 Samuel Parris moved into the house that once stood at the dig.
• Parris brought an enslaved South American couple named John and Tituba.
• In 1692, the invisible world began to close around the Parris family.
• Using Venus Glass and taking a peek into the invisible world.
• How it's human nature to be drawn to what is forbidden
• In January of 1693, Betty Parris daughter of Samuel, and cousin Abigail were stricken with mysterious illnesses.
• Sarah Good and her daughter visit the Parris home.
• Dr. Griggs determines the affliction of Betty and Abigail is supernatural in nature.
• Thomas Putnam goes to the Salem Town magistrates to file claims of witchcraft.
• A woman's final plea for freedom opens the floodgates of imagination and evil to begin a dark era of lies and persecution.

Resources:

The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege

The Strange and Unusual Podcast

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Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston's best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!

The history of the Navajo goes back in time to the Four Corners region in Arizona. Where the spider grandmother spun a giant web and threw it into the night sky to create the stars. This area known as Canyon de Chelly is also known as the Canyon of the Dead after a misguided weaver's warning resulted in a cruel cave massacre.

Like the art and designs of the Navajo weaver's blanket, the Navajo legends are intertwined with a ranch purchased by a Utah couple. The Sherman ranch seemed like an idyllic place to raise premium cattle, but strange things started happening almost immediately upon the family's arrival. This ranch is now known as the Skinwalker Ranch and the legends continue.

Episode Highlights:

• Spider rock and the legend of the weaver and Navajo blankets.
• Terry and Gwen Sherman purchase a Utah ranch in 1994.
• The Sherman's experienced strange phenomena and decided to sell.
• Robert T. Bigelow purchases the ranch and dispatches the National Institute for Discovery Science to investigate.
• A terrifying dark force grabs one of the observers before fading away.
• Night vision goggles expose a tunnel through the light used by the black creature.
• The Ute Tribe and the legend of the Navajo Tribe in New Mexico.
• New Mexico, 1863 Kit Carson and his troops round up the Navajo for transport.
• Canyon de Chelly and "The Long Walk" of the Navajo.
• The legend of the skinwalker.

Resources:

Battle of Canyon de Chelly

Kit Carson's Campaign Against the Indians

Skinwalker Ranch

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Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston's best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!

On November 20th, 1850 night watchman George Pollard Jr. makes his nightly rounds on the foggy Island of Nantucket, MA. An island once inhabited by proud tribes of Native Americans before the addition of the colonists. An island that was the whaling capital of the world for over a century.

The inhabitants and the whalers themselves were haunted with superstition and legends about the dark underworld of the sea and the evil that lied beneath the depths. The dangers were all too real, yet it wasn't a sea monster or a devil ascended from Davy Jones' Locker that posed the threat. It was an invisible threat that lurked in the hearts of men like the night watchman.

• George Pollard Jr. Nantucket Nightwatchman
• Davy Jones Locker and the dark underworld of the sea
• The story of Jonah and being cursed by god
• Pliny the Elder, sea monsters, the merman, and the Krakken
• Sightings of mermaids, sirens, and mermen
• WWI German U-boat surrenders to British patrol ship after sea monster attack
• The legend of the black demon of the sea or megalodon
• The story of Moby Dick based on a Nantucket whaling ship voyage
• Mocha Dick the albino sperm whale and the voyage of the Ann Alexander
• Captain George Pollard Jr. and the last voyage the whaling ship Essex
• Owen Coffin and becoming what you fear most
• November 20th, the anniversary of the destruction of the Essex

Resources:

Nantucket

How Nantucket Came to Be the Whaling Capital of the World

George Pollard Jr.The True-Life Horror That Inspired Moby-Dick

Moby Dick by Herman Melville

Book of Jonah

Pliny the Elder

Megalodon

Mocha Dick

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Count Dracula's story is one of many pieces; a story of a man and the secrets that are hidden inside his castle. Bram Stoker, the story's author, is also a man of many secrets who constructed his own castle and built a fortress around his heart. The puzzle of Count Dracula is not complete until the intertwining pieces are put together.

When put together what do the pieces reveal about the story and the man behind it?

Episode Highlights:

• A young lawyer encounters strange experiences inside the Count's castle
• The captain of a Russian ship that has run aground is found lashed to the ship's wheel
• A beautiful lady who hunts children in the night
• The tragic death of a woman about to be married
• Dracula is forced to flee to his castle
• The search for the real Dracula
• The literary origin of Count Dracula
• Who is Bram Stoker and his ties to prominent men of the time
• The love that dare not speak its name
• Stoker's own castle built to conceal his secrets
• What the secrets reveal

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Chicago's West 63rd Street Post Office was built in 1938 over the site of what its creator referred to as "The Castle", and in 1902 an Ohio Daily News article called it Chicago's Ghost Castle. Whatever you want to call it, this site was once or possibly still is the home to a notorious killer.

A figure who built a home that included a 2nd floor full of secret passages, trap doors, and hidden staircases. The basement so notorious that a crowd would lay on the sidewalk and try to peer through the cracks as it was excavated.

The creator of "The Castle" claimed to be under an evil influence. An influence that seemed to continue to claim victims after his death. An influence that is still felt today

• Moyamensing Prison was finished in 1835
• Chicago Police Detective Frank Geyer interviews his nemesis in 1895
• A crowd gathers for the excavation of "The Castle" basement excavation
• Another crowd gathers outside "The Castle" to see if the owner returns after his execution
• In 2012 a tunnel that leads to "The Castle" basement is discovered
• The story of Herman Webster Mudgett
• Christmas Day, 1891 Julia Smythe and her daughter Pearl disappear
• The investigation into the Pitezel case
• H.H. Holmes wrote Holmes' Own Story while incarcerated at Moyamensing
• Mysterious deaths of anyone connected to the case or "The Castle"

Resources:

Herman Webster Mudgett or H. H. Holmes

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