Ghosthunting North Carolina

by Kala Ambrose

  Rhine was instrumental in bringing this information to public attention through the publication of his books, including Extra Sensory Perception, New Frontiers of the Mind, and Parapsychology: Frontier Science of the Mind, as well as publishing the Journal of Parapsychology. Rhine eventually broke ties with Duke and established the Foundation for the Research on the Nature of Man (FRNM). In 1995, the institute was renamed in honor of J.B. and is now known as the Rhine Research Center.

  The Rhine Research Center focuses on consciousness research, and studies including remote viewing, PK, TK, and telepathy are conducted. The Rhine ESP/Parapsychology Museum showcases the equipment that was used in parapsychological studies and research over the past 70 years. The museum is available for tours by appointment and is located in Durham, North Carolina.

  CHAPTER 17

  So Comfortable That Guests and Ghosts Never Want to Leave the Carolina Inn

  CHAPEL HILL

  Oozing with southern charm, it’s no surprise that some guests never want to leave the Carolina Inn.

  “Value is the most invincible and impalpable of ghosts and comes and goes unthought of while the visible and dense matter remains as it was.”

  —W. Stanley Jevons

  THE DISTINGUISHED CAROLINA INN was built in 1924 to attend to visitors and alumni of the University of North Carolina. The architecture of the building was patterned after that of George Washington’s home in Mount Vernon.

  The ballroom of the Carolina Inn is considered to be one of the most haunted areas of the inn. Perhaps it’s second only to Suite 252, where Dr. William Jacocks lived for almost 20 years. He’s been reported to be a friendly ghost and very welcoming. Guests report that even in the absence of fresh flowers in the room they will be welcomed with an overwhelming floral scent. Others will be greeted with a strong cologne smell.

  Dr. Jacocks is known to be a fun-loving prankster. He reportedly enjoys playing tricks at the inn, including locking guests out of Room 252. The local lore states that at one time, the door had to be taken off its hinges because it was so stuck it wouldn’t open under any circumstances. Electronic locks were installed in the hotel in 1990, but there continue to be repeated complaints of the door refusing to unlock.

  Other guests have reported all sorts of paranormal activity in the room, including curtains being pulled open in a wild manner and icy spots in the room, even when the air-conditioning is not running. Staff at the inn report seeing a man appear in a black suit with a blue overcoat and knit hat walking around the inn. He reportedly goes from door to door touching and jiggling the knobs. Some guests have reported hearing the sound and opening the door to see what the man wants, only to watch him disappear before their eyes.

  Some reports claim that there are up to 20 ghosts at the inn. Witnesses have heard the sound of a piano playing in areas where there is no music or musical instruments. Others have heard footsteps in empty rooms. Voices have been heard, orbs recorded, and sightings of ghosts are reported around the inn on a frequent basis.

  The inn’s owners are comfortable with the reports and host a yearly Halloween event that includes a ghost tour and an overnight stay and dinner to discuss the activity in the hotel. The ghosts have all been reported to be friendly and enjoy the inn so much that they refuse to leave.

  The Carolina Inn is owned by the University of North Carolina and listed on the National Register of Historic Places, so once again, you know it’s going onto my National Register of Haunted Places list. The inn is full of yummy Southern hospitality, and the staff is warm and welcoming; it’s no surprise to me that guests would want to stay for a lifetime and beyond. With 184 cheery and beautifully decorated rooms and a wonderful location by the university, it’s often referred to as the University’s Living Room.

  During my visit to the inn, I enjoyed walking around the property. The most widely reported incidents of ghostly activities are inside the building, but to my surprise, where I felt the most activity was around one of the doors.

  He is felt in the suite as well as around the inn and enjoys playing a few pranks. While touring the inn, I felt a ghostly presence playing with the door here.

  As I walked through this door, I was looking down at the ground. I had felt a strange energy in this area, and while focusing on this energy I nearly dropped my camera and reached out quickly to grab the strap. While doing so, it felt as if I bumped solidly into a person. Startled, I stepped back and looked up to apologize to the person whom I had run into, only to find myself completely alone. I looked all throughout the room, but there was no one to be found. The entity that I bumped into had felt as solid as a man. Unfortunately, whoever it was, it had no desire to communicate further with me and did not appear again. Perhaps I had startled it as much as it had startled me. One never knows quite what will happen next when ghosthunting, and the majority of the time, it seems to happen when you least expect it.

  CHAPTER 18

  The Haunting Bentonville Battlefield Driving Tour

  FOUR OAKS

  The Bentonville Battlefield was the scene of the most major battle held in North Carolina during the Civil War.

  “You said I killed you—haunt me, then! The murdered do haunt their murderers, I believe. I know that ghosts have wandered on earth. Be with me always—take any form—drive me mad! Only do not leave me in this abyss, where I cannot find you!”

  —Emily Brontë

  BENTONVILLE. As soon as I knew I was writing Ghosthunting North Carolina, I knew this story would have to be in the book. Bentonville is a battlefield. It’s hard to find a North Carolina native who has not heard of this battle. But I’m getting ahead of myself here; let’s start at the beginning, back before the War Between the States took its toll on the area.

  In 1855, John and Amy Harper built a home, which is referred to as the Harper House. Located in the village of Bentonville, the area was surrounded by open fields and lush pine forests. Bentonville was a marketplace for naval stores, selling mostly tar, pitch, and turpentine. The Harpers had moved from West Virginia to North Carolina, where John owned almost 800 acres of land. Harper had cleared almost 100 acres of the land, which he used for farmland. The other forested acres were used to harvest tar, pitch, and turpentine from the pine trees. During this period of hard work and perseverance, John, Amy, and their nine children most likely would never have guessed that only ten years later, their home, along with several others, would be front and center of a battlefield. The Harpers had already been touched by the war, as their 16-year-old son, Martin, had joined the Confederate army and was wounded in battle in 1862. He had returned home to recover and heal and left again in 1864 to rejoin his unit.

  During Sherman’s march on North Carolina in 1865, Union troops took over the Harper House and turned it into a hospital for the troops. The Harpers and seven of their children were given the choice of staying in the upstairs section of the home to care for wounded Union soldiers or to leave immediately with nowhere to stay. They chose to stay in the home and care for wounded soldiers.

  The Battle of Bentonville was one of the last major engagements of the Civil War. The battle was waged over 6,000 acres, and the number of soldiers made this the largest battle fought in North Carolina. Eighty thousand men fought in this battle, with sixty thousand being Union soldiers and twenty-thousand men from the Confederacy. The entire battle lasted from March 19th through the 21st, but the devastation left behind has lasted for lifetimes.

  The casualties of this battle hovered around 4,200 men killed, wounded, or presumed missing. During this three-day battle, more than 500 soldiers were cared for in the Harper House.

  On March 22, the Union army defeated the Confederate army. The Union troops left the area, taking their wounded with them. The entire village of Bentonville was devastated, and the locals who had remained in the area through the battle had little food or medical resources to care for the wounded Confederate soldiers. They also struggled to bury the remains of more than 360 Confederate soldiers a
nd 140 Union soldiers. Many of the fallen men died on the battlefield and were buried where they fell. Local residents buried the rest of the dead after the Union soldiers and the battle moved on. Twenty Confederate soldiers were buried in a mass grave next to the Harper family cemetery.

  When you visit the Harper House today, it is set up to look as it did during the Civil War; the first floor displays what a field hospital looked like during the war, while the second floor exhibits traditional furnishings where the family lived.

  Union soldiers buried in the area were moved in 1867 to national cemeteries established by the U.S. government, and those in Bentonville were moved to the Raleigh National Cemetery. Confederate fallen were ignored by the government and left in poorly marked graves for another 30 years before an attempt was made to note the graves with some dignity.

  The best way to visit the battlefield is to take the 10-mile driving tour, which has historic markers and exhibits that explain what happened in each area along this drive in regards to the battle.

  The first marker honors the dead at Bentonville. What is most touching to see is how the act of one man, a Bentonville native named M. H. Bizell, brought some respect and dignity to the gravesites. He wrote the following to the Confederate Monumental Association of North Carolina on June 2, 1893, and it was reprinted in the Goldsboro Daily Argus on June 3, 1894: “The object of this communication is to bring to the notice of your Association a sacred spot of earth, where sleep in unmarked graves the silent dust of twenty of the brave men who sacrificed their lives on the altar of Southern Rights.” His letter rallied others to raise money for a monument to mark the mass gravesite, and today an obelisk stands at the site. The Harpers’ eldest son, John, was a minister. He attended the ceremony and began the memorial with a prayer for the men.

  The tour continues with markers detailing each part of the battle, and each marker contains significant coverage of the battle. As you move from one marker to the next, you truly get a good feel for what this battle entailed and how much everyone involved suffered. There was one marker where I became overcome with grief and strong emotion. It was the Confederate North Carolina Junior Reserves memorial. The Confederate army was on its last legs and in desperate need of anyone who could serve, so they expanded the age range for new recruits. The Reserve included boys as young as 17. These young men were unprepared for this fierce battle but bravely held on and did their best. Some reports state that boys even younger had joined to fight. General Hardee of the Confederate army was involved in Bentonville, leading a counterattack to protect the Mill Creek Bridge. General Hardee had a 16-year-old son named Willie. Against the general’s wishes, Willie joined the battle on March 21 and was mortally wounded, dying three days later.

  A quote on this marker reads: “It was in a good wood for skirmishing, with little or no undergrowth. We had a regular Indian fight of it behind the trees. They charged my line twice, but were both times driven back. That night, the whole skirmish line kept up an almost continuous firing as they expected our Army to leave. That, together with the scamps trying to creep up on us in the dark, kept us up all night.” This quote is from Maj. Walter Clark of the North Carolina Junior Reserves, describing the action on March 20, 1865.

  Soldiers from the Civil War are still seen here on the battlefield. Reenactments of the battle are held here on the field, which seems to trigger the ghostly appearances even more.

  What’s left of the Village of Bentonville is the Harper House and the markers of the battlefield. I had a hard time finding anyone who wanted to talk about the haunted activity in the area, though it is often reported. There were some people willing to speak with me about what they had personally experienced or heard reported about haunted activity in the area, but they also asked to remain anonymous. The reports are horrific; many report that if you are in certain areas of the battlefield on moonlit nights, you can smell the decaying bodies that were left on the field and hear moans and groans from the wounded soldiers who lay dying. People report hearing men running, shouting, and at times screaming in battle, with the roar of cannons and rifles going off at the same time. Many people have seen the ghosts of the men as they shoot and get shot and fall down dying. Many of the descriptions of the ghostly battle scenes reported remind me of Gettysburg.

  Several people discussed the hauntings at the Harper House with me, though officially the Harper House does not discuss any haunted activity. Witnesses claim, though, that there is a large amount of ghostly activity at the Harper House, including lights floating around the house at night, cold spots inside the house and around the property, and Union soldiers walking around at all hours of the night and day. The people who were willing to tell me their stories are adamant that there is ghostly activity in the area. They also report seeing bonfires in the areas around the Harper House and the surrounding battlefield that appear and disappear as quickly as they form. I was also told a story in confidence that there is an apparition of a soldier often seen in the window of the Harper House who is holding a bucket with one hand while the stump of his other arm drips blood into the bucket.

  The nearest town is Four Oaks, which has a population of around 2,000 people. The cemetery may be the best area to look for paranormal activity. There were several areas in which I felt overwhelming grief and sadness. I heard voices several times in the distance of men speaking, and smelled smoke in a couple of places, as well. Of all of the places in North Carolina, if you feel that you have some psychic ability and are wondering if you can sense ghosts, this would be the best testing ground to try out your abilities, as almost anywhere you walk, the chance of encountering some paranormal activity is pretty high.

  I’d also recommend scheduling a visit to observe the reenactment of the Battle of Bentonville. Reenactments are known to stir up the emotional energy in the area, and ghosts often appear during these types of events The reenactment is scheduled to be held March 20–22, 2015. This event commemorates the 150th anniversary of the battle.

  CHAPTER 19

  Prohibition and the Ghost of the Page-Walker Hotel

  CARY

  The Page-Walker Hotel in Cary, North Carolina as it stands today. (Photo by Kala Ambrose)

  “They say that shadows of deceased ghosts

  Do haunt the houses and the graves about,

  Of such whose life’s lamp went untimely out,

  Delighting still in their forsaken hosts.”

  —Joshua Sylvester

  CARY, NORTH CAROLINA, is a suburban town located in the middle of the Triangle area between Raleigh, Durham, and Chapel Hill. The town is consistently voted one of the safest cities in America. Known as a family-oriented community with excellent schools, Cary is filled with manicured lawns, planned subdivisions including a community designed by Martha Stewart, and soccer moms galore. Cary is friendly, pleasant, and dedicated to preserving the natural surroundings with a variety of public parks, walking trails, and greenways to enjoy. With a population of around 130,000, Cary rolls up the sidewalks at night and is one of the most peaceful and quiet towns in the area.

  As the old saying goes, “still waters run deep,” and it’s the quiet ones that most often have the most intriguing stories to tell, for Cary has more ghosts than many residents realize, including several that lead an active life when the sun goes down.

  Cary originally consisted of one square mile and was established around 1850, during the construction of the railroad in North Carolina. Before the railroad came through, the area was called Bradford’s Ordinary. Bradford’s Ordinary was actually just an inn run by John Bradford, but since little else but farmland existed in the territory, most people referred to the entire area as Bradford’s Ordinary. The arrival of the railroad brought commerce and industry and attracted people to settle in the area.

  In 1854 Allison Francis Page, a businessman who went by the name Frank, moved to this area and purchased 300 acres by the railroad. In 1868, Frank Page established this area as the town of Cary. This area today is
known as downtown Cary. Page created some of the roads, established a post office, and built a general store and a hotel.

  Page, who also became Cary’s first mayor, incorporated the town in 1871, naming it Cary in honor of Samuel Fenton Cary, a temperance leader. Samuel Cary had come to Raleigh to speak about the values of temperance. Page shared those beliefs and so named the town in honor of Cary and his temperance campaign.

  Page was reportedly fundamentally religious and dogmatic in his beliefs. It was said that he disapproved of, “theater going, cursing, dancing, card playing, and most of all, drinking.” He so believed in temperance that he established the town of Cary as a “dry” community. As Cary grew, many religious people settled there, and it’s likely that they did not feel comfortable speaking about ghosts or other paranormal occurrences, even if they experienced them personally. Believe it or not, Cary remained a dry community for almost 100 years, until 1964. Even then the town did not willingly embrace the sale of alcohol. There are reports that say that Cary had to be prodded by the State Attorney General, who had to issue a formal statement to the town leaders to remind them that the town’s dry charter was invalid since Wake County had voted for the sale of alcohol back in 1937.

  As Frank Page and his wife, Catherine Raboteau Page, settled into the area, they built their home behind the hotel they had constructed by the railroad. The Civil War decimated their family wealth, as it did so many others, and there are some reports that Mrs. Page was seen creating drapes made from worthless $100 Confederate bills. In this home, Frank worked hard and rebuilt his wealth while Catherine raised their eight children, three girls and five boys. Their son Walter Hines Page established a newspaper, which later evolved into the Raleigh News and Observer. Walter Page eventually partnered with Frank Doubleday to establish the publishing company Doubleday, Page and Co. Page later became the Ambassador to Great Britain and participated in establishing North Carolina State University.