One morning when Donna was in the building very early, prior to opening time, she stretched out on the couch upstairs to catch a short catnap. As she was just about to drift off to sleep she heard music. It was faint at first, and a little “static-y.” She couldn’t tell what the piece was, but it was definitely music. She looked all around. There was no radio in the room. She thought maybe a car might be parked outside the building with the car radio turned up loud, but when she checked she found no car outside. Then she went back upstairs. She heard the music again, “rather scratchy and muffled, like a well-worn record being played on an old victrola.” She never was able to trace the source of the music.
One morning as she sat in the office, Donna heard heavy footsteps descending the stairs just outside the office. She thought it must be her stepfather, who owns the business. When the office door did not open immediately, as she had expected, she wondered why. She opened the door and looked out into the open section of the building which used to house the fire trucks. She also glanced outside, and found her stepfather’s van was not even parked alongside the building. She was completely alone in the building!
Because of so many unexplained noises and happenings, Donna has become quite interested in the history of the old building that once housed the firemen. She has turned up the rosters of various captains and their companies who served there over the years. Several records dating back to the early 1920s revealed one captain who served there for a long time was listed as “Captain A.J. O’Mara.” We wonder, could the “J” possibly have stood for “Jack?”
We are glad the old building is still there, providing a restful haven for the spirit of an old fireman who served his community so faithfully for so long.
Is the Captain Still There?
They called him “Captain Mott.” Born near Alexandria, Louisiana, on June 21, 1837, Marcus Fulton Mott moved with his family to Galveston in 1845. He grew up on the island and later became a successful lawyer in the firm of Bellinger, Jack, and Mott. During the Civil War, Mott was a colonel in the Confederate forces. Later, the honorary title of “Captain” was bestowed on him by the Galveston Artillery Club, and that’s what he liked to be called.
Captain Mott built a lovely, big Victorian home for his family in 1884. The address is 1121 Tremont. It was purchased by Tommy Witwer in 1943, and today, the lower floor is used for businesses, while the current occupant, Joseph C. Witwer, one of Tommy’s sons, lives in the upstairs portion of the building.
Former home of “Captain” Mott, at 1121 Tremont in Galveston
According to Tommy Witwer, who was quoted in an article in Eagle Images, October 1980, the first indication the place might be haunted came when his daughter reported hearing voices in the attic. Years later, Witwer’s granddaughter reported that the “Captain” had come into her room and spoken to her. A conversation I had with Witwer’s son Joseph indicated that the spirit most often appeared to youngsters. He said more than one child had seen the “Captain,” and that he had also seen the spirit when he was about twelve years old. He said it rarely appeared to adults, but he did vividly recall seeing the ghost when he was a youngster.
Some very strange incidents occurred when a young man named John Implemence moved into the household as a tenant. Soon after his arrival, he was lying on his bed one day when he distinctly heard a voice tell him to “get out of here.” His mattress then lifted, and he was thrown into the air and across the room! In the next few days, pictures flew off the walls and the furniture moved about. After these incidents, John invited some of his friends over to visit him in his room, and they began to hold Ouija board sessions. When Implemence questioned the “Ouija spirit” about what it meant to do to him, it said something about coming after him with “a wet rope.” That night, as he was preparing to go to bed, Implemence heard a voice which seemed to come from the attic. He opened the door and walked up the steep steps. When he reached the top, a great heaviness seemed to overcome him. An unseen force seemed to hold him. He felt as if he were actually tied to the newel post, and he was unable to move from 2 a.m. until daybreak when he was suddenly and inexplicably released.
Later, during another session with the Ouija board, it was asked why it had decided to haunt Implemence. It replied, “because he loves himself.” It also added that Implemence bore a strong resemblance to Mott’s son, whose portrait was up in the attic of the house.
Implemence found the portrait, which revealed the son to be a stocky, blonde-haired young man. Strangely, Witwer, the owner of the house, said there was nothing but an empty frame when he bought the house, and the picture just suddenly appeared there. Mysterious, to say the very least!
Now, John Implemence was a Navy veteran who had won seven service medals in Vietnam, and he was not a person who was easily upset or frightened. But, he certainly was “impressed” by many events which took place during the time he resided in the old house. He said that one Ouija session finally revealed that there had been three undiscovered murders involving the house. Three young women were murdered, and according to the “Captain,” his son, Abey, was the culprit. The board slowly spelled out A-B-E-Y, which was the name of Marcus Mott’s son. (At the time of the Ouija sessions, Implemence and his friends said they did not know the name of the former owner, Mott, or any of his family.)
When questioned further, the Ouija board said the bodies had been thrown into a nearby well. A cistern, in which rainwater was stored, was located, but it was too shallow to throw bodies into. However, there may still be a long-covered-over, and therefore, undiscovered, well on the property. During this session, which mentioned the well, the spirit said it would haunt the house until the bodies were located.
After John Implemence moved to Dallas, the incidents of strange noises, unusual occurrences, etc. seemed to slow down. But Neil Witwer, Tommy’s son, who has lived there since childhood, said his first wife, Cathy, had heard noises like pacing back and forth coming from the attic, and she had also seen the image of a man in a mirror that left the impression with her it was the “Captain.” Then Neil’s four-year-old daughter started talking to her parents about the “Captain,” also.
There have been no recent manifestations in the house, which must be a great relief to the current occupants.
Captain Marcus Mott died in 1906 as the result of injuries he suffered in a fall from a streetcar. He is believed to have succumbed in his house.
The Ghost Who Left His Walking Cane
When Althea Wade and her husband, C.P., moved into their “new-old” home in the 1300 block of Sealy Street in Galveston, they had no idea they’d soon be sharing their new address with an otherworldly resident! It was soon made apparent to them, because they began to hear strange noises every night soon after retiring. Althea described them as “a drag, a plop, and a drag, and a plop.” Deciding that they just might have some rambunctious rats in the attic, they set a trap. When C.P. went up to check the trap, he found a beautiful gold-headed walking cane lying on a pile of books. The cane bore the inscription, “J.D. Skinner, Nov. 6, 1895.”
William Skinner, the son of J.D., had built the house in 1895. Strangely, when the Wades moved in, C.P. said, they’d gone over every inch of the house, including the attic, and there had been absolutely nothing there. They decided they had to have a ghost, and he must have left the cane there as a sort of housewarming gift because he liked the Wades!
Besides hearing strange noises, there were other unexplainable occurrences. Once, when C.P. was out of the house with the two older boys and Althea was home alone with their three youngest children, one of the tots wandered out into the parlor. She came back into the room where her mother and siblings were watching TV and asked Althea, “Mama, who is that man going up the stairs?” Althea asked her daughter, who was only about three years old, if the man she saw was tall like her daddy, or not-so-tall like her grandfather. The child replied he was “not-so-tall, like Grandpa, and he had on a long, white coat.”
When C.P. and th
e boys came home, they all searched the house, but no one was there. They didn’t really expect to find anyone, however.
Once, a visitor to the house was pushed from behind as she stood on the stair landing. She fell down the stairs but was not injured.
During the entire twenty years the Wades lived on Sealy Street, they were never afraid. In fact, they felt very comfortable with “George,” the name they affectionately called their star boarder.
The Haunted Portrait
Mrs. Catherine Polk makes her home in La Marque, a small city on the Texas coast just north of the causeway leading to Galveston Island. This charming, friendly lady warmly welcomed my husband and me into her large, two-story Tudor English house, where we enjoyed a nice morning visit and a lively discussion concerning the other “occupant” of her spacious home.
The ghost is that of Elvie Bertha Weller, Catherine’s great-aunt, who died at the age of fifteen in 1904. Elvie’s spirit has long clung to a portrait made of her when she was about 13 years old.
Elvie was born in the small town of Sublime, Texas, on August 24, 1889. She was one of five daughters in the loving, close-knit Weller family. When she was very young the family moved to Brownsville. All the girls except Elvie were sent off to various convents and private schools in Brownsville and San Antonio. Elvie, always very sweet and rather shy, was apparently the family pet, according to Catherine Polk. Her parents elected to have her remain at home, receiving her education under the tutelage of the family governess. Musically talented, she played both the piano and organ, and by the time she was 12 years old, she played the organ for services at her church. She was also the only Weller daughter whose portrait was made. Catherine is not sure if it is a good watercolor or an old photograph which was hand-colored, as was the custom in those days prior to the invention of color film. I personally believe it is a photograph because of the sepia tones of Elvie’s face.
Young Elvie was very highly esteemed in the city of Brownsville. The summer of 1904, when she was 14, she became very ill with Bright’s disease, a then-fatal kidney ailment. The Brownsville city officials became very concerned. It was an extremely hot and humid summer, and the windows of the young girl’s bedroom had to be left open to allow ventilation to flow through the house. The city sent out wagonloads of sawdust to be spread in the street in front of the Weller home to muffle the sounds of horses and carriages passing by, which might disturb her rest.
As Elvie’s condition worsened, and the family realized she would not last much longer, the entire Weller family, except for one absent sister, gathered at her bedside. Just before she died, only two weeks after her fifteenth birthday, Elvie exclaimed to her assembled family, “Look! don’t you see them? The angels! They’re so beautiful, and they have come for me!”
Nancy Polk, Catherine’s oldest daughter, who lives in Houston, shared the death notice announcing Elvie’s passing, which ran in the Brownsville paper. It stated:
Dead in this city, last night at twelve o’clock, Elvie Bertha Weller, born at Sublime, Texas, August 24, 1889, aged fifteen years and thirteen days. The friends and acquaintances of the deceased and of the family, are respectfully invited to attend the funeral from the family residence, corner of Levee and Eighth Streets, this afternoon at three o’clock. Brownsville, Texas, September 7, 1904.
In those days, news must have traveled very slowly. Nancy has in her possession a copy of the eulogy which ran in the Cuero, Texas, newspaper, on December 18, 1904, some three months after Elvie’s death. Cuero is in DeWitt County, which borders Lavaca County, where the tiny town of Sublime, Elvie’s birthplace, is located. Supposedly named by early German settlers to the area, Sublime bears the name of a town in Germany. According to Fred Tarpley’s 1001 Texas Place Names, Sublime had a population of seventy-five people on June 14, 1875.
The Cuero paper may have been quoting from the Brownsville paper, or the article may have been composed by a Cuero staff writer. The words formed a beautiful tribute to the young girl:
It is best. Too beautiful and too pure for this world’s sin and sorrow, Elvie Bertha Weller closed her eyes in death in Brownsville, Texas, September 6, 1904. Of rare physical beauty, with a mind exceptionally bright, combined with a gentle, loving disposition, she readily won the love of those she met. Though a sufferer for many months without the knowledge of those who loved her best, she patiently bore her sufferings, only saying, “she did not feel well.” A fair flower of only fifteen summers, God, the Father, took it back to bloom only once more in the great celestial garden.
Calmly calling each loved one, she bade them “kiss her goodbye.” And then, with faltering lips came the words, “Mama, I have seen God; I have prayed to Him and He said, ‘Elvie, I have forgiven all your sins. Come home and rest.’ ” To her, death was only “the gentle nurse, whose goodnight kiss precludes one’s entrance into bliss.”
“Oh,” she said, “the other world is so beautiful.” And love borne on a faith in Christ, she prayed that she might be spared to see an absent sister.
Oh, my friends, what sublime faith and trust in one so young. She asked that “Nearer, My God to Thee” and “The Haven of Rest” be sung at her funeral. So they laid her down to rest, far from her childhood home, on stranger soil.
The dead and the beautiful rest but her soul has entered into immortal life.
Oh, dear ones, all be comforted; such a beautiful death is full of the Balm of Gilead. Although with bruised and breaking heart, with sable garb and silent tread, you bare her senseless dust to rest. You say she is dead, ah, no, she has but dropped her robe of clay to put her shining garments on. She has not wandered far away. She is not dead, or gone, and when the trumpets sound and the dead be raised, incorruptible, not changed, but glorified, Elvie, bright with the beauty and celestial glory of an immortal grace shall meet the poor broken-hearted mother, with the same face that you have loved and cherished, divinely fair.
Whom God loves, He chastens, and when His finger touching our loved ones into sleep that takes them from us, He whispers into our aching hearts, “let not your hearts be troubled; in my Father’s house are many mansions.” Cuero, Texas, December 18, 1904.
Elvie’s grief-stricken mother kept the portrait of her deceased daughter in her bedroom. Catherine recalls, as a youngster, she would go and gaze up at the picture of the young girl, admiring the sweet faced image, which was gowned in a white dress with a white rose caught at the neckline. She told her great-grandmother that she would love to have Elvie’s portrait someday. She was very disappointed when Mrs. Weller left the picture to her youngest daughter, Katherine Lenora, whom Catherine Polk called “Aunt Kate.”
When Catherine visited her great-aunt Kate in Brownsville, back about 1960, Kate asked her if there was anything among her effects that Catherine might like to have at her death. Without a moment’s hesitation, Catherine said she would like to have Elvie’s portrait. Kate gave it to Catherine right then and there, saying that her grandson, who was living with her at the time, had removed it from where it hung in his bedroom because it “gave him the creeps.” Catherine took the portrait back to her home in Harlingen where she was then living with her Air Force husband and children.
Portrait of Elvie Bertha Weller
As the years went by, Catherine and her family noticed little things that were a bit peculiar, but at first they did not attach any significance to them happening around the portrait. The events have become much more pronounced since Catherine bought the big old family home in La Marque from her parents, some years back. The Tudor house on an acre lot, shaded by giant oaks, is furnished with lovely family antiques, many of which once graced the childhood home of Elvie and her siblings. And then, of course, her portrait is there, hanging on the wall at the first landing of the staircase leading up to the second floor. Her spirit seems to be there, as well, its bailiwick centering around the staircase, the upstairs and downstairs halls, the entryway, the dining room, and the butler’s pantry.
Many times, b
y day or night, definite sounds of footsteps are heard on the wooden stairs. Catherine said the first time her daughter Nancy heard the footsteps she was alone in the house. She was so frightened that she telephoned her mother, who was at a meeting, to please come home at once, as she thought an intruder was somewhere hiding in the house!
When all her children were still living at home, at night they sometimes saw what they thought was the shadowy form of a woman descending the stairs. There is a big window at the landing, and the walls of the house by the staircase are painted white, so a dark, shadowy form would be easy to see. At first the children thought it was their mother, but when they tiptoed to her bedroom, they found her fast asleep!
A few years ago, when Nancy was spending the night at her mother’s home, she heard what she described as a “whispering” noise, and then she saw the dark form of a woman descending the stairs. She thought it was her mother, Catherine, taking one of her cats outside. Not really sleepy, she decided to get up and go have a visit with her mother. She was certainly surprised to find that it was not Catherine she had seen, or heard whispering, on the stairs. Her mother was sound asleep in her bedroom!
Nancy told me when she was just a small child, about 7 or 8 years old, she had a very frightening experience which she has never forgotten. The family was living in Florida at the time. One night Nancy was restless and couldn’t sleep. She got out of bed and went into the living room and lay down on the couch with the family pet, a big dog named Homer. She gazed up at the portrait of Elvie, which was hanging over the mantel. Imagine her shock as she saw the chest heaving up and down, as if the portrait were breathing, and then the lips started moving, as if she were speaking to Nancy. Nancy was so terrified she ran back to her bedroom, dragging the dog with her to sleep with her the rest of the night! She said it was a long time before she told her mother, as she was afraid no one would believe her, but she is convinced to this day that what she saw that night was real and neither a dream nor a figment of her imagination.
Ghosts along the Texas Coast Page 13