There were a number of other ghostly incidents that involved Edgar Cayce during his lifetime. He seemed to attract spirits. His grandson, Charles Thomas Cayce, believes that one reason for this, in addition to Edgar’s incredible psychic abilities, is the fact that he was located in Virginia Beach. “This site is near two large bodies of water,” he says, “the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. There is an implication about the energies of the area being particularly conducive to paranormal forces.”
PART VIII
TIDEWATER MISCELLANY
TIDEWATER TICKLERS
In the gathering of paranormal encounters in Virginia over the past thirty years, I have occasionally come across some truly humorous incidents that involved people who perceived that they were witnessing real ghostly events when they were not. Fright often triggers such occurrences, and when the real or rational sources of supposed manifestations are revealed, it often leads to lighthearted laughter. Here are some true examples.
Hooded Visions Rise from the Mist
In the 1970s, in the midst of a severe winter, tourism was way down in historic Colonial Williamsburg, so one afternoon, when five historical interpreters were invited to visit an old church in neighboring New Kent County and learn of its history, they readily accepted. They were driven to the site, and because of the cold weather, they were wearing long hooded cloaks over their colonial costumes.
After the tour, they went outside and sat down on a bench in front of the little cemetery adjacent to the church to wait for their ride back to town. It was now nearing dark, and it was drizzling slightly. Pretty soon, they heard a vehicle coming up the country road. Assuming it was their ride, these five women in their costumes, with long cloaks and hoods, in the dusk and mist, arose in unison, with the shadowy tombstones in the background.
And it wasn’t their ride. It was a tourist from New Jersey. The ladies said that he took one look at them and promptly drove into a tree.
The Civil War Soldier in the Cemetery
The following is told by Vincent Curtis of Chesapeake, Virginia, who has been a member of the North-South Skirmish Association since 1954. The NSSA is an organization of reenactors who dress in authentic reproduction Civil War uniforms and carry rifles, swords, knapsacks, haversacks and other accoutrements. Curtis says that he became fast friends with two longtime members, Jack Rawls and George Oswald.
One weekend about fifty-five years ago, the First Virginia Volunteers were to attend a shooting match in Petersburg, and Jack and George decided to drive there together. They felt it would be easier and quicker to just dress in their Confederate uniforms and other equipment at home instead of changing at the shoot and again afterwards. After the shoot, they got in their car and drove home to Norfolk.
Now there is a large cemetery in Norfolk facing Granby Street, and Jack lived behind it, facing another street. When they got to town, Jack told George to let him out at the main entrance to the cemetery, and he would walk home through it. That way, George could turn around and drive home instead of going all around the graveyard, which was a distance out of his way.
Jack got out, put on his hat, knapsack and haversack, hoisted his rifle over his shoulder and started to walk through the cemetery. George then drove down to a place where he could turn around and headed home. As he passed by the cemetery again, he saw a car had crashed through the fence on the other side, knocked over a tombstone and was lying on its side. Since he was in a hurry, and there already were some people gathered at the site, George didn’t stop.
A few weeks later at a luncheon, George met the manager of the cemetery and asked him about the wreck he had seen. The manager said the driver of the vehicle was a sailor, and they suspected he had been drinking, because he kept trying to tell everyone he had lost control of his car when he saw a Confederate soldier walking among the tombstones!
The Corpse that Sat Up
Sometimes the dead are really dead, but the appearance is otherwise. Such a case is related by Mary Daughdrill of Norfolk. According to Mary, her grandfather ran a sizeable farming operation in the early 1900s despite suffering from a very severe physical handicap. He was a hunchback, and his impediment was so great that he was nearly doubled over when he walked. He died in 1915, and morticians had a difficult time fitting him into a casket. Mary says that they had to strap him in to get the lid to shut. They placed his casket on the back of a wagon and headed to church for services. The road, however, was deeply rutted, and it was a jarring ride.
The church was packed, not only with friends, relatives and loved ones but also with a large number of servants and fieldworkers who filled the back rows. At a point in the service, a gentleman went over to raise the lid of the coffin so that everyone could get a final view of the dearly departed.
Unbeknownst to the brethren, however, the jolting ride to the church apparently had loosened or broken the straps holding the body down. So when the lid was raised, the body popped bolt upright, causing instantaneous panic in the church. The building emptied in seconds.
She Didn’t Really Want Him Back
On the Eastern Shore of Virginia, there is a popular legend about a woman who got her wish and then didn’t want it. When her husband died in the early 1930s, she had him buried in the family cemetery, but it was hard for her to let him go. It was said you could hear her crying late at night, saying, “Oh Lord, send him back to me.”
Several weeks later, a hurricane swept through the Chesapeake Bay, flooding the area at high tide. The storm unearthed the coffin of the woman’s husband and washed it up to her doorstep!
When she saw it out the window, she allegedly screamed, “Oh Lord, I don’t want him. I didn’t mean it. Take him back!”
The Walking Skull
The following story was published in a letter to the editor published in the July 27, 1739 issue of the Virginia Gazette. The writer told of an incident that occurred when two men were digging a grave in a country church cemetery. One of their shovels hit something solid. It was a human skull. They brushed the dirt off it and laid it beside the grave.
To their utter shock and disbelief, both men saw the skull moving on its own. They raced to the little church and stammered what they had seen to the parson. He suspected that the men had been drinking while digging but came out to see for himself. Sure enough, the skull moved. The wide-eyed parson shouted, “It’s a miracle!”
He immediately sent for a cross and some holy water and ordered the church bell to be rung. Curious parishioners flocked to the church. The skull was taken inside the building and laid on the altar, and there the intrigue was quickly solved.
A tiny mole crawled out of one of the skull’s eye sockets. The gathered congregation members abruptly dispersed in all directions.
THE MYSTERY OF THE PINK ROSE PETALS
A few years ago, I was signing books at the annual Newport News Fall Festival. I was approached by a well-dressed middle-aged woman who said that she wanted to tell me something but that she knew I wouldn’t believe it. I told her that I heard that a lot during my thirty years of collecting true ghostly experiences and to go ahead. This is what she related:
When I was a young girl of twelve, my grandmother died, and they buried her in a pearl-gray suit. As they were lowering her casket into the ground, I dropped three pink rose petals into the grave, because my grandmother had always loved pink roses.
Forty years later, I was in the hospital for a very serious cancer operation. They didn’t know if I was going to live or die. I was in the intensive care ward, where no flowers and no visitors were allowed. As they were getting ready to take me into the operating room, a vision of my dead grandmother suddenly appeared, still in her pearl-gray suit. The vision spoke, saying, “Don’t worry, you will live to see your children’s children!” Then the figure vanished.
Just then the attendants entered the room. As they lifted me from the bed to a gurney to wheel me in for the operation, a nurse and I both saw three pink rose petals flutter to the fl
oor.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Barden, Thomas, ed. Virginia Folk Legends. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1991.
Bielenstein, Gabrielle. Personal interview, August 13, 1989.
Bowman, Mary. Personal interview, November 29, 1989.
Bunn, Cathi. Personal interview, August 12, 1989.
Carrington, Hereward. Phantasm of the Dead. New York: Dodd-Mead, 1920.
Carter, Hill. Personal interview, October 6, 1982.
Cayce, Charles Thomas. Personal interview, June 22, 1989.
Chewning, Alpheus. Personal interview, January 21, 2006.
Curtis, Vincent. Personal interview, September 24, 2000.
Daughdrill, Mary. Personal interview, March 8, 1993.
Davis, Herbert. “A Tragic Toast at Brandon.” Olde Towne Magazine, October 1966.
Davis, Olivia. Personal interview, July 13, 1989.
Fisher, Moocie. Personal interview, November 12, 1982.
Gulbranson, Tom. Personal interview, May 9, 1989.
Hawkins, Samuel. Personal journal, Yorktown, Virginia, 1791.
Lanciano, Claude. Rosewell, Garland of Virginia. Gloucester, VA: Gloucester County Historical Society, 1978.
Lee, Marguerite. Virginia Ghosts. Richmond, VA: Byrd Press, 1930.
McDowell, Gerry. Personal interview, April 12, 1989.
Nock, Sam. Personal interview, September 4, 1989.
“Ordeal of Touch.” Northampton County, Virginia court records, December 14, 1656.
Polonsky, Jane. The Ghosts of Fort Monroe. Hampton, VA: Polydrum Publications, 1972.
Rageot, Roger. “A Locket from the Dead.” Fate magazine, November 1963.
Rollins, Randolph. Personal interview, August 1, 1989.
Tatum, Cindy. Personal interview, July 9, 1989.
Taylor, L.B., Jr. Ghosts of Virginia. Vols. 1 through 7. Lynchburg, VA: self-published, 1993–2000.
———. Ghosts of Williamsburg. Vols. 1 and 2. Lynchburg, VA: self-published, 1983–95.
Tucker, George. Virginia Supernatural Tales. Norfolk, VA: Donning Publishers, 1977.
Virginia Gazette. “The Walking Skull.” July 27, 1739.
Waggoner, John. Personal interview, May 14, 1989.
Wertenbaker, Thomas. Torchbearer of the Revolution. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1940.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
L.B. Taylor Jr. is a native Virginian. He was born in Lynchburg and has a BS degree in journalism from Florida State University. He wrote about America’s space programs for sixteen years—for NASA and aerospace contractors—before moving to Williamsburg, Virginia, in 1974 to work as public affairs director for BASF Corporation. He retired in 1993. Taylor is the author of more than three hundred national magazine articles and forty-five nonfiction books. His research for the book Haunted Houses, published by Simon and Schuster in 1983, stimulated his interest in area psychic phenomena and led to the publication of twenty-three books on Virginia ghosts. In 2007, he was presented the Lifetime Achievement Award by the Virginia Writers’ Club.
Photo courtesy of Michael Westfall.
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