HAUNTED PLACES

Baldwin Hill
Livingston, AL

Birmingham Public Library Archives
Birmingham, AL

Brown Hall
Athens, AL

Burrelson House
Decatur, AL

Cedarhurst Mansion
Huntsville, AL

Cleveland House
Suggsville, AL

Founders Hall
Athens, AL

Gainswood
Demopolis, AL

King House
Montevallo, AL

Leehaven
Coatopa, AL

Main Residence Hall
Montevallo, AL

Marengo
Lowndesboro, AL

McCandeless Hall
Athens, AL

Palmer Hall
Montevallo, AL

Pickens County Courthouse
Carrollton, AL

Reynolds Hall
Montevallo, AL

Sloss Furnaces
Birmingham, AL

Sturtivant Hall
Selma, AL

UNA Bookstore
Florence, AL

Upchurch House
Livingston, AL

Marengo
by Mark Moody

I had an encounter in the month of May about four years ago when I was visiting with a friend in the tavern downstairs. I noticed that as I was talking to him, my attention was diverted to an area of the room that has a round mirror hanging on the wall. For the life of me, I could not understand why my attention was being diverted that way. It must have been more of a subconscious kind of thing. But all of a sudden, there was a woman that appeared. She was standing in the front of the stairs. She had on black boots, a charcoal-gray skirt, a wool-looking skirt with pleats in the front, a blouse that was high around her neck, her hair was piled up on top of her head. She was an attractive woman around 35 or 40 years old. She appeared to have recognized me, but she also had a look about her that was between sadness and bewilderment. I didn’t say anything to the friend of mine who was with me, and I asked him if he’d like anything to drink. At that point, I got up to get us something to drink, and he screamed. I knew that he had seen her. The hair on his arm was standing up, and water was coming out of his eyes and he was stuttering. He said, "You will not believe what I just saw!" and I said, "I might." and he described the same thing that I had seen.

That happened in May about four years ago, and in May, a lady from Birmingham who helps the Birmingham police department solve missing children cases and various crimes through means of psychic use came here for dinner for the first time. She had a date with her. And when they came in here, the first thing she said to my parents was, "Do you know who the lady sitting of the front porch with the black boots and the charcoal-gray skirt and the blouse that’s high on her neck and the hair on top of her head is?" We said, "No, we don’t know who she is, but we know who you’re talking about." And she agreed to come back at another time and go through he house with a small tape recorder to try to recap some of the events that had taken place in this house over the years.

She seemed to feel that the woman was the wife of the doctor who originally moved this house across the river and rebuilt it on this site. She thought that perhaps he might have had an abusive tendency, that he may have struck her in a fit of rage perhaps, and this may have led to her early death. And whether that is what happened, I couldn’t verify that, but I can tell you that [the spectral image] was as real as it could be. You could see every expression on that woman’s face. You could see when she blinked her eyes. You could see when she moved her hands. You could see everything about her clothes. When she turned to go up the sitars, you could see her lift her foot up just like anybody would. It was an amazing experience. Really.

There have been other people who have seen her. We have a specific area in the tavern in the basement where we will have a group of people, and somebody will come up to you and sort of catch you by the arm and will say, "Has anything ever happened in this room in this particular area right here?" And we’ll say, "Why do you ask?" And they’ll say, "Whenever Is I stand on this particular spot, I get an uneasy, frightened feeling." And you might go a month or so, and a new group comes, and you might not get anything, and then that same thing will occur, and it is always in that same room, in that same spot, and that is that area down in that little bar in the basement. So, my guess is that the area where that little tavern is located now was a free-standing, outward building that was a kitchen. And as you are aware, the reason they did this was two-fold. One, because the kitchen produced so much heat that they didn’t want it in the house. The other was the risk of fire. When this house went through a complete renovation in the ‘60’s, this outward building was completely removed, and of course that’s where the tavern is now. My guess is that this building is where something traumatic perhaps happened to this woman. It could have been through an argument or an accident. And I think that might be what’s causing those people to have those feelings of discomfort. And it doesn’t happen to everyone. You might have one person that mentions that to you. But they’re convinced that something has happened there.

Continued.....

 

Last updated 07/24/01