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Spooky Solomons - part 1 · Trapped Souls Podcast

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Uh and welcome to Traps Holes.
• 0:02
  SPEAKER_01: I'm here with Adam from Spooky Solomons.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_01: Is that how you say it?
• 0:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yep.
• 0:06
  SPEAKER_01: Ah, there you go.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: Should I ask it before we started?
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Spooky Solomons out of Maryland, Solomon Island.
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um, welcome to the show.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 0:13
  SPEAKER_01: It's good to be here.
• 0:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, so we were just talking before that last night I had Dark Wars tours on out of Maryland, Mississippi.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry about that.
• 0:21
  SPEAKER_01: You're out of Maryland.
• 0:22
  SPEAKER_01: And that was my first tour company.
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: I'm going back to back with the tours.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_01: So let's get right into this.
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_01: How did you get into the paranormal and how did you get involved into the tours?
• 0:33
  SPEAKER_00: It's a good question.
• 0:34
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I should preface it to say I didn't get involved in the paranormal.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: That kind of happened by accident.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: I um I love history, and that's what I was really starting off with was just doing the research, um, the historical research on Solomon's.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_00: And I was putting these stories together, and I thought they were they were kind of cool but a little boring.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: Nobody really um wanted to um hear a story about just an old house being built in 1883.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: So uh, you know, as I was putting these stories together, I noticed that the stories that had kind of a paranormal aspect or a spooky aspect to it, uh, people were like, tell me more, tell me more.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_00: And and people really love that stuff.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: So I started uh doing a bit more research interviews.
• 1:28
  SPEAKER_00: I did about 70 interviews with locals before I um started my first what did my first tour.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: And I built these stories on what the locals said mixed up with the actual history of the island.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and I started giving tours and people really seem to like it.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I get people on the tour that are are there to to to ghost hunt, to look for things, they they bring equipment with them, and then I get people that are absolutely not there for the ghosts.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: They they don't believe in ghosts, they they just want to hear the history of the island and and the stories that people tell, the legends of the island.
• 2:09
  unknown: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: So when you do tours, are you like like doing like walking tours going through?
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, yeah.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I'm a bit long-winded, so I I intentionally uh you know tried to keep it short, but that's impossible with me.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: So we um uh it's about a two-hour walking tour.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it starts starts sort of on our boardwalk.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so Solomon's Island sits in the Patuxent River, um, and the where the Patuxent River meets with the Chesapeake Bay.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: And so we've got a lot of water around us, and we've got this beautiful boardwalk.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_00: We meet there on the boardwalk, and then we walk around to the backside of the island and and learn about the early history of the island.
• 2:54
  unknown: Yeah.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_01: Because I mean, yeah, I mean, you I think you have to have history, and I always tell people that if you like the if you're into the paranormal, you have to be part his like love history because it goes hand in hand.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: But vice versa, if you're in a history, it doesn't mean you have to be in the paranormal.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: It you know, I've met a lot of historians, especially the local historians.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, there's there's a great story about um one of one of the top Southern Maryland historians, um, his name is Ralph Eshelman.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked him about, you know, what what ghost stories do you have from down here?
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: And he's like, I don't believe in ghosts.
• 3:35
  SPEAKER_00: And um I said, okay, well that's that's fine.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: And and then he told me that he spent the night in one of our lighthouses.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_00: So the lighthouse that um that you've got featured on the graphic that you did, and I'll show you there's another like you know, um lighthouse here.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: But you know, there's lots of stories about this lighthouse being haunted, and and so he's telling me, Well, I heard so many stories about it, I I spent the night in the lighthouse to see if I could you know have an experience.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Did you?
• 4:08
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, No, not really.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: But exactly at midnight, my watch stopped.
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Was it out of battery?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Well, that's what I thought too.
• 4:16
  SPEAKER_00: But when I walked down and got off the uh the dock where the lighthouse was, the my my watch started back up.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: Is that I don't know, I don't know.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but he seemed to, oh, I don't believe in it, but yet keep kind of uh kind of an open mind.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_00: There's also a a lady, a fantastic chef on the island, and she owns a restaurant that has been in her family for for many, many generations, and and it's a famous ghost story of that uh restaurant.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: And I asked her, I said, have you seen the ghost there?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Yes, but I don't believe in ghosts.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that's another one where I'm scratching my head, like I can't I can't make sense of that.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_00: You've seen a ghost, but you don't believe in ghosts.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so you know, there's there's such a mix of of what people believe and what they want to believe.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think that's a pit of it, yeah.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: I think, yeah, like you're talking about that.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: We'll get into that in a little bit, but a little bit.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: Like you have people that believe, you have people that don't want to believe, and you have people that know there's paranormal out there, but leave it alone.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I guess that's the three categories you can put people in.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I those seem like good, I'm not sure what category I'm in.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: I I I tell people that I am ghost agnostic.
• 5:45
  SPEAKER_00: Agnostic doesn't mean you don't believe, it just means you you're not sure.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh there are ghost stories that I absolutely believe, and then there are others that I I don't.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um and you know, I'll give you a uh story.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: There's there's a house down here, it's called uh Nealed Mansion.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, this house, it's it was originally uh the estate comes from 1658, and and the house was built in the late 1700s, and there's so many ghost stories about this house.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's these stories about generations of people heard this eerie whistling uh noise from the house, and they heard this, you know, one one lady said it's it it scared her nigh unto death, and um, and then uh they described it as a whistle of a lost soul, and and people reported this for years and years.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_00: The other thing that people heard was it sounded like someone was chopping wood outside, um, you know, like the the axe hitting the wood, and it sounded like they were chopping wood.
• 7:00
  SPEAKER_00: And people told this story over and over again about the the whistling man from the mansion and chopping wood.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, in the 1960s, they renovated it and they replaced the chimney and they replaced some of the boards in the wall, and the whistling stopped, and the and the chopping stopped.
• 7:22
  SPEAKER_00: And what I think is was going on was even though you've got this documented case going back many generations of hearing the same thing, I think the wind as it blew across the chimney was making that whistling noise, and I think that wind was also picking up those boards and knocking it and making it sound like chopping of wood.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_00: You've got those stories where until you figure out what is going on, it sounds very plausible because of the length of time.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: But then I hear other stories.
• 7:55
  SPEAKER_00: There's on the island, there's a house.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, this house was built around 1890, and it was an ice cream shop and a candy shop.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And the lady that lived there, she made the ice cream and candy right there in that house.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: A hundred years later, it was rented out to folks, and uh a young woman and her son were there.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: Her son was about six years old.
• 8:17
  SPEAKER_00: She didn't stay there very long, and I interviewed her and I said, What happened?
• 8:21
  SPEAKER_00: And she said that when they moved in, the her son started talking to himself in his bedroom, and his bedroom was upstairs and he was he was just talking to himself, and she thought it was just sort of part of growing up.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: But then she started he started coming downstairs and asking if he could have some candy or ice cream that the old lady upstairs was making, and that creeped her out, and and she decided she didn't want to stay there anymore.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I I was thinking if a ghost is offering me candy or ice cream, that's actually not too bad.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_00: But yeah, but anyway, it kind of freaked her out, and so she left.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: But here's the thing you know, he's he's in the upstairs back room, and and said that she was making ice cream and candy there.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't normally think of a kitchen on the second floor, right?
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like kitchens aren't normally built on the second floor, but in doing research on this house and when it was built and going over the early records, it in fact had the kitchen in his bedroom.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: It was upstairs.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I can't explain, you know, how would you unless this lady was a master researcher that went through the uh the the archives to come up with his story, uh there's no other explanation other than there was something else happening.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so for me, you have those two stories where the one you've got what seems like a good ghost story, but then it turns out to not be.
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh on the other, as hard as I've tried to find reasons this may not be accurate, that it may not be a ghost.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_00: I I can't show that it's not.
• 10:03
  SPEAKER_00: It it seems very legitimate as a ghost story.
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean that's cool.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, so many people are scared of the unknown.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that guy just wanted some candy and ice cream.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: So, I mean, is it a mean spirit that wants candy and ice cream?
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, and I always tell a lot of people that like I think I believe majority spirits are just people that want an interaction.
• 10:27
  SPEAKER_01: You know, just guy like maybe he was worked for that lady and missed her candy and ice cream.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and and um the the lady that worked there that that made the candy and ice cream, her name was Bertie, and and Bertie was really loved in the town.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: And I've got stories that people reported after she had died that they reported seeing her, you know, they they saw her at different events.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_00: So she would make ice cream and candy for you know birthday celebrations and weddings and things like that.
• 11:02
  SPEAKER_00: And she was very popular to invite because she brought that stuff.
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: But after she passed, people people still saw her at those events, and it got to a point in the early days.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, when I say early, you know, the 1950s and 60s, it was very common to have a wedding or a birthday party, and they'd set a plate at the table for Bertie, even though she had died.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And there was one story, and this it you made me think of it when you said that people just want to be included.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: And there was one story where a woman got married.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_00: She actually was in another famous house called the Maples, and she got married, and on the the night after her wedding night, she said a ghost came to her and grabbed her feet while she was sleeping.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_00: She jumped up and she said she recognized Bertie, and Bertie was angry and wouldn't talk to her, and said it was because she wasn't invited to her wedding, even though Bertie was dead, right?
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: So, yeah, you know, I I feel like I feel like a lot of ghosts aren't scary, they're they just are people that yeah, miss being people.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, they just want to be heard, you know.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_01: That's it.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_01: Now, being a skeptic, you say, is it possible people see Birdie because first of all, Birdie was loved in the community, missed?
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Is it possible like imagination-wise, because our mind is this strong that that's what they see because it makes them feel comfortable?
• 12:37
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, that that's absolutely possible.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I think you know, when you start having the stories of people seeing Birdie, you know, those tend to spread, right?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um, you know, when you when one person sees something, uh other people start to see similar things.
• 12:57
  SPEAKER_00: I I sort of alluded to one of the more famous ghosts of Solomon's, um, they they call her the Bowen's Inn lady.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: She she haunted a hotel restaurant called the Bowen's Inn.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, this one.
• 13:11
  SPEAKER_00: While I believe something is happening there, I I I do believe something is going on, but it's interesting to me because every single report, not every single report, let me 90% of the reports that I got uh from the Bowens Inn were exactly the same.
• 13:32
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the the experience was told using the same words and mannerisms, and and and that made me a little skeptical because I mean you and I like we can't even remember accurately what happened yesterday.
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, you know, our memories aren't as good as we think they are, and so when people start remembering things exactly the same way, I get a little bit hmm, you know, suspicious.
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, but that that isn't to say that something isn't happening there, it's just I think that some of the stories, like you said about Bertie, I think some of them start getting told they snowball into folklore and and everybody wants to be a part of that.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, there's nothing wrong with it because you're keeping her memory alive, and that's that's important.
• 14:23
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: So Marilyn, I mean, do you investigate at all at all or do you just do tours?
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I um I I don't investigate.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_00: I've had plenty of people that have done investigations on the tour, and uh I've had uh experiences where I would certainly uh say that I have had an experience where I think something more may be going on than just just my tour.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um so if that makes sense.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but I I don't have any investigative tools or I I don't do that on the tour.
• 15:02
  unknown: Yeah.
• 15:03
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think it's great because you're not a paranormal investigator, but you tell the folklore and let people make up their own mind.
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I think that's awesome.
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, my my experience with a lot of the investigations.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: I I I did go on one.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_00: We have we have uh we have a famous witch uh down here called Maul Dyer.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um and and it's actually Maul Dyer Week this week.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um and yeah, she's a famous witch.
• 15:37
  SPEAKER_00: She was killed in the in the 1600s, and it's a big deal for some areas, but a couple years ago we went on an investigation for Maul Dyer Week.
• 15:47
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, honestly, I I felt like I felt kind of sad for any of the ghosts that were present because you know it seemed like it seemed like they were reaching out, but no one knew anything about them.
• 16:05
  SPEAKER_00: They like, oh, we've got a name, right?
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_00: Or we've got knocking noises or or some noise that they were making, but there was no follow-up.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, you know, I'm thinking to myself, and this is something that one of my my good friends, Len, uh listening, hi Len.
• 16:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um one of the things that Len and I talk about quite a bit is that you know, these are these are people that lived and they have feelings and and not knowing their history, you know, when you do an investigation, and if you don't know the history, you know, it just is sort of sort of sad that you know it's like they're trying to reach out and people get excited.
• 16:47
  SPEAKER_00: Oh my gosh, we've made contact.
• 16:49
  SPEAKER_00: But uh, I see a question, do they have a festival festival for that week?
• 16:54
  SPEAKER_00: And and they sort of do.
• 16:55
  SPEAKER_00: So the town of Leonardtown, Maryland, it's it's in St.
• 16:58
  SPEAKER_00: Mary's County.
• 17:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh Leonardtown is another another fantastic uh town in in southern Maryland.
• 17:06
  SPEAKER_00: But they have uh they're the ones that sponsor Maul Dyer Week, and they actually have uh under uh so let me let me tell the story of Maul Dyer very quickly.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_00: Maul Dyer was an indentured servant.
• 17:20
  SPEAKER_00: She she learned healing arts from the African slaves that she was working alongside uh when she worked off her indentured.
• 17:32
  SPEAKER_00: She uh lived in a in a small cabin outside of Leonardtown, Maryland.
• 17:38
  SPEAKER_00: It's in St.
• 17:39
  SPEAKER_00: Mary's County.
• 17:40
  SPEAKER_00: One year there was a very cold winter and a flu epidemic that that hit.
• 17:47
  SPEAKER_00: And like always, the people went to Maul for healing.
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_00: They they asked her for help.
• 17:52
  SPEAKER_00: They they said, you know, you know how to mix herbs and and you can help us.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_00: And she wasn't able to help them.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they continue to get sick and die, their animals were getting sick and dying.
• 18:05
  SPEAKER_00: And a group of townspeople decided that, well, Maul may not be a good witch after all, and that um this could be God's punishment, so we need to get rid of Maul.
• 18:14
  SPEAKER_00: So they they in the dead of winter, February, they they burnt her house down.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_00: And the intention really wasn't to kill her, it was just to you burn her house down and maybe she'll live somewhere else.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but it wasn't very well thought out.
• 18:29
  SPEAKER_00: I'm I'm guessing a lot of drinking was involved because they didn't uh think this through.
• 18:34
  SPEAKER_00: And and poor Maul, she she ran out of the burning house, froze to death uh that night, and they found her body uh frozen onto a rock.
• 18:45
  SPEAKER_00: Her her hand print is on the rock and her knee print is on the rock.
• 18:50
  SPEAKER_00: And they said her other her left hand was extended into uh the air.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well, this rock, they have moved it into Leonard Town, uh, the the center of town.
• 19:02
  SPEAKER_00: And and people, I think it's a little bit you you need a bit of an imagination to see the handprint, but there is there is an indentation.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's called Maldire Rock, and it's got a nice little plexiglass case, you know, not case, it's uh just roof over it.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, what they say is if you touch the rock and you you wish her well, they'll they'll bless you know, mall will bless you, and if you wish her ill, then you'll be cursed.
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_00: And um, so I I wish her nothing but but the best.
• 19:34
  SPEAKER_00: So I touched the rock.
• 19:36
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, my one friend, Katrina, she was there with me one time, and her ancestors were in the mob that burnt her house down.
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: So she said, I wish her nothing but the best, but I she might hold a grudge.
• 19:47
  SPEAKER_00: I don't want to touch the rock.
• 19:48
  SPEAKER_00: Um, probably wise.
• 19:50
  SPEAKER_00: But Leonard Town, they've got the rock, they've got some really cool um history there uh at the wharf, and they do all kinds of events for Maul Dire week.
• 20:04
  SPEAKER_00: I wouldn't exactly call it a festival.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's uh there's there's more it's it's more that they the town has a bunch of activities that they do around the history of Maul Dyer.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_01: So what do you think about them moving the rock?
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: Because that kind of surprised me.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_01: Because I mean I don't I don't think that's right.
• 20:25
  SPEAKER_00: The you know, I I I don't know the history of the rock well enough to be able to say the the original location of the rock was way in the middle of the woods somewhere.
• 20:36
  SPEAKER_00: And I think I I don't know when they moved it, but whenever they did, the idea was to remember her.
• 20:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I think I think they at least had good intentions.
• 20:49
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know if it yeah, yeah.
• 20:51
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, hopefully, I mean, hopefully it wasn't just a money thing, you know.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_01: It's kind of like, hey, here's the rock and come see it and visit our town and buy some coffee or something.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_01: Uh it just sounds weird to me.
• 21:03
  SPEAKER_01: Like I like leaving stuff to where it was, especially when someone passed on it.
• 21:08
  SPEAKER_01: Like, just leave it alone and maybe she will curse the town or something since they moved.
• 21:14
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there I you know, there there's I I can see that argument.
• 21:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I think I think for the town, it's more of a memory than it is uh I mean, yeah, the local businesses get in on it, and some of it is sort of, you know, I mean, every every bar is making a different mall dire cocktail, right?
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_00: Like everybody is trying to do something, and and it is uh certainly you know business focused in that sense.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_00: But I think that the history of mall and what happened, I I think they treat it with uh a fair amount of respect.
• 21:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, at least the town does, the historical society does.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I I think that.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I think in their mind it's more about preserving the memory than it is about profiting from it.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean I have no problem with small businesses, whatever.
• 22:12
  SPEAKER_01: You know, long as you're doing it for the right intentions, is remembering, you know, and it's kind of a dark history, you know.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_01: The town killed her.
• 22:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right, right.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: Guys that are probably in a pub drinking.
• 22:26
  SPEAKER_01: Let's go burn the witch's house down.
• 22:28
  SPEAKER_01: And now the pub's making their her dreams.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's kind of weird to me, but it becomes full circle, doesn't it?
• 22:37
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, it's a full circle.
• 22:39
  SPEAKER_01: But I mean, if they're doing it for the right intentions, which they probably are, you know, majority are doing it for right intentions for remembrance.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_01: And you know, as we say, history does repeat itself.
• 22:51
  SPEAKER_01: And if we remember the bad, which we try to forget in the United States a lot of times, but if we remember the bad, hopefully we don't repeat it.
• 23:00
  SPEAKER_01: That's my that's my theory.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 23:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, and you know, not too far from there, you know, Leonardtown is is situated in St.
• 23:10
  SPEAKER_00: Mary's County.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: You drive just a little bit further south and you hit St.
• 23:15
  SPEAKER_00: Mary's City, which is the um the first and and uh permanent settlement of of the Europeans in Maryland.
• 23:24
  SPEAKER_00: And and that's uh it's it's a lot of education there.
• 23:28
  SPEAKER_00: You've learned a lot about the history.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and they do uh they've got tours there, um, especially in October, they'll do tours um kind of talking about the haunted legends of St.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_00: Mary's City.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then if you drive a little bit further south, you've got Point Lookout.
• 23:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um and Point Lookout is uh the most haunted lighthouse in America.
• 23:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it was built in 1830, and it's got it's got a tremendous amount of history there.
• 24:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let me see if I can pull up a picture.
• 24:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so this is I was just there at Point Lookout.
• 24:10
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, Point Lookout was a uh uh Civil War.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_00: Uh well it actually goes back to the War of 1812, uh, as a that's where it got its name is Point Lookout.
• 24:22
  SPEAKER_00: Was they were watching for the British sailing up and down the Chesapeake Bay, and the British attacked that spot in 1814.
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and then the lighthouse was built in 1830.
• 24:34
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, during the Civil War, it was a hospital.
• 24:37
  SPEAKER_00: Uh so 1862, it was a a hospital uh for wounded uh initially it was wounded northerner troops, but then it eventually was for everybody.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_00: And then uh a year later they turned it into a prison camp after the Battle of Gettysburg.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_00: All of the southern uh the Confederate prisoners that they they took there at Gettysburg, they put them on point lookout, and it's it's a kind of a peninsula, so it's really easy to protect it.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_00: It's where the Potomac River meets with the Chesapeake Bay, and there's this little peninsula.
• 25:11
  SPEAKER_00: Anyway, uh, like I said, point lookout lighthouse is is uh they say is the most haunted lighthouse uh in America, and that the grounds there, when you walk the grounds, uh there are so many stories.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_00: Um, in fact, if you Google the those, you actually will find pictures of what people have captured, ghosts and things like that over the years.
• 25:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, lots of stories from there.
• 25:39
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, these towns that are connected to the history, right?
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_00: You know, point lookout is it's got so much history there, so much death, it's got lots and lots of stories.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_01: Um that's the east coast itself is just unbelievable.
• 25:56
  SPEAKER_01: Well, it's not all touristy, you know, built with condos and everything.
• 26:00
  SPEAKER_01: But the east coast is I mean, the history of the east coast is unbelievable because that's where we settled to make a thriving community.
• 26:07
  SPEAKER_01: You need water, so and trade.
• 26:11
  SPEAKER_01: That's why the east coast is so big, and especially like the northern part, like you may new, I don't know, Virginia and all that.
• 26:18
  SPEAKER_01: It's still beautiful country up there.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: So in Maryland, I've been in Maryland a few times, but um yeah, Amanda.
• 26:27
  SPEAKER_01: Um, she said a lot of the town.
• 26:29
  SPEAKER_01: Well, we're talking about the witch, I believe.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_01: A lot of the town can trace their name and lineage back to that time, period.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_01: Some of those names don't love the attention.
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_00: I can see that, yeah.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, I think that goes for a lot of towns when something, you know, darker history, especially a nice, small, quiet town, you don't want the tourist attraction.
• 26:49
  SPEAKER_01: That's why you move there to begin with, to get away from that.
• 26:53
  SPEAKER_01: And it sucks when something happens.
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'll tell you, uh, you know, to Amanda's point, I mean, this is a a struggle for me as a someone who's who's giving ghost tours.
• 27:06
  SPEAKER_00: And we have, you know, I do the tours, you know, this time of year, and and really, you know, from from the fall and through the winter, it's mostly uh locals that that do the tours.
• 27:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then in the summer, we get lots of people that come down to to Solomon's for the seafood.
• 27:26
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we've got great seafood, we got great fishing, um, we've got great uh restaurants and stores, and it's it's beautiful down here.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_00: And so we get lots of tourists, and so I give these tours uh for them.
• 27:38
  SPEAKER_00: I'll tell you, it it is a struggle for me wanting to tell certain stories, but maybe maybe not the best idea because it sometimes it paints people in a certain way.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, when you understand the full story, it it maybe isn't as bad as it sounds, but giving a tour, you've got very limited amount of time to get the story out, and and you can't always deliver all the facts uh or the background to a story.
• 28:08
  SPEAKER_00: So there's some of those stories that I leave out because I don't want people to get the wrong impression, or the locals, you know, Amanda's absolutely right.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: We've got these families go way back, and and many of the, you know, you know, like I said about the Bowens Inn, you know, the property is still in the family, you know, that it's been there for generations.
• 28:29
  SPEAKER_00: So, you know, that there's in every town you've got good stories and you got some bad stories, and how you present those bad stories is important that you you treat it with respect and give it the proper background to what was going on and why that happened.
• 28:48
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I mean, it's when you have something like a dark history, it turned into a positive, you know.
• 28:56
  SPEAKER_01: That's what's great.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_01: You know, it's it's something that you know, yeah, they they did something bad, obviously.
• 29:01
  SPEAKER_01: They did something bad, they burned a witch's house down.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_01: They kind of learn from that and want to remember her, I guess, for that before.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so I think it's a positive spin on something negative that happened, and I think we gotta do that a lot more, not just in a paranormal.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like we said, I believe majority ghosts are just people that don't be heard.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_01: Too many people out there go do these investigations and create bad stories.
• 29:28
  SPEAKER_01: Like, can you imagine being a spirit sitting in a corner saying, Oh, this is a dark entity?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: You know, like, what are you talking about?
• 29:35
  SPEAKER_01: Like, I just want some candy and ice cream, like that's all I want.
• 29:41
  SPEAKER_01: You know, but that's how it starts.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_00: One person well, and you know, it is scary, right?
• 29:49
  SPEAKER_00: Like, you know, for for the living to encounter the dead, there's there's a bit of a creep factor, and and they may not intend it to be creepy, but um, you know, that's it's why scary movies are popular and it's why ghost tours are popular.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_00: People like to be kind of creeped out, you know.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_00: That again, that's another another thing that I am constantly thinking about is making sure that when I give a tour and telling the stories of these people, that I remember that these are these were people that lived and loved and and had their own drama.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: And um, I mean, they were just like us and to treat them with respect.
• 30:33
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's it's a challenge sometimes because you know you want to tell a good story and you want to make it fun for your audience, but you also need to be respectful and tell it in a way that uh people aren't uh both living and dead aren't going to be upset by what you're saying, right?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean it's it's a hard balance, but you know, we do it.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, like you said, those people walk the same street you're walking right now, and they might have been telling stories too.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: You never know.
• 31:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh, what else is going on in Maryland besides good seafood and all that fun stuff out there?
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_00: Seafood's pretty good darn good.
• 31:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um a friend of mine from California, he he came to visit, and I took him to one of my favorite crab cake places.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_00: And I I won't make anybody upset by telling which crab cake place it is down here, but we have Maryland has the best crab cakes, and we and I took him there and he um he he took one bite and the waitress came and said, you know, is everything okay?
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, terrible.
• 31:33
  SPEAKER_00: And and she said, Oh my gosh, why?
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_00: And he said, Because I can never eat a crab cake outside of Maryland again.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_01: And that's I haven't been, I don't think I've been to the coast of Maryland, so I'm gonna have to get out there.
• 31:50
  SPEAKER_00: Solomon's island was built on oysters, you know, quite literally.
• 31:54
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Isaac Solomon, he was a an oyster businessman, and he came to um what is now Solomon's Island in 1867.
• 32:06
  SPEAKER_00: And it was, you know, after the Civil War, there was this entire shift of the economy from tobacco growing plantation owners to what?
• 32:16
  SPEAKER_00: And a lot of people shifted to making their living on the water, and the Patuxent River oysters were were famous.
• 32:24
  SPEAKER_00: There's advertisements all over the country.
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, New York City, as far as way as uh as San Francisco, that we found some advertisements of Patuxent River oysters.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_00: You know, these were some of the best oysters in the world, and and many will say they still are.
• 32:40
  SPEAKER_00: And uh so that's that's what built the island was was the oyster industry.
• 32:45
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna do a post shortly because you know the island used to be very clearly an island, it used to sit out in the Patuxent River a bit, but all those oysters that they were shucking and putting canning, all the shells they would throw out, and that built up the land.
• 33:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so now uh the the split from the mainland to the island is only about 15 feet, where it used to be you know a couple hundred feet, now it's only 15 feet.
• 33:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and I I need to do a post to show people that little bit of land or that little bit of water separating the island from the mainland because I I did a post not too long ago saying that you know Solomon's Island is in fact an island, and Ryan, I got hate mail over it, you know.
• 33:35
  SPEAKER_00: Uh nobody that lives here but people that had visited, they were like, I was there and I never saw, you know, it it didn't look like an island to me.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_00: Well, if you blink, you miss it, but um, but yeah, it was it was literally filled in with oysters and got images of of mountains of oyster shells all around the island.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Lynn and I were were joking about what does a a ghost oyster look like because we do have ghost dogs uh down here, but I don't know, I haven't encountered a ghost oyster yet.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: But I I'm guessing that if you've got ghost other animals, then ghost oysters might might exist.
• 34:14
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, I don't think oysters make too much noise though.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_01: So I was running down the hallway after you.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_01: No, I mean that's a pretty cool fact.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_01: I never even thought of like all the oysters like close that land up, you know.
• 34:29
  SPEAKER_01: Too bad they didn't throw them on the other side, you know, make your island bigger that way.
• 34:33
  SPEAKER_00: They did.
• 34:34
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, they did, yeah.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: In fact, uh we've got some of our good restaurants, and uh even even the tiki bar where they sit.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we've got this, you know, the tiki bar is a very famous bar on the island, and uh where they sit used to be water, and um okay, that's just interesting, like all around.
• 34:54
  SPEAKER_01: I mean that's that's crazy.
• 34:55
  SPEAKER_01: Like, how many oysters did you have to shock?
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, well, you know, the uh another thing that's happening after the civil war is this industrialization of something like the oysters.
• 35:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you know, so oyster packing becomes um you know almost like a conveyor belt of of you know oysters coming in one door and then cans of oysters going out the other door.
• 35:25
  SPEAKER_00: And so it's this, you know, they they've got it down and they're able to uh mass-produce canned oysters and ship them all over the world.
• 35:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, they've they have found them in the coal mines, you know, Solomon's Island oysters in the in the um gold mines of of California.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_00: And my favorite place that they found some oysters, there's a can of oysters that they found from Solomon's Island in Antarctica.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, one of the early Antarctic expeditions, they took some some Patuxent River Solomon's Island oysters down there and they threw the can out, and now it's part of history.
• 36:01
  SPEAKER_01: So yeah, I mean you always want, I mean, you're gonna go somewhere, you especially for a long time, especially expeditioning in our card.
• 36:07
  SPEAKER_01: You want to bring a little taste of home, right?
• 36:09
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, that one little bite could give you so much comfort of remembering what I mean.
• 36:15
  SPEAKER_00: It is, I mean, uh, we don't have anything in Ohio that's fancy, so so can I can I tell you a story about Lynn real quick?
• 36:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um she's fine with it, I am fine with it.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I you know this for me was really, you know, when I talk about the intersection of like history and legend, the paranormal, you know, that this story kind of drove it home for me.
• 36:40
  SPEAKER_00: And and before I tell, I need to explain a little something.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_00: So uh I I've never I never really believed in psychics.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_00: I I guess I never really gave it much thought.
• 36:50
  SPEAKER_00: It wasn't that I again I was sort of agnostic, I just didn't really think much of it.
• 36:55
  SPEAKER_00: And and Lynn contacted me and we had a great conversation about uh a story on the island that she had experienced, and and she knew things that uh impressed me.
• 37:08
  SPEAKER_00: And I I decided to get together and and meet with her, and we we had an absolute fantastic session on the island talking about the uh the stories and what she was picking up.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_00: And we have done uh she and I have we've done um some psychic tours where she just talks about what she picks up, and then I try to give a historical perspective to it.
• 37:34
  SPEAKER_00: So um I think that's that's gone over what very well, and looking forward to picking those back up uh once it gets a bit warmer.
• 37:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um so Lynn is from Winged Spirit Mediumship.
• 37:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you guys don't follow her, definitely follow her on Facebook and um and and but like I said, she she sort of has turned me from an agnostic to a believer.
• 37:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um and one of the things that happened, there's this church that's not too far away from Solomon's, it's it's not on the island.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it's called Middleham Church.
• 38:06
  SPEAKER_00: It was originally built in 1684.
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, it's an Anglican church or today episcopal church.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: And the current brick church, the current brick church was built in 1748.
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: In the church records, so I I was reading through some of the church archives, and in the church records, over many generations, they talk about a ghost that haunts the cemetery there.
• 38:30
  SPEAKER_00: And the cemetery is a cool cemetery, it's one of these old cemeteries, and it's just it's a it's a very cool cemetery, it's very beautiful there.
• 38:39
  SPEAKER_00: Um but both old and new accounts uh talk about a ghost named Elizabeth that that haunts the cemetery, and all kinds of stories.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, again, some of them are quite old, and and others are more recent.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: I I think the most recent that I that was recorded by the church was in the 90s, um, 1990s.
• 39:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, I I don't know how the they knew the the ghost name, but they said it was Elizabeth.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um they said in the church record that they believed that Elizabeth's grave was somewhere lost in the woods, um, but they didn't know much more about it than that.
• 39:24
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I looked up all the Elizabeths buried in the church and you know, around the church, and I couldn't find any that made any sense because some of the stories, like I said, are some pretty old, and I couldn't find any Elizabeths that were documented, buried there, that were that old.
• 39:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, so I had said to Lynn, um, I I I I think it was a Saturday night, and I said I texted Lynn and I said, you know, I think I'm gonna go to the Middleham chapel and and see if I can't find um Elizabeth's grave.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I'm also interested, I was also looking for some revolutionary war graves.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I said, Do you doing anything tomorrow?
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_00: You want to come with me?
• 40:08
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Oh, yeah, I'll come with you.
• 40:10
  SPEAKER_00: And so we met up at Middleham and we walked around.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: The moment we arrived, she said she was picking up uh Elizabeth.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_00: You know, Lynn said that Elizabeth was there, and I was just kind of like, Okay, you know, okay, not okay.
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_00: I don't know what else to say.
• 40:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um and it's not too uncommon for Lynn to say, you know, I'm picking up this person, or you know, um, and then while walking and we're looking at the different graves, um, Lynn says to me, Did did Elizabeth have a daughter named Mary?
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, I don't know.
• 40:46
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I I don't know.
• 40:47
  SPEAKER_00: We don't know anything about it.
• 40:49
  SPEAKER_00: It's not in the in the church records that they've mentioned that.
• 40:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um there was one record that they thought that the ghost of Elizabeth was hanging around the church because of a child, but that was about it.
• 41:07
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so we continue to walk around and we're on the side of the church, and we walk past these well-known old family grave stones.
• 41:19
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, so it was a little little cemetery plot of the Perrin family, and the Perrons are are a very uh well-known family in Southern Maryland.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Oh, look, uh, here's the Perrin family plot right here.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_00: And Lynn kind of jumped and I said, What happened?
• 41:34
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, Elizabeth said yes, and I said, Yes, what?
• 41:38
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, I don't know.
• 41:39
  SPEAKER_00: She just said yes.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I said, Well, could Elizabeth's last name be Perrin?
• 41:46
  SPEAKER_00: And Lynn's like, I don't know.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_00: She just said yes.
• 41:48
  SPEAKER_00: When you said Perrin's name, she said yes.
• 41:51
  SPEAKER_00: So I'm thinking, okay, well, maybe, maybe Elizabeth Perrin that the dates would check out.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_00: I said, Well, let's let's see if we can find any Elizabeths back in the woods.
• 42:02
  SPEAKER_00: Let's go back there in the woods.
• 42:03
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, so I wanted to head back and I started walking, and she stopped, and she's standing by the church, and she says, She's not in the woods.
• 42:12
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and this is gonna sound really dumb, but she's in the church.
• 42:18
  SPEAKER_00: And she asked me, Did they bury people inside the church?
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_00: I said, I don't think so.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_00: That seems a little bit, you know, for one of these small old country churches.
• 42:29
  SPEAKER_00: Like I know some of the big cathedrals that would have happened, but I I didn't think they would have done that in in this church.
• 42:36
  SPEAKER_00: And she says, Well, she's in there and she's next to Addison and Cook.
• 42:42
  SPEAKER_00: Well, Addison and Cook are not names that are familiar to me.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: And I I was thinking, huh, well, those are very specific names.
• 42:51
  SPEAKER_00: We've got Elizabeth Perrin, daughter Mary Perrin inside the church connected to an Addison and a Cook.
• 42:58
  SPEAKER_00: That's you know, that's a lot of information.
• 43:01
  SPEAKER_00: And and so that's something that I can research.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: And so I started researching it.
• 43:05
  SPEAKER_00: And here's what I found: I found that in fact, in the church, there are graves, they're underneath the floor.
• 43:12
  SPEAKER_00: The the markers are under the floor, and the first inscription reads, Here lies the body of John Cook, died the 5th of January, 1759, aged 15 years and six months.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_00: So that kind of shows.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: Well, there's John Cook.
• 43:30
  SPEAKER_00: Then I find another grave in memory of Robert Addison, who died suddenly December 30th, 1785, 59 years and eight months.
• 43:39
  SPEAKER_00: So there's your cook and Addison, and then reading down further or going down the line further, the inscription.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: But what it says is near this place lieth the body of Alexander Perrin, son and heir of John Perrin of Benton in the county of Oxen of England, who departed this life, ye 30th day of May 1729, age 52 years old.
• 44:05
  SPEAKER_00: Also near thereto lieth the body of Mary Perrin, daughter of young Perrin and Eliz, period, his wife, departed this life the 15th of August, 1744, age one and a half years.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_00: Now, you know, Ryan, it it's one of those things where for the life of me, I never would have found Elizabeth because they didn't write her name on the on the stone.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_00: You can, but they just did E-L I Z.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_00: When you're searching for that, when you're looking through these records, you you're not going to find it looking for it that way.
• 44:42
  SPEAKER_00: So it was only by connecting these other names that I was able to find who Elizabeth Perrin was.
• 44:51
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and you know what we've been able to do now is piece together a lot about her life.
• 44:57
  SPEAKER_00: I know quite a bit about where she lived, what her life was like.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: Young Perrin was her second husband.
• 45:03
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we know quite a bit about what they did, uh, what her first husband and how he died.
• 45:08
  SPEAKER_00: I feel like we've taken a story that was just sort of legend and and told over and over again, and we've put a person to it.
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_00: And that's only through this connection of of the legend, the history, and the paranormal.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_00: And those things come together and and we can tell a very complete story there.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_01: Definitely.
• 45:29
  SPEAKER_01: That's I mean, that's I don't want to use the word creepy, but that's cool.
• 45:34
  SPEAKER_01: I mean, it's it, I mean, it's it's mind blowing.