| LAST CHANCE FOR THIS WEEKEND'S GHOST HUNT!
DISCOVER THE HAUNTINGS AT NORB ANDY'S IN SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS!
NIGHT AT THE VIRGIL HICKOX HOUSE
(NORB ANDY'S - SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS)
Discover the history and hauntings of one of the most haunted places in Springfield, as we conduct an American Hauntings ghost hunt there this Sunday night! Want to spend a Halloween season night in a real haunted house? Now's your chance! Click Here for More Details! |  | NEW AMERICAN HAUNTINGS EVENTS ADDED TO THE SCHEDULE!
We have a number of new events that we have just added to the schedule for 2012. To get a look at the entire list, check out the American Hauntings Tours page and make your reservations -- before it's too late. We have some our most popular weekends coming up as we return to the Mansfield Reformatory, New Orleans, Gettysburg and more! Here are a couple of events that we have just added that we're really excited about!
* NIGHT AT THE RUEBEL HOTEL / GRAFTON, ILLINOIS
On February 18, we'll be spending the night searching for the ghosts of this legendary river hotel. The night includes the ghost hunt, private room and overnight stay for 2, and a meal voucher for 2. This is the night before our next ghost hunt at the Lemp Mansion in St. Louis. Come down to the area and make a full weekend of it. Click Here for details! * NIGHT AT THE FARRAR SCHOOLHOUSE / MAXWELL, IOWA
Join American Hauntings on April 7 at a place that is gaining the repuation as one of the most haunted places in Iowa! This once abandoned school is now home to a number of ghosts from the past! Roam in the hallways and classrooms in search of spirits! Click Here for Details! * HAUNTED WEEKEND IN SOUTHWEST PENNSYLVANIA
Join us as we return to 2 of our favorite locations -- Demon House and Nemacolin Castle. On Friday and Saturday nights, March 16 & 17, we'll be exploring two of the most haunted locations in the region! Join us for both nights or just one! Click here for Demon House and then check out the details for Nemacolin Castle on Saturday!
ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW THIS WEEKEND AT THE AVON THEATER!
Free Horror Nights continue October 28 & 29 with JEEPERS CREEPERS & TRICK R TREAT! GHOST HUNTING WORKSHOPS & TOURS AVAILABLE AT THE LINCOLN THEATER!
Fundraising events for the theater aimed at ghost hunters! HOW TO HUNT GHOSTS WORKSHOP
NOVEMBER 11, 2011 / 9PM TO 1AM
Have you ever wanted to be a ghost hunt? Do you want to learn about using the tools that ghost hunters use? Join American Ghost Society Rep Adam White and his team as they offer ghost hunting workshops at the haunted Lincoln Theater! | | Learn the do's and don'ts of paranormal research and explore the haunted confines of the Lincoln Theater with a very small group of students and guides. The cost of the evening is only $30 per person and ALL proceeds will be used to benefit the Lincoln Theater. Also coming up are history and hauntings ghost tours of the theater itself, offered to benefit the Lincoln. Contact Adam White to sign up for the workshops, tours or to get more information at Adam@newageparanormal.com | | PARANORMAL CLASSICS BY MICHAEL WINKLE
A collection of the Weird, the Strange, The Unexplained & the Haunted from the Annals of the Supernatural in America & Beyond! |  | GHOST OF THE OREGON TRAIL
Category: Haunting From: Dawson, pp. 236-243 Where: The narrator’s homestead “about half-way between the Old Trail and the Little Blue river,” in or near Jefferson County , Nebraska When: From one spring in the late 1860s to the following spring Who: The unnamed narrator, his wife, “our bunch of tow-headed youngsters,” and various neighbors How close to source: Charles Dawson interviewed the primary witness circa 1909 in preparation for his book on local history Phenomena: From the 1840s to the ‘70s the main artery of travel across the North American continent was the rough winding dirt path known as the Oregon Trail . The main jump-off point for the Trail was St. Joseph , Missouri , from which city would-be settlers and their wagons ambled northwest across Kansas and into Nebraska , after which the trail curved slowly back toward the southwest. Sometime in the early 1860s the narrator’s father established himself in still-wild Nebraska , and he sent word to his son that he, too, should strike out into the wilderness. During one spring in the late ‘sixties, the narrator did just that, he and his family venturing forth in an ox-drawn wagon. The family settled in a bountiful, well-watered area near the Little Blue River in southeast Nebraska , near the Kansas border. They spent nearly a year building a log cabin and clearing the surrounding land, and in the following spring they planted corn, potatoes, melons, and other crops. Wild strawberries grew in abundance in some nearby valleys, and one Sunday morning the narrator and his wife hiked off with buckets to harvest the luscious red fruit. A low hillock, in a valley lined with pitted, shelflike walls, produced the largest and reddest berries the two had ever seen, and they fell to picking them, despite a huge tangle of vines and underbrush that covered the rise. The narrator’s foot caught in something, and he fell. He discovered that he had uprooted a human skull. He and his wife dug through the brush and discovered the almost complete skeletons of twelve people, men, women, and children. The find was not that unusual; of the thousands of people who traveled the Oregon Trail , many hundreds died due to disease, the elements, bandits, Indian raids, wild animals, or accidents. The pioneer couple buried the skeletal remains and returned home by nightfall. The family ate supper and sat out on the porch, content with their lot in life. Suddenly, reports the narrator, “there came an uncanny, weird moan or cry, like that of a woman or child in the depths of anguish or despair. Listening in awe, I awaited the repetition of that mournful sound. Soon it came, now in the fringe of trees about the cabin, then in the waist-high corn.” The homesteader took his rifle and, leaving his wife and children to watch from the porch, he “proceeded to search about in the growing corn, around the barn and all through the near-by underbrush.” He saw nothing, though he followed the sound from place to place. The moan seemed to approach the cabin, and the settler’s family jumped inside and barred the door. The homesteader continued his pursuit. “After vain attempts which led me to the roof, around and underneath the cabin, I contracted the same feelings of the rest of the family and called for admittance.” The family slept little, for the cries continued until dawn. The bodiless voice returned night after night, and finally the family grew accustomed to it. Neighbors visited and had their turns chasing the noise, but no one ever saw anything that might account for it. Summer passed. Fall arrived, and with it a bountiful harvest, but the settlers’ success was tarnished by the nightly visitations, which began to wear on their nerves. They decided to spend the winter with the narrator’s father some miles away along the Little Blue. Occasionally the narrator visited the cabin to make sure all was well, but he never stayed past sunset. Spring came again, and the family moved back to begin planting. The moaning began anew the night of their arrival. “Of course it was annoying, but what could we do?” Oddities: Though I list this tale as a haunting, it could just as easily have been described as a “ghost with a purpose.” One assumes that the spirit moaned both from the sheer horror of its manner of death and from a desire to attract the attention of mortals who could lay it to rest. Yet its communications were very uninformative, and it led people on pointless chases, including over and under buildings, as if it were a mischievous elf rather than a soul in torment. Ending: As if to bring things full circle, the pioneer couple went strawberry-picking again during the spring. As they rested on a boulder after a bout of harvesting, their eyes ran over the craggy, pitted walls of the valley. To their astonishment, they spotted another skeleton. “On closer investigation we found it to be that of a woman, huddled in a crouched, squatting position, back against the wall of a cavern-like place, seemingly as though she had taken refuge here, only to be found.” The couple buried the woman near the rough graves dug a year earlier, and they spent the day searching for more bodies. There were no more human remains, but they did find charred wood, wagon-irons, and ox bones, plus a few arrows, indicating that the unknown dead were, indeed, pioneers who had been slain by native tribesmen. The narrator waited up that evening on the porch, but the voice did not return – that night or ever again. Legend: None; the names and origins of the massacred emigrants are lost to history – a fate that many pioneers of the American west shared. Explanation: “Was this [voice] the spirit of the murdered woman beseeching me to bury her bones beside those we had previously buried, who no doubt had met a similar fate?” asks the homesteader. “I hope so, and if this gave rest to the Soul, let it be the end.” Comments: Charles Dawson lived in Jefferson County , Nebraska for forty years before realizing that the original settlers of the state were dying off around him. In 1909 he began interviewing old-timers and people who knew personally the first homesteaders of the area. His efforts resulted in a thick volume entitled Pioneer Tales of the Oregon Trail and of Jefferson County (1912). Collections of folklore usually contain many supernatural anecdotes, but Pioneer Tales can boast of only this one – entitled, logically enough, “The Ghost Story.” Perhaps Theodore Roosevelt was right, as he says in The Wilderness Hunter: “Frontiersmen are not, as a rule, apt to be very superstitious. They lead lives too hard and practical, and have too little imagination in things spiritual and supernatural.” Of course, right after this observation, Roosevelt goes into the account usually called “Baumann’s Tale,” a chilling proto-Sasquatch tale. But that’s another story. Dawson, Charles. Pioneer Tales of the Oregon Trail and of Jefferson County (Fairbury, Nebraska: Holloway Publishing, 1967 [1912]). Roosevelt, Theodore. Hunting Trips of a Ranchman and The Wilderness Hunter (New York, NY: Modern Library, 1996 [1893]), p. 752. 
OCTOBER 2011
October 22: Spookapalooza! Central Illinois's Biggest Costume Party at the Haunted Lincoln Theater in Decatur! Sponsored by the American Ghost Society, this FREE event is a benefit for St. Jude Children's Research! Live Music, Food & Drinks, Vendors, Costume Contests and More! Click Here for More Info! October 22: Night at Haunted Rectory -- Jacksonville, Illinois Return to one of our most haunted and unusual locations, the Our Savior Rectory! SOLD OUT! October 23: Night at the Virgil Hickox House -- Springfield, Illinois Join us at the home of Norb Andy's and experience one of the most infamous haunted houses in Springfield's history! Reservations!
October 29: Night at the Old Funeral Home -- Jacksonville, Illinois Join us for a ghost hunt at this former funeral home and boarding house! SOLD OUT! NOVEMBER 2011 November 5: Night at the Haunted Mansion -- Carrollton, Illinois Join us for another nighttime ghost hunt at the Lee-Baker-Hodges house, a spooky mansion with hauntings from the past! Reservations! November 12: Haunted Weekend in San Antonio, Texas -- Join American Hauntings in the Lone Star State for a full weekend of ghost tours and hunts! SOLD OUT! November 12: Night at Morrison Lodge -- Elizabethtown, Kentucky Join American Hauntings at this haunted Masonic Lodge, steeped in the history of the Civil War and infested with ghosts! Reservations! This electronic message is intended for newsletter subscribers. Please note that any form of distribution, copying or use of this communication, or the information it contains, is strictly prohibited without the express permission of the sender. Any use of this communication without permission is unlawful and a violation of federal copyright standards. If you have received this communication in error, please return it to the sender. © Copyright 2011 by Troy Taylor. All Rights Reserved |
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