Eerie Trees

The view from my south window (photos by Gary):

 

 

And a bit closer up:

 

 

Sometimes in lieu of a run I take a short walk through this park beside my home, where there is a quarter-mile long trail through the remnants of an old farm woodlot.

 

These Black Locust trees--useful as they were to the farmer for virtually indestructible fence posts--always give me the willies when I pass under them.  Can't put my finger on exactly why, it's just a feeling I get.

 

 

Ghosts--Seriously (Part 3 repost)

This post originally ran in March 2010. I figured it would be a timely re-post for Halloween this year.

++++++++++++++++++++

Ghosts--Seriously (Part 3 of 3)

This may be the "Big Rock" mentioned later in the post, just inside the treeline at the right center of the shot, immediately to the right of the large oak.

A closer view of the rock; it's about 6' high. Photos by the author, 9 March 2010.

My home sits along the route the Confederates used on their way both to and from Gettysburg in 1863. This post concerns a series of odd--dare I say ghostly?--personal experiences as I run along a particular section of road, between the villages of Marion and New Franklin, perhaps 5 miles from my home. This is where the 17 mile long Confederate "wagon train of the wounded" passed on its way back to Virginia.

Following the battle of Gettysburg in 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee entrusted the conduct of the wagon train of the wounded to Brigadier General John D. Imboden, to try to get the wounded of the Army of Northern Virginia safely back home. Imboden was a gifted writer and left behind a detailed and chilling account, excerpted here. He starts with his orders from General Lee:

We must now return to Virginia. As many of our poor wounded as possible must be taken home. I have sent for you, because your men and horses are fresh and in good condition, to guard and conduct our train back to Virginia. The duty will be arduous, responsible, and dangerous...You will re-cross the mountain by the Chambersburg road, and then proceed to Williamsport by any route you deem best....

Imboden explains the logistics:

About 4 P. M. [Gary: this was on 4 July, the day after the 3-day battle ended] the head of the column was put in motion near Cashtown, and began the ascent of the mountain in the direction of Chambersburg. I remained at Cashtown giving directions and putting in detachments of guns and troops at what I estimated to be intervals of a quarter or a third of a mile...the entire column was seventeen miles long when drawn out on the road and put in motion.

Then Imboden reveals the awful nature of the gruesome caravan:

After dark I set out from Cashtown to gain the head of the column during the night...For four hours I hurried forward on my way to the front, and in all that time I was never out of hearing of the groans and cries of the wounded and dying. Scarcely one in a hundred had received adequate surgical aid, owing to the demands on the hard working surgeons from still worse eases that had to be left behind. Many of the wounded in the wagons had been without food for thirty-six hours. Their torn and bloody clothing, matted and hardened, was rasping the tender, inflamed, and still oozing wounds. Very few of the wagons had even a layer of straw in them, and all were without springs. The road was rough and rocky from the heavy washings of the preceding day. The jolting was enough to have killed strong men, if long exposed to it. From nearly every wagon as the teams trotted on, urged by whip and shout, came such cries and shrieks as these: "Oh God! Why can't I die? My God! Will no one have mercy and kill me Stop! Oh! For God's sake, stop just for one minute; take me out and leave me to die on the roadside." I am dying! I am dying! My poor wife, my dear children, what will become of you?

Some were simply moaning; some were praying and others uttering the most fearful oaths and execrations that despair and agony could wring from them; while a majority, with a stoicism sustained by sublime devotion to the cause they fought for; endured without complaint unspeakable tortures, and even spoke with cheer and confront to their unhappy comrades of less will or more acute nerves. Occasionally a wagon would be passed from which only low, deep moans could be heard.

Adding another piece of the puzzle: in 1963, the 100th anniversary of the battle, the Chambersburg Chamber of Commerce published a soft-cover booklet entitled "Lee's Invasion--The Great Decision 1863." It included some anecdotes under the heading "My Grandfather Told Me--Personal Reminiscences 100 Years Later." One story stands out, submitted by Misses Carrie and Thelma Small of Marion, PA:

After the battle across the mountain, lots of the rebels came back to this section on their way to get home. This was the way they came and maybe they thought it was the only way back to Virginia. Two of the rebels died in the field and were buried opposite the Big Rock. When another reb was buried an Indian skeleton was found and buried back with him.

The 17 mile long wagon train of the wounded passed this way some 147 years ago. Along this section are several rock outcrops, any one of which could be the "Big Rock" of the Misses Small story. On occasion, when I have run along this stretch when it's quiet, say in the early morning or after dark, I actually sense a faint presence. It manifests itself as a sort of vague murmuring behind me, and a faint or imagined footfall in step with mine. But when I stop to listen, all I sense is an indistinct rustle that may only be the wind.

Then I resume my running, and the feeling returns that I am hearing faint footfalls or low voices.

Unlike my other local ghostly experiences while running (here and here), this is much more qualitative than sensory, and also a bit more disquieting. I was going to use the word malevolent, but that would be overstating. I do feel slightly uneasy here, but only slightly, and have never seriously considered altering my route to avoid this stretch of road.

 

 

Ghosts--Seriously (Part 2 repost)

This post originally ran in Feb 2010. I figured it would be a timely re-post for Halloween this year.

++++++++++++++++++++

Ghosts--Seriously (Part 2 of 3)

This is the second of 3 posts on unexplained phenomena--ghosts, if you will--I've personally experienced on my runs.

This incident occurred only a couple hundred yards from the first story I blogged about. It involves a Revolutionary War era cemetery, called the Brown's Mill Cemetery, close by my home.

The cemetery is surrounded by a wrought iron fence, pictured here, whose pickets are quite close together--perhaps 3-4". The fence sits close to the ground as well, and is almost chest-high. The combination of picket spacing, no room to wiggle under, and the height of the fence meant that nothing larger than a squirrel could pass from one side of the fence to the other without a major (and time-consuming) effort.

I was out for a run early one summer morning before work, pre-dawn. My route was a 4-miler, an out-n-back, and I was only about half a mile from ending up back at the house. I was running up a slight incline, on the left side of the road facing traffic, of course (although there was no traffic on this rural road at that time).

Across the road from me on the right side sat the cemetery. I was about even with the lower corner of the cemetery (in the top photo, the stone post in the lower right is at that corner), which runs some 200' uphill directly beside the road. There were some street lights in the campground across the road to the left that provided diffuse light to the road and fence where I was (i.e., no need for a flashlight there).

Suddenly I saw a movement ahead of me and across the road: it was a low, animal-like shape, right along the wrought iron fence. I immediately think "Dog" and glance down at my footing and simultaneously move more to the left, onto the gravel shoulder, to give myself the maximum berth around the animal. The shape of the object was a bit more than knee-high, and its size and outline were very collie-like, in that the back was flat and straight but with that abrupt, right-angle downturn back at the tail.

In the 1-2 seconds between seeing the shape, glancing down and moving left, and then looking again across the road to see whether this "dog" was any sort of threat to me, the form had disappeared. Vanished. And there was absolutely nowhere for it to have gone--the fence was impenetrable for a critter of that size, too low to squeeze under, and too high to jump.

Besides, by the light of the streetlights I could see across the fence into the cemetery, which was fairly open, and there was no "dog" inside. The critter could not have simply scooted along the fence to a corner and exited that way, for it was too near the middle of the 200' run of fence to reach a corner in the time it took for me to look down and back up.

It was simply gone, with no explainable way of disappearing.

Beyond the normal rush of adrenaline that any runner would get from suddenly encountering a dog whose intentions are unknown, the experience was not menacing in any way. It just was. Any me and my rational thinking cannot figure it out.

 

 

Ghosts--Seriously (Part 1 repost)

This post originally ran in Feb 2010.  I figured it would be a timely re-post for Halloween this year.

++++++++++++++++++++

Ghosts--Seriously (Part 1 of 3)

First off, let me preface this post by saying that I pride myself on being a rational thinker, a skeptic of things paranormal. I don’t honestly think ghosts are involved here, but one particular tombstone has me scratching my head.

Check out the dark stone along the road, on the right side of the photo.

The cemetery here, the larger one of two close by my home, is big enough to have a couple of paved lanes thru it. I frequently run thru this cemetery, and as a matter of respect, I always take off my hat, and if there are visitors present, I detour and don't run past them.

Here is the dark tombstone, centered and a bit closer.

Finally, right up close, with my JFK 50 Miler ball cap on top to give you an idea as to scale.

The tombstone is about chest-high. That is, it's chest-high today. I've not measured the stone with a tape but I have the feeling that its height changes. Much like, say, when you see your adolescent niece or nephew after not having seen them for 6 months or a year, you KNOW without actually measuring them that they have grown. They are taller than before.

Same with this tombstone. After a hiatus of some weeks or a couple months without running through the cemetery, when I do, I know that the Statler tombstone is taller than it was before. The first time I saw this phenomenon, I literally stopped in my tracks. Can I prove it? Of course not, but it is taller, just as in the niece/nephew example above.

It's not menacing or spooky, just more of an observation.

I have a couple other ghostly anecdotes from my local runs that I'll post soon.

 

Spooky Place Along the C+O Canal

Here's another C+O Canal post, using some photos I took on a recent run.  The closest place for me to reach the C+O Canal from my home is Williamsport, MD.  It's some 20 miles by car, about a half hour drive door-to-door.

The Cushwa Basin is a National Park Service access point, parking area, and visitor center where many people access the canal.  It's just short of Milepost 100.

I ran upstream that day.  Around MP 102 you pass a working quarry on the right, then between MP 103 and 104 there exists in amazing profusion a sea of Virginia Bluebells, that bloom in the early April timeframe.

So far, so good.  But between MP 105 and 106, the bluffs or cliff along the right side of the canal have receded far back from the water, and a thicket of vines and scrubby trees covers the landscape.  It looks dark and foreboding.  If you've ever read the Stephen King book Pet Cematary, it is reminiscent of the thicket of tangled trees he described as being on the way to the burial grounds.

These shots do not do justice to the place, but it's as close as I can come in a 2D representation:

I always hurry by this section.  It's not at all bad during the day, but towards dusk I'd really rather not be there.

  

Ghosts--Seriously (Part 3 of 3)

This may be the "Big Rock" mentioned later in the post, just inside the treeline at the right center of the shot, immediately to the right of the large oak. 

A closer view of the rock; it's about 6' high.  Photos by the author, 9 March 2010.

My home sits along the route the Confederates used on their way both to and from Gettysburg in 1863. This post concerns a series of odd--dare I say ghostly?--personal experiences as I run along a particular section of road, between the villages of Marion and New Franklin, perhaps 5 miles from my home.  This is where the 17 mile long Confederate "wagon train of the wounded" passed on its way back to Virginia.

Following the battle of Gettysburg in 1863, Confederate General Robert E. Lee entrusted the conduct of the wagon train of the wounded to Brigadier General John D. Imboden, to try to get the wounded of the Army of Northern Virginia safely back home. Imboden was a gifted writer and left behind a detailed and chilling account, excerpted here. He starts with his orders from General Lee:

We must now return to Virginia. As many of our poor wounded as possible must be taken home. I have sent for you, because your men and horses are fresh and in good condition, to guard and conduct our train back to Virginia. The duty will be arduous, responsible, and dangerous...You will re-cross the mountain by the Chambersburg road, and then proceed to Williamsport by any route you deem best....

Imboden explains the logistics:

About 4 P. M. [Gary: this was on 4 July, the day after the 3-day battle ended] the head of the column was put in motion near Cashtown, and began the ascent of the mountain in the direction of Chambersburg. I remained at Cashtown giving directions and putting in detachments of guns and troops at what I estimated to be intervals of a quarter or a third of a mile...the entire column was seventeen miles long when drawn out on the road and put in motion.

Then Imboden reveals the awful nature of the gruesome caravan:

After dark I set out from Cashtown to gain the head of the column during the night...For four hours I hurried forward on my way to the front, and in all that time I was never out of hearing of the groans and cries of the wounded and dying. Scarcely one in a hundred had received adequate surgical aid, owing to the demands on the hard working surgeons from still worse eases that had to be left behind. Many of the wounded in the wagons had been without food for thirty-six hours. Their torn and bloody clothing, matted and hardened, was rasping the tender, inflamed, and still oozing wounds. Very few of the wagons had even a layer of straw in them, and all were without springs. The road was rough and rocky from the heavy washings of the preceding day. The jolting was enough to have killed strong men, if long exposed to it. From nearly every wagon as the teams trotted on, urged by whip and shout, came such cries and shrieks as these: "Oh God! Why can't I die? My God! Will no one have mercy and kill me Stop! Oh! For God's sake, stop just for one minute; take me out and leave me to die on the roadside." I am dying! I am dying! My poor wife, my dear children, what will become of you?

Some were simply moaning; some were praying and others uttering the most fearful oaths and execrations that despair and agony could wring from them; while a majority, with a stoicism sustained by sublime devotion to the cause they fought for; endured without complaint unspeakable tortures, and even spoke with cheer and confront to their unhappy comrades of less will or more acute nerves. Occasionally a wagon would be passed from which only low, deep moans could be heard.

Adding another piece of the puzzle: in 1963, the 100th anniversary of the battle, the Chambersburg Chamber of Commerce published a soft-cover booklet entitled "Lee's Invasion--The Great Decision 1863."  It included some anecdotes under the heading "My Grandfather Told Me--Personal Reminiscences 100 Years Later."  One story stands out, submitted by Misses Carrie and Thelma Small of Marion, PA:

After the battle across the mountain, lots of the rebels came back to this section on their way to get home. This was the way they came and maybe they thought it was the only way back to Virginia. Two of the rebels died in the field and were buried opposite the Big Rock. When another reb was buried an Indian skeleton was found and buried back with him.

The 17 mile long wagon train of the wounded passed this way some 147 years ago. Along this section are several rock outcrops, any one of which could be the "Big Rock" of the Misses Small story. On occasion, when I have run along this stretch when it's quiet, say in the early morning or after dark, I actually sense a faint presence. It manifests itself as a sort of vague murmuring behind me, and a faint or imagined footfall in step with mine. But when I stop to listen, all I sense is an indistinct rustle that may only be the wind.

Then I resume my running, and the feeling returns that I am hearing faint footfalls or low voices.

Unlike my other local ghostly experiences while running (here and here), this is much more qualitative than sensory, and also a bit more disquieting. I was going to use the word malevolent, but that would be overstating. I do feel slightly uneasy here, but only slightly, and have never seriously considered altering my route to avoid this stretch of road.

Ghosts--Seriously (Part 2 of 3)

This is the second of 3 posts on unexplained phenomena--ghosts, if you will--I've personally experienced on my runs.

This incident occurred only a couple hundred yards from the first story I blogged about.  It involves a Revolutionary War era cemetery, called the Brown's Mill Cemetery, close by my home.

The cemetery is surrounded by a wrought iron fence, pictured here, whose pickets are quite close together--perhaps 3-4". The fence sits close to the ground as well, and is almost chest-high. The combination of picket spacing, no room to wiggle under, and the height of the fence meant that nothing larger than a squirrel could pass from one side of the fence to the other without a major (and time-consuming) effort.

I was out for a run early one summer morning before work, pre-dawn. My route was a 4-miler, an out-n-back, and I was only about half a mile from ending up back at the house. I was running up a slight incline, on the left side of the road facing traffic, of course (although there was no traffic on this rural road at that time).

Across the road from me on the right side sat the cemetery. I was about even with the lower corner of the cemetery (in the top photo, the stone post in the lower right is at that corner), which runs some 200' uphill directly beside the road. There were some street lights in the campground across the road to the left that provided diffuse light to the road and fence where I was (i.e., no need for a flashlight there).

Suddenly I saw a movement ahead of me and across the road: it was a low, animal-like shape, right along the wrought iron fence. I immediately think "Dog" and glance down at my footing and simultaneously move more to the left, onto the gravel shoulder, to give myself the maximum berth around the animal. The shape of the object was a bit more than knee-high, and its size and outline were very collie-like, in that the back was flat and straight but with that abrupt, right-angle downturn back at the tail.

In the 1-2 seconds between seeing the shape, glancing down and moving left, and then looking again across the road to see whether this "dog" was any sort of threat to me, the form had disappeared. Vanished. And there was absolutely nowhere for it to have gone--the fence was impenetrable for a critter of that size, too low to squeeze under, and too high to jump.

Besides, by the light of the streetlights I could see across the fence into the cemetery, which was fairly open, and there was no "dog" inside. The critter could not have simply scooted along the fence to a corner and exited that way, for it was too near the middle of the 200' run of fence to reach a corner in the time it took for me to look down and back up.

It was simply gone, with no explainable way of disappearing.

Beyond the normal rush of adrenaline that any runner would get from suddenly encountering a dog whose intentions are unknown, the experience was not menacing in any way. It just was. Any me and my rational thinking cannot figure it out.

Ghosts--Seriously (Part 1 of 3)

First off, let me preface this post by saying that I pride myself on being a rational thinker, a skeptic of things paranormal. I don’t honestly think ghosts are involved here, but one particular tombstone has me scratching my head. 

Check out the dark stone along the road, on the right side of the photo.

The cemetery here, the larger one of two close by my home, is big enough to have a couple of paved lanes thru it. I frequently run thru this cemetery, and as a matter of respect, I always take off my hat, and if there are visitors present, I detour and don't run past them.

Here is the dark tombstone, centered and a bit closer.

Finally, right up close, with my JFK 50 Miler ball cap on top to give you an idea as to scale.

The tombstone is about chest-high. That is, it's chest-high today. I've not measured the stone with a tape but I have the feeling that its height changes. Much like, say, when you see your adolescent niece or nephew after not having seen them for 6 months or a year, you KNOW without actually measuring them that they have grown. They are taller than before.

Same with this tombstone. After a hiatus of some weeks or a couple months without running through the cemetery, when I do, I know that the Statler tombstone is taller than it was before. The first time I saw this phenomenon, I literally stopped in my tracks.  Can I prove it? Of course not, but it is taller, just as in the niece/nephew example above.

It's not menacing or spooky, just more of an observation.

I have a couple other ghostly anecdotes from my local runs that I'll post soon.