You do not need to believe in ghosts to enjoy a ghost story. The tales that have grown over generations around reputedly haunted places can take on a fantastic life of their own in folklore, and the stories that surround a place can influence our experiences of them. All it takes is a creepy place, a touch of imagination and a glimpse of something unexpected, only half seen. A prime example of this is the Waverly Sanatorium in Louisville, Kentucky. This grim, bat-winged building is the archetype of the haunted hospital or insane asylum. The first hospital on this windswept hill on the edge of Louisville was built in 1910 to treat victims of the “white plague” of tuberculosis that was ravaging the country. At the time, there was no known cure and the disease was often fatal. In some cases, doctors tried experimental methods to help ease the symptoms, and stories emerged of illicit medical experiments in which the cure often proved as fatal as the disease. Certainly the sanatorium was the scene of many deaths over the years, although claims that more than 60,000 patients died there are exaggerated, according to surviving records from the hospital. Historians say the real number was likely closer to 8,000, with a total of 152 deaths in 1945, the worst year of the epidemic.
Waverly Hills served as a geriatric hospital from the 1960s until the 1980s, and several stories about the spooky old hospital are based on rumors from this time that patients were mistreated, including claims that radical treatments such as electroshock therapy were used. In the years since Waverly Hills was closed for good, wanderers, thrill-seekers and ghost hunters who found their way inside the building have told of slamming doors and strange noises in the deserted building.
Others reported hearing footsteps and the screams of patients have from empty rooms. Ghostly, shadowy forms have been said to gather in the building’s dark recesses and are said to follow visitors through the narrow corridors. Phantom footsteps and voices reportedly echo along the “death tunnel,” or “body chute”—an underground tunnel that leads from the hospital to railway tracks at the bottom of the hill, to transport the dead away from the hospital where the living patients would not see them.
Several stories center on the fifth floor of the hospital, where tuberculosis patients with mental disturbances were reportedly treated. In particular, Room 502, where two nurses are said to have killed themselves one by hanging, the other by jumping to her death—is said to be haunted. Some visitors claimed to have seen mysterious shapes moving in the windows, or to have heard voices telling them to “get out.”
Geographical boundaries may extend far beyond a plot of land; in the case of Savannah, Georgia, the entire city seems rife with pockets of the paranormal. Home to dozens of celebrated haunted houses and hundreds of ghost sightings, Savannah is often called “the most haunted city in the United States”—especially by its many ghost tour operators, who often begin with a visit to the city’s historic Bonaventure Cemetery, a tangle of stone tombs, eerie statues and spooky trees laced with Spanish moss. Among the cemetery’s resident ghosts is that of Gracie Watson, a 6-year-old who died of pneumonia in1889. Her ghost is said to haunt the life-size statue that stands over her grave, which like several other funereal statues in the cemetery are sometimes said to move as if they were alive, while the sounds of children playing or crying is sometimes heard nearby.
Just as celebrated, Savannah’s Hampton Lillybridge House was built in 1797 and was relocated to its current location several years later—despite the discovery of a mysterious crypt beneath the new property, which has never been opened. Since then, no fewer than 26 families who have lived in the house have complained of various ghostly goings—on that forced them to move out. These strange encounters included furniture moving around and doors locking themselves. However, the most famous haunted house in Savannah may be the Sorrel-Weed House, which appeared in the opening shots of the 1994 film “Forrest Gump,” directed by Robert Zemeckis. The Sorrel-Weed house is said to be haunted by at least two vengeful ghosts: the wife and the rival lover of shipping merchant Francis Sorrel, who built the house in the 1840s. Francis’ wife, Matilda Sorrel, allegedly jumped to her death when she discovered her husband’s infidelity—but historical researchers point out that by the time of her reported suicide in a “moment of lunacy,” the Sorrel family had moved out to another property next door.
Lest you think a building is a requirement of a haunting, the field of Gettysburg may prove otherwise. The largest and deadliest battle of the American Civil War took place at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1863. More than 8,000 combatants were killed at Gettysburg, and in the years since the bloody battle, an uncommon number of ghost stories have been linked to events and personalities on the battlefield. Several visitors to what is now the Gettysburg National Military Park have reported hearing sounds of battle, including phantom cannon fire and the disembodied shouts or screams of ghostly soldiers.
At a high, rocky outcrop on the battlefield called The Devil’s Den, where heavy fighting took place on the second day of the battle (July 2, 1836), several visitors over the years claim to have heard the sound of drum rolls and gunfire. Several ghost sightings have also been reported at the hill called Little Round Top, where Confederate troops were forced back from an assault on the Union forces. It has been claimed that some Civil War enactors who worked on the 1993 film “Gettysburg,” a dramatization of the battle, met and spoke with a man in a shabby Union Army uniform who gave them some musket rounds, which they assumed were movie props—but which they later learned were Civil War rounds in pristine condition.
Question 1: What are the forms of “evidence” reported by witnesses and researchers of hauntings? Answer this question in about 150 words. (24 points)
