Talkin' H.H. Holmes on Fox 32

Here's me on Fox32 last night, talking about the infamous "Murder Castle" of H.H. Holmes.


Chicago News and Weather | FOX 32 News
More info on the post office and my expedition there can be seen in our Murder Castle Audio/Video page. 

I probably should have shaved for the - the stubble looked more "ruggedly handsome" in the mirror than it did on TV :) . When I do a show like this, I'm usually just pleased not to look like a jackass in the end. I thought they were going to have me be "Local Skeptic #1."

The Skull of Del Close at the Goodman Theatre

It's pretty well established now that the skull in the artistic director's office at the Goodman wasn't really the skull of comedian Del Close when he was alive, but it's his now! He donated his skull to the theatre so that he could play Yorick, and the skull they have serves as his, at least symbolically.  A fundraiser once offered to show it to me if I donated enough cash, and I finally got to see it over the weekend.

 I have an article up today on The Order of the Good Death about it:

THE ORDER OF THE GOOD DEATH
presents
"Wanna See a Famous Skull?"
by Adam Selzer

New Book Available for Pre-Order

My new book, Ghosts of Chicago, will be published by Llewellyn in September. It's a down-to-earth critical examination of what we really know, and how we know it, about some of Chicago's most famous ghost stories from a historian's perspective, including TONS of never before published information.

PRE-ORDER NOW!! Barnes and Noble.com Indiebound Amazon.com Llewellyn.com

INCLUDING:  - New information about the famous "woman in white" photo at Bachelor's Grove cemetery, including an interview with the photographer. - A database of recorded Resurrection Mary sightings, some lost since the 1930s, with some fascinating analysis. Is there any reason to think it's a girl named Mary? - Fascinating new data about Julia Buccola-Petta, The Italian Bride. - Tales of hauntings at the H.H. Holmes murder castle site and his north-side "body dump." - A separation of the fact and fiction surrounding Hull House ghostlore. - Chilling new stories about the Congress Hotel's ghostly past and present. - Never-before-published historical ghost stories from Chicago's dark past. What was the ghost in the old city hall that captured national interest in the 1860s? Could it be a ghost from Lincoln's funeral, or from a botched early hanging? - Ghosts of the gallows. - New information about the tomb of Ira Couch, including (for the first time) photographs of the inside. - Newly uncovered first-hand sightings and primary sources. - Suggested places to investigate. - Gruesome Chicago grave robbing tales. - An analysis of various gangster ghost stories that have circulated over the years. - Many never-before-published photos. - Something new for even the most dedicated Chicago ghost hunter! - and so much more!

Pre-order today and be ready for Halloween and the upcoming Ghost Conference at the Portage Theatre! 

Tumbling along

Hi, folks! Tours are picking back up again for the Spring Break season, so I'm doing more per week lately. We've had some good times!

The big news over on my regular page is that my new novel, WHEN IOWA FREEZES OVER, sold to Simon and Schuster a few weeks ago.  That announcement led me to do some house-cleaning there and to start thinking more about doing some more social media stuff. I don't think that that sort of thing actually helps sell books, but it's fun.

So I've started taking more pictures on tours, then posting them on instagram and tumblr. You can follow along and look at only the "tour" and "ghost" shots by looking here! This will all tie in to my upcoming GHOSTS OF CHICAGO book.

Some samples:

Some recent "ghost" shots from the tours

Kiersten, a tour passenger on Friday night, snapped this cool shot - it was the hit of the tour when shown off on the bus! While I'm generally inclined to think of these "stairs" shots as reflections and smears (reflected ears are a common culprit), this is a really nifty one appearing to show two vaguely humanesque forms. I've adjusted it just a tiny bit to make it more visible:

Cool! As I always say, there's no such thing as good ghost evidence, only cool ghost evidence. But sometimes I don't even care about the fact that there's probably a more "rational" explanation, because the photo is cool enough on its own terms, even if it IS just an optical illusion. 

As far as "women on the stairs" at Hull House go, there was a woman on the tour recently who told me she was a clairvoyant, and that there was a ghostly woman who came to the stairs to say hello to me every night. I always take these things with a grain (if not a whole shaker) of salt, but stories about a woman haunting the place go back well over a century; Millicent Hull died there around 1860, and a number of other women quite likely did during the 1870s, when it served as a home for the elderly run by the Little Sisters of the Poor. 

While we're on the subject of recent Hull House shots, a number were taken like this recently:

On phone screens, in particular, it can look like a feminine form in the window. Having seen a few lately, I took this one myself in attempt to reproduce the effect, and confirmed that it was just the fireplace. A picture frame on the mantel forms the "head."

Elsewhere in town, we've had a number of nifty shots at the "alley of death and mutilation" behind the site of the Iroquois theatre.  There was one woman on my tour on Saturday who said that she felt like a hand was touching her face in the alley, and in one picture of her, it does look as though there's a handprint on her face. This calls to mind all SORTS of folklore motifs, like the story of the "banshee's hand" leaving permanent marks on people's faces, or stories of handprints never fading away, which show up all over the world, including Chicago's Frank Leavey story.

Now, one thing worth noting is that sometimes it's been said that women or are pregnant or new mothers feel as though a kid is holding their hand in the alley. If the woman in question now finds out she's expecting, that'll be one heck of a story!

Chicago's Magnetic Well

Throughout the 19th century, and into the early 20th century, there were occasional claims of "magnetic wells," wells that dredged up water said to be high in "magnetic" content that contained mysterious medicinal properties.

Around 1869, there was considerable media attention given to some "magnetic wells" in Michigan. Now, from the articles, it seems that people had tried a LOT of experiments throughout the 19th century to add electricity to water and found that, though it could conduct electricity, it couldn't maintain an electrical charge or any magnetic powers, even if they pumped it full of "a powerful current sufficient to magnetize a bar of railroad iron," as a writer for the Chicago Times claimed to have tried once.  But the water in these Michigan wells seemed to have magnetic properties.

In Chicago the next year, one David A. Gage, who seems to have been something of an inventor, discovered a magnetic well of his own in the suburbs, on a farm two miles north of Riverside (right around Forest Park, I'd say).

According to a statement by the farm's manager, they had brought in a man named Mr. Ross who had experience in digging "artisan wells," and he found that the ground he was drilling down was different than any other ground he'd seen - the rock was much harder than most. Water was struck when he reached 613 and a half feet down, and after drilling down 11 more feet they were pumping out 100,000 gallons per day (this may have been a typo; other sources put the figure at 1500). And the farm manager found, quite by accident, that if he put steel tools into the water, they turned into magnets. A chisel dunked in the water and set up on a block of wood floating in water started pointing north, like a compass.

Scientific men were called in, and a cask was sent to the Sherman House hotel. According to papers, scientists were baffled by the stuff. I've been unable to find out much more about magnetic water, though claims of such wells came up now and then over a fifty year period. I can imagine that in this era of "electrolyte water" and vitamin water, magnetic water would go over like gangbusters. Indeed, just googling "magnetic water" shows that a number of people are claiming health benefits for things like this.

In those days, even in such a notable era of fake medicine, it doesn't seem to have done so well, at least in Chicago. In other cities whole resorts were built around magnetic wells and claims were made that the water could cure diseases, but the story of the Chicago one petered out pretty quickly. The New York Herald reported that visitors to Gage's farm reported that the water tasted oddly medicinal, and   Frank Leslie's Illustrated Newspaper, always ready with a snarky comment, said that the people of Chicago tested the magnetic water and decided that they preferred whiskey.

I'm assuming this is the same David A. Gage who later served as city treasurer and wound up owing the city half a million bucks, but articles from that big scandal don't seem to mention anything about the well. Looks like another research rabbit hole for me!

The New Booze, 1920

In 1920, "new" illegal booze hit the market as soon as the old stuff was prohibited. Before the gangsters got all their ducks in a row and started brewing regular old beer in the same breweries that had operated before, the market was flooded with terrible "bathtub" spirits.

In September, about eight months into prohibition, a "roving reporter" for the Tribune asked a few people on the street what they thought of the new stuff, which was obviously not that hard to get. Their responses are priceless.

“There’s a fight in every pint and a murder in a gallon. I used to drink the old stuff, but I’ll tell the world I leave the new alone.” 

—J. W. Gibson, salesman

“I liked the old stuff better. It was much cheaper and you didn’t feel so bum the next a.m. The only difference I see is that they’ve raised the price of headaches.” 

—J. W. Johnson, chief vault clerk

“You could take a half dozen shots of the old stuff and never feel it. If you take two drinks of the new booze, it’s good-bye, George.” 

—Harry Brown, broker

“The effect is altogether different, judging by the stories I read in the papers. I would say the new booze excites a man to do things he never would have done under the influence of the old.” 

—John Schmidt, investigator

“Because they can’t get it they want it all the more. The new stuff is causing more deaths every day. It knocks you off your feet, and after taking a half dozen shots you want to climb a tree.” 

—M. Winsberg, saloon proprietor

It's probably worth noting that only the investigator said he only knew about it from reading it in the papers, which comes off like saying, "Well, I haven't tried it, but my friend has, and he told me...."

This article was uncovered by William Griffith while researching his new book for Globe Pequot Press, American Mafia: Chicago, due out later this year!

Wonderful Snapshot of Chicago Fifty Years Ago

I was hipped to this by the wonderful Samarov tumblr. Wonderful 12 minute color film of Chicago in 1962 with narration by someone trying his best to be Nelson Algren. The el DOES make endless circles around my heart as the city sings me a lullaby of lunatics and lovers.

The Hitchhiking Flapper Ghost of Waldheim Cemetery

Resurrection Mary isn't the only "vanishing hitcher" in the world; she's not even the only one said to haunt Chicago. The south side has a vanishing girl who appears on CTA busses around Evergreen Park, for instance.

And Forest Park is home to vanishing "flapper" who was said to hitch hike from the Melody Mills ballroom to Jewish Waldheim cemetery, where she vanished. Some versions of the story say that she tells drivers that she lives at the caretaker's house before disappearing at the gates.

Unlike Resurrection Mary, there aren't many first-hand accounts of this, and there's a bit of confusion as to whether the vanishing "Flapper" and the ghost who hitched rides from Melody Mill are even the same ghost. It seems to me that there are two different stories here that got conflated into one single one over the years.

The story of a hitcher at Melody Mill (a now defunct ballroom) have been circulating since at least 1938, and possibly earlier:  in 1984, Dave Hoekstra of the Melody Mill told the Sun Times about a story that had happened in the ballroom fifty years earlier in 1934: a young man named Wally met a blonde woman in a snow-white gown who asked for a ride home, and who then asked to be dropped off at Wood Lawn Cemetery. By then, though, they'd made a date. A week later, Wally went to her address, where the woman at the door said that the woman Wally described sounded like her daughter, but that she'd died three years before.  How much of this is an accurate description of Wally's tale is tough to guess - Dave heard it second-hand from Ben Lecjar, Sr, the former owner, making it a third-hand account.

The story is, almost to the letter, a textbook retelling of the "Vanishing Hitchhiker" urban legend, featuring just about all of the major motifs except for finding a sweater on her grave the next day. One reason that the Resurrection Mary sightings are compelling is that, while details like going to her home the next day and meeting her in a ballroom are common in retellings of the story, they're generally absent in first-hand accounts (there's a bit of a distance between the story that you get from reading reported sightings and the version you usually hear when the story is retold). This Melody Mill story lines up neatly will all the motifs of vanishing hitcher legends that folklorists were identifying in scholarly articles a decade later.

The Melody Mill story got a big boost in 1938 when Tiny Hill, the leader of a band playing there at the time, told the story of a vanishing hitcher live on a WGN radio show. Tiny's story may have been inspired by the story of "Wally"and changed a bit for dramatic purposes, or it may be the actual source of the story, if Hoekstra was wrong about 1934 being the date when the story began.

According to the radio show, three young men met a woman in white at the ballroom. She asked them for a ride home, then got out of the car at an unnamed cemetery and ran inside. Two of the young men followed her. The next day, the police found two "raving maniacs" in the cemetery, and the third man was dead at the wheel of his parked car. Investigators went to an address they found in a purse that was left in the car, and the woman at the door told them that it was her daughter's purse, but that she had died three years before.

The Daily Northwestern wrote that "It was a good publicity stunt - and how!"

So we can see that the story of a vanishing hitcher was common at Melody Mill in the 1930s, though it's hard to be sure it wasn't invented outright by Tiny Hill.  Whether anyone ever really thought it was a true story in the 1930s is probably an open question. Had "Wally" really been to her home, they would know the ghost's name, but this doesn't seem to have been a part of the story.

While most Chicago ghostlore studies have assumed that the vanishing flapper who is said to disappear near Waldheim and the Melody Mill hitcher were one and the same, it seems to me that we're dealing with two different stories that simply got conflated over the years. The sightings of the ghost at Waldheim have generally concerned a young, dark haired Jewish woman in a flapper outfit. The Melody Mill hicher is said, both in reports of sightings and the fictionalized version, to be a blonde in white. Which cemetery Tiny Hill mentioned (if he mentioned one) is not recorded, but people from Melody Mill actually specified Wood Lawn.

So it seems that we're really dealing with two different stories here. There are records for several young women who died around the 1920s at Melody Mill, but unlike Resurrection Mary, no theory for who she's the ghost of have emerged. Frankly, no good theory for Mary exists, either - I never found a reliable account where "Mary" actually gives her name, or any hint of how she died. There are 60+ young women named Mary who were buried at Resurrection around the right era, and we've identified plenty who died in car wrecks, but stories of her being the ghost of a girl who died coming home from a dance are really pure specuation; there's almost nothing in first-hand accounts to suggest that she died this way. From what we can actually tell, she could just as easily be one of the many, many girls in the cemetery who died of pneumonia or tuberculosis.

There's a whole LOT more data analysis on Mary sightings in the e-single linked below:

Some More Couch Tomb Info

The "Couch Tomb" in Lincoln Park absolutely haunts me. I have dreams about going inside of the thing all the time (in my dreams it's usually bigger on the inside). Newly discovered info is making it even MORE intriguing. In a recent post, we noted that Ira J. Couch, grandson of Ira, the man for whom the tomb was built, said in 1911 that two of his brothers were in the tomb.

Now, this was sort of a shocker, since all available evidence was that Ira J. Couch didn't have any brothers.  However, newly discovered info in his grandmother's probate files have him giving sworn testimony that his parents had two stillborn babies who died unnamed. He also indicated that his grandparents had three such unnamed children in addition to Caroline, their only known child.

This isn't necessarily a smoking gun - those babies would both have been born well past the age when it was actually legal to inter bodies in what was, by then, Lincoln Park, and Ira was probably not old enough to remember the only one of these that was born in his lifetime.  However, between Ira J's comments and some gossip in newspapers of the day, I do tend to get the impression that the city and the family had different concepts of what could legally be done with the old crypt, so for their two be two stillborn babies in the tomb is not fully out of the question.

And here's something new for me: I recently located a copy of Caroline Couch-Johnson's death certificate. Caroline was Ira J's mother, and Ira-of-the-tomb's daughter (and, yes, the number of people named Ira and Caroline in this saga can make things a bit confusing). As expected, the death certificate indicated that she was buried in Rose Hill, where the Couches were being interred by the time of her death in 1885, at which point her mother was still alive.

But there was one thing I was shocked to see: the birth certificate mentioned that she was born in the Tremont House, the hotel that her father owned:

It's awfully unusual to see things like this on a death certificate; they seldom make any comment unless there's something to note about the cause of death, like when the specify that it was a death by legal execution, or a drowning in Maple Lake, or if the gun-shot that killed the person was an accident or suicide.  Most of them are very matter-of-fact, and I've never seen a detail like this added into the birth information. Neat!

However, Caroline and her mother (Ira's wife) are both certainly at Rose Hill, not in the old tomb. Her mother's probate file contained some interesting info, like the itemized receipt for her funeral, which indicated that she was buried in an $80 coffin - very nice by the standards of the day. 

My upcoming Ghosts of Chicago book that Llewellyn will put out this Fall will have a section on the tomb and the occasional bits of ghostlore that have sprung up around it, as well as a photo or two of what's behind the door (don't get too excited - it gets us no closer to solving the mystery!)  Pamela Bannos, author of the Hidden Truths website about City Cemetery, is preparing a book, as well, which I can't wait to see! 

Human Heads at O'Hare

A package of more than a dozen severed human heads is currently being holed up at O'Hare. Officials are acting like this is no big deal, but I would have loved to see the TSA agent's face when the coolers containing them went through the x-ray.


See more from the Chicago Tribune.

What can I say? I'm a sucker for headlessness. Here's statue from Graceland Cemetery:

Meanwhile, Back at the Body Dump

December 27th and there still hasn't been any snow in Chicago, other than something like 1/10th of an inch at O'Hare a week or so ago. Here and there you see little patches on cars, but that's about it so far.

This made it especially odd to pull into the "H.H. Holmes Body Dump" site on the tour the other night find it covered in a thin, but measurable, layer of snow and ice. Every other tour stop was completely devoid of the stuff!

One runs into odd things here - early on in my trips here was the night when the street was occupied by large birds with dead smaller birds in their mouths. Another night there were chickens crossing the road (and here I thought they only did that in jokes!). To find snow there, when there was no trace of it anywhere else on the tour, was a bit of a shocker. Obviously I'm not going to claim this as evidence of anything supernatural, but sometimes this place seems just plain weird!