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[Assistant] It's said to be covered in hair, but distinguished by something that seems ripped from the pages of a fantasy novel. It's part man, part goat.


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[Assistant] Specifically, this creature is said to have the lower body of a goat and the upper body of a man. A few witnesses have claimed that its hair is white, but most agree that it walks on hooves and has curved horns that grow from its human-like head.


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[Assistant] I can't help but conjure up images of the ancient Greek idea of the satyr, that goat-like being that was the foundation for so many popular myths. Let's not forget the Proto-Indo-European pastoral deity known as Pan. Both beings were similar in appearance, essentially a hybrid of a man and a goat, right down to the horns and the hooves.


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[Assistant] Now, I'm not sure what to make of the connection, but I want to point out that in both cases, Pan and the Satyr, that they were often symbols of fertility and procreation.


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[Assistant] Which feels very coincidental when I tell you that one of the most frequent places that the creature has been seen over the years is around a road that most communities would refer to as Lovers Lane.


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[Assistant] In fact, those two distinct worlds, the risky teenage lovers and the ancient horn god of procreation, come together for a moment in that classic George Lucas film, American Graffiti.


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[Assistant] And while the creature's name had been whispered for decades in Prince George's County, the film might just be the first place most people encountered it.


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[Assistant] A creature that represents a cross between a human and a goat sounds like a chapter ripped from the pages of The Island of Dr. Moreau by H.G. Wells.


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[Assistant] But if we set aside the absurdity of the creature's legendary origin story, and probably its name as well, what we're left with is a decades-long collection of eyewitness accounts of something otherworldly and disturbing. Put it another way,


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[Assistant] While some of us might laugh at the packaging of this legend, the countless sightings over the years have left us reason to be afraid.


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[Assistant] One of the earliest stories about the Goatman actually dates back to 1914, just four years after Bark settled in to begin studies and experiments on animals there. It's more of a fairy tale story, involving a talking goat, a musical pipe, and dancing animals. But it has all the core elements we're looking for.


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[Assistant] It wasn't until almost four decades later that the legend blossomed into something bigger.


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[Assistant] In 1957, one of the first articles about the creature was printed in the local paper, the Prince George's Sentinel.


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[Assistant] Over a one week span, over 200 locals called in with accounts of their own sightings of a creature that was described as gorilla-like, which I can only take to mean hairy and upright, but eerily human.


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[Assistant] Later that year, the creature was sighted again by a young couple driving down Zug Road near Bowie. They too described a human-like animal, but when they pulled over to get a better look, it bolted off into the woods.


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[Assistant] This sighting, as well as the other ones from the previous year, encouraged a number of locals to organize hunts. As far as I can tell, they never found a thing.


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[Assistant] But one of the most memorable stories connected to the Goatman took place back in 1962. Now, my research team and I have not been able to track down the typical primary sources for a story like this. You know, newspaper articles or police reports. So we have to take this with a grain of salt.


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[Assistant] But the story has survived as both the representation of the fear people have felt toward the creature and the evolution that has taken place over the years regarding the legend itself. And for those reasons alone, this tale is worth sharing.


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[Assistant] It's said that the Goatman has a home of sorts in the woods of Prince George's County. Some legends insist that it's an old farmhouse where goats were once raised, but honestly, that might be a bit too contrived. Others just say he lives in the area as a sort of warning to adventurous teens to be careful out there.


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[Assistant] And that's a common way folklore has been used for thousands of years.


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[Assistant] The stories say that in 1962, a series of murders took place that left the police completely stumped. Over the course of months, at least 14 people vanished after heading into the woods for a hike. Of course, the rumor mill got to work almost immediately, claiming that these hikers must have gone a bit too close to the Goatman's home, but that was just a guess.


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[Assistant] But then there was a survivor. Someone who managed to slip away and lived to talk about it. According to their anonymous report, the Goatman was incredibly violent, using an axe to dismember the victims that it brought back to its home.


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[Assistant] How this lone survivor was able to escape, we don't know. But they did tell the police exactly where to find the other victims.


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[Assistant] When they arrived, the police found the dilapidated house filled with evidence of a violent encounter. Body parts and pools of blood were scattered about the rooms. But worst of all, according to the stories, was that a trail led out of the house and into the woods. A trail of wet, red blood, as if something had been dragged out into the night.


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[Assistant] When the police followed it, the trail ended at the opening of what they described as an ominous cave.


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[Assistant] I'll admit that this is one of those stories that's difficult to believe.


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[Assistant] A murder spree that took the lives of over a dozen individuals isn't something that leaves no paper trail or primary sources. But that doesn't take away from the fact that people believed deeply in what they've been told. While it's not universal, stories are often the ripples in the water caused by something real. And some have seen it with their own eyes.


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[Assistant] The summer after the reported murders, a couple was driving along a nearby road outside of Huntington, Maryland, when movement at the edge of the treeline caught their eyes.


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[Assistant] Although the husband only managed to glance sideways for a moment, his wife was able to get a better look. Her description fit the stories to a tee.


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[Assistant] Five years later in 1968, another woman encountered the creature on a drive of her own. She was traveling through Beltsville near another facility known as the Patuxent Wildlife Research Center when she spotted something in the road ahead.


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[Assistant] Oddly, whatever animal it was refused to move out of the way. So this witness was forced to bring her car to a stop. And that's when she realized what it was.


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[Assistant] It was a tall human-like creature, but covered in hair or fur.


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[Assistant] After a moment of silence it turned and walked toward her car and then pounded its fists on her hood before dashing away from the yellow glow of her headlights.


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[Assistant] The creature might have vanished into the woods, but it had never been more present in the minds of the locals there, and it was only going to get worse. The legend of the Goatman, it seems, was far from over.


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[Assistant] The roads around Prince George's County weren't the only places where the Goatman could be found. Over the years, this creature became the default explanation for anything even remotely mysterious or creepy. And a number of stories from the 70s and 80s illustrate that trend perfectly.


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[Assistant] In April of 1971, a local farmer reported that he had gone out to feed his pigs one morning, only to find one of them in the hands of a hulking man-like creature. It had been ripping the flesh off the pig's body with its mouth, but when the farmer arrived, it ran away.


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[Assistant] Later that year in December of 1971, another article about the legend was published, and almost immediately new calls were received. Because that's one of the powers of folklore. When it's front and center in your mind,


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[Assistant] It becomes the very first tool we reach for when we have a problem to solve, or a fear to explain away.


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[Assistant] In the fall of 1972, a local woman was out walking her dog in Greenbelt Park, just south of the Bark property, when her dog caught scent of something powerful. It pulled her off the trail and into the underbrush, where she noticed something glimmer in the shadows. Bending low, she made a horrifying discovery.


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[Assistant] The object was a watch, and it was still on the wrist of its dead owner.


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[Assistant] In March of 1980, another body was discovered, this time on the bank of a small creek near Bowie, just a little east of Greenbelt Park.


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[Assistant] This time it was a troop of boy scouts who found it, which was unfortunate because this victim had been viciously dismembered. A later report from the coroner placed the blame on a large wild animal of some kind, but many locals just nodded knowingly. This attack, like all the others, could only be the work of the Goatman.


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[Assistant] The story was the same three years later, when a local went outside to check on their German Shepherd. It had been known to be a noisy dog, but had suddenly stopped barking, and so the owner went outside to have a look around.


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[Assistant] What they found was deeply disturbing. The dog's body lay lifeless in the grass, its neck a bloody stump.


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[Assistant] And nearby, as if someone or something highly intelligent had placed it there, the dog's head was sitting neatly on the lawn facing toward the house.


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[Assistant] In a region where stories of an axe-wielding monster were as common as sunlight and traffic, it didn't take long for the Goatman to become suspect number one.


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[Assistant] And at the risk of making another pun, I think it's important to point out that for decades, this monstrous creature has served as the perfect scapegoat for all sorts of unexplainable reports. And most of the time, that's as far as it goes. Someone finds a body or a murdered animal and they blame the creature. But there's never any proof. All of them. Except for one.


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[Assistant] The fall of 1971 was tense for a lot of people who lived in the area around Bark. At least four dogs had been killed in their yard that year. And all of them seemed to have been killed by something large and vicious. But also something that was killing for pleasure rather than hunting for food.


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[Assistant] On November 2nd of that year, a group of friends had all gathered at the home of local teen April Edwards to watch some television. At some point, whoever was closest to the window turned and peered out into the darkness, squinting to see through the shadows. And then they gasped.


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[Assistant] There's something out there, they shouted, and everyone else immediately gathered around to see what it could be. What they found was almost too difficult to believe. Sitting on top of the pickup truck in their driveway was a large ominous shape.


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[Assistant] Every one of them could see it, like a black silhouette against the night sky. And then it climbed down and began to walk away.


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[Assistant] The descriptions of the creature were all the same. It was roughly the size of an adult, but covered in thick fur or hair. And while the legs it walked on seemed more like those of an animal, it used them like a human being.


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[Assistant] The following day, April Edwards stepped outside to look for her dog, a puppy named Ginger, but she was nowhere to be found. After exploring the property, she and others widened their search and eventually made a grisly discovery at a set of nearby railroad tracks.


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[Assistant] Years later, in the early 90s, an investigator reached out to the teens who had witnessed the creature, including April Edwards. They had endured 20 years of ridicule for their story, with many people chalking it all up to the overactive imagination of rural superstitious teens. But they refused to back down.


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[Assistant] All those years later, they still believed in what they saw. The creature, the shape, the details, all of it. And they also made a bold claim.


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[Assistant] That night in November of 1971 wasn't the last time they'd seen the creature.


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[Assistant] Decades after the first whispers of its existence.


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[Assistant] A Goatman of Maryland still seemed to be alive and active.


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[Assistant] Then I'll leave it up to you to decide what that means. Whether we take it literally, or approach it more as a legend that refuses to die, there's no denying the depth of belief in the minds of the people of Prince George's County.


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[Assistant] Folklore is a tricky thing. It's not a living organism, like a human being or bacteria, but it certainly has a way of living and growing like one. Each story we tell takes on a life of its own and spreads outward, passing from one eager mind to the next.


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[Assistant] And while it's not universal, there's an evolution that a lot of these tales from folklore go through. The oldest ones we still pass along seem to have lost their edge. Maybe it's our intimate familiarity with them, after generations of telling and retelling them to each other.


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[Assistant] Or perhaps the context they were crafted in no longer feels relevant to us today. Either way,


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[Assistant] The oldest tales seem to pose the least amount of risk. But the newer ones...


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[Assistant] The urban legends, the whispers of mysterious killers and monstrous creatures, those are the ones that make us feel a bit more nervous. Their settings look a lot like the places where we live today. Their victims seem a lot more like us. And because of that, their villains feel a lot more real.


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[Assistant] The Goatman is a powerful example of that evolution in action. Sure, folks have been talking about the creature for decades. But in the scope of human history, it's new and fresh. It's a legend filled with highly relatable moments. Watching television, driving down the road, taking your dog for a walk.


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[Assistant] And all of that conspires to make the stories seem more possible.


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[Assistant] But at the risk of contradicting myself, it turns out that the stories about the Goatman are a bit older than we might assume. And to understand how, we need to step backwards in time to the arrival of Europeans in the Maryland area in the early 1600s. Because Maryland was one of the stopping points for English explorer Captain John Smith.


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[Assistant] Now, Smith is most famously known for helping to establish the Jamestown colony farther south on the coast of Virginia. But in 1608, he sailed north and explored the Chesapeake Bay area. In fact, he made a map of the region that year, which includes a portion of Prince George's County. And he also met with the Piscataway people who lived there.


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[Assistant] Among the many stories they told him, the Piscataway spoke of a creature that lived in the woods. It was described as a sort of shapeshifter, with a blend of human and animal features. Decades later, in 1666, a visiting Jesuit missionary wrote down more information about the creature, and he included a drawing.


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[Assistant] Like I said, old stories tend to evolve over time, so perhaps the legend of the Goat Man from the 20th century is nothing more than a newer version of the stories about Oki that have been passed along for centuries.


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[Assistant] And in the summer of 1990, the Goatman legend continued to evolve.


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[Assistant] According to the tale, a young boy was playing catch with his father at a local park when the ball zipped over his head and bounced into the woods.


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[Assistant] He eagerly dropped his glove and headed after it. A moment later his parents heard a scream.


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[Assistant] When they arrived, the boy was standing as still as a statue between the trees, tears running down his cheeks. When they asked him what was wrong, the boy told his parents that he had seen a monster, but it had run away.


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[Assistant] And it wasn't his first encounter with it, either. According to the boy, he knew exactly where he'd seen it before.


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[Assistant] The legend of the Goatman of Maryland has a sort of flavor to it that makes it easy to assume it's unique. That would be incorrect. In fact, other parts of America have eerily similar stories. And I'd like to share one more of them with you before we're done.


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[Assistant] Stick around after this short sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] People have always been fans of a good mashup. And outside of music, folklore is a powerful place to find examples. Humans that look like animals. Animals that behave and move like humans. There's something fascinating about the intersection of those two worlds.


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[Assistant] The werewolf is probably the most prominent to come to mind. But there are stories of similar creatures in the folklore of China, Turkey, Scotland, and various Native American cultures in North America.


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[Assistant] There's even a cave in southwestern France that's famous for its prehistoric cave paintings, which historians believe date back about 15,000 years. And one of the images on the wall is that of a bison man. So, yeaah, people have been obsessed with this idea for a while now.


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[Assistant] Partly because that's how stories work. They spread from culture to culture. But also because, hypothetically speaking at least, if the Oki of Piscataway folklore was real, it would be silly to assume it only lived there, near the Chesapeake Bay.


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[Assistant] Which is why one particular story from Wisconsin feels so connected to the legend. But rather than taking place in our modern world of automobiles and televisions, this one is a century older.


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[Assistant] That's okay, because our final story centers around a couple of newlyweds, and they were probably feeling romantic as well.


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[Assistant] Even today, Hogsback Road is little more than a rough path carved through the trees atop a wide, expansive hill. It's paved today. But back in 1870, it was probably just a muddy stretch of wheel ruts and the occasional stone.


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[Assistant] And this was the route that our nameless newlyweds were traveling, eager to return home before sunset left them lost in the darkness.


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[Assistant] At some point on their way along that road, the couple's wagon struck a rather large stone and one of the wheels splintered.


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[Assistant] The husband urged the horses to stop and then climbed out to inspect the damage. He was handy with most general repairs, so he hoped it would be a quick fix. But even in the fading light of the early evening, he could tell this was way beyond his skills. He stood back up and shook his head at his new bride. They were stranded and that wasn't good.


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[Assistant] These parts were known for wolves and cougar, after all, even the occasional bear. That made it dangerous and she wasn't about to let him risk his life like that. But he puffed up his chest and smiled and reminded her that he managed to survive the civil war. What's a simple walk back to town compared to that?


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[Assistant] Night fell and the husband set off. The young wife spent hours sitting wide awake in the back of the wagon, huddled in a blanket against the chill.


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[Assistant] But eventually the familiar sound of footsteps could be heard approaching from a few yards down the road. He had returned and she smiled in celebration. But then she began to hear other sounds.


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[Assistant] The sort of sounds an animal might make if it were rooting around, sniffing the air in an attempt to track something down. And as she sat in silence, listening in fear, she could also smell it. The animal was coming closer.


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[Assistant] Finally, unable to keep her curiosity at bay any longer, she peered over the side of the wagon and came face to face with her visitor.


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[Assistant] It was as tall as a man, but had the head of a goat, complete with curved horns and a long face. It walked upright on its hind legs, but in almost every other way was more animal than man.


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[Assistant] Naturally, she screamed. And as she dropped back into the wagon, the creature bleated like a goat and then dashed off into the darkness. And just like that, her encounter was over.


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[Assistant] Like a lot of similar stories, the young bride somehow eventually fell asleep.


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[Assistant] When she awoke, it was morning. The sun was above the horizon and the birds had begun to sing.


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[Assistant] Cautiously, she glanced over the side of the wagon, but there was no sign of the mysterious creature she had seen the night before. But there was something.


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[Assistant] She could still see footprints just outside the wagon, but they weren't human in size or shape.


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[Assistant] No, these prints looked more like they came from the hooves of a large animal. And there was more.


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[Assistant] As she followed the tracks with her eyes toward the side of the road, she noticed patches of red on the dirt and grass.


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[Assistant] Curious, she climbed out of the wagon and began to slowly follow the trail.


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[Assistant] She passed between dozens of trees and lost sight of the wagon.


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[Assistant] Until finally she stood before an awful sight. It was the body of her husband.


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[Assistant] He had been ravaged by something horribly vicious, and what remained of his body now hung from one of the low branches of a tree.


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[Assistant] And just like that, the legend of the Goatman embedded itself into the common folklore of the day.


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[Assistant] Whether it was nothing more than fanciful stories designed to entertain children around a campfire, or the bloody remnants of something that actually happened, it's impossible to say for sure.


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[Assistant] But either way, it highlights a powerful point.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Taylor Haggardorn and music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of a television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life.


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[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Manke's Cabinets of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both.


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[Assistant] Each one explores areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic. You can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place. theworldoflore.com slash now


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[Assistant] And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. And I like it when people say hi.


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[Assistant] Every single photo is recognizable. Golden sand, enormous stone ruins, and the occasional glimpse of a camel or two. It's easy to know when you're looking at a photo of Egypt, and rightly so.


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[Assistant] Today, the modern landscape of Egypt is littered with relics from the past. Some seem as large as mountains, while others are mere fragments of a lone statue. But no matter their condition or size, these remnants from ancient Egypt keep the memory of that kingdom alive, thousands of years after those people lived and died there in Northern Africa. And the modern nation of Egypt knows this all too well.


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[Assistant] More than just about any other country in the world, Egypt invests heavily in uncovering its past. Its tourism industry is focused almost exclusively on those fragments of another world.


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[Assistant] Every year, there are dozens of TV episodes filmed there. And one glimpse at Egyptian currency will tell you the same story. The temples, monuments, and ancient artwork of their ancestors are cornerstones of who they are today.


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[Assistant] What we hold onto tends to define us. Whether it's a precious object or a specialized skill, the things we cling to and never let go of often end up becoming part of who we are.


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[Assistant] And most of the time, that's not a bad thing. There's nothing wrong with having pride in our culture, or putting our past accomplishments on a pedestal.


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[Assistant] But even the darker parts of life have a way of sticking around, don't they? The fragments of past failures, painful topics from a nation's history, loved ones taken too soon. There are some things we'd all like to forget, and yet they manage to hold on, like unwanted houseguests.


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[Assistant] And few places in American history have been more defined by their past than one East Coast city. Whether serving as a stage for violent conflict or a deep well of creative expression, its legacy casts more than a few shadows along the way. And I want to take you there. But be warned, because in Baltimore, that dark past has stayed remarkably close to the present.


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[Assistant] Baltimore is special. Granted, your list of reasons might be different from mine, but I hope we can all agree that Baltimore is a special place.


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[Assistant] Some of that specialness comes from its roots. Over the years, you've heard me give background on a good number of colonial settlements, and all of them seem to follow the same script. Europeans arrive in the New World, discover the perfect patch of land to settle down, and trick or force the native inhabitants out in order to do so. And most of the time, that's how it went. But Baltimore is different.


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[Assistant] Yes, it's true that Native Americans had lived in the region as far back as 12,000 years ago. But by the time the first Europeans were sailing into the Chesapeake Bay, no one was living on the land that those settlers would claim. And what they found there was an incredible natural harbor with deep waters and miles of shoreline to build along.


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[Assistant] Europeans of various origins had explored the Chesapeake Bay in the decades leading up to the early 17th century. But in 1632, the English Crown granted an official charter for a new colony to be called Maryland.


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[Assistant] Various communities were set up along the western side of the bay over the next few decades, building up to Baltimore County, which was established in 1659.


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[Assistant] Interesting side note, the name Baltimore comes from the owner of the Maryland Charter, Cecil Calvert, a British nobleman who served in the Irish House of Lords. His estate in Ireland was called Baltimore Manor and Cecil himself was the second baron Baltimore. But ironically, he never once stepped foot in the county or city named after him.


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[Assistant] History is never black and white. It's more of a sliding scale of various shades of grey. So while, yes, that's the date on the record books, people were living and working there for many years before. And just about every aspect of life in Baltimore centered around the bay, including moving goods in and out of its many harbors.


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[Assistant] In fact, through the late 1700s, Baltimore grew into a powerhouse for trade and shipping. Which is why, when the British decided to cripple American trade in the lead-up to the War of 1812, they set their sights on Baltimore. And a number of previous victories gave them the confidence that they could win, including the burning of the White House.


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[Assistant] So when the British sent thousands of troops to Baltimore's eastern border, as well as ships coming into the harbor from the south, they assumed that it would be an easy fight. When they arrived in September of 1814 though, they learned that the Americans had been very busy getting ready to protect themselves. And at the center of that defense was Fort McHenry.


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[Assistant] This was a thoroughly American fort, built just 16 years earlier, with every modern military tool at its disposal. And the 1,000 troops inside were ready to defend their country. In fact, every morning, they would raise a massive 42-foot long American flag over the fort, as if they were taunting the invading forces. And then, the battle began.


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[Assistant] While the British troops on land began their assault of the city, the ships in the harbor fired round after round at Fort McHenry. For over 25 hours, beginning on September 13th, experts estimate that roughly 1,500 cannonballs and mortar shells were launched at the Americans inside.


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[Assistant] But when it was over, only five of the soldiers had been killed. Three of whom died in the same explosion when a cannonball destroyed the bastion they were all stationed within.


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[Assistant] This was war on American soil though, which meant that the battle was on full display for civilians to see.


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[Assistant] In fact, one man, a young attorney from Baltimore who just happened to be on board a diplomatic vessel in the harbor, recorded his impression of the conflict. From his location on the ship that night, he could see everything. And it didn't look hopeful.


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[Assistant] But early the next morning, as the sunrise cast a brilliant glow over Fort McHenry, this attorney was amazed to see American troops inside boldly lower their tattered flag and then replace it with an even larger one. The message was clear.


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[Assistant] We're not going anywhere, so do your worst. Instead, the British turned around and sailed south out of the Chesapeake Bay.


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[Assistant] And that attorney would go on to put his emotions to paper, trying his best to capture the events of that night and the emotional roller coaster they put him through. When he was done, he had written a poem comprised of four eight-line stanzas.


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[Assistant] It was a poem that would eventually be set to the tune of a popular British song before spreading far and wide over the next century. And it was named after the flag that inspired it all.


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[Assistant] They say that misery loves company. And if that's the case, three centuries of events in Baltimore have offered plenty of companionship.


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[Assistant] From military conflicts to large-scale epidemics that took the lives of thousands, Baltimore is all too familiar with misery.


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[Assistant] And Fort McHenry has remained at the center of much of that activity. After serving to defend the city and harbor around it during the War of 1812, the fort remained in active use for decades. But it was during the Civil War that it would take on a new purpose. A military prison.


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[Assistant] As the Union forces did battle with the Confederates, often times they would take prisoners. And rather than transport those prisoners with them as they marched, they would be sent north to forts that saw less action. It brought places like Baltimore, Delaware, and New York into the conflict in a unique way, and left a mark on each of those structures. And Baltimore's Fort McHenry is no exception.


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[Assistant] But the fort became the home to more than just prisoners of war. Local officials who were sympathetic to the Confederate cause soon found themselves behind bars there as well. The mayor of Baltimore was one of them, as were a large number of newspaper owners and city council members. And a man named Francis Key Howard, the grandson of Francis Scott Key.


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[Assistant] During World War I, the fort became a hospital, offering over 3,000 beds to patients in need of treatment. And then, just as the war was coming to an end, the world found itself facing a new challenge in the form of a deadly influenza outbreak. Many of the sick in Baltimore were treated at the hospital inside the fort, but ultimately over 5,000 people died.


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[Assistant] Naturally, all of that activity left people feeling less than encouraged. That's a lot of darkness for one's structure to play host to, and so it shouldn't come as a surprise that stories have been passed along ever since.


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[Assistant] Stories that suggest just how much of the past has held on.


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[Assistant] Today, Fort McHenry is a tourist attraction, and thousands of people move through those battered walls every month.


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[Assistant] According to some, all of those visiting eyeballs translate into possible witnesses to the shadows that still haunt the place. Some have reported hearing voices inside empty rooms, while others have seen ghostly figures moving through the dark tunnels.


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[Assistant] Many of the sightings, of course, come with names attached to them. In one particular prison cell in the fort, people whisper about a private named John Drew. According to the stories, Drew was found sleeping at his post and was placed in the cell as punishment. Embarrassed by his failure, the private took his own life with a weapon he had smuggled in.


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[Assistant] Visitors to his cell over the years have reported seeing the ghostly shape of a man pacing back and forth. Some have even claimed to see him outside, where he stands at attention, perhaps trying to make up for his past failings.


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[Assistant] Mostly though, people who visit his cell just feel an overwhelming sense of fear and anxiety. Although I can't imagine not feeling that inside an ancient military prison.


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[Assistant] Many of the experiences over the years, though, have been reported by those who guide the tours through the Old Fort. One guide claimed to frequent the cell that once held Baltimore's mayor at the start of the Civil War, George William Brown.


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[Assistant] During his visits to the small room, he would often speak out loud to George, pretending to have a conversation with the dead man's ghost. And when he left, he would always call out, good night, George.


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[Assistant] But one night many years ago, he forgot to say goodbye as he headed toward the cell door.


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[Assistant] According to his report, as he drew near the doorway, something invisible and firm seemed to block his path, as if someone were trying to keep him from leaving.


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[Assistant] Thinking fast, he turned around and called out into the room


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[Assistant] Goodnight, George." And almost instantly the door to the cell began to swing open on its own.


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[Assistant] One last story. Years ago, a guide was leading yet one more group of tourists through the halls of the fort, when they stopped to discuss another portion of the building. After the guide went through his script, he asked if anyone had any questions, and a woman in the crowd raised her hand.


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[Assistant] And then, feeling curious, he asked the woman how she knew that, assuming she had done some research before visiting the fort.


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[Assistant] Just north of Baltimore is a remnant of the past. It's a house, although once you see it, the word house sort of fails to capture everything about it. In reality, it's everything you might expect from an 18th century English manor.


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[Assistant] In fact, when construction was completed on it in 1790, this house was the largest private home in the country. And it stands on old land, too. The property originally belonged to a relative of Lord Baltimore, but a couple of generations after that man's death, it was all sold to a tobacco farmer named Charles Ridgely.


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[Assistant] Within a few years, Ridgely expanded his holdings to roughly 15 square miles and then built a thriving business around it. After his death in 1772, his son, also Charles Ridgely, took control and added even more. And then, in 1783, he started building Hampton Manor. Little did he know, though, that he would barely get to live in it.


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[Assistant] Within a year of its completion in 1790, Ridgely was dead. And with no son to inherit the place, his will passed it on to a nephew, Charles Carnan. But with one stipulation, Carnan had to change his last name to Ridgely.


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[Assistant] I honestly doubt that he gave it much thought though, because the nephew took ownership of Hampton Manor almost immediately.


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[Assistant] But it was a house that began with death. Aside from Charles Ridgley's untimely death in 1790, there had already been another.


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[Assistant] Just three years before that, the head carpenter on the Manor House project rode his horse into a nearby stream, but misjudged the water level and tragically drowned. Sadly, more deaths would follow.


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[Assistant] It seems that the new Charles Ridgely, the lucky nephew, had an unhappy home life. His wife Priscilla suffered from some mixture of depression and anxiety and kept to herself in a room upstairs.


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[Assistant] Stories about her often paint her in a horrible light, making it seem as if she was a bad person for refusing to join the family downstairs. But mental illness is real for a lot of people, and while it can often feel like a curse, it's not inherently bad.


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[Assistant] Priscilla, though, passed away in April of 1814, just five months before the British attack on Fort McHenry. Charles lived for another 15 years, though, during which he served as the governor of Maryland before retiring in 1819. But it was a later governor who would leave a dark mark on Hampton Manor.


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[Assistant] In 1866, Governor Thomas Swan took office just as his daughter Signet was recovering from what was most likely tuberculosis. Thinking that the fresh air and open space of Hampton Manor would help her recover, the Ridgelys invited her to come and stay for a time. And for a while, it seemed to work.


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[Assistant] Then one day, Signet took a turn for the worse. Legend says that the lady of the manor, Eliza Ridgely, decided that the young woman simply needed cheering up and so she threw an elaborate party. But when Signet failed to attend that night, a servant was sent to check on her.


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[Assistant] They say she was found dead in her room, slumped over at her dressing table.


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[Assistant] Ever since, there have been sightings in that room of a ghostly young woman. She's never violent or intrusive, but more of a grainy, silent film played on repeat.


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[Assistant] Whoever the figure is though, she is always described as wearing a ball gown. Sometimes she's been seen walking through the room, while other times she's been seated, as if getting ready at a low table.


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[Assistant] All told, seven generations maintained the house and property, all the way up to 1948. But it was in the 1920s when one final mystery appeared at Hampton Manor.


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[Assistant] As the story goes, a woman was traveling through the east coast on a mission to see as many of the old historic homes as she could. And when she reached Baltimore, she was told that Hampton Manor was worth a visit.


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[Assistant] Upon arriving, she knocked and waited for a reply. After a long moment, the latch turned and the door opened to reveal an older man dressed in the formal attire of a butler. The man, who introduced himself as Tom, informed her that while the owners were not at home, he would be more than happy to give her a guided tour. So he invited her inside.


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[Assistant] And from what I've read, it was a fantastic tour. The pair moved slowly from one room to the next, giving her time to admire the antique furnishings, the vaulted ceilings, the artwork, all of it. And every step of the way, Tom was ready to tell her a new story about that space, or the people who live there.


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[Assistant] In fact, Tom might have been the best guide she could have hoped for.


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[Assistant] When the tour was over, she went on her way, but so thoroughly enjoyed the house that she decided to call the Ridgelys on the phone and thank them for the tour. The butler, she told them, was quite possibly the best tour guide she had ever met.


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[Assistant] But we don't have a butler, Mrs. Ridgely told her. In fact, we haven't had one for years.


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[Assistant] The young woman assumed that there must have been a mistake, so she explained how she had been taken on a tour of the house and heard so many of the forgotten stories from its past. And then she described the butler, hoping that it might jog the older woman's memory.


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[Assistant] The past always seems to chase after us, doesn't it?


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[Assistant] Most of the time, that's intentional. Things we'd prefer not to forget, from personal moments to national milestones. That's probably why the study of history in classrooms around the world is so intertwined with names and dates and locations. We honestly just don't want to forget.


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[Assistant] But every now and then, the past holds on for different reasons.


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[Assistant] Maybe it's a local tragedy or the loss of a loved one that's just too painful to let go of. Perhaps it's war or disease or indescribable pain.


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[Assistant] Those things are obviously a lot less desirable, and yet they manage to stick around in one way or another. I think it's safe to say that whether or not you might believe in ghosts, the past can certainly haunt us.


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[Assistant] And Baltimore is no exception. In fact, while it's been home to a lot of great moments worthy of remembering, those feel like bright spots painted onto a wide canvas of shadow.


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[Assistant] Think about it. For roughly a century, beginning in the 1770s, it seems like just about every generation living in that city felt the effects of war. And there was so much more than just that.


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[Assistant] But whether we're visiting places close to the bay, like Fells Point and its many historic buildings, or heading north to the grounds of Hampton Manor, it all teaches us the same lesson.


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[Assistant] We might not always enjoy the things that happened in the past, but that doesn't mean that we can escape them.


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[Assistant] I mentioned earlier that the master carpenter who designed and built Hampton Manor, a man named Jehu Howell, tragically died before the house was completed. It's said that he was paid upfront, and part of that payment came in the form of rum, which admittedly might sound equal parts odd and delicious to most of us.


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[Assistant] The fact was, for a very long time leading up to the Revolutionary War, rum was the leading export coming out of the American colonies.


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[Assistant] In 1758, when a younger George Washington was campaigning in Virginia for a position in the local assembly, he gave out nearly 30 gallons of rum and another 50 gallons of rum punch as incentives.


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[Assistant] Despite the fact that his district didn't even have 400 voters living in it. So yeaah. Rum as payment might sound odd today. But back then, it was liquid gold. And of course, there's speculation that the carpenter sampled a bit too much of his own paycheck before that tragic ride that ended with him drowning in the nearby river.


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[Assistant] But there's no way to prove that. More than likely, had he lived, he would have sold that rum off for a tidy profit. Or used it as payment to some of his crew.


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[Assistant] Regardless, Howell died before he could finish the job. Literally riding off into death on a horse from the manor's tack room. A tack room that's still there today. And if the stories are true, that's not the only thing that's stuck around.


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[Assistant] According to one man who once slept in the room directly next to it, noises in the tack room woke him up in the middle of the night. Specifically, he said it sounded as if someone had walked through it with heavy boots, dragging their hand along the wall as they went, which rattled the chains and gear that hung there.


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[Assistant] When he found the courage to go investigate, the man claims that he found the room completely empty, just as it should be.


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[Assistant] But when he turned on the lights for a better look something unexplainable caught his eye. The gear that hung from the hooks on the wall was swinging.


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[Assistant] Baltimore is an old city with a rich past, but not all of it is about war and country estates. In fact, few cities in America can claim to be the home to more influential artists over the years, and one of them has left us with quite the mystery.


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[Assistant] Stick around after this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] Baltimore might be home to shadows, but over the years a number of bright spots have appeared.


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[Assistant] Musicians Billie Holiday, Frank Zappa, and Tory Amos all call the city home. Abolitionist leader and social reform giant Frederick Douglass was born there as well.


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[Assistant] And the printed page has forever been altered by sons and daughters of Baltimore, including F. Scott Fitzgerald, Upton Sinclair, Tom Clancy, and even David Simon, the creator of The Wire.


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[Assistant] But if there's one name that the majority of people remember and feel a connection to, it's Edgar Allan Poe. Although Baltimore wasn't his place of birth, it was certainly the stage that much of his career played out on, and the location of his untimely death.


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[Assistant] But Poe is a deceptive figure. Today we see him as one of the pillars of American fiction. A legend in the world of horror and mystery stories. And rightly so. But that cloud of glory is almost all posthumous. Because in his own lifetime, there was much more darkness than light.


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[Assistant] Baltimore's favorite author was actually born in Boston in 1809, but his first two years were full of tremendous pain and loss, although he was too young to understand it at the time.


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[Assistant] His father abandoned the family in 1810 and a year later, tuberculosis took his mother's life. And so Edgar, barely a toddler, entered the early American foster system.


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[Assistant] It was a couple from Virginia who took him in, John and Francis Allen, but that new home was a mixed bag. Yes, his physical needs were taken care of and he wasn't at risk of living on the streets, but John Allen was an angry, verbally abusive man who seemed to use his financial support of the boy as a tool of manipulation.


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[Assistant] Over the course of the next two decades, tuberculosis would return to take the lives of both his brother Henry and his wife Virginia. His adoptive father would pass away and leave Poe absolutely nothing in his will.


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[Assistant] By 1848 though, things were looking up. His teenage sweetheart, a woman whose father had hidden his letters and who had later married another man believing Poe had lost interest, stepped back into his life. She had become a young widow and the pair discovered a second chance at happiness. But fate would step in and put an end to that within a year.


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[Assistant] In 1849, Poe became sick. Despite the warnings of his doctor, he traveled from Baltimore to Philadelphia for some work and disappeared for days. He was found in the gutter of a Baltimore street on August 3rd, delirious and dressed in clothing that didn't belong to him. He was quickly taken to the hospital.


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[Assistant] Some historians believe the evidence points to an election day scheme that involved getting men like Poe drunk and then forcing them to vote in multiple locations. Others claim he had returned from Philly but decided to go get drunk before going home. But Poe had given up alcohol years before.


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[Assistant] To this day, no one knows the true circumstances that led to him being in that gutter, but we all know the results.


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[Assistant] He left behind a collection of published work that's both mind-bogglingly good and far too small. And it was work that he was never properly paid for. In fact, his most famous work just might be his poem, The Raven. But when it first appeared in print in 1845, Poe's paycheck was just $9. That's barely $300 today.


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[Assistant] His funeral was attended by just seven mourners, and he was buried without much fanfare. It wouldn't be for another 26 years before funds for a monument were raised, but rather than place it over his grave, it was placed elsewhere and his body was moved to be beneath it.


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[Assistant] But for as mysterious as his death might seem, it's that grave site that's been even more puzzling.


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[Assistant] You see, on October 7th of 1949, a full century after his death, a dark figure was seen stepping into the cemetery, where they left roses and a bottle of cognac on his grave. The following year, the visitor returned, and did so for 50 consecutive years.


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[Assistant] They were never photographed, never stopped, and never identified. And to this day, no one knows if it was one solitary visitor or a whole series of fans who have taken turns paying their respect. Regardless, those visits have illustrated an important point.


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[Assistant] I also make two other podcasts, Aaron Manke's Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured, and I think you'd enjoy both. Each one explores other areas of our dark history, ranging from bite-sized episodes to season-long dives into a single topic.


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[Assistant] And you can learn more about both of those shows and everything else going on over in one central place. GrimAndMild.com


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[Assistant] And you can also follow the show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] He had wanted to escape the throng of busy New England and it's hard to blame him. In fact, when he moved west in 1874, he wasn't alone.


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[Assistant] Countless others made the same decision to leave it all behind and build a new life as far from the East Coast as they could. And many of these settlers found themselves in the Pacific Northwest.


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[Assistant] Joshua arrived when Seattle was just a sawmill town, still an infant compared to the great cities of the east. Despite that, it was still a bit too crowded for his taste. So instead of settling down with all the others, he states claim to a plot of land to the west of town, out where there were more trees than people.


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[Assistant] But the stories tell us that Joshua wasn't the most fortunate of settlers.


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[Assistant] On more than one occasion, he would pay a visit to his closest neighbors, arriving just after sundown with a panicked expression on his face, asking for shelter for the night.


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[Assistant] After a few of these visits, the neighbors eventually convinced Joshua to explain what his troubles were. His answer was simple. Ghosts.


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[Assistant] Every night, he claimed, he was being visited by invisible spirits. Sounds in the rafters of his cabin were footsteps outside his front door. He told them he could hear voices in his house, and it had all become too much to deal with alone.


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[Assistant] The legend goes on to tell us that those neighbors eventually noticed that Joshua had stopped coming around. And after a while, they decided to go find out why.


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[Assistant] When they stepped inside his little house down the road, they were shocked to find Joshua's body in a heap on the floor, cold and dead, his face painted with an expression of utter horror.


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[Assistant] Joshua's land was secluded, sure, but it was also sacred. In fact, the location of his new cabin had long been used by the local Native Americans as a burial ground. Some believe that the residents there were disturbed by his arrival. Disturbed enough to make his life a living nightmare.


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[Assistant] That's the trouble with history. It's a deep, dark soil that's filled with everything a city needs to grow. The culture and events there act like nutrients helping to move a place forward, allowing it to thrive and spread. History provides every city with roots.


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[Assistant] Most places, though, have something else. Something less appealing, but no less memorable. Because history is also filled with tragedy and suffering and pain.


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[Assistant] And if Joshua Winfield's story teaches us anything, it's that there's darkness buried beneath the streets of Seattle. And if the stories are true, it's never really gone away.


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[Assistant] Seattle is a relatively young metropolis compared to other parts of America. The descendants of the Pilgrims had lived in their Massachusetts community of Plymouth for nearly two centuries before George Vancouver sailed into the Puget Sound in 1792.


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[Assistant] He became the first European to visit the land that would one day be home to the city we know today. But it would take another six decades before settlers decided to give the land there a try. And when they arrived in 1851, they were led by a man named Arthur Denny. But of course, they weren't the first people to live there.


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[Assistant] In fact, archaeologists believe that humans have lived along the Puget Sound for at least 4,000 years. When Denny and his group of settlers arrived, the Native American people known as the Duwamish were already there. And for a brief moment, it seemed that these two distinct cultures were going to get along. Instead, land got in the way.


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[Assistant] The U.S. government had begun to offer settlers free plots of land if they would transplant themselves to the Northwest. In fact, each person had 320 acres of land waiting for them, free of charge, and double that for married couples. But the best of that land, the land that had already been cleared of trees and prepared for farming, already belonged to the Native Americans.


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[Assistant] That never stopped white Europeans before, though. So true to the rest of history around the country, Denny and his friends began to slowly take that land for themselves. At first, the Duwamish people, under the rule of Chief Seattle, were accommodating and generous, but that quickly changed.


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[Assistant] Those early prominent settlers, men like Arthur Denny, Henry Yesler, and Doc Maynard, were on such good terms with Chief Seattle that they eventually named the settlement in his honor.


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[Assistant] But as the slow trickle of settlers transformed into a flood, the culture began to shift. The newest of settlers weren't as friendly toward the Duwamish people and began to lobby their leadership for a change.


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[Assistant] What happened next is one of the darkest marks on the history of the community there.


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[Assistant] Believing themselves to be morally, culturally, and intellectually superior to the native peoples, the settlers began to enact laws and regulations that limited their freedoms. Henry Yesler and others warned the newcomers that restrictions like that would be taken as a declaration of war, but few listened to him.


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[Assistant] Sure enough, in early 1856, a Duwamish raiding party headed toward the town to reclaim what had been taken from them.


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[Assistant] The U.S. naval vessel, the Decatur, bombarded the Native Americans from the water, and the battle for Seattle was brought to an end.


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[Assistant] Less than a decade later, the city passed an ordinance to prohibit all native people from its borders.


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[Assistant] While some people on both sides of the division chose to ignore the rule, it stayed on the books for many years. And sadly, it wouldn't be the last of its kind.


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[Assistant] In 1886, when the arrival of the railroad brought an influx of hundreds of Chinese immigrants, angry mobs drove them down to the docks and onto ships bound for San Francisco.


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[Assistant] Those same docks had already become central to the economy of Seattle. Everything that happened in the community, from the cutting of timber to the sawmills that reduced it to lumber, all of it ended up down by the water, where ships waited to take it all away.


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[Assistant] All of that industry needed workers, and so the land south of Henry Yesler's Somme Hill became a busy, crowded, unsanitary downtown. There are stories of disease and pestilence filling in the narrow gaps between the cramped buildings, of rats and sewage problems, of makeshift homes built too close to the water.


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[Assistant] The entire district took on a sort of darkness, broken here and there by the red lights used by its inhabitants. In fact, looking down toward the docks at night, visitors were so struck by the red glow that they began to call that part of town the lava beds.


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[Assistant] That's the day a fire broke out in the basement workshop of a cabinetmaker named Victor Clermont. Fueled by the glue and wood shavings that filled his space, the blaze quickly expanded outward.


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[Assistant] As the story goes, the shop above his was a paint store filled with highly flammable chemicals. And across the street was a massive warehouse with hundreds of cases of whiskey.


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[Assistant] Add to this the fact that the city hadn't seen rain in a very long time, and they had the perfect recipe for disaster. Less than an hour later, the fire had spread to cover multiple blocks of the downtown area, feeding off the wooden structures that lined the streets.


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[Assistant] When it was finally over, nearly three dozen blocks of the city had been burned to the ground. Businesses and homes were gone, and the shipping industry ground to a halt. Nearly 40 years of downtown growth had been reduced to ash in a single day.


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[Assistant] Seattle would rebuild, but in the process, they would make a unique decision.


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[Assistant] Rather than removing the darkness of the past to start fresh with a clean slate, they decided to do something dangerous.


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[Assistant] They would rebuild their lives right on top of the past.


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[Assistant] Seattle's Great Fire of 1889 is something of an anomaly in American history.


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[Assistant] Yes, many other cities have experienced their own devastating fires. But in almost all of those cases, it was the fire that created the tragedy. The loss of lives on a grand scale always has a way of casting shadows across the rest of a city's history. But Seattle was different.


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[Assistant] Not a single casualty was reported in the aftermath of the fire. So while the loss of homes and businesses was tremendous, there was no cloud of grief or loss hanging over the survivors. They had been kicked to the ground, but had the hope to stand back up and rebuild.


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[Assistant] And that's where things get interesting. Because the city planners and politicians saw the charred remains of the city as their chance to improve Seattle. They decided to elevate the entire downtown above the waterline, a full story higher than the previous buildings.


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[Assistant] But rather than clear the ground and start from scratch, they chose to simply build on top of the wreckage.


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[Assistant] Tons of earth gathered from the eastern edges of the city were hauled in and used to fill in the streets and spaces between the remaining buildings. Archways were built over the old sidewalks. Ladders were installed to allow customers to climb down to the few remaining businesses that had survived the fire. And when they were done,


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[Assistant] They had built a new downtown on top of the old one without destroying what was beneath.


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[Assistant] This new Seattle underground was quickly condemned by city officials, making it clear that no one was supposed to live and work there.


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[Assistant] But humans have a knack for disobeying rules that are a bit too inconvenient. Instead, those dark spaces and tunnels became home to the less savory portions of the city's economic life. Gambling and prostitution.


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[Assistant] Above it all, of course, Seattle continued to grow. In the decade that followed, waves of prospectors passed through on their way north to Alaska and British Columbia, seeking their fortunes in the rivers and mines of the Yukon. When they struck it rich, they would pass back through Seattle, spending their fortune on everything the city had to offer.


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[Assistant] For many, it was all about investment. Large quantities of gold bullion were stored in bank vaults where it awaited purchase by the US government. And those same banks figured out a system for advancing money to those prospectors to tide them over until the sale went through.


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[Assistant] Which meant that Seattle was flush with rough men, untethered to the responsibilities of family or employment, and with pockets full of cash. And they knew just how to spend it.


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[Assistant] Where there is demand, enterprising individuals always seem to step forward and help. In those early years, a number of brothels and gambling joints were set up, and they made their owners lots and lots of money. But the most powerful of them all was Lou Graham, and Lou was unlike any of the others for one simple reason. Lou was a she.


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[Assistant] Lou was actually a German immigrant named Dorothea Georgine Emily Oben. But there in Seattle, she was just the queen.


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[Assistant] While others were running filthy, disease-ridden dens of prostitution, Lou aimed for the upscale market. And it worked so well that her clientele included not just traveling prospectors with cash to burn, but also powerful local city officials.


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[Assistant] In the aftermath of the fire, Lou Graham decided to put her immense fortune to work and built a massive new home for her empire. But it wasn't just money that flowed into her hands. Operating a network of brothels that served the city's elite also earned her influence and access. All of a sudden, she was more than wealthy. She was powerful.


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[Assistant] By the time Lou Graham died in 1903, she had become the richest woman in America. But she also died with no husband or children to inherit that fortune. So she willed it to her relatives back in Germany.


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[Assistant] Her wealth had been gleaned from the community there, and they felt that it should stay.


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[Assistant] Instead, they ignored her will and used the money to fund the city's public school system.


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[Assistant] The past, even the darker bits of it, would continue to have an influence over the present.


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[Assistant] And nowhere else is that more evident today than the darkness of the underground. Because while no one lives there anymore, it's clearly inhabited by something. Something born of the past. And reluctant to leave.


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[Assistant] Today, visitors to Seattle can take guided tours of the underground and literally stand on the walkways that were used by pedestrians before the fire of 1889.


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[Assistant] But along with views of long forgotten buildings, many visitors have experienced a closer brush with the past. Some people, you see, claim to have seen ghosts.


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[Assistant] Many stories are centered around the pub built by Doc Maynard in the early days of the city, a space that is now located beneath the street along Pioneer Square.


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[Assistant] It's been home to a gambling den, a large brothel and countless bars. People who have visited the space claim to have noticed the overwhelming scent of alcohol, as well as objects that move on their own, and a spirit that has interacted with tourists.


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[Assistant] In another underground location, visitors to an abandoned bank have seen an elderly man in 19th century clothing standing outside. His appearance has been so powerful and realistic that most tourists have assumed he's just an actor helping the tour company with their performance. But he often vanishes before anyone can speak with him.


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[Assistant] Whether it's the distant sound of an old piano, or the echo of spirited laughter and loud conversation, the spaces beneath the streets of Seattle seem to be home to more than just the remnants of another age.


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[Assistant] One of the oldest neighborhoods in Seattle is actually a short distance away from the new downtown and its dark underground. The Georgetown neighborhood sits on the eastern banks of the Duwamish River and is filled with old homes and older stories. And the most prominent of them is about the castle.


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[Assistant] In the heyday of prostitution and gambling, one of the busiest hot spots in Pioneer Square was the Central Saloon, which was a good thing for the man who built the place, Peter Gesner, because the entire enterprise had been a gamble. But then again, gambling was something that Peter was very, very good at.


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[Assistant] That's how he started out in the late 1800s. While the early settlers of Seattle, folks like Arthur Denny and Doc Maynard, had gambled their lives on a fresh start in a new place, Peter Gesner was the more typical kind of gambler. He took advantage of the many gambling dens and managed to beat the odds more than they beat him.


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[Assistant] In fact, by 1901, Peter had enough money to buy one of the downtown businesses that competed with Doc Maynard's Pub.


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[Assistant] It was a building in Pioneer Square that housed the Watson Brothers' famous restaurant on the ground level and a hotel on the floors above.


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[Assistant] Peter combined those two businesses into one that he called the Central Saloon.


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[Assistant] And it's still there, by the way. And it's been a powerful music venue for decades. In fact, in the 1980s, the Central was the launch pad for a number of bands that would go on to transform the music scene forever. Soundgarden, Mudhoney, and Green River all called the Central their home.


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[Assistant] And true to the spirit of Seattle, Pearl Jam was a band rebuilt from the ashes of Mother Love Bone. And they're still going strong today.


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[Assistant] Buying the Tavern was a gamble for Gesner, but it quickly paid off.


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[Assistant] Filled with all of the devices that Seattle was known for, the central was always busy, and that meant lots and lots of profit. And when there was enough cash in the bank, Peter decided to use it to build a dream home for his young bride Lizzie.


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[Assistant] What he built was a massive 5,000 square foot mansion, complete with a turret, high ceilings in every room, a wide wrapper on porch, and an indoor theater. When it was completed in 1902, Peter and Lizzie moved in and began to set up their new life inside those spacious rooms.


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[Assistant] The tragedy was right behind them, and it moved in a short while later.


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[Assistant] Now there are two versions of how this tragedy played out. There are some who think that when Peter discovered that Lizzie was cheating on him with another local businessman, that he kicked her out and converted the enormous house over to become yet another brothel and gambling den.


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[Assistant] It was a reaction fueled by grief and spite, and a reflection of his tortured soul.


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[Assistant] Others, though, think that Gesner's luck had just finally run out, and his empire was faltering. Opening his dream home up as a palace of vice was the only thing he could think of to save his business.


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[Assistant] Either way though, the house became something very different than Peter had intended. And perhaps that's what led to the next chapter of his story.


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[Assistant] A year after the transformation, Peter was found dead inside his Georgetown mansion.


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[Assistant] They say his body was found in one of the second story bedrooms, and that his tongue and lips showed signs of poisoning from drinking carbonic acid.


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[Assistant] Most believe it was suicide, but some have wondered if his estranged wife Lizzie might have had a hand in his death. That's because months after Peter Gesner was in the grave, Lizzie and her new husband moved into the castle that he had built for her, setting off a wave of rumors throughout the neighborhood.


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[Assistant] All of that pain and tragedy seems to have stuck around, too. In the 1970s, the house was purchased by Ray McWade and Peter Peterson, who set about restoring the house to its former glory.


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[Assistant] According to the story, the two men discovered a small room that had been covered up and forgotten by past owners.


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[Assistant] Inside, the room felt unnaturally cold, and noises could be heard throughout the house. Once outside the tiny room though, the noises stopped.


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[Assistant] McWade and Peterson also reported finding a dead cat on their front porch one day. Assuming the animal had gotten into a fight and dragged itself to their porch before dying, they gave it a proper burial in their front yard.


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[Assistant] The following day though, they were shocked to find the cat's body right back where they'd found it before, in the center of their porch.


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[Assistant] In the decade since, numerous visitors to the mansion have reported unusual activity. Some have felt cold waves wash over them as they move through the house, while others have heard pounding on doors that have no one else on the other side.


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[Assistant] One overnight guest reported getting up to use the bathroom at one in the morning, only to be shoved down the stairs by an invisible hand.


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[Assistant] Today, the house is in the hands of yet another loving family, and they've continued that ongoing mission to restore Peter Gesner's mansion to the glory it once knew.


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[Assistant] But even though new generations have taken up the fight against time, it's hard to deny the way the past seems to haunt those high-ceilinged rooms. The past might very well be behind us, but if Seattle is any indication, it's all around us as well.


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[Assistant] Everyone loves a good comeback story. To see the hero of the tale stand back up and keep marching toward the prize.


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[Assistant] Maybe that's because humans tend to be stubborn and resilient. Or perhaps these stories offer us that precious nourishment that our souls depend on. Hope. Seattle is a city of hope.


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[Assistant] It's a community with a dark and broken foundation, rooted in prejudice and violence and crime. But it's never let the past define it. Even when it all burned to the ground, that was seen less as a setback and more as a chance to improve and become something better. The rise from the ashes like a phoenix. But it never really goes away, does it?


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[Assistant] The city's dark past just moved underground for a time, setting up shop beneath the feet of the people who lived there. Because that's what shadows do.


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[Assistant] They bend away from the light, clinging to the underbelly and the corners of our world. We won't ever fully get rid of them, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't try.


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[Assistant] In some ways, the past is still there. It's in the names of streets like Yesler Way and places like Pioneer Square.


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[Assistant] But in other places, progress has washed over the past like a wave and replaced it with something new.


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[Assistant] It's still standing today at the corner of South Washington and Third Avenue, although it's now known as the Washington Court building.


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[Assistant] But the most persistent pieces of the past to stick around are the stories. Chief Seattle passed away in 1866, but his daughter, Kikis Omlo, stayed in the city.


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[Assistant] Legend says that she lived near the waterfront near Western Ave and Pike and she was so warm and friendly to everyone around her that Doc Maynard's wife Catherine was said to have given her the nickname Princess Angeline. Time marched on and tried to leave the past behind.


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[Assistant] But for decades, Princess Angeline was still there, serving as a reminder of her father's legacy and the early days of the community. They say she sold clams and handmade baskets and watched as the city that had once been a fishing village of her own people grew into a metropolis of strangers.


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[Assistant] When she passed away in 1896, she was buried near Henry Yesler in Lakeview Cemetery.


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[Assistant] But there are many who believe she's never really left the city. Ever since the establishment of the Pike Place Market, countless people have reported seeing a woman with a woven basket in her arms, usually sitting off to the side of the crowd.


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[Assistant] Others have seen the same figure walking down the streets between downtown and the market, her shoulders wrapped in a shawl, her hair pulled back in long braids. They say she lacks that apparitional appearance that we might expect from typical ghost stories, instead blending in with all the other people near her. But when anyone has approached her, she vanishes.


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[Assistant] Following the battle for Seattle in 1865, a treaty was signed between both sides, and old Chief Seattle was said to have given a speech during the negotiations.


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[Assistant] The authenticity of the speech as we know it today is highly debatable.


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[Assistant] The first version historians know of was printed three decades after the treaty was signed.


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[Assistant] But most think that, at the very least, the spirit of his message was captured by those who attempted to record it. And it's the final few lines that have caught the attention of so many. Words that seem to echo through the ages as a warning to those who choose to remain in the city named after him.


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[Assistant] At night, Seattle was said to have spoken, when the streets of your cities and villages will be silent and you think them deserted, they will throng with returning hosts that once filled and still love this beautiful land. The white man will never be alone.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research by Carl Nellis and music by Chad Lawson. I make two other podcasts as well, Cabinet of Curiosities and Unobscured. You can find links to both of those over at theworldoflore.com slash now.


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[Assistant] Lore exists outside of this podcast as well. There's a book series in stores around the country and online. And as we mentioned before, the second season of the Amazon Prime television show kicks off in just a few days on October 19th. Check them both out if you want more lore in your life.


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[Assistant] And you can always learn about everything going on, all over in one place. theworldoflore.com slash now. Oh, and hey, if you're a social media sort of person and you want to follow along, the show is on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and click that follow button. When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi.


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[Assistant] When Daniel and his wife Susanna climbed into their wagon in 1852, they weren't the typical family headed toward the Oregon Trail. They weren't looking for land or even gold. No, Daniel and his family were heading west for an entirely different reason. He was on a mission from God.


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[Assistant] Daniel was a Methodist minister who had spent the previous decade traveling throughout Illinois, preaching his message from town to town and setting up new Methodist church communities. Now though, he had been given a new task.


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[Assistant] He was to be a missionary, taking his work into the West, where he would serve out a five-year contract for the tidy sum of $600 a year.


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[Assistant] But the journey was tough. Along the way, they met up with other travelers, and along with good conversation and helpful hands, these strangers brought something else with them. Cholera.


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[Assistant] A number of travelers died from the disease, but somehow Daniel and their son Clarence managed to stay healthy. Susanna, though, wasn't doing so well.


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[Assistant] As they moved closer and closer to their destination in Oregon, rumors began to reach them of a place farther north, a place with fresh air and open sky.


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[Assistant] Believing that his wife's health could benefit from such a climate, Daniel changed course and aimed for the Puget Sound, finally arriving in 1860.


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[Assistant] Susanna pulled through, and the family settled into life there in the growing town named after the local Native American ruler, Seattle.


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[Assistant] And while he did engage in the duties he had been tasked with, founding the Methodist Church on 2nd and Mason, he also threw himself into the local business world.


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[Assistant] Soon enough, he was commissioner for the brand new Washington State University, founded by none other than Arthur Denny.


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[Assistant] After that, he took over management of a series of coal mines on the eastern side of town.


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[Assistant] Daniel Bagley had a knack for business, and he was quickly rewarded for all his hard work.


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[Assistant] And looking back on his influential life, he left a powerful mark on Seattle. But he might have left more than that.


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[Assistant] There's a story about one of his Methodist churches in the area, up on Capitol Hill, that takes place in the late 1980s. According to former deacon Douglas Jensen, he began his nightly rounds one evening, as he always did, by taking a walk through of the building.


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[Assistant] And it was in the middle of that inspection that something unexplainable happened.


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[Assistant] Jensen recalled walking into one of the rooms, only to be stopped in his tracks by the figure of Daniel Bagley standing before him. Jensen described the vision as translucent and something reminiscent of the holograms one might see in a Hollywood sci-fi film.


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[Assistant] Others have seen Bagley as well. One minister in the building witnessed Bagley standing on the balcony, his arms on the railing, eyes looking down upon him.


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[Assistant] And Daniel is apparently not the only spirit to haunt the church. Some have claimed to see a woman in a long flowing dress, her form glowing in that same translucent blue light.


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[Assistant] On one such occasion, the woman actually spoke. How do I get out? She asked.


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[Assistant] The person who found her could do nothing except point to the door, their voice caught in their throat.


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[Assistant] Instead of heading that direction though, a ghostly woman was said to have turned around and flown out a nearby window.


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[Assistant] It was only later, while thumbing through a book of old images from Seattle's past, that the witnesses realized just who that woman really was. Daniel Bagley's wife, Susanna.


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[Assistant] Maybe the couple had returned in an effort to save the church they founded, or perhaps they just felt drawn to a familiar place. Either way, they are just one more reminder that this thoroughly modern metropolis is full of countless stories from the past. And I hope that we never forget them.


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[Assistant] Teenagers have a tendency to get up to mischief when they're bored. It's as true today as it's ever been. So when four teenage boys found themselves with a spring afternoon on their hands, they did what any English lad might have done in 1943. They went poaching.


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[Assistant] They were only hunting for bird's nests, really. It was April and spring meant nests full of eggs. So they went exploring in their area of Sturbridge, there in the Midlands of England. Over the course of that afternoon, their search brought them to a private park known as Hagley Woods. And that's when they saw the tree.


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[Assistant] It was a massive elm with an overgrown trunk that looked more like a hedgehog than a plant, with thin, wispy branches that stuck out toward the sky. Some people called it the witch elm. It was strong, it was climbable, and most importantly, it was perfect for nesting. So one of the boys scaled up the side of it.


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[Assistant] When he reached the top and began to look for nests, he found something entirely different. A skull was staring up at him from the hollow center of the tree.


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[Assistant] The boy assumed it was from an animal and plucked it free from the branches. That's when he noticed how large it was, and the patches of hair that were still attached. Human hair.


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[Assistant] The grizzly discovery kicked off one of the biggest unsolved mysteries in modern England. Beneath the skull lodged in the hollow center of the tree was a complete skeleton. It belonged to a young woman of unknown origin and unknown identity. No one stepped forward to claim the body. No killer was ever found.


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[Assistant] Humans, you see, are fascinated by dead bodies. They're the centerpiece of countless mystery stories and a vivid reminder of our own mortality. We can see that fascination in both the innocent wonder of films like Stand By Me and the gruesome realism of CSI. Real life, though,


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[Assistant] In February of 2013, a number of guests at the Cecil Hotel in Los Angeles called down to the front desk to complain about the water in their rooms. Some described how the shower would run black before clearing up.


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[Assistant] Others complained of the odd taste and odor. And that age-old complaint that we all know and love, poor water pressure, popped up from time to time as well.


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[Assistant] So the maintenance crew was sent up to the roof, where the hotel kept tanks used to supply the rooms. And it was in one of the tanks that they discovered a body. A human body, no less. And it had been there for weeks.


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[Assistant] It turned out to be a missing woman named Alyssa Lam. Her parents had reported her missing in early February, but she had last been seen there in the hotel on the 31st of January.


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[Assistant] And it was her decomposing body that had been altering the hotels water supply.


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[Assistant] Finding bodies in unusual places isn't a new thing, though. And it's not uncommon, either. In January of 1984, three students from Columbia University were walking home to their dorm when they passed an old carpet, rolled up and discarded on the side of the street.


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[Assistant] Now, like a lot of you, I've been to college, so I think we can all agree that curbside discoveries are frequently wonderful. A random desk or that ugly couch that's way too comfortable to be ignored. So it's hard to blame these three students for bringing the rug home.


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[Assistant] When they unrolled it though, they found a body inside. The man, roughly 20 years old, had been shot to death, as was evident from the bullet holes in his forehead. Needless to say, they didn't keep the rug, and the police were brought in to do a full investigation.


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[Assistant] In December of 1982, staff were called to a room in a motel in Northburg in New Jersey. The occupants complained of a powerful odor in the room, and they weren't the first. For a number of days leading up to the call, each guest in that room had complained of the same thing, and it seemed to be getting worse.


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[Assistant] The motel staff finally discovered why. It was the body of Gary Smith, who had been killed by his auto theft partners and stuffed beneath the bed in the room. They had poisoned his hamburger and then strangled him when he failed to die fast enough for their liking. Afterward, they hid the evidence beneath the mattress.


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[Assistant] In 2011, Abbeville National Bank in Louisiana began renovations to their second floor, an area they had used for storage for decades. Running between the storage area and the active bank facilities below was a chimney, and it was just inside the first floor fireplace that workers discovered a few small bones.


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[Assistant] Climbing inside the fireplace and looking up, they found the source. A body, now little more than a skeleton, had been lodged in the flu.


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[Assistant] Dental records connected the skeleton to a man reported missing 27 years earlier in 1984. The man had a criminal record and had been in trouble with the law shortly before his disappearance.


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[Assistant] Police can't prove why he was in the chimney, but given the proximity to the bank, they felt it's safe to guess that he had been trying to rob it. The Santa Claus style.


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[Assistant] In November of 2011, Russian police raided the home of a historian named Anatoly Moskvin. Inside they found 29 life-sized dolls, all women, all dressed in fancy clothing. But they weren't dolls at all. Moskvin, it turns out, was a grave robber with a fetish.


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[Assistant] For years, the historian had been visiting cemeteries all over Western Russia, as many as 750 by some counts, and occasionally brought home corpses that interested him. All were female between the ages of 15 and 30, and had all been dead for a very long time.


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[Assistant] It seems, if we're to believe the newspapers and media outlets, stumbling upon a corpse isn't as rare of a thing as we might expect. Maybe it's a product of the times. With more and more people on the planet, I suppose the odds keep going up that we'll eventually open a wall or dig a garden bed and find a body.


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[Assistant] But some bodies are intentionally harder to find. Some killers go to great lengths to hide the evidence of their dirty deeds. And that's really the core of these stories, isn't it? Because hiding a body is about more than just making an object disappear. It's about concealing a crime and escaping the consequences.


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[Assistant] The trouble is, when those hidden bodies are found, their stories often reveal the greatest horrors of all.


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[Assistant] She wasn't always known as Kate Webster. Sure, when she gave birth to her son in 1874, that was the surname she passed on to him. She claimed to have married a sailor named Webster, but he had died. A decade earlier though, she had been someone else entirely.


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[Assistant] Kate Webster was born Catherine Lawler to a poor family in a small Irish village in 1849. Now, while most children might have helped out at home or perhaps played with toys, Catherine had to grow up fast. She spent her early childhood learning to pickpocket and judging by how the rest of her life played out, it was a skill that she had been born with.


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[Assistant] At the age of 15, she was caught and imprisoned for a short time. But by 17, she managed to steal enough money to secure herself passage on a boat to England. But she didn't use the journey as a chance to make a fresh start. No, Catherine Lawler just kept upping her game.


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[Assistant] Within a year of arriving in Liverpool, she was caught stealing and sentenced to four years in prison. Once released, she found work as a house cleaner in London as well as a sex worker. And then she became pregnant.


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[Assistant] The father, according to Kate, was a man she called Mr. Strong. He'd been her friend, her lover, and her partner in crime for many months. But when he learned of the pregnancy, he abandoned her. Her son, John Webster, was born in April of 1874. And those that knew her couldn't help but wonder, would this help Kate change her ways?


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[Assistant] The answer, it turns out, was a clear and obvious no.


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[Assistant] Rather than seek reform, Kate simply evolved. She would rent a room in a boarding house and once there, she would begin to sell off the furnishings in her room.