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September 2010_june_july_2009.qxd 29/09/2010 11:00 PM Page 26 26 10 Houses With Real Ghosts Haunted Houses: 10 strapping a large iron gate to his ankle and 3. Foulksrath Castle, Kilkenny, Ireland - Houses With Real Ghosts throwing himself into the New River. There are LeuthEurope's oldest hostel's oldest resident has many reports of Frank Stranahan’s ghost in the been heard roaming the halls by guests and a Continued from Page 25 Stranahan House, as well as the ghost of Ivy British TV crew. A former owner's daughter fell Cromartie. Other ghostly presences include six for the wrong lad; after Da locked her in the 8. Myrtles Plantation family members and the apparition of an Indian "Cuckoo's Nest," the gent apparently murdered Location: St. Francisville, LA servant girl near the back of the home. The the lass, leaving an unsettled spirit to share Notable ghost: Chloe Stranahan House is now open to public tours. castle halls with intrepid guests. And we do mean "castle" halls - this is the real thing. Take an historic old, antebellum 10. Whaley House plantation home from 1796, surround it with Location: San Diego, CA 4. The Pirate Haus, St. Augustine, Florida - trees draped with Spanish moss, and set it in Notable ghost: “Yankee Jim” Robinson Pirate Robert Searles' macabre band of merry voodoo-rich Louisiana and you have the perfect men is said to have shot one Estefania de setting for ghosts. But, you need mayhem and In 1849, as news of the Gold Rush Cigarroa in this old city in 1686; today, ghostly history to generate ghosts and there are lots of broke, young Thomas Whaley moved from New lights emanating from room six and both at the Myrtles Plantation. In 1808, Clark York to California and opened a hardware store unexplained movements may be her haunt's Woodruff took charge of the plantation from his in San Francisco. Arson destroyed his business handiwork. deceased father-in-law, General David in 1851, so he moved to San Diego — the Bradford, where he kept things running along present day Old Town San Diego — where he 5. HI Ottawa Jail Hostel, Ottawa, Canada - with his wife, Sara, and three kids. Legend has set up general store businesses. Always the Sleeping near a former gallows at the site of it that Woodruff also took a special liking to a entrepreneur, he also started a brick-making Canada's last public hanging is ghastly enough, slave he owned named Chloe. But Chloe was business and used those kiln-fired bricks to but the ghost of a hanged man is also said to immensely jealous of Woodruff’s family and build a granary. Then, in 1857, he built an share the cells at this old jail, now an HI hostel baked a birthday cake filled with poisonous adjacent two-story Greek Revival brick oleander leaves. Woodruff’s wife, Sara, and building where he and his wife, Rachel Pye, ‘X’ ZONE two of their children died. Chloe confessed, but lived. It was considered the “finest new brick FACTOIDS fellow slaves retaliated, hanging Chloe and block in Southern California” by the San Diego dumping her body in the Mississippi. Lots of Herald, and cost $10,000. The walls were other natural deaths occurred in the home, but finished with plaster made from ground * The U.S. Postal Service owns over 176,000 the only other murder was when plantation seashells. The site of the house is also where cars and the largest civilian fleet on earth. owner William Winter was shot and killed in gallows once stood and where “Yankee Jim” 1871 while standing on the front porch. He Robinson (photo) was hanged for attempted * Princess Diana was buried in a plot of land supposedly staggered inside, dying on the 17th grand larceny. Whaley reportedly witnessed the once used as the Spencer family pet cemetery. step of the home. Myrtles Plantation is also hanging, but was not fazed by it, since he reportedly built on the site of an old Indian bought the property a few years later, removed * Highest consumption of canned beans in the burial ground and during the Civil Warn Union the gallows, and built the Whaley family home U.S.: New York, Los Angeles, Boston. soldiers ransacked the home. While it is hard to on the site. Shortly after moving in, heavy separate fact from fiction, popular sightings of footsteps could he heard throughout the house * People who drink coffee are less likely to ghosts around Myrtles Plantation include the “by the boots of a large man.” Whaley commit suicide than people who don’t. large mirror in the home that contains the spirits concluded it was Yankee Jim, whose spirit is of Sara Woodruff and her children, ghosts seen alive and well two centuries later. Two later * First nationwide bestselling in the U.S.: the around the 17th step and, of course, Chloe who tragedies occurred in the house: the Whaleys’ memoirs of Ulysses S. Grant. is outside, tending to her plantings. The house is second child, Thomas, Jr, died at 18 months of on National Register of Historic places and is scarlet fever and their fifth child, Violet, * One mother shark can give birth to as many as now a bed and breakfast. committed suicide in 1885. The home was 70 baby sharks per litter. designated a California State Historic Landmark 9. Stranahan House in 1932 and is open to public tours. * According to the phone company: 85% of Location: Fort Lauderdale, FL obscene calls are made by males. Notable ghost: Frank Stranahan Side note: Thomas Whaley had some prominent family history: His grandfather, Alexander * In Venice, Venetian blinds are known as The Stranahan House was one of several Whaley, supplied George Washington with “Persian blinds.” structures built between 1893-1906 along the badly needed muskets during the American New River in Fort Lauderdale, FL, by an Revolution’s Battle of White Plains and his * Benjamin Franklin gave guitar lessons. enterprising young man named Frank Stranahan mother, Rachel, made some shrewd real estate (photo). Frank arrived in 1893 to operate a deals including buying “Sheeps Meadows,” * A hibernating bear can go as long as six barge ferry across the river and was the first which was used as grazing land in New York months without a bathroom break. non-Indian to live in what is now the center of City. It is now known as Central Park. Fort Lauderale. Soon, this prime location * When medieval Europeans burned witches, spawned other businesses for Stranahan, Top 5 Haunted Hostels the witches’ family had to pay for the wood. including a trading post, post office, bank and hotel. He became a powerful land owner in the 1. USA Hostels, San Diego, California * It takes 720 peanuts to make a pound of area and soon, the Stranahan Trading Post unexpected breezes and nocturnal noises in this peanut butter. became well-known. He married school teacher 1700's brothel; a ghost is said to have grabbed Ivy Cromartie and built her a home right on the (ewww) a guest here one night. * In Montreal ,Quebec, Canada, it is illegal to New River in 1906, the Stranahan House, water a garden in the rain. which still stands today as the oldest remaining 2. La Casa de las Brujas, Guanajuato, structure in Broward County. Frank and Ivy Mexico- After former "House of the Witches" * The top speed of a pigeon in flight is 90 mph. were considered Fort Lauderdale’s First Family. owner went loco and killed a man in a bar, his This is also where Stranahan’s story daughter was supposedly starved to death in a * In Athens, Greece, you can lose your driver’s turns grim. He suffered from depression and his cellar by evil aunts. Though her body was found license for being “poorly dressed” or mental health could not endure a hurricane that a year later, the daughter's ghost evidently hasn't “unbathed.” devastated his businesses, or the financial checked out yet... effects of the Great Depression. Stranahan * Squirrels cannot see the color red. [] committed suicide on June 23, 1929 by