Debi loves and maintains the rock shop, but she is convinced that she is not the only one making sure the business runs as it should. She believes that the spirit of her dear friend Gean is still an important presence in her life and in the lives of all of those who visit the quaint little shop.
Spotlight on Ghosts: The Bragg Light of the Ghost Road
Near Saratoga there is a long dirt road bordered with a canopy of trees. Originally known as Bragg Road, it has attracted a lot of attention over the years and is now called the Ghost Road of Hardin County. It is home to the B agg Light—a nocturnal phenomenon that suggests something para ormal is occurring on the approximately eight-mile stretch of road.
The Sante Fe Railroad established a line in the Big Thicket in 1902 to transport people, animals, and goods to Beaumont. In 1934, many of the area’s natural resources ran out and road crews were assigned to tear up the tracks and create a county road in their place. Over the course of the next few decades, stories began to circulate that the road was haunted; by whom or what is still unknown.
A strange misty light has been seen forming out of complete darkness and moving fluidly across the road for several minutes at a time. In recent years, several photos depict the Bragg Light, although many people argue about its source. Some speculate that it is the soul of a man who once lost his new bride to a mysterious murderer while staying at a hotel near the end of the Ghost Road endlessly searching for his long-lost love.
A more grisly explanation for the light is the story of a man who reportedly died a terrifying death by decapitation in a train wreck when the railroad was still in operation. It is said that his head was never found, and there are those who believe he will forever haunt the road looking for it.
On July 28, 1997, the County Commissioners Court designated the area as The Ghost Road Scenic Drive County Park in an effort to preserve it for future visitors and travelers.
Whatever is responsible for the Bragg Light is still unknown, but that doesn’t keep the curious away. Muster up enough courage for a nighttime stroll down the old Ghost Road, and you just might solve the mystery for yourself.
CHAPTER 22
Dabbs Cemetery FRANKSTON
African-American side of Dabbs Cemetery (April Slaughter)
WHEN I WAS YOUNGER, my parents often thought it was strange of me to request a visit to the local cemeteries rather than playgrounds or parks. I have always been fascinated with them and find walking among the headstones to be a relaxing and tranquil experience.
My favorite cemeteries are those that seem to have been forgotten or neglected, as they have a mysterious character about them. I am drawn in by their uniqueness and the colorful histories they possess, oftentimes unknown by most people. I make a point to read the names of those that are legible on each headstone, and I feel a bit of sadness for those that are not. If a name is covered in debris, I will stop to brush it away. It is something I have always done, and my own special way of paying my respects.
As far back as I can remember, I have heard countless stories of haunted cemeteries wherever I have traveled, and Texas is no exception. In my experience, however, I think people tend to label cemeteries as haunted simply because of their obvious association with death; a subject that creates fear in many. People like to be scared, even if only briefly, and cemeteries often provide the perfect setting for such an experience.
Allen and I recently made a trip out to east Texas to visit several locations, including Dabbs Cemetery, a place I had learned about via the Internet. According to an article written by Bob Bowman, east Texas historian and author, a man once mistaken for dead was buried alive in the cemetery, only to dig his way out a short time later. It is said that he made his way to a nearby home, where he then died. In an effort to ensure that he would not be able to escape his grave a second time, the locals constructed a cage of wooden stakes directly above his burial site. No evidence of who this man was or where the grave might be exists today, but locals still tell the story and believe that he may be one of many restless spirits seen roaming about the grounds at night.
Several people I spoke to about the cemetery believe that being on the grounds after dusk can have dire consequences and consider any amount of time spent there as a rite of passage. A young local woman told me that she and a group of high school seniors had taken a trip to the vicinity shortly after graduation. As they approached the cemetery that evening, the students saw the apparition of a woman in a white dress floating above the ground carrying a lantern. They did not dare to venture any closer and quickly vacated the area.
Shadowy figures are said to dart about the headstones at night, moving far more quickly than a living human could and causing anyone visiting the cemetery to leave within minutes of arriving.
In my research, I had also read that Dabbs Cemetery was racially segregated and had been ever since it was established in the mid 1800s. I had never heard of this practice until I began traveling around the southern part of the United States. Apparently, it was fairly common to keep the African-American burial grounds separated from the Caucasian.
My journey to Dabbs Cemetery was an interesting one, as the directions I found were a little confusing. The cemetery was not in the middle of town; instead, it was reached by traveling unpaved back roads. The drive was gorgeous, and it was fun for my husband and me to travel off of the beaten path looking for this supposedly haunted graveyard.
As we pulled up, my attention was immediately drawn to the African-American side of the cemetery. The entrance was unmarked and there was nothing to indicate that anyone had been in that particular section to take care of the grounds in months, if not years. There was no gate; only a simple gravel entry from the road. I could not make any sense of the layout, as many of the headstones and grave markers were not arranged in any organized fashion. Some areas had no markers at all, though I suspect that graves are probably located in them. It made my heart ache to think that some people may not have had a proper burial at all, but were simply placed in the ground and forgotten.
The Caucasian side of the cemetery was easily viewable from the African-American side, but was sectioned off by a chain-link fence. The plots were neatly manicured, with flowers and trinkets placed at many of them. There was a large metal sign with the name of the cemetery adorning the gated entrance. A pavilion sat nearby with picnic tables available for visitors. The stark contrast between the two sides added to my sense of sadness.
As I wandered around the unkempt side of the cemetery in the daylight, I had the overwhelming feeling that Allen and I were not the only ones present. There wasn’t anyone else around, but the area felt crowded to me. I routinely visit places known to have paranormal activity and I have become fairly used to the different sensations that can occur when I am in the presence of something unseen. I feel alerted, slightly more aware of my surroundings. It wasn’t frightening at all, and I mentioned the feeling to Allen.
“Do we have a digital recorder with us?” I asked.
“We have one in the car. I’ll go get it,” he said.
Allen quickly returned with the recorder and switched it on. I knew it would be difficult to hear anything upon playback if there was much movement, so we kept still for awhile.
“My name is April and this is my husband, Allen,” I said. “We thought we’d come out for a visit today. Is there anyone here with us that is willing to say hello?”
Neither of us heard anything out of the ordinary as we stood listening for a response. Upon playback of the recording, however, what sounds like a small girl’s voice answers with an emphatic, “Hello!”
Less than five minutes into the recording, we also heard a male voice with a heavy southern drawl speaking.
“How y’all doing?” he asked.
A lot of people interested in researching the paranormal will often conduct sessions of recordings to review later for possible EVP capture. At times, I find it best to make statements and ask questions, pause, and then immediately
play the recording back to see if I have obtained a response. This helps me to maintain a two-way conversation as best I can when someone is possibly trying to communicate with me. I imagine it must be frustrating for those on the other side to be engaged in a conversation and not have their statements or questions immediately acknowledged while we expect responses to our own. If you spoke to someone who refused to talk to you, you would most likely stop trying and walk away. I didn’t want whoever was communicating with us to stop, and I was thrilled to hear them engaging us shortly after we started recording.
It is widely believed in the paranormal field that most phenomena occur in the nighttime hours, which has always baffled me a bit. Most of us (though not all) tend to be busy and carry out our activities during the day and then rest and recharge our energy supply at night as we sleep. I am not sure it is all that different once we depart this life for the next, and assume that any hour of the day or night could prove to be a worthwhile time for investigating. Some of my best paranormal experiences have happened in the daylight hours, so it is difficult for me to believe that it is necessary to wait for nightfall before attempting to encounter interesting phenomena.
Caucasian side of Dabbs Cemetery (April Slaughter)
The African-American side of the cemetery, though poorly maintained, was quite serene and peaceful as I walked among the graves audibly inviting anyone who wanted to join to walk along with us and talk. Allen and I walked in different directions at one point, and he approached a section of graves that were heavily covered in brush and fallen trees.
“April, come over here for a minute and look at these markers,” he said.
“Wow, I wouldn’t have even known they were here if you hadn’t found them,” I said. “I thought this was just a patch of woods back here.”
We stood quietly observing, and again we heard something interesting when we reviewed our recording. Several footsteps sounded as though they were quickly approaching the two of us. A soft voice muffled something we could not decipher and everything fell quiet. Nearly every time we paused to speak in hopes of a response in the cemetery, more footsteps were heard, and they certainly did not belong to either myself or Allen.
We decided that we should drive around to the cemetery entrance on the Caucasian side before heading out on the road. We spent about thirty minutes walking over the recently mown grass around the graves, but we were unable to hear or record anything while we were there. It had an entirely different feel to it, and not at all “crowded” like the other side had been.
I don’t believe that every cemetery is haunted, as people are already dead when they arrive there. It has always seemed to me that they serve more as a place for the living to remember those they have loved and lost, rather than as magnets for ghosts. There isn’t a doubt in my mind, however, that Allen and I were not the only individuals in the cemetery the afternoon of our visit to Dabbs. We had a ghostly visitor or two approach and engage us in conversation, even if only for brief moments at a time. Their footsteps and their voices are forever captured on our recording. It is my hope that on a visit in the very near future, I will not only be able to hear their voices again, but to see their faces and perhaps understand why they still walk the lonely landscape of Dabbs Cemetery.
CHAPTER 23
The Grove JEFFERSON
The Grove exterior (April Slaughter)
WHEN I FIRST MOVED TO TEXAS, I had no idea that I would discover some of the most amazing and interesting places that I had ever been. The state is home to nearly every type of landscape you can imagine. Whether you are looking for desert ghost towns, rolling hills covered in trees and wildflowers, or bustling downtown cities, you will find them in Texas. Some places have more ghostly lore associated with them than others, and Jefferson happens to be one of the most well-known.
Jefferson was originally established as a river port in east Texas where sternwheelers would travel with their cargo up the Mississippi River to the Red River, through Caddo Lake, and into Big Cypress Bayou. A massive log jam made it possible for steamboats to travel with their goods into Jefferson from New Orleans as the logs had dammed up the Red River, forming Caddo Lake and making Big Cypress a useful “turning basin.”
Port cities were an invaluable asset to the economy as the railroad had not yet arrived in Texas and people greatly depended on the shipments brought in by the boats to survive and to cultivate their businesses. Captain William Perry arrived as one of the first settlers in Jefferson on a sternwheeler in 1844, and just four years later the town was incorporated.
Several families lived on the property that is now known as The Grove, but the home as it sits today was originally built by W. Frank Stilley and his wife Minerva in November 1861. Frank was a cotton broker, and Minerva’s family owned and operated a cotton plantation in Marshall, making their marriage a highly beneficial business arrangement.
In 1866, a flood hit Jefferson and Frank’s cotton brokering business was destroyed. In 1873, the log jam (nicknamed the “Great Raft”) that enabled the sternwheelers to conduct their business in shipping to and from Jefferson was cleared out by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The city was never the same. The steep fall in revenue took with it the growth and success that had once been so prevalent for the area. It is estimated that had Jefferson continued to grow as it had when it was first established, presently it would be the size of Houston.
In 1879, Minerva Stilley passed away. Charlie J. and Daphne Finch Young bought The Grove six years later. Charlie opened a barbershop in town and had many loyal, high-paying customers. He became a beloved member of the local community.
His wife Daphne planted and cultivated a beautiful garden, filled with orange day lilies and tiger lilies. She died in 1955 at the age of ninety-one, after having spent seventy years of her life at The Grove. Her funeral was held on the porch of the house so that she could be near the garden she loved before her burial.
Louise R. Young, Charlie and Daphne’s daughter, was born in the home and spent nearly her entire ninety-six years there before her death in 1983. Patrick Hopkins bought the house in 1990 and opened it as The Grove Restaurant, naming the establishment after the nearly 140-year-old native Texas pecan trees that border it.
Current owners Mitchel and Tami Whitington acquired The Grove in 2002 and have delved into the history of everyone who lived on the property in hopes of preserving the information to share with future owners. They have also opened The Grove to public tours, providing guests with a colorful overview of Jefferson’s history along with history of the home and past residents.
Mitchel Whitington is an author who has written about the paranormal phenomena that he, his wife, and their guests have continually experienced during their ownership of The Grove. My first introduction to the property came shortly after a friend of mine had gifted me a copy of Mitchel’s books, Ghosts of East Texas & the Pineywoods and A Ghost in My Suitcase: A Guide to Haunted Travel in America.
The town of Jefferson is quite famous for its ghost stories, and I have spent a lot of time there over the past couple of years discovering as many of them as I could. The Grove captured my attention, and it was only a short time before I found myself contacting the Whitingtons to arrange a visit to their home.
Allen, Jerry Bowers, and I traveled to Jefferson one sunny Sunday afternoon, and arrived at The Grove as Mitchel took a small group of visitors through on a tour. He provided so much information on Jefferson and The Grove that I couldn’t keep up on my note taking. Luckily, I had brought a digital recorder along, so all of the information would be available to me later upon playback of the audio.
“I am always asked at least two questions by our guests,” Mitchel began. “First, I am asked if the house is truly haunted, to which I reply that yes, it is, but not in a Hollywood kind of way. Some people walk in and expect to see a scene straight out of the movie Poltergeist, but it just isn’t like that.
“The second question I am asked is, being that it is indeed a haunte
d house, how in the world could my wife and I stand to live here? Well, just stick with me through the tour, and you’ll see why by the time it comes to an end.”
As we entered the house, we were directed to the main living room and parlor. It is in this room that many psychics and sensitives have felt the presence of a female spirit, standing close to a mirror that hangs on the wall near the corner. The name Rachel has been suggested to Mitchel as this spirit’s name, but he hasn’t found any hard evidence in the history of the house to validate that impression. Nevertheless, there is a woman who has been seen and spoken to, in this particular corner, especially when children visit.
Some curious enough to approach the house have reported that an older gentleman with a gun has literally run them off the property.
“He is our protective spirit,” said Mitchel. “My wife and I don’t believe that we’ll ever see him, as he seems to trust us to take care of the place. However, he shows up often to others, and is described as looking just as solid as you or I.” Who he is, and why he is so protective of The Grove is unclear.
As the tour moved to the dining room, Mitchel spoke about the three children born into the Young family—daughters Louise and Mable, and a son named James. Louise and Mable have a well-documented history, whereas James is much more of a mystery. The Whitingtons learned through the stories of an elderly local woman that James died at the age of twenty in the home, having committed suicide. He had hanged himself on the back porch in 1907. As was typical of the era, his situation was not openly discussed. Suicide meant that there was something terribly wrong in the family, so the details of James’ life and death were mostly kept hidden. The entire Young family is buried together in one of the local cemeteries in Jefferson, with the exception of this young man. Mitchel and Tami have not been able to locate where his final resting place is.
April Slaughter Page 13
