by Bob Curran
Sometime in early 1808, the tomb was acquired by the Chase family, a wealthy and important clan in Barbados, who gave the mausoleum its name. The family patriarch at the time, Colonel Thomas Chase, was the most hated man on the island. He had a vicious temper and mistreated many of the slaves who worked for him. In fact, he was so cruel that they threatened to revolt on several occasions. On February 22nd, 1808, the Colonel’s 2-year-old daughter Mary Ann Maria Chase suddenly and inexplicably died and was laid to rest in the tomb. It is said that the Colonel was beside himself with grief. When the tomb was opened, Mrs. Goddard’s body was found undisturbed and still in its coffin, and the tomb was sealed again. On July 6th, 1812, the vault was opened again to lay to rest the body of the Colonel’s other daughter, Dorcas, who had also died under mysterious circumstances. It was said that Mary was abused by her father. Dorcas had been unable to live with the horror of it all and had starved herself to death and was laid to rest in the mausoleum. Once again, when the tomb was opened, the bodies there were found to be undisturbed. It was when the vault was opened again one month later to receive the coffin of Thomas Chase (who had reputedly died by his own hand) that another mystery was discovered. Something terrible had happened. Mary’s tiny casket had been thrown from one side of the vault to the other and now lay against the far wall from where it was originally placed. The coffin had been lined with lead and was quite heavy. At first, this was assumed to be the work of vandals or thieves, but none of the bodies had been buried with any valuables or with anything worth stealing, and the coffins had not been tampered with. Some of the slaves began to talk openly about spirits and witchcraft. The authorities searched around for an explanation but could find none—the vault was both airtight and watertight, and there was nothing that could have disturbed its occupants.
The vault was opened again on September 25th, 1816 to allow the interment of yet another infant—11-year-old Samuel Brewster Ames; a young Chase relative. Before the funeral took place, however, the tomb was inspected as a precaution. What was found inside was a vision of horror. All the coffins, with the exception of Thomasina Goddard’s, had been disturbed. Thomas Chase’s coffin had been lined with lead and was so heavy it required several men to lift it. According to some accounts, it had smashed into Mrs. Goddard’s casket which had broken open, leaving the lady’s skeleton poking out in an obscene and horrifying fashion. The vault was tidied up again, with the coffins moved back to their original positions, and the tomb was resealed with the marble slab on top. On September 27th, it was reopened for the body of another relative—and the coffins were found once again to be in severe disarray. No explanation could be given and locals were starting to become seriously worried.
On July 17th, 1819, it was opened yet again to admit the coffin of Mrs. Thomasina Clark (daughter of Thomasina Goddard) and the coffins were again hurled around the narrow vault by an unknown force. By this time, the stories concerning the site had reached epic proportions. Voices and lights were heard and seen, and there was much talk of duppies and voodoo. There was also a rumor that there was a secret entrance to the mausoleum and that the some of the contents of the coffins were being used in dark practices. Fearful of some sort of local uprising inspired by such tales, the authorities stepped in.
One of those who supposedly attended Thomasina Clark’s funeral was Stapleton Cotton, 1st Viscount Combermere and British Governor of Barbados. He apparently witnessed the disarray and ordered an immediate and official enquiry. The Chase Mausoleum was carefully and thoroughly inspected. No trace of a secret entrance to the tomb was found, and, although fine sand was scattered on the floor to detect any footprints, none appeared; though one grisly incident was reported during the course of these inspections. As one of the men inspected the walls, the skeletal hand of Mrs. Thomasina Goddard fell out through a hole in the side of her coffin and touched him on the shoulder!
The inspection concluded, and, after replacing the coffins, the governor and his men withdrew, placing the official seal of the colony on the marble slab. On April 20th, 1820, some eight months after the burial of Thomasina Clark, the tomb was reopened again. The official seal was still intact as were a number of secret traps, which had been set up to detect interlopers. But the coffins, with the exception of Mrs. Goddard’s, were found to be in disarray. The vault was resealed—although it is unclear as to whether or not the coffins were removed to some other location—and is currently empty. Stories of “hants” and “duppies” still proliferate in the area, and even now, many local people will not approach it after dark.
So is there some evil force surrounding the Chase Mausoleum that somehow affects the coffins of those who are laid within it? Are these events accurate, and are there other instances of such apparent supernatural activity? In some ways, the Chase story parallels another tale concerning the Williams family vault, also on the island of Barbados. General William Asgyll Williams was a Puritan General during the English Civil War who had swapped sides and joined the Royalist cause. At the Restoration of Charles II in 1660, he was accused and found guilty of a number of alleged crimes and was transported to the island of Barbados where his family managed to acquire a tract of land in Welchman’s Hall Gully. The family was staunchly Protestant, but one of the General’s sons angered his family by marrying a Catholic and having several of his offspring raised in the Catholic faith. When the General’s daughter-in-law died at the beginning of the 1700s, she was laid to rest in the family vault. Some years after, when the vault was opened again, it was found that a number of the coffins had moved, apparently of their own volition. The supposition was that the Protestant dead had taken exception to the Catholic interment and had moved their coffins away from hers. This story was well-known across Barbados and may have influenced the tale of the Chase Vault.
The story of the moving dead was first recorded by a clergyman—the Reverend Thomas H. Orderson—who was a minister in Christ Church Parish at the time the events occurred. Orderson recorded them as part of a personal investigation into curious incidents and witchcraft in Barbados. Using Orderson’s account Sir J.E. Alexander mentioned the incident in his book Transatlantic Sketches, which was published in 1833—13 years after Combermere opened the tomb. He accounts in lurid detail how the decaying arm of Dorcas Chase was hanging over the edge of her coffin and how the others had been upended and were threatening to break open. The account was reprinted in 1903 by the Scottish folklorist Andrew Lang again using Orderson’s records. Curiously, in investigating the incident, Lang found no account of the events in any of the local Barbados newspapers. There is, however, another diary account of Nathan Lucas, who witnessed at least some of the events, but there is really no other reference to it anywhere.
This has led a number of people to speculate that the described events never happened at all. Orderson’s account is allegedly loaded with secret Masonic symbolism and some writers—for example, Joe Nickell—have argued that the account is an allegorical one. It is argued that this is a heavily coded set of Masonic instructions concerning some sort of hidden “treasure,” which is of interest to the Order. The Chase Vault is then some sort of Masonic “gateway” to the hiding place of something important, although nobody can say what it is. Others have claimed that the story is just an amalgamation of old “hant tales” from other parts of the island and is not really a true account at all.
But if the events did occur, what caused them? A suggestion that the Vault was flooded is one of the explanations often given. But if this were so, why were all the coffins (including that of Mrs. Goddard) moved about? Maybe it was the result of a minor earthquake, but none was recorded. Some have suggested that mysterious natural forces or energies may converge at the Vault and may dislodge the coffins there, but there seems to be little evidence for this. Maybe it was, as some old legends say, the result of supernatural activity—the workings of duppies and ghosts. The marble Chase Mausoleum, set deep in the Caribbean shadows, keeps the secret of its “creeping coffins” eve
n today.
Csejthe Castle (Csejthe, Hungary)
“Take some salt, no more than a handful, and mix it with
human urine. Place it in a muslin bag and wear it around your
neck or place it upon your chest when you sleep.”
—A Romanian protective charm against vampires
During the reign of King Mathias II of Hungary (1608–1619) and for a number of years after, the name “Csejthe” was forbidden to be spoken by any Hungarian on pain of death. Today, the once-proud fortress that bears this name is little more than a ruin, but its dark associations linger on in the human mind. Csejthe was a prison, but is more accurately described as a tomb for a murderess whose crimes were so abhorrent and macabre that they could not be spoken about by decent people. And so the name of the prisoner and of her prison were excised from human speech in many parts of Eastern Europe. Nowadays, we have no difficulty in naming the Countess Elizabeth Bathory, referred to by some as the “Countess Dracula.”
In many ways, the story of the Countess Elizabeth reflects the troubled history of the area into which she was born during the mid-to-late 1500s, as the forces of Christendom made war against the advancing forces of Islam all through the Eastern regions of Europe. It was a dark and bloody time during which all sorts of ghastly atrocities took place and the Bathory family were often crucial to some of these. They were an old and noble line—one of the oldest in the principality of Transylvania, in fact. They claimed descendancy from a legendary hero, Val Bathory who had reputedly slain a ferocious dragon with a mace in what is now Eastern Romania. It is believed that this legend was the basis for the story of Iorgi, the knight who also slew a dragon and later transformed it into St. George, the patron saint of England. They were also related to many of the clans around them by marriage (some of which were undoubtedly incestuous) and in doing so, acquired large tracts of land. Elizabeth’s mother Anna Bathory was the sister of King Stephen of Poland and her father Iorgi (George—her mother’s third husband) was ruler of several principalities. But the lineage was plagued with stories of incest and inbreeding, which had led to madness and monstrous births hidden away in remote castles in times past.
Elizabeth was born into this illustrious but greatly troubled family in 1560. Her mother was a devout Calvinist with very strict views and an exceptionally strong character, and her father George was a hard-working man and relatively able administrator within the Hapsburg Empire. She had one elder brother named Stephen (a popular name amongst the Bathorys) and two younger sisters—Sofia and Klara, who have disappeared into history without a trace.
Her family was anxious to make a good marriage for her and also strengthen their position within the region, so at the age of 11, Elizabeth was promised in wedlock to the 15-year-old Count Fenricz (Francis) Nadasdy, fabulously wealthy and reckoned to be one of the most eligible bachelors in Hungary at the time. It was a political marriage designed to move the family closer to the Hungarian throne, but it was advantageous for Fenricz to be associated with such an old and noble lineage. He promptly changed his name to Bathory to cement the association. However, the Bathory name carried its own notoriety as well as prestige.
Fenricz and Elizabeth waited four years before marrying on May 8th, 1575. While her new husband was away fighting the Moslem Turks, Elizabeth was given into the care of her mother-in-law, the formidable Lady Ursula Kasizsai (the Lady Nadasdy). While she was there, plagues and epidemics raged throughout Eastern Europe. Tides of disease and illness combined with human misery lapped at the walls of the Nadasdy Castle at Savarin, keeping everyone confined within its walls. Elizabeth found herself under the control of her dominant mother-in-law (who was widely rumored to have lesbian tendencies). During this time, according to legend, Elizabeth was visited by a mysterious “black stranger” with whom she had a relationship. This was widely reputed to have been a forest demon, conjured up by some of the servants or by her mother-in-law (who was also supposedly a witch). Perhaps, however, she might have had an affair with one of the servants and this may have given her a reputation for promiscuity.
Shortly after her mother-in-law died, Elizabeth joined her husband at the remote Csejthe Castle. Fenricz had taken the lead in halting the Turkish advance and was making something of a name for himself in Christian circles. He was now known as the “Black Hero of Hungary” and Csejthe was being regarded as a bulwark against the oncoming Islamic tide. He was frequently away, leading expeditionary forces against the Muslim armies and leaving his wife alone in the dark and gloomy frontier fortress.
It was now that Elizabeth fell under various malign influences. The servants at Csejthe were mainly local people, steeped in the lore and superstition of the region. This was a remote area, filled with old traditions stretching back centuries and the people reflected this. One servant in particular, an old lady named Anna Dervulia was thought to be a sorceress and greatly knowledgeable in witchcraft, and her influence over Elizabeth appeared to grow in the days when her husband was away. Some sources quote this lady as being the Countess’s lesbian lover, but this has not been proven.
In 1600, Count Fenricz was killed in battle against the Turks, making his wife the mistress of Csejthe. However, by this time, she was in her 40s and was starting to show signs of aging. One evening a servant hurt the countess while brushing her hair, and the Countess turned on her and struck her on the back of the hand with the hairbrush, drawing blood in the process. Some of the blood fell on the Countess’s skin, and sometime later Elizabeth noticed how fresh the area where the blood had touched her now appeared. She recalled a piece of local lore that whoever bathed in the blood of a virgin girl would have their youth and vigor restored. She therefore embarked upon a trail of mayhem and evil—torturing servants, killing them, and bathing in their blood in an attempt to regain her lost youth and looks. In this, she was aided by Anna Dervulia and some of the other servants—a wet nurse named Illona (Helena) Jo, Dorota Semtesz, her manservant Janos Ujvary (known as Flicko), and a washerwoman Katarina Beneczky. Between late 1600 and 1611, these monsters tortured and killed other servants in many excruciating ways, all guided by the Countess. Even when Anna Dervulia suffered a stroke which left her blind, it didn’t stop the others in their terrible pursuits. She disappeared, but the others carried on. Anna Dervulia had ensured that all the girls that had been used in the ghastly crimes had been of peasant stock and therefore when complaints and queries were made, they were largely ignored. However, with Anna out of the way (perhaps even dead) Elizabeth became more reckless and started abducting certain daughters of the lower nobility for her supply of virgin blood. She also took a great delight in sado-masochistic torture and whispers of what was going on at Csejthe soon began to circulate in the countryside. Even so, few dared speak out against her. She then turned to a woman named Erzsi Majorova, the widow of a local tenant farmer, to help her in her procurement and disposal of the young girls. Erzsi was less careful than Anna Dervulia had been and insisted that the murdered girls all received a Christian burial, making a connection with a local priest. At first the Church assisted, but with the numbers of servant girls who had “died” in Elizabeth’s employ, the priest gradually became suspicious and reported his doubts to the authorities. Still, nothing was done and Elizabeth began to imagine herself above the law.
However, she made an enemy of the Hungarian King Matthias by demanding that he pay the debts that he owed her former husband. When the monarch refused her requests for money, she began selling off some of her late spouse’s castles—some of which had been given to Fenricz by the king himself. This once again drew the unwelcome attention of the Hungarian authorities, raising formal questions concerning her activities. Her cousin, Count Thurzo, the Hungarian prime minister, was forced to intervene in order to stop her selling any more Bathory property, particularly to foreigners. In December 1610, Elizabeth and Erzsi grew exceedingly careless and dumped the bodies of four servant girls from the ramparts of Csejthe in full view of some passing peasa
nts. They had been dumping a number of bodies in local rivers for several months, some of which had been partly devoured by wild animals. Now connections were made and the villagers reported what they had seen directly to the King’s representative. Perhaps because of her lineage and status within the country, Elizabeth considered herself untouchable, but both the crown and the Church came together to investigate and ordered Count Thurzo to carry out an unexpected raid on Csejthe. On December 29th, 1610, Thurzo’s troops entered the castle. What they found was like a scene from a horror movie. Behind the gate was the body of a servant girl with her internal organs removed while some of the rooms more resembled a butcher’s shop than living quarters. There were a number of other dead bodies of which Elizabeth and her cohorts had not been able to dispose.
Overcome by the horror and at a loss at what to do because the evidence against her was so overwhelming, Thurzo decided to place her under house arrest and not bring her to trial. All her confederates, however, had to face the full rigor of the law. Dorota Semtesz and Illona Jo both had their fingers pulled out with red hot pincers and were publicly burned alive. Flicko was beheaded (probably because of his youth) before also being burned. Four red gibbets were erected at each corner of the castle and what was left of the malefactors was put on display for the satisfaction of the villagers, until they eventually decomposed. Accounts are sketchy, but some say that Anna Dervulia was amongst the executed.
