Hauntings Aren’t just for Halloween

COLUMBUS, Miss.(WCBI) – We’re approaching All Hallows Eve. As kids throughout the area gear up to dress like ghosts and goblins, it’s also a time when many believe the border between the physical and spirit worlds becomes blurred.

“Halloween it’s just a good time to remember the old stories,”said Local Historian Rufus Ward.

For the Golden Triangle Area, the stories derive from facts. I set out this morning to take a look at what paranormal activities have been recorded in our area.

First stop Waverly Mansion.

“The story is that the little girl was visiting this house with her mother. They end up spending the night and the little girl had an accident. She got out of bed and ran up one of the staircases. She apparently fell down one of the staircases and broke her neck. People say in the red room they can hear her crying “mama, mama”. Others say that she climbed in the bed up there and leaves the imprint of her little body,”said  Waverly Mansion Jimmy Denning.

Waverly Mansion, at one point was a 2000 acre cotton plantation, built in 1840.

The next stop was right up the street in the murky waters of a well known river.

“Just down from Waverly is the Tombigbee River. There was a steam boat landing. There were all sorts of ghost stories that dealt with steamboats on the Tombigbee there at the bridge. The bridge behind us was known because many people drowned there in 1800’s and it was considered a haunted place that you should avoid,”said Ward.

The last location took us 4 miles North Of Columbus, To where Ward calls the old ghost story in the area dating back to 1818.

“On the Black Creek Bridge, on the Old Military Road, three soldiers building Military Road drowned here. There ghost would haunt the creek, at this place where we are on the side of the road. The creek behind us was flooded and they were ordered to cross the creek and they drowned. It was said from that day on 10 feet up in the air, about the height of the road bed here, you would see the soldiers riding black horses on a stormy night. Riding on the road trying to get out of the flooded creek,”said Ward.

History.com reports since ancient times ghost stories have been a part of human culture.

If it’s so scary what keeps folks flocking to actual haunted houses?

“Fun thing about stories like this is, it sends chills down your spine but they’re based on fact there’s a grain of truth in them,”said Ward.

In an article released in 2010 called Southern Spirit Guide to Ghost Hauntings of the American South, Columbus is named the best documented city in the state in terms of ghost Hauntings.