Who's Haunting Gwinnett?
it's a dark and windy night
You’re all alone as the glowing candle casts shadows across the floor that creep up the bedroom wall. An unrelenting wind hisses through the branches of the oak outside your window as its spindly, leafless fingers scratch at the pane. Suddenly, the sound of footsteps approach and the candle flickers a warning of impending doom. Step. Step. You pull the blanket over your head and lie in paralyzing, agonizing fear awaiting your fate. A chill fills the air as the footsteps draw closer. Just then, stepping over the threshold comes a...
Ok, stop. We’ve just creeped ourselves out a little bit.
Never mind the made up stuff. In research for this story, we did experience a few close calls with the real heebie-jeebies. Our late night hunt in the Duluth Cemetery was a brush with the crawlies, though mostly in our heads. In the Accent Gwinnett office, an old house in historic Buford, we even captured an “orb” in a photograph, and have on occasion heard some unusual noises and even a window that peridically opens by itself.
However, we decided to branch out further in Gwinnett to find the ghosts that hang out around the county. So, in the “spirit” of the season, read on for a few of our favorite and not-so-terribly-creepy stories but for our sakes, if you don’t mind, just keep the lights on for awhile … ok?
Mysterious Man From Days Gone By
by: Emily Bieger
Just imagine a lovely visit to the Southeastern Railway Museum in Duluth to stroll the aisles of authentic luxury passenger train cars. You meet a gentleman dressed in an old-time suit and tie. Not really anything too bizarre there. Could be it’s a volunteer dressed in period clothing, helping re-create an era gone by. Then imagine asking the gentleman a question and being ignored completely. You might be a bit peeved, and you would probably mention it to one of the museum volunteers. Then imagine being told there is no such person dressed in period clothing.
This is exactly what one museum visitor experienced several years ago upon touring the Washington Club car. Wait, there’s more!
Just a few weeks prior to that particular event, a young boy in a partial body cast, visiting the museum with a group of kids from a local children’s hospital, entered the Washington Club car. According to museum volunteer Ron Graner, the boy immediately turned around and went “like a bullet” through the car to the exit. He told Graner, “There’s a man in there!” Graner’s response was, “Son, there’s nobody there.” “Yes there is!” exclaimed the boy. Upon checking the car Graner determined it was empty and joined the boy just outside the car to reassure him. “All of a sudden his eyes got big and he said ‘There he is!’ and I said, ‘Where?’ and he said, ‘He’s sitting in that third window in the seat… don’t you see him?’ and I said, ‘No son, I don’t see him,’” recalls Graner.
Both descriptions of the man were identical and came from two completely different sources at two completely different times. Graner had no idea what to make of it. “Sure, there’ve been people saying for years they’ve felt a presence when they’re in two cars in particular. Who knows? It’s a big open building, it rattles around, and the wind blows.”
Psychic investigators brought in by the AJC several years ago confirmed there are indeed two ghosts in the two different cars in question, the Washington Club car, and also the Superb, which was the private car of our 29th President Warren G. Harding. Upon his death in 1923, Harding’s body was transported from California to Washington, D.C. and finally on to his resting place in Ohio.
Visiting the Southeastern Railway Museum is a unique and fun experience for the whole family. The railway cars are historic, elegant and yes, a bit eerie. Just make sure to keep all eyes peeled, as you never know who may be waiting around the corner to greet you!
The Ghost of Flint Hill
by: Tracy Ray
An 1835 antebellum plantation house nestles comfortably among the towering pines and majestic oaks in Norcross. If the house could speak, it might tell tales of a bustling kitchen, of parties and grand affairs in the garden in its day. Perhaps it’d tell of the master of the house; his term as Mayor, his role in bringing the railroad through town, the loss of his leg from the war or the sound of his wooden leg as it banged on the hard wood floor when he moved about. More likely, it would recount the painful loss of all five of his wives through out his life. If only the walls could speak.
And yet, just maybe they do.
“Natalie…” a small voice whispers over the shoulder of a young woman as she sits alone at her desk in that same house which is now an event facility called Magic Moments. To this staff member, the house does indeed speak. “Noises are part of a living, breathing house,” says another staff member, Libby Terrell. “Some have heard footsteps like the step-boom of a peg leg on the stairs.” She went on to describe one strange event in the kitchen involving a radio. “A few months ago, I was the last one here, closing. When I walked into the kitchen, the radio came on by itself. I turned it off, went and washed up and then remembered my keys. When I returned from my office to the kitchen, the radio was back on. I turned it off again, went to the back of the kitchen, got my stuff and on my way back out, the radio was on again.” Another staff member claims that the radio will switch to classical if
rock music is on. Seems even the departed may maintain their taste in music.
Much like the experience a few guests have had at the Railway Museum, guests at Flint Hill also claim to have seen a person in “period clothing”. Libby told of an especially enthusiastic guest who was very complimentary of the efforts of the staff to re-create the southern charm of the historic home. “It’s such a nice touch,” she said, “to have a lady dressed up like a southern belle of the civil war era sitting out in the garden!” However, no such role-play exists at Flint Hill. Every staff member belongs among the living and thus dresses exclusively in appropriate business attire for the twenty-first century. So who might the mysterious woman in period clothing be? “I’ve never gotten a bad feeling,” says Libby. Whoever the ghosts are, they apparently mean no harm. It’s possible that the spirits haunting the house today may be the people responsible for the original paint made of buttermilk and blueberries that remains to this day on the ceiling in an upstairs room. It was supposedly put there over a century ago to keep the ghosts
away. All present day indications are that it’s not working but the crew at Flint Hill takes most of the unusual goings on in stride. “Whoever this is, they’re very friendly,” says Libby.
Friendly and polite. “When the kitchen door opens by itself when I’m reaching for it,” which it does frequently, “I simply say, ‘Thank you’ and go on through,” Libby says. Another staff member will actually step to one side and allow the entity to pass on by. “It’s common courtesy,” he says with a chuckle. A few extra knocks and bumps in the old stately home simply add to its overall charm. But don’t be too surprised if one day you pass by, and a charming young woman holding a parasol waves as you go by. She may be just another one of the many who haunt Gwinnett.
History Comes A Haunting!
by: Emily Bieger
with goosepimply tales of ghosts and hauntings, and the Singin’ Bean Coffeehouse is not without a few good tales of its own. Bar stools that rearrange themselves overnight, an image of a man that appears in a mirror, chairs moving on their own—the sounds of books dropping and glass breaking.
Singin’ Bean owner Cindy Gilbert says the stories aren’t just hearsay, she’s witnessed some things herself. Just six months ago, Gilbert says she and an employee were alone on a Saturday morning. “I had plugged in my laptop and left it sitting on one of the tables in the back. We were up front talking when we heard a sound like the entire kitchen falling in!” Gilbert’s first thought was that her laptop had fallen, but upon inspection found the laptop right where she’d left it. “Nothing had fallen, nothing was broken, and this sound was way too big to be something insignificant,” she recalls.
The vision in the mirror has been identified as looking like a confederate soldier who seems to appear just prior to some sort of major event. Gilbert says the previous owners told her they saw the apparition just one day prior to 9/11. As with the Southeastern Railway Museum, the Singin’ Bean was investigated by psychics who believe there are actually three entitie visiting the coffeehouse. One is a small girl, and two are male. One of those males could be the confederate soldier who has been spotted in the mirror, which currently hangs in the 50’s room. Jokingly, employees call the ghost ‘‘General’’ and Gilbert says she’ll actually talk to him out loud saying things like, “Hey General, quit bothering me,” or as a preventative measure, “Leave me alone, I really don’t need you today, so don’t show me anything.”
During the psychics visit, Gilbert says a machine used to detect the presence of spirits would receive beeps in response to questions. The investigator asked if the presence was the ghost of Charlie Fields, a prisoner hung on the square in the early 1900’s and, “… the machine went crazy,” says Gilbert.
Gilbert is quick to say she remains somewhat skeptical of the psychic’s visit and equipment performance, but she and her employees know what they’ve witnessed, and “that can be pretty difficult to ignore.”
The Legendary Stickland House
by: Tracy Ray
In the course of our search for great ghost stories in Gwinnett, Emily and I had our one and only true “encounter” right in Duluth at, you guessed it, the Strickland House.
Perhaps there’s no other house better known in the area for being haunted than this beautiful home on Buford Highway. From mysterious bumps in the night to sightings of an old woman with a suitcase, the house has its strange stories to tell. For starters, the matriarch of the house, Alice Harrell Strickland, was a spitfire in her day, full of passion for the good of her community and her family. Having won the office of Mayor a mere two years after the 19th Amendment secured women the right to vote, she holds a place in history as Georgia’s first female to hold the office. She passed into the next world in 1947 having accomplished a great deal in the community. However, it seems to some, (and admittedly, even to us) she may not have fully departed this world.
Alice’s great-great grandson, Bob Howard reminisces fondly of the old place. Never having known his great grandmother personally, he nonetheless, is well versed in family history. When discussing the topic of ghostly happenings in the house, he says, “I truly believe that there are spirits from my family that come here and visit. Sometimes they show themselves and sometimes they don’t. How do I know that?” He goes on to say, “I’ll tell you the strangest thing that happened to us...”
“We returned to this house three years ago after seventeen years away,” he recalls. After a day of unpacking, he found a spot for one of the Strickland family heirlooms, a mantle clock. “The clock was given to me some thirty years ago. It’s an original mantle clock from The Strickland House.” He’d taken the clock with him all those years to every house he’d ever lived in. Never, in all of those years, had it graced any of his homes with chimes on the hour. Even a repairman had declared it irreparable because replacement parts don’t exist anymore. For the clock, time stood still.
A long day of moving had the Howards tucked in bed exhausted that first night in the old house. But the silence was shattered at 3am when they heard from down the hall clamoring, “Bong, bong, bong”. The couple shot out of bed and scurried to locate the source. Sure enough, the mantle clock had sprung to life and chimed every hour that night until 7am only to fall silent again for another three years.
Silent that is, until Emily and I spent an hour with the Howards one sunny summer afternoon. After hearing this strange tale, Bob and his wife escorted us to the room the clock sits in today. He dusted the ole girl a bit and put it on the mantle so we could take a photograph for this story. The clock posed quietly, the camera bulbs flashed and we moved on down the hall to hear more tales of banjo music from out of nowhere and cabinet doors opening by themselves.
After a short time we returned to the clock to view a few old photos of Alice Strickland. In mid-sentence the clock began to chime and the pendulum began to tick, back and forth. Not for a moment did we feel anything menacing. We didn’t “feel” anything at all. We simply translated the gesture as a welcome to the house, to the stories and to the history that the house held so dear. So we say, “Thanks, Alice,” to the warm welcome! May the memories remain alive for generations to come.
