In this episode, we take a look at Edgar Allan Poe's "The Gold Bug," a story about an encrypted map that leads to a buried pirate treasure. We will visit a haunted theater and discuss a play a play about the death of Poe that was first performed there in 1994. The story, the ghosts, and the play are all clues that lead to a hidden treasure that Poe was attempting to find in Charleston in 1828. This is the first installment of a two-part story.
Works Cited:
Buxton, Julian T., The Ghosts of Charleston , Beaufort Books, 2001
Caskey, James, Charleston’s Ghosts: Hauntings in the Holy City, Manta Ray Books LLC., 2014
Dawidziak, Mark, A Mystery of Mysteries, St. Martin's Press, 2023
Downey, Christopher Byrd, Edgar Allan Poe’s Charleston, History Press, 2020
Downey, Christopher Byrd, A History Lover’s Guide To Charleston, The History Press, 2023
Hecker, William F., Private Perry and Mister Poe: The West Point Poems, 1831 Louisiana State University Press, 2005
Jacobi, Jolande, Complex/Archtype/sSymbol in the Psychology of C.G. Jung, Bollingen Foundation Inc., 1959
Main, Roderick Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal, Princeton University Press, 1997
Pitser, Sarah. Haunted Charleston, Morris Book Publishing, LLC., 2013
Poe, Edgar Allan, Complete Tales and Poems, Maplewood Books, 2013
Wiles, Julian, Nevermore, The Dramatic Publishing Company, 1998
Jacobi, Jolande, Complex/Archtype/sSymbol in the Psychology of C.G. Jung, Bollingen Foundation Inc., 1959
Main, Roderick Jung on Synchronicity and the Paranormal, Princeton University Press, 1997
The conclusion of the three part series which combines history, ghosts, true crime and fairytales.
The second episode in a three part series about one of Charleston's lost stories. It is a true story that combines history, true crime, ghosts and fairy tales.
This is the first in a three part series about one of Charleston, South Carolina's lost stories. It combines history, ghosts, true crime, amd fairytales.
This episode features the untold story of the origin of King Kong.
This episode tells a story about pirates and a haunted dungeon.
This episode tells the story of the Charleston mermaid.
This is a story about a German fairytale and a brutal murder in northwestern Georgia.
Suggested reading:
The Corpsewood Manor Murders In North Georgia by Amy Petulla
This a story about the Titanic, Victorian sex trafficking and a mummy's curse.
Haunted houses, midnight witchcraft and famous murder in historic Savannah, Georgia.
In this episode I visit some of Savanah's most haunted locations.
Suggested Reading:
Haunted Savanah: America's Most Spectral City by James Caskey
Haunted Savannah by Georgia R. Byrd
An unexpected return to a very creepy place to do a very foolish thing.
This episode features The Wizard of Oz, Greek mythology and a famous unsolved murder.
Episode 30: Resurrection delves into the history of Chicago's most famous ghost: Resurrection Mary!
I am with Alyson Horrocks of The Strange and Unusual Podcast. It’s the evening of August 20th, 2017. We are in Danvers, MA which was previously known as Salem Village. We are visiting the Samuel Parris archeological site. Surrounded by a rail fence there are two stone lined cellars marking the location of the house that once stood here. Next to this location is a grassy path that leads to the back of a house with a wolves head door knocker.
A wolf can be a monster of many faces and a bad omen. This is one of the hidden places of American history. A place where the horrors of yesterday have cast a long shadow. The bright memory of a day spent walking the sunny streets of Salem have suddenly grown dim. Even though the sun has not yet set, we are surrounded by darkness.
Resources:
The Strange and Unusual Podcast
A Brief History of the Salem Witch Trials
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!
Alyson Horrocks from the Strange and Unusual Podcast took me on a tour of a historical site with a dark past. The site sits in a town called Danvers, but it was once Salem Village. This site was the culmination of a strange mix of religion, superstition, folklore, slavery, patriarchy, truth, and lies.
A place where people’s imagination or secret motives ran wild and story or lie or desperate attempt at redemption led to the basis for one of the darkest times in colonial American History. What started as a search for freedom to pursue religion and all things good, and ended in a nondescript historical site and archaeological dig, has a sinister history with a story that is hard to tell and even harder to understand.
Resources:
The Salem Witch Trials: A Day-by-Day Chronicle of a Community Under Siege
The Strange and Unusual Podcast
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!
The history of the Navajo goes back in time to the Four Corners region in Arizona. Where the spider grandmother spun a giant web and threw it into the night sky to create the stars. This area known as Canyon de Chelly is also known as the Canyon of the Dead after a misguided weaver’s warning resulted in a cruel cave massacre.
Like the art and designs of the Navajo weaver’s blanket, the Navajo legends are intertwined with a ranch purchased by a Utah couple. The Sherman ranch seemed like an idyllic place to raise premium cattle, but strange things started happening almost immediately upon the family's arrival. This ranch is now known as the Skinwalker Ranch and the legends continue.
Episode Highlights:
Resources:
Kit Carson’s Campaign Against the Indians
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!
On November 20th, 1850 night watchman George Pollard Jr. makes his nightly rounds on the foggy Island of Nantucket, MA. An island once inhabited by proud tribes of Native Americans before the addition of the colonists. An island that was the whaling capital of the world for over a century.
The inhabitants and the whalers themselves were haunted with superstition and legends about the dark underworld of the sea and the evil that lied beneath the depths. The dangers were all too real, yet it wasn’t a sea monster or a devil ascended from Davy Jones’ Locker that posed the threat. It was an invisible threat that lurked in the hearts of men like the night watchman.
Resources:
How Nantucket Came to Be the Whaling Capital of the World
George Pollard Jr.
The True-Life Horror That Inspired Moby-Dick
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!
Count Dracula’s story is one of many pieces; a story of a man and the secrets that are hidden inside his castle. Bram Stoker, the story’s author, is also a man of many secrets who constructed his own castle and built a fortress around his heart. The puzzle of Count Dracula is not complete until the intertwining pieces are put together.
When put together what do the pieces reveal about the story and the man behind it?
Episode Highlights:
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!
Chicago’s West 63rd Street Post Office was built in 1938 over the site of what its creator referred to as “The Castle”, and in 1902 an Ohio Daily News article called it Chicago’s Ghost Castle. Whatever you want to call it, this site was once or possibly still is the home to a notorious killer.
A figure who built a home that included a 2nd floor full of secret passages, trap doors, and hidden staircases. The basement so notorious that a crowd would lay on the sidewalk and try to peer through the cracks as it was excavated.
The creator of “The Castle” claimed to be under an evil influence. An influence that seemed to continue to claim victims after his death. An influence that is still felt today
Resources:
Herman Webster Mudgett or H. H. Holmes
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!
The Heriot House in Georgetown, South Carolina was built in 1765. It is now the Harbor House Inn and there are many stories by visitors and Georgetown residents alike of seeing an image of a woman that looks like she doesn’t belong there. Is this woman the ghost of a forlorn lover or does she represent something more sinister?
Something that ties in with the four circles of Dante’s Inferno and stretches all the way from the old Heriot House to a Greenwich Village neighborhood located on Jane Street. A story that crosses the founding of America and the early days of New York, featuring such notable founders as Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, Aaron Burr, and even George Washington.
Episode Highlights:
Resources:
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!
In Austin, Texas in 1884 a female servant was killed in a gruesome ax murder. Feeble attempts were made to find the murderer, but to no avail. Soon a series of gruesome ax murders and attacks followed. Each one more horrific than the other, and the murders spread beyond the black servant population to the white community.
What originally was considered a black problem in the South twenty years after the Civil War became society's problem. This was a birth. The birth of legions of Demons cast out by Jesus. The birth referred to in the occult addicted mind of William Butler Yeats in his poem The Second Coming. The birth of something much more sinister.
Episode Highlights:
Resources:
The Second Coming by William Butler Yeats
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!
In Native American folklore, there was a dark creature that possessed the mind and body of men, instilling within them a great hunger for human flesh. The Wendigo was feared by tribes throughout what is now North America and Canada as stories of bloodshed and terror spread across the continent. Picture it: Your best friend, your husband, your sister -- crouched down and feasting upon the flesh of someone you love.
It’s been many, many years since a Wendigo was rumoured to be wreaking havoc, but are they truly gone for good?
Episode Highlights:
Resources:
Dangerous Spirits: The Wendigo in Myth and History by Shawn Smallman
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!
The Salisbury Plain is the name for the 300 miles of grasslands located in Wiltshire, England. Home to Stonehenge, a rich history, and a wide variety of plants and animals, the Salisbury Plain is one of the most famous locations in England. For the residents of Wiltshire, however, the area is notorious for more than its archaeological features and mystical energy. The great grassy plains of Salisbury border the mansions of Wiltshire, whose walls are painted in blood and sorrow. In these great houses, the dead refuse to rest.
Episode Highlights:
Resources:
Haunted Wiltshire by Sonia Smith
If you are looking for podcasts that are similar to Pleasing Terrors, check out:
The Strange and Unusual Podcast
Quid Pro Quo Podcast, episode 10 “Double Trouble”
Enjoyed this episode? Please support the show by rating, reviewing, and subscribing on iTunes.
Please visit Pleasing Terrors, the podcast behind Old Charleston’s best ghost tour, on Facebook and Twitter!