Haunted American History

In 1776, somewhere in the hills of Westchester County, an American cannonball took the head off a Hessian soldier.
His name was never recorded.
His grave has never been found.
And about twenty years later, a young writer named Washington Irving arrived in the Hudson Valley and eventually gave that forgotten soldier a horse.
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow would become one of America's great ghost stories. But beneath the Headless Horseman are real battlefields, real graves, a captured British spy, a haunted tulip tree, an old Dutch church—and generations of people who slowly began treating Irving's fiction as their own folklore.
Eventually, the Horseman got a grave.
Then Sleepy Hollow became a Halloween destination.
And finally, the town itself took the ghost's name.
Tonight, we're separating Washington Irving's story from the history underneath it—and finding out how a fictional Headless Horseman became one of America's most enduring Halloween legends.
Welcome to Day Seven of 31 Days of Halloween.

VERB ENERGY Limited addition Blood-Orange Pound Cake- Promo Code - HAUNTED
verbenergy.com/haunted

Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In March of 1892, a group of men entered a cemetery in rural Rhode Island and opened the coffin of nineteen-year-old Mercy Brown.
Then they cut out her heart.
Her family had been dying from tuberculosis, one after another, and some of Mercy's neighbors believed they knew why. Something inside one of the graves was still feeding on the living.
So they burned Mercy's heart and liver beside a rock in the cemetery and prepared the ashes as a cure for her dying brother.
And Mercy Brown wasn't the only one.
For generations, families across New England had been digging up their dead, examining their bodies, burning their organs, and sometimes consuming the ashes in a desperate attempt to stop tuberculosis from moving through their homes.
They rarely called them vampires.
But that's what everyone else would eventually call them.
Tonight, we're digging into the New England vampire panic, the real story of Mercy Brown, a bizarre grave discovered in Connecticut, and how a nineteenth-century medical superstition became part of America's Halloween mythology.
Welcome to Day Six of 31 Days of Halloween

VERB ENERGY Limited addition Blood-Orange Pound Cake- Promo Code - HAUNTED
verbenergy.com/haunted

Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

In 1820, John Bell died on his farm in northern Tennessee.
According to the legend, a ghost killed him.
For years, the Bell family had supposedly been tormented by something they couldn't see. It knocked on walls, pulled blankets from beds, attacked young Betsy Bell, sang hymns, quoted scripture, answered questions from visitors—and eventually learned to speak.
It called itself Kate.
The story would become one of America's most famous hauntings, complete with a mysterious vial of poison, a visit from Andrew Jackson, and the extraordinary claim that the Bell Witch became the only ghost in American history credited with murdering a man.
But there's a problem.
Most of the story wasn't written down until seventy-four years later.
Tonight, we're telling the Bell Witch twice: first, the legend that Tennessee has been telling for two centuries—and then the story hidden in the historical record.
Welcome to Day Five of 31 Days of Halloween.

VERB ENERGY Limited addition Blood-Orange Pound Cake- Promo Code - HAUNTED
verbenergy.com/haunted

Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

On August 4, 1577, a violent storm descended on the English countryside.
Then something entered the church.
Witnesses described an enormous black dog tearing through the congregation, allegedly killing two people before disappearing into the storm. At another church twelve miles away, a remarkably similar story was unfolding.
The creature would become known as Black Shuck—a massive phantom hound said to stalk the lonely roads, marshes, and coastlines of East Anglia. Seeing it could mean death. Looking into its eyes could be worse.
But behind the legend is something even stranger: medieval accounts of spectral hounds, smugglers who may have deliberately kept the stories alive, the skeleton of an enormous dog unearthed near the site of the attacks, and a legend that helped inspire one of Sherlock Holmes' most famous cases.
Tonight, we're hunting the Devil's hound.
Welcome to Day Four of 31 Days of Halloween

VERB ENERGY Limited addition Blood-Orange Pound Cake- Promo Code - HAUNTED
verbenergy.com/haunted

Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Before the jack-o'-lantern was a grinning pumpkin on an American porch, it was something else entirely.
A light over a bog.
For centuries, people in Ireland and Britain told stories about strange flames that appeared in the darkness, drifting just far enough ahead to tempt travelers off the road. In Ireland, one explanation had a name: Jack.
He tricked the Devil. He was rejected by Heaven. Hell wanted nothing to do with him. And according to the legend, Jack was condemned to wander the earth carrying a light until Judgment Day.
But the familiar story of Stingy Jack, his carved turnip, and the Devil's burning coal isn't nearly as ancient—or as straightforward—as it's usually made out to be.
From Irish bogs and grotesque turnip lanterns to American pumpkins and mysterious lights over the mountains of North Carolina, this is the strange history behind the face glowing on your front porch.
Welcome to Day Three of 31 Days of Halloween.

VERB ENERGY Limited addition Blood-Orange Pound Cake- Promo Code - HAUNTED
verbenergy.com/haunted

Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

CONDEMNED links - https://linktr.ee/Condemned
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
TikTok - @hah_podcast
hauntedamericanhistory.com
Patreon- ⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠https://www.patreon.com/hauntedamericanhistory⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠
HAH DISCORD - https://discord.com/invite/bJdbpH3hQm

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.