The Ghost Ship of Captain Sandovate

When Captain Don Sandovate voyaged from Spain to the New World in search of treasure, he found gold in abundance. But among his crew there were many sailors who did not wish to share the new-found wealth with the monarchs of Spain. On their journey up the Atlantic Coast, the sailors mutinied and imprisoned their captain, tying him to the main mast and refusing to give him food or drink. Day after day, the captain lay exposed to the hot sun of summer, his body drying up as the treacherous sailors worked around him. Finally, his pride broken, Don Sandovate begged: "Water. Please. Give me just one sip of water." The mutineers found this amusing, and started carrying water up to the main mast and holding it just out of reach of their former captain.


In the terrible heat of a dry summer, the captain did not survive long without water. A few days after the mutiny, the captain succumbed to heat and thirst. The new captain, a greedy Spaniard with no compassion in his soul, left Don Sandovate tied to the mast, his body withering away, while the ship turned pirate and plundered its way up the coast. But Providence was watching the ruthless men, and a terrible storm arose and drove the ship deep into the Atlantic, where it sank with all hands, the body of Don Sandovate still tied to the broken mast.

Shortly after the death of the mutineers-turned-pirate, an eerie ghost ship began appearing along the coast, usually in the calm just before a storm. It had the appearance of a Spanish treasure ship, but its mast was broken, its sails torn, and the corpse of a noble-looking Spaniard was tied to the mast. The ship was crewed by skeletons in ragged clothing. As it passed other ships or houses near the shore, the skeletons would stretch out bony hands and cry: "Water. Please. Give us just one sip of water." But none can help them, for they are eternally doomed to roam the Atlantic, suffering from thirst in payment for their terrible deeds against their captain and the good people living along the Atlantic coast.

Read more >>

Dem Bones

My granny was told as a child that Captain Kidd, knowing the law was on his trail, traveled up the Jersey coast looking for the perfect spot to bury his stolen booty. And he found it near a grove of gnarled, wind-swept pines on Sandy Hook. One moonless dark night, the Adventure Galley slid silently into harbor at Sandy Hook. Before the wondering eyes of two hidden watchers, a crew of scurvy buccaneers armed with cutlasses and pistols had rowed boatload after boatload of heavy chests into the shore. They were accompanied by a tall, proud man with red-whiskers and a cocked hat that the watchers recognized at once as the bold leader Captain Kidd. The captain led his men away from shore, and they disappeared with them into the grove of pines. The pirates were gone along time; long enough, according to those who watched, to bury any amount of treasure. They came away before dawn and rowed back to the Adventure Galley and sailed into the last vestiges of the dark night.


Of course, the eager watchers kept their knowledge quiet and scurried down to the pine grove a few days later, armed with lanterns and shovels. But nary a gold coin found they, and in frustration, they shared their tale with other good folks in the region. After that, there was not a night when the pine grove did not see someone digging fervently with a shovel. After a few decades of this, the pine grove gave up the ghost and died away completely. By my granny's time, there was nothing left of the spot save a few stunted trees, some wind-swept grass, and on certain dark nights, Dem Bones.

Dem Bones are the skeletal crew of Captain Kidd. According to my granny, they come sailing up in a ship made of shadows. The ship moves silently up the coast at the dark of the moon, and anchors near the shores of Sandy Hook. Two or three boats are lowered from her side, and they are filled up with the eager forms of glowing skeletons wearing cocked hats and tattered buccaneers garb. Around their waists are belts full of pistols and long cutlasses. The biggest of Dem Bones - the one that is probably the first mate - has a skeletal parrot perched on his shoulder.

Dem Bones carry heavy trunks full of treasure onto the shore and scatter them all around the place where the pine grove once stood. Then the pirate crew hauls out kegs and kegs of whiskey and one of the skeleton's takes out a fiddle. A phantom fire is lit on the sand, and Dem Bones start such a rowdy singing and dancing that the noise would wake the dead - if they weren't already awake. When they are exhausted from the dancing, the glowing skeletons collapse on the sand and start telling stories about the ships they have captured and the treasure they have amassed. Some of Dem Bones open the big trunks and take out jewels and ropes of pearls and adorn themselves. Others toss gold coins back and forth as if they were a child's ball. At the darkest part of the night, just before dawn, Dem Bones pack up the trunks and row back to the ship of shadows. One by one, the glowing skeletons disappeared into the hold and the ship draws anchor and sails away.

Read more >>

Black Bartelmy's Ghost

Black Bartelmy was an evil, surly buccaneer who murdered his wife and children and went to sea with a band of pirates as nasty as he. He roamed the Atlantic coast, murdering and pillaging and laying waste to the countryside as he passed. By the time he approached Cape Forchu in Nova Scotia, Black Bartelmy had a ship loaded with treasure; five hundred chests had he full of gold and jewels and goblets and mighty swords.

A thick Fundy fog lay over the bay as the ship approached, and the treacherous Fundy tide soon took hold of the evil man's ship. The crashing, churning waters of the Roaring Bull, that dangerous ledge of rocks near Cape Forchu, took the pirates ship and smashed its hull.

But Captain Bartelmy spotted land to the starboard side of the ship. He and his trusted mate Ben the Hook had the crew load up the escape boat with every treasure chest they could fit. Then the bold pirate had his first mate murder the other buccaneers so they would not have to share the treasure with them. Ben the Hook crouched just out of sight in the rocking escape boat and slit each man's throat with his hook as the seaman bent to place his burden in the hold. Then Ben threw each body over the side of the ship into the churning waters below so that the next pirate would not sense a trap when he came forward with his treasure.

When the treasure was loaded into the boat, Bartelmy and Ben the Hook rowed into the calmer waters of the cape. They searched for a place to bury their treasure. Finding a large cave, they piled each chest inside and then covered the entrance with rocks. As Ben the hook rolled the last boulder into place, Bartelmy thrust a sword deep into his chest, twisting it with an evil laugh, and watched as his mate fell dead at his feet.

Knowing that he had to leave this remote spot or starve, the evil pirate captain walked along the edge of the water, searching for a town or a harbor where he might row the escape boat. But Black Bartelmy soon found himself mired in quicksand with no one to save him. Only the gulls heard his dying curses ringing over the cape as he sank down and down into the mire and was engulfed.

One stormy night soon after the pirate's death, the keeper of the local lighthouse saw a flare going up in the direction of the Roaring Bull. Thinking it is a ship in trouble; the keeper called together a lifeboat crew and launched their boat into the icy waters, heading for the Roaring Bull. But as they approach the vessel in distress, they saw an ancient galleon with tattered sails. Its decks were piled high with treasure chests spilling over with gold. Astride the deck is a solitary man in black. The evil pirate grinned wickedly down at them, gesturing grandly with his cutlass. As the breakers overwhelmed their boat, the last thing the keeper and the rescuers heard was the sound of Black Bartelmy's ghost, laughing.

They say that the ghost of Black Bartelmy continues to haunt the Cape and the Roaring Bull to this day, and that any rescue crew summoned to save a vessel off the Roaring Bull should take every precaution, because the distressed vessel might not really be there.

Read more >>

The Bells

There once was an evil priest who did not fear God or man. His duties for the church included counting the offerings and ringing the bells to summon people to Mass. But his heart was filled with greed, and he began to take advantage of the good people of his parish. The priest stole money out of the offerings to keep for himself, and when he had filled a chest full of gold, he killed a man and buried him with the chest so the murdered man's ghost would guard it. Anyone who tried to dig for the treasure would be devoured by the skeleton of the murdered man.

The evil priest planned to return to Spain with his ill-gotten treasure, but he fell ill with a fever a week before his ship was scheduled to leave. On his deathbed, the priest repented of his crime. He swore to his confessor that his soul would not rest until he returned the gold to God. The priest died before he could reveal the place where the treasure was buried. As he gasped out his last breath, he said: "Follow the bells. They will lead you to the treasure."

The Padre who attended the dying priest did not heed his words. But the sweeper who was working in the hallway at the time of the evil priest's death was struck by the notion of buried treasure. He was very poor and wanted a better life for himself and his family, so the sweeper determined to take the treasure for himself. Each night for a week, he took a shovel and dug in the monastery gardens, searching for the priests treasure. He found nothing.

One night the sweeper was awakened from his dreams by the sound of the parish bells ringing out loudly in the darkness. He leapt to his feet, fearing some emergency, and then realized that his wife and children had not stirred in their beds. Remembering the evil priest's last words, the sweeper felt sure that the mysterious ringing of the bells was for his ears alone, to lead him to the treasure.

Taking his shovel, the sweeper followed the sound of the church bells up and up into the hills. He was gasping for breath when he reached the source of the sound. He was on a wide ledge overlooking the valley. Two trees guarded the spot, and it was beside these trees that the glowing, ghostly church bells hovered. Taking his shovel, the poor sweeper dug a deep hole among the roots of the trees. After several moments, his shovel hit something hard! Eagerly, he swept the dirt away from the object and found a small chest. He hauled it out of the ditch with trembling hands, placed it on a rock, and broke the lock with the edge of his shovel. when he opened it, piles of yellow gold met his dazzled eyes. He gathered up a handful of coins, reveling in the weight of so much money. The coins were cool to his touch, and he felt the smoothness of the metal as he rubbed the coins between his fingers. And that was when he heard the moaning...

Looking up, the sweeper saw the skeleton of the murdered man whom the evil priest had buried with the treasure. It was rising out of the pit under the trees, eye sockets glowing with blue flames. "Mine," the skeleton intoned, stretching its bony arms toward the sweeper. "Mine!"

The sweeper screamed in terror and leapt away from the box of treasure, dropping the coins that he held in his hands. He ran down the hill as fast as he could go, the skeleton in hot pursuit. Behind him, the bells began to ring again as he fled for his life from the ledge.

The sweeper kept running long after the sounds of pursuit ceased, and did not stop until he reached his home. It was only then that he realized he had left his shovel back with the buried treasure on top of the hill. it was an expensive shovel and he could not afford to lose it.

Waiting until daylight, the sweeper went reluctantly back up into the hills to retrieve it. When he reached the ledge, there was no sign of the skeleton, the chest of money, or the hole he had dug the night before. He found his shovel at the top of a tall tree whose first branches began nearly twenty feet above his head. The skeleton must have placed it there after it chased him down the hill, he decided grimly, knowing that there was no way he could retrieve it.

Turning sadly away, the sweeper's eye was caught by a gleam in the bushes near the rock where he had placed the treasure chest the night before. Carefully, keeping his eye on the place where the skeleton lay buried, the sweeper felt around the rock until his hand closed on two gold coins that the ghost had missed. Casually he put the coins in his pocket and hurried from the ledge. When he got home, the sweeper put the coins into a sock and hid it under the floorboard for safekeeping.

The sweeper never went back to the ledge to retrieve the evil priest's buried treasure, though sometimes he was still awakened by the mysterious sound of the bells. He knew it would take someone more pious than himself to banish the ghost of the murdered man and reclaim the money for God. But he did use the gold coins to send his eldest son to school, and with the left-over change, he bought himself a new shovel.

Read more >>

The Army of the Dead

A laundress, newly moved to Charleston following the Civil War, found herself awakened at the stroke of twelve each night by the rumble of heavy wheels passing in the street. But she lived on a dead end street, and had no explanation for the noise. Her husband would not allow her to look out the window when she heard the sounds, telling her to leave well enough alone. Finally, she asked the woman who washed at the tub next to hers. The woman said: "What you are hearing is the Army of the Dead. They are Confederate soldiers who died in hospital without knowing that the war was over. Each night, they rise from their graves and go to reinforce Lee in Virginia to strengthen the weakened Southern forces."

The next night, the laundress slipped out of bed to watch the Army of the Dead pass. She stood spell-bound by the window as a gray fog rolled passed. Within the fog, she could see the shapes of horses, and could hear gruff human voices and the rumble of canons being dragged through the street, followed by the sound of marching feet. Foot soldiers, horsemen, ambulances, wagons and canons passed before her eyes, all shrouded in gray. After what seemed like hours, she heard a far off bugle blast, and then silence.

When the laundress came out of her daze, she found one of her arms was paralyzed. She has never done a full days washing since.

Read more >>

Enchanted

I roam alone in the woods, listening to the enchanted children's voices calling to me. "Little girl, come and play," they sing over and over in my ears.


Sometimes I hear them from the window of my room. They giggle and whisper words that I cannot make out. They sound like so much fun that I run outside my house as fast as I can to try to catch them. I plunge into the woods, calling back to the children, but no one answers. So I stand still as a mouse, trying to hear where they are hiding.

I find it odd that no one else can hear the children. I tell my mother about the game of hide-and-seek that they play with me, but I know she doesn't believe me. She just ruffles my hair and chuckles about my bright imagination. Papa can't hear them because he is too busy reading the paper and going to work. He says I will grow up to be a writer.

One morning, I hear the enchanted children calling to me from my porch. "Sara, come out and play." I finish my breakfast so fast that the milk spills from my cereal bowl and run outside with my blue smock still dripping wet.

"Where are you?" I call as I run into the woods. I can hear them giggling, and footsteps scampering first here, then there. I laugh aloud and follow them up hill and then down. Only my foot slips in the damp leaves and I slide too fast, too fast. I fall backward, wind-milling my arms. Then a terrible pain shoots through my head and is strikes against a rock. I see a blinding light, and then nothing. I hear my name called from very far away: "Sara, Sara!" I open my eyes and sit up, rubbing my hair.

Something isn't right, but I cannot tell at first what it is. Then I look at my hand, and realize I can see the ground right through it. That's strange, I think, standing up and brushing dead leaves from my blue smock. I look around to see who was calling my name, but I see no one in the woods with me. I notice that the trees look taller than I remember them, and the pathway is overgrown with weeds.

I make my way home slowly, hoping Mother can explain to me why I can see through my hands; why the trees are so tall. But someone else is staying at my house. Mother and Papa must have gone away on vacation. I climb up into my favorite tree to wait for their return.

After a few minutes, a lady comes outside and calls up to me. She is dressed strangely in a man's long pants and a rough work shirt. I feel shy, so I pretend to be invisible. I see the lady blink a few times and rub at her eyes, as if she can no longer see me. She goes back into the house, muttering to herself and pours herself a cup of water.

Then I hear the enchanted children calling out to me again from the woods. I slid out of the branches of the tree and run to answer them. At least they haven't changed. I can see the children clearly now, as they play hide and seek in the woods. I join their games, laughing sometimes when one of the boys tweaks me on the ear or when one of the girls compliments me on my dress and blue smock. This is fun!

But sometimes the enchanted children go away to another place, a place I can't follow. When they vanish, I wander back to my house, wondering when Mother and Papa will come home. Or I play in the alley by the woods, though I don't like it when strangers try to talk to me.

One day when the children go away, I follow my nose to the door of a pretty lady who is baking cookies. I peek into the kitchen window and smile at her. How I want one of those cookies! The lady looks out the window and sees me. She smiles and then comes to the front door. I know she is going to offer me a cookie, so I scamper to the door and wait eagerly for it to open. When it does, I grin at the pretty lady, but she looks right through me, a puzzled frown on her face. Maybe she is blind, I think and so I say politely: "May I come in?" right into her ear. The lady gives a start, backs hastily inside the house and shuts the door in my face. No cookies for me then. I sigh and go back into the woods to wait for the enchanted children.

When the children come to the woods, I am happy again and we play for days and days. We sing and we dance and the boys play tricks and we climb all the trees and fall out of them. But they only come during the day. The nights are lonely, and sometimes I wait for hours and hours during the day before they come. I like to go to the pretty lady's house and sit on the half-wall while I wait. Maybe one day she will offer me a cookie. The lady's grown-up daughter passes me sometimes on her way in and out of the house. Once the daughter asked me where I lived, but I was too shy to speak to her. The daughter put some pretty metal cats near the wall where I like to sit. I play with them when I feel lonely and no one else is around.

It is beautiful here in the woods, and I like playing with the enchanted children. But often I wish Mother and Papa would come home. I miss them so much. But they never do.

Read more >>

The Golden Hand

He never paid much attention to the neighbors living on his city block until the day the pretty middle-aged widow moved in two doors down from him. She was plump and dark with sparkling eyes, and she always wore dark gloves on her hands, even indoors.

He went out of his way to meet her, and they often "bumped" into each other in the street and stood talking. One day, as she brushed the hair back from her forehead, he caught a glimpse of gold under the glove on her right arm. When he asked her about it, she grinned coquettishly and told him that she had lost one hand a few years back and now wore a golden hand in its place. In that moment, a terrible lust woke in his heart - not to possess the lady herself, but to possess the solid gold hand that she wore under her long black gloves.

He courted the widow with every stratagem known to him; flowers, trips to the theater, gifts, compliments. And he won her heart. Within a month, they were standing in front of a minister, promising to love one another until death parted them. Within another month, he was a widower and had buried his ailing wife in the local cemetery - without her golden hand. It had been so easy. A slow poison, administered daily to resemble a wasting disease. No one - not his wife, not the family doctor, not their neighbors - suspected murder. And the night after the funeral, he slept with the golden hand under his pillow.

It was a dark night. Clouds covered the moon, and the wind was whistling down the chimney and rattling the shutters of the town house. He was deeply asleep when the door to his room slammed open with a loud bang and a wild wind whipped around the room, scattering papers and books and clothing and table coverings every which way. He sat up, startled by the sudden noise, and his pulse began to pound when he saw a greenish-white light bobbing slowly into the room. Before his eyes, the light slowly grew larger, taking on the shape of his dead wife. She was missing one arm. "Where is my golden hand?" she moaned, her dark eyes blazing with red fire. "Give me my golden hand!"

He tried to speak, but his mouth was so dry with fear that he could only make soft gasping noises. The glowing phantom moved closer to him, her once-lovely face twisted into a hideous green mask. "You stole my life and you stole my hand. Give me back my golden hand!" the dead wife howled. The noise rose higher and higher, and the phantom pulsed with a strident green light that smote his eyes, making them water.

He cowered back against his pillows, and the hard shape of the golden hand pressed against his back. And then he felt the golden hand twitch underneath him as the mangled green phantom that had been his wife swooped down upon him, pressing his face against the pillow in a suffocating green cloud. He tried to scream, but it was cut off suddenly by a terrible pressure against his throat, cutting off his breath. The world went black.

The next morning, when the housemaid came into the room with her master's morning cup of tea, she found him lying dead on the floor, with the golden hand clutched around his throat.

Read more >>

Big Liz

The Master of the plantation was a firm supporter of the Confederate President and had committed to send as much food as he could to the Southern army. Things were going well at first, until the Yankees began attacking the Master's supply lines. The Master suspected a traitor among his slaves, and soon discovered that the Yankee spy was a slave-woman named Big Liz. She was a behemoth of a girl who could pick up two full-grown pigs, one under each arm, and cart them over to the slaughterhouse without assistance. If he confronted her directly and she fought back, she would take him to pieces.

So the Master came up with a different plan to rid himself of the spy. He approached the giant girl and asked her to assist him with a special task. He told her that President Jefferson Davis had entrusted him with a large chest full of gold. To keep it out of Yankee hands, he wanted to bury the chest where it would never be found. The girl's eyes gleamed when she heard this false report. The Master knew she was already planning to betray the existence of the chest to the Yankees.

The Master made Big Liz carry the heavy trunk several miles out into the swamp land and asked her to dig a deep hole for the trunk. He sat at his leisure while she worked and strained for hours against the muddy ground, which kept oozing back into the hole. When the slave girl was completely exhausted, the Master decreed the hole to be large enough for his war chest. Wearily, Big Liz dropped the shovel and pulled the heavy chest down until it lay at her feet. Then she started to climb out of the deep hole. But the Master barred her way, and Big Liz gazed up at him in sudden fear as he loomed over her. "Traitor! Yankee spy!" The Master hissed. "There is only one path open to a traitor."

The Master swung his sword at her, and the sharp edge of the blade cut cleaning through the slave girl's neck. Her head went rolling away into the tall grass as her body toppled across the chest. The Master heaped dirt over the chest and the body of slave girl who had betrayed him. Briefly, he considered finding her head and burying it in the pit with her body, but it was too dark to go wandering in the dangerous marshland, and he knew that scavengers would make short work of the head when they found it.

As the Master walked toward home through the dark swamp, he became aware of a prickling sensation at the back of his neck, as if someone were watching him. The Master walked faster as clouds obscured the light of the moon. The Master's teeth chattered as a breeze cut through him like the sharpened blade of the sword at his side, and his straining ears picked up the sound of footsteps on the path behind him.

The Master was filled with a terrible, superstitious dread of demons and witches and ghosts. He broke out into a panicked run, fleeing up the path as fast as his legs would carry him. To his relief, he saw the lights of his house rise before him, and knew he was home.

As he rounded the back corner of his house, he was confronted by a massive, dirt-encrusted figure that glowed with blue fire. The smell of rotting leaves and marsh grass filled his nostrils as his eyes raced up and up the tall creature, until they rested on the stump of its neck, where a head had resided only an hour before. Then he heard a chuckle from the creature's side, and he saw the phantom's head tucked under her arm.

The Master stumbled backward, gabbling desperately in fear as the ghost placed her head upon the ground with one hand and grabbed the collar of his shirt with the other. The murdered slave girl snapped the Master's neck in two and dropped his dead body to the ground beneath his bedroom window. Then Big Liz gathered up her severed head and vanished into the darkness.

They say that on the anniversary of her death, the ghost of Big Liz still may be seen roaming the swamp lands near her old home. Anyone foolish enough to walk near her grave will be driven away by the phantom, which to this day still defends the place where the Confederate chest is buried.

Read more >>