...gothy bloggers "Spirited" ghost tour in Carroll County...

After 4pm on a Thursday afternoon, there isn’t much to do in Carroll County. Fortunately, Jade from Daughter of the Jaded Era and I discovered Carroll County’s “spirited” self-guided tour of Westminster, Maryland. There have been many “strange and unexplained sightings” over the years.  I love a town that embraces its history and one that embraces its legends and lore. And of course, I love an active public library. Annually the Public Library of Carroll County, Maryland, becomes “a ghost host” which begins with the ghost walk. Visitors and library patrons enjoy learning about local ghost legends and sightings.

Is Carroll County really haunted? Probably. Why else would you shut down coffee shops at 4pm?!? No seriously. Some people believe that there are haunted happenings. One story is of Cockey's Tavern in Westminster which is said to be haunted by a ghost of a confederate soldier who was wounded in the Battle of Gettysburg. He’s is described as a basic troublemaker who rearranges pictures and partakes in spirits from the bar.

There are eight listings on the tour. For the complete tour guide, click here.

On another website, I found a few more stories.  

More than 150 years before The Kimmey House the location acted as an office space for the medical practice of Dr. George Collgate.  It is said that a ghostly patient of Dr. Collgates’ lingers in the building to this day, evidently, still waiting for his appointment.

The Shriner House (which isn’t listed on the Ghost Walk map but through this website, I learned that the house was built in 1804 by the Shriner family. The house is in Linwood, which borders Carroll County.  The ghosts of the Shriner house play with electronic devices and frighten family pets.  As the site reports there were two brothers who began fighting over the same woman. After one brother shot the other brother through the dining room window, ghosts of both of the brothers have been spotted. The family who was living in The Shriner House at least in 2011 when the story was published noted that a relative who was quite ill asked for the two men who visited her. Her description of them matched a description of the two brothers (insert eerie music).

Also not on the Ghost Walk but not too far from the location where Jade and I took our own “spirited” tour is The Haunted Mill.   A former mill owner reports that annually when there is a full moon, a ghostly image of a man riding a horse and chasing after a fox can be seen.   Apparently this chase is what led to the mysterious death of both the man and his horse. I personally like to think that the fox made it and went on to lead a happy, healthy, foxy life :p

Jade writes more about the terrifying Big Tom legend (hee hee). About halfway through the tour we were giving ourselves (with spooky voices and faces... Jade can do a really spooky voice by the way), I suggested that we should have filmed ourselves because wow we were dorky (and by dorky, I mean incredibly cool!)

The story that really strikes me, because so many of them were ridiculous, was entitled “The Ascension Church Legh Master’s Soul”. This one was problematic and sad. First, a bit about the church. The Ascension church which demonstrates the Neo-Gothic architectural style dates back to 1844. Today, the church is affectionately referred to as the Stone Church.  It is recognized as an historic property by the Maryland Historical Trust.
 
The church’s website reads that the author of the Star Spangled Banner, Francis Scott Key would have known the early founders of the church, and was most likely involved in the early discussions of the church. The Stone Church claims a spiritual heritage with the national anthem author for his outreach to the African American community. One of church’s most historic memorials honors his work with local African American children. Visitors can find a plaque with Key’s name and efforts in the vestibule.

The story of Legh Master is that he was an incredibly cruel man who moved to the area. After the death of his wife, he became infatuated with one of his enslaved*  servants. When she refused his advances, he became enraged and bricked her up in a kitchen oven.  Master also bound a young slave named Sam who was the girl’s fiancé and threw him into a furnace. 

When Master died he was buried but his bones were found risen to the surface again and again.   The third time that his bones were buried and rose again, his remains should be moved to consecrated ground… The Ascension Church. His grave was boxed in brick and a large stone slab was placed on top to keep him in the ground. But, shortly after the grave was finished, the stone slab covering the grave cracked in half.  Rumor has it that the slab was replaced but it cracked once again and that is how it remains today. 

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*Language has power. We can’t take back what happened but we can grant these individuals an identity as people and use a term to describe their position (that was forced upon them) in society rather than reducing them to that position. By doing this, we carry these people forward as people, not the “property” that they were considered at that time. A small change is altering our use of the noun slaves to an adjective enslaved.

... Carrol County *Peep*Show will not be a striptease...

I'm writing this quick post because the event title was a source of confusion to anyone unfamiliar with Peeps. Carrol Arts Center is hosting "a display of hundreds of marshmallow masterpieces!", not a striptease :p  

... marking Fred Gwynne's unmarked grave with flowers...

If I played a clip, I’m pretty sure that you would recognize his distinctive bass-baritone voice. Most of us know him as the lovable Herman Munster from The Munsters or even his later role as the endearing and knowledgeable neighbor in Pet Sematary. When I posted where I was going, my brother immediately dropped lines from My Cousin Vinny. Fred Gwynne was an American actor who passed just shy of his 67^th birthday in 1993. 

When I learned that Gwynne was buried in an unmarked grave in Finksburg, Maryland, I figured that I would be taking a journey to his graveside this summer alone. It’s probably important to note right here that I don’t get googlie-eyed over celebrity. In fact when I hear the term “Hollywood Actor”, I usually tune out. So, I’m not necessarily making it a goal to visit actors’ resting places. But there are a few actors who mean something to me; and, Mr. Gwynne is certainly one of them.

Gwynne is buried at Sandy Mount United Methodist Church cemetery which is behind the church. Sandy Mount church has a long history and I was fortunate enough to find the paperwork for the historic listing and even the nomination for location to be added to the National Historic Places listing. There is a deed from September 28, 1827 that shows that the land was conveyed from Allen Baker to five trustees under the condition that they must erect a house of worship. In 1855 there was a controversy about whether or not to allow enslaved Africans to worship with their “masters”. The church remained divided and part of the congregation moved to another location and began Pleasant Grove Methodist Episcopal Church… that is, until 1943 when they were again reunited. In 1867, three stone masons by the names of Ward, Bush and Shipley who had built the Pleasant Grove church, built Sandy Grove’s stone sanctuary which currently isn’t being used by the church except for special occasions. There is even a legend that because the three men had gone out drinking the front walls appear slightly irregular. It would be fascinating to find more information about the cemetery itself but what I have discovered has been quite limited. Although it isn’t very big, there are some old gravestones.

When I was doing research for the journey, I didn’t expect that most people would want to visit a grave without even a marker. Of course, my friends are not *most people* so it turns out that once Jade and I went, a few friends were very excited about the adventure (and perhaps a bit disappointed they didn’t get to come along).  

Why Gwynne’s remains rest in an unmarked grave isn’t quite clear. As far as I can tell, at the end of his life Gwynne wanted to be Fred Gwynne the man and not Fred Gwynne the actor. In an article in Harvard’s The Crimson (2001), it reports that his daughter Madyn Gwynne reveals, "He was a far more complex character than the one he played on The Munsters." Of course he was! Gwynne studied portrait-painting before enlisting in the Navy in World War II. He served as a radio operator in a submarine-chasing vessel. After serving, he attended the New York Phoenix School of Design, and Harvard University. I was excited to learn that Gwynne was also a children’s author including It's Easy to See Why, A Chocolate Moose for Dinner, The King Who Rained, Best In Show, Pondlarker, The Battle of the Frogs and Mice, and A Little Pigeon Toad.

While he may have tried to distance himself from roles that rhymed his Herman Munster character, during a 1982 interview, a reporter asked about his favourite roles. Gwynne noted plays and then he paused... "and I might as well tell you the truth, I love old Herman Munster.  Much as I try not to, I can't stop liking that fellow."  

Soon before Gwynne passed, he and his wife bought land in Taneytown, Maryland which is Northeast of Baltimore. During that time, he only worked as a voice-over artist in commercials. Within a year, he was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. When he passed away from complications associated with pancreatic cancer, he was buried in Sandy Mount Cemetery in Finksburg, MD.  His funeral was private and he was buried in an unmarked grave.

Thanks to Findagrave.com which pointed me in the direction of Tod Benoit’s book, I was able to find the location and a picture of Gwynne’s grave that is mapped out with the description, “Approximate yet accurate location of Fred Gwynne's final resting place at Sandymount Methodist.”

Walk into the cemetery behind the church and near the back is a distinctive Shannon stone. About twenty feet in front and to the left of the Shannon stone, Fred is buried in a grave that, but for the grass covering it, has no marking of any kind." (Where Are they Buried?, Tod Benoit, p.179)

When Jade from Daughter of the Jaded Era and I were planning our Blogger Meet Up Adventures Part 2, I knew that I didn’t want her to have to run through a snowy DC again. She also had only seen a small part of the U.S. so I suggested taking the journey together. We headed out on Thursday which was a pretty beautiful day to be in a cemetery. GPS made it fairly simple to find the cemetery. We picked up flowers at a grocery since we couldn’t find a local florist and located Gwynne's location. There were numerous old graves that could use a bit of restoration in the cemetery on the side of the church. The cemetery includes obelisks and other traditional turn-of-the-century markers. The Rush stone was near the parking lot. I thought it was a stunning example of craftsmanship. Gwynne's plot is located in the back of the cemetery in a section that appears much more modern. Most of the cemeteries that I visit are quite wooded. At Sandy Mount, one can stand near Gwynne's resting place and see for what seems like miles. In the distance there is even a windmill. Not a bad place to spend forever if you ask me. 

Of course, neither of us ever knew Fred-Gwynne-the-man so we can only discuss the characters he played… and naturally, the character of Herman Munster sticks with us. I think it’s easy to start comparing The Addams Family and The Munsters. Both series aired from 1964-1966. When Jade and I were standing graveside, she even mentioned this. At the time she stated and then later noted in her post that the family of The Munsters was a bit dysfunctional. At the time I wasn’t quite sure why I felt the urge to defend these characters. This week has been filled with so much activity that I’m finding myself slowly processing; trying to grasp each reflection has been like grabbing a cloud. I’ve always been much more connected to The Munsters than The Addams Family. This could be because The Munsters were aired as reruns right after school so I grew up watching these old episodes. I think what connected me to the Munster family was their working-class roots. The Addams always appeared to be independently wealthy while Herman Munster with his enormous lunch box had to go off to work at the funeral home. He even started out as the “nail boy” working his way up through the business. And, viewers learn that he used to be in the army and fought in WWII. In many ways, the characters come across as a typical American family and Mr. Munster is (at least stereotypically) the all-American Dad who is a bit childlike but who always means well. So many of the episodes followed the formula of *fitting in* and blending…immigrants coming to America and living the American dream in an old house that they thought was just right (albeit dusty and dilapidated just like our own homes). I guess I connect because The Munsters story is my story in many ways. My family immigrated and they always thought they blended in even when their Polish roots stuck out… but just like the Munster family, they didn’t mind. They loved being themselves and they loved being here.  

So while Mr. Gwynne and his family wish to keep his resting place quiet, visiting a grave is a way to pay our respects, to say “Thank You!”, and to connect to someone who made a difference in our lives.  

This was only the first stop in our adventures of the day and I will write more about our other adventures that afternoon and the next day in later posts. Jade has already mentioned the "spirited" self-guided Ghost Tour  that we took so you'll want to visit her post to read about that. I really wish we had videotaped ourselves giving the tour... but I'll write more about that later.

After two days of gothy fun with Jade, I turned around and headed to Hollywood Cemetery's Rose Pruning Work Day

to volunteer and reconnect with Connie. Today I'm still scratched, achy, and bruised... but let me just say that being in a group with THE Woman In Charge was super awesome! And, dare I write that we worked on some of the best roses in Hollywood?!? One was the famous Crenshaw Rosa Moschata (Musk Rose) which is a historically significant rose that I wrote about in my guest blog post for The Cemetery Researcher.  More tales soon!