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an excerpt from the book
Ghostly Tales From America's Jails
Ghost Hunt At Buffalo Gap - 1879
by Joan Upton Hall
You can't blame the ghosts at Buffalo Gap Historic Village for not knowing it's the 21st century. The compound, which occupies a block in the middle of town, is comprised of almost 20 vintage buildings, each one fully furnished according to its appropriate era, and represents the last 50 years of the Old West. As you meander along the trails among chickens, cats, and old fashioned gardens, you might expect the original inhabitants to show up at any minute. In fact, countless visitors and staff swear that at least some of them do. These spirits must wonder why we visitors dress so unfashionably.
As editor of this book, I felt the need for an exact understanding of the procedures ghost investigators use. Not far from where I live, I found Central Texas Ghost Search (CTGS) and was impressed by what I read about them. I contacted Sarah Zell, president of the group, and told her about the book project. When she offered me a chance to experience an actual ghost investigation and asked where I'd like to go, I immediately thought of Buffalo Gap Historic Village. I had visited it before for historical research, and I remembered tales of hauntings in and around the fine old, two-story stone Courthouse-Jail. Sarah liked the idea and made the arrangements.
Sad to say, the town held its county seat status only from 1878-1883, with this original Taylor County Courthouse-Jail constructed in 1879. Blessed with tall trees and abundant ground water, Buffalo Gap occupies a point in the Callahan Divide that cuts through to the flat lands—an oasis before the plains. For hundreds of years, buffalo had beaten a trail followed later by cattle drives. Why would such a place be virtually abandoned? The railroad bypassed it. When tracks were laid east to west through the new town of Abilene a few miles to the north, many residents pulled up stakes and moved there. And soon the county seat went with them.
People lived in the Courthouse-Jail for some time. Then thanks to historians Ernest Wilson and Dr. R. Lee Rhode who owned it at different times beginning in 1956, not only that building was saved as a museum, but other buildings were brought in as well. The only one older than the Courthouse is an 1875 tiny log cabin, moved in from six miles away. Formerly it had been home to a buffalo hunter and his family. In 1999 the Grady McWhiney Research Foundation, affiliated with McMurry University, bought the Village to be further developed and operated as an educational facility. Now enclosed inside a fence, Texas history is not only saved, but shared with all who come to visit, and the staff provides not only static displays but special events with living history interpretations as well.
Among the other seasonal events that bring in crowds, the Village staff goes all out on—bet you can guess—a Halloween tour. Justin Frazier, Site Manager, says one of the scary surprises they set up was a dummy of a man hanging by the neck. Justin got his own surprise when kids asked, “But who's the lady with him?”
Kids also ask from time to time, "Who's the guy in the jail cell?" That cell, once reserved for "hostile" prisoners, stays locked, and in the case of both the tree and cell, Justin says there's nobody there.
Personally, I'm not so sure. Before the hunt, writer/photographer Stacey Hasbrook and I went to look over the place during daylight hours and get photos about closing time. On the second floor of the Courthouse-Jail, a large room that used to serve as the "run about" for ordinary prisoners now houses a collection of guns and Indian artifacts. The single corner cell is at the head of the stairs.
Plastered stone makes up three sides, and its boilerplate steel wall has a barred door with a padlock. A single high, narrow window allows scant daylight and ventilation. Justin unlocked the door for me, but as soon as I entered the gloomy cell with its uninviting cot and a straight chair, I wanted out. I'd like to say the oppressive sensation came from the afternoon heat and semi-darkness, but prickles up and down my spine and my bristling neck hair told me otherwise.
In the interests of journalism, I checked it out thoroughly, but in record time. Feeling anything but alone, I was convinced the "hostile cell" was a fitting place for my invisible companion. Later that evening, during CTGS's search, both the psychics, Tracey Cordero and her daughter Lisa also felt a presence, as did Stacey.
The Courthouse-Jail had been built to serve the county forever. Rows of cannon balls were sandwiched between the large stone blocks in spaces hollowed out for them. This not only held the walls straight, but also thwarted the efforts of any prisoner who tried to escape by scraping out the mortar to loosen the stones. The ground floor contained offices for the County Clerk, the Judge, and the Sheriff as well as a courtroom.
For those few short years, prisoners from "the wild town of Abilene" were brought here, but no one seems to know what incorrigibles might have been locked in the cell that gave us the creeps. After the county seat was moved, and this jail was no longer needed, a family lived on the second floor for a time. What must it have been like to walk past that cell every time you went up or downstairs?
Nowadays, throughout the Village, recorded sounds add to the mood such as a Victrola playing music in the parlor of the marshal's house and distant sounds of trains at the railroad depot. Justin says people compliment the staff on these details, plus other sounds he can't account for. At the marshal's house, it's table conversation. At the schoolhouse, it's the sound of footsteps as of a teacher walking up and down the rows and, at least once, a visitor captured children's voices on tape.
Plenty of the activity occurs in Marshal John Tomas Hill's house, a charming little white cottage only a few feet from the Courthouse-Jail. Like most of the other buildings in the compound, this one was moved to the site. This home of Abilene's first marshal was built in 1881, the same year Abilene was founded. Hill had been shot in the toe during an altercation and, although the infected toe was later amputated, he died of complications. His wife and spinster daughter lived out their lives and also died in that house. It is known that, as was the custom at the time, at least the marshal's funeral, if not all three, took place at home.
The summer of 2002 when I first visited the Village, I had interviewed some McMurry University students working there, part of McWhiney Foundation's history intern program. The young men told me they weren't fond of going into Marshal Hill's house although they all assured me they never used to believe "any of that stuff about ghosts." Josh White, who had worked there for two years, opened up and told of a day he was dusting the artifacts in the Hill house. A feeling of being watched made him turn around. And there he saw a lady in an old fashioned dress walking down the hall.
Tyler Barnett said he shared the same feelings about the place and added that they find little things moved from place to place. He also recalled another incident involving a friend of theirs, who wasn't on hand for the interview. The young intern had been weeding along the edge of the house when he looked up. The lady stood at the window watching him.
Thomas Onger had only been on the job for three days. Until he asked questions about his own eerie feelings, the others hadn't told him about it.
The haunting has evidently been going on for a long time. Josh said one man who came by explained he had visited the Village at least ten years earlier when he was a kid with a school group. Inside the Marshal's house, he had stopped to look through an old photograph album. When a shadow caught his attention, he turned and saw the lady. Shaken, he ran outside, but then brought his buddies back in with him. The album was gone.
The visitor's story made Josh curious, so he and the other guys looked all through the house for an old photograph album, but such a book was nowhere to be found. The next day when Josh went in, the book was lying on the bed. He looked through it and replaced it, but the next time he returned, the album was gone again.
But let's get back to my first-ever ghost hunt in 2005. We met at 10 PM and finished at about 2 AM. Sarah Zell's CTGS team conducted an orderly and thorough investigation in each building reputed to be active. Justin had opened the barriers that are usually in place inside the buildings to keep visitors from handling items on display.
As we began, Sarah explained the procedure. To record possible EVPs (Electronic Voice Phenomenon), everyone sat absolutely quiet while several team members ran audio tapes. One leader would announce our presence, invite any spirits present to communicate, and ask for a name and year. If anyone in the group coughed or there was an outside sound such as a cat fight, barking dogs, or a car driving by, the leader would acknowledge it so there would be no question later when listening.
To collect other data, team members walked around, some with IR (infra-red non-contact) temperature gauge, some with EMF (electronic magnetic field) monitors, several with cameras, and some of us simply with open minds. Sarah told us novices that anyone taking a photo was to announce "Flash" so that no one else would shoot at the same time. This prevented misleading flashes of light from showing up later. The shots were taken in any area where unseen activity was likely. Someone monitored the temperature at all times.
Several orbs did appear from different cameras, but the most interesting anomaly appeared as a frowning face coming out of a wall that had looked to all of us like a plain paneled wall. Paulina Murnahan, who took the shot, was as surprised as the rest of us (shown at the end of the book).
One event took place in the courtroom while we were all being quiet, and the taping was going on as the leader invited the spirits to communicate. I saw two team members react simultaneously to what they both afterward called a "growl," yet this didn't show up on any of the tapes.
Other unexplainable sounds did show up later on the tapes, sounds that none of us had heard, sounds that only came out on one tape each. In answer to one of the questions, there was a loud, metallic sounding screech. The other sound was a muffled male voice that sounded like, "Help me!"
In Marshal Hill's house, psychic Tracey reported a very bad feeling in one certain spot of the parlor, a feeling she described as "grief, intense sadness, like a funeral." After we all went outside, I asked her if she knew the Marshal's funeral had taken place in the house. Startled, she answered that she never reads the literature ahead of time as she wants to keep an open mind to whatever comes up. Justin confirmed that the funeral almost certainly took place in the parlor.
Could the ethereal lady that folks see be the Marshal's wife or daughter?
Some of the strangest events took place in the Village's two-room school. While the school has no relation to the jail, I include this episode to explain some of the more unusual aspects of this ghost investigation.
The psychics, Tracey and her daughter Lisa, had visited this site a couple of months earlier. Although Lisa had never before done automatic writing (writing down freely whatever comes to her from outside her own mind), she picked up a piece of chalk and wrote on the board a girl's first and last name, but perhaps because of their own surprise at the name coming out of nowhere, they didn't pursue it further. Out of respect for the feelings of surviving family members, I won't include the deceased child's name here, but will call her "Mary."
We all went in and sat at the small, old-fashioned desks on each of which was a slate and chalk. The room was well lighted, and we talked for a few minutes before Lisa picked up a slate. At first she just drew spirals in a leisurely manner, but gradually she picked up speed and began to scribble words as she spoke aloud to "Mary" and wrote answers on the slates that we all kept supplying her with.
One guy blurted out, "Ask her about Steve," though later he said he had no idea where the idea came from. The automatic writing went on sometimes furiously while Lisa's hand obviously began to cramp. It was a sad tale, sketchy at best, but the gist of it was that "Mary" was staying around in an effort to protect her little brother, Steve, who "Daddy hurt," and she wanted Lisa to help her.
While this was going on, Sarah was sitting with her recorder in her hands, its cord dangling. Quietly, she said, "Something keeps tugging at my cord. I thought it was the cat, but he's not here." She said it went on for three or four minutes.
Then Morgan Pipkin, sitting beside her, said, "Ow!" and grabbed his side a couple of times. He said something jabbed him.
The thermometer reading in the room was about 90°, but when the monitor was held near Sarah and Morgan, the reading suddenly dropped about ten degrees.
Over all, I would say there's little question that the collection of historical buildings at Buffalo Gap harbors a few restless spirits. Before the hunt, people who had gotten wind of it wanted to watch, but a crowd would not be conducive to spirit activity. Because of public interest, however, Justin Frazier, as Site Manager, asked Sarah Zell if she would be willing to teach a class on the basics of ghost investigation at the Village periodically, and she agreed.
The town of Buffalo Gap is about eight miles south of Abilene on Highway 89, otherwise known as Buffalo Gap Road. Buffalo Gap Historic Village is located at the corner of Elm and William Street. FFI about the educational programs: (325) 572-5211 www.buffalogap.com or www.mcwhiney.org/buffalogap.html.
The author's special appreciation goes to Site Manager, Justin Frazier, who went beyond the call of duty in answering questions and serving as a guide. Also especially to Sarah Zell, who teaches science at Cisco Junior College in Abilene. Sarah is president and founder of the Central Texas Ghost Search organization, who put the event together and gave me a firsthand understanding of how ghost investigation works. People in the area can register for the above mentioned classes online at the CTGS website: www.centraltexasghostsearch.com
ISBN: 1-933177-09-8
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