Haunted American History

In 1612, a young woman named Alizon Device asked a traveling peddler for some pins.
He refused.
A short distance down the road, the man collapsed.
Today, a doctor would probably call it a stroke. Alizon believed she'd done it with witchcraft.
And she confessed.
Within months, accusations had spread through two feuding families living beneath Pendle Hill. Elderly women described spirits that appeared as dogs and hares. Neighbors accused neighbors. Family members turned on one another.
And when the trials finally began, one of the prosecution's most important witnesses was a nine-year-old girl placed on top of a table so the courtroom could hear her accuse her own mother and brother of witchcraft.
Ten people would be hanged.
One more would die in a dungeon before reaching trial.
And four hundred years later, people still climb Pendle Hill in the dark on Halloween night.
Tonight, we're heading to Lancashire for the story of the Pendle witches—and the accusations, confessions, family feuds and frightened children that sent them to the gallows.
Welcome to Day Nine of 31 Days of Halloween.

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Tales from the Shadows Weekend in Lancaster PA

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YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@HauntedAmericanHistory
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hauntedamericanhistory.com
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In January of 1909, strange tracks began appearing in the snow across New Jersey.
They crossed yards. Climbed fences. Appeared on rooftops. Witnesses reported hearing wings outside their homes and seeing something with hooves, glowing eyes, feathers, fur—and occasionally a head like a horse.
Schools reportedly closed. Armed posses went looking for it. Newspapers put it on the front page.
And suddenly, everyone was talking about an old story from deep inside the Pine Barrens.
According to the legend, in 1735 a woman known as Mother Leeds discovered she was pregnant with her thirteenth child and cursed the unborn baby:
Let this one be the Devil.
But buried underneath the familiar monster story is a real colonial family that had been associated with Satan for decades, a feud involving Benjamin Franklin, a massive newspaper-fueled panic—and a Philadelphia showman who decided the best way to capitalize on the hysteria was to paint a kangaroo and give it wings.
Tonight, we're heading into the Pine Barrens for the strange history of New Jersey's most famous monster.
Welcome to Day Eight of 31 Days of Halloween.

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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

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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.

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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

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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

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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

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