Weird Western Maryland

C onfederate Colonel Luke Tiernan Brien, whose ghost supposedly haunts his old home in Urbana, Frederick County, also has the distinction of showing up as a fictional character in a popular alternate-history novel. How Few Remain by Harry Turtledove, published in 1997, won that year’s Sidewise Award for alternate history. One of countless fictional speculations asking, “What if the Confederacy had won the Civil War?” – a speculation that entertains mostly White men – How Few Remain is the first novel in Turtledove’s 11-volume “Southern Victory” series. The not-yet-spectral Colonel Brien appears on Pages 77-78, still a loyal aide to Confederate General J.E.B. Stuart and fighting the Union once again, this time in the Second Mexican War of 1881: Most of two decades of garrison duty had laid a heavy patina of routine over the dashing young trooper he’d once been, but, like a lot of the other veteran officers in Stuart’s force, he was starting to shine up once more. … Colonel Brien...

Mark Stroud photo, May 2012 (Graffiti Soldiers) During the Civil War, Landon House in Urbana, Frederick County, was occupied first by Confederate troops, then by Union troops, and on the house’s walls they waged a battle of graffiti. Writing about this episode in 1973, the house’s then-owner, Marion Stancioff, quotes at length from a 1910 volume, Regimental History of 155 th Pennsylvania Volunteers (Antietam to Appomattox) . I have broken up the long paragraphs for ease of online reading. Clearly, the young Pennsylvanians were delighted to bivouac in what had been a girls’ school. One of the rendezvous affording a night's shelte r for the broken down and foot-sore inexperienced soldiers was a Young Ladies' Seminary building rece n tly vacated. There were many rooms and dormitories in the building, also a fine orchard of ripe apples and peaches adjoining, and plenty of limpid water, all of which made it for a night’s lodging a most welcome discovery. All the rooms on the ...

Historic Landon House in Urbana, Frederick County, is allegedly haunted by a bewildering variety of ghosts, depending on the source consulted. To put it another way, many popular beliefs linked with ghosts have come to be associated with Landon House, for example: Anomalous sounds. At Landon, these include a little boy’s voice; adult screams, prayers and cries of anguish; and the barks, pants, whimpers and snuffles of dogs. Anomalous sensations. At Landon, these include cold spots, taps on the shoulder, and the feeling of being watched. Physical anomalies. At Landon, these include doors that close by themselves, rocking chairs that rock by themselves, and lights that move without a visible source. Apparitions. At Landon, these include a woman with a lantern, a woman (perhaps the same one) who haunts the rooms of children, various Civil War soldiers, and an old man in the basement who sometimes is visible as only a torso and head. Several of these are referenced, apparen...

Grave of Charles & Columbia Bolden. Matt Lake’s entertaining and colorful 2006 book Weird Maryland includes an elaborate Civil-War-ghost-story-turned-graveyard-ritual set in the Finzel cemetery in northeastern Garrett County, nearly at the Pennsylvania state line. As its only source, the Weird Maryland account quotes, verbatim, Baltimore County paranormal investigator Beverly Litsinger, whose MarylandGhosts.com website seems to be defunct. Here’s the story as Litsinger tells it; I have broken up the long paragraph for online readability. The town has one road with the old Finzel cemetery located at the end of it on the outskirts of town. During the Civil War two brothers took up arms on opposing sides – talk about a family feud! One brother fought for the South and the other brother fought for the North; both fought tirelessly. Nonetheless, the two brothers met often in secret inside the small, secluded graveyard to discuss the war and to catch up on stories about the family ...

In 1976, the Hagerstown Daily Mail profiled a ruined historic house, originally an 18 th century stone tavern, in the Washington County community of Huyett (pronounced "Hewitt"), a.k.a. Huyetts Crossroads. The most interesting thing about the property – “disclosed with much secrecy,” the reporter coyly noted – was mentioned only in the last sentence of the article: The amputated hand of one of the past residents lies buried in the family graveyard. That’s all I know; the rest is speculation. I don’t even know whether the house still exists, on the north side of Alternate U.S. 40 just west of Maryland Route 63. Its family graveyard is listed, however, on the Find a Grave website, which documents 16 burials there.   Of the adults buried in the cemetery, only one, Jacob H. Myers (1828-1909), would have been of fighting age during the Civil War. If Jacob lost a hand on the battlefield, preserving it for home burial would have been odd but not unheard-of, as any Civil War...