Weird Western Maryland

(Title in honor of Edward Gorey's The Gashlycrumb Tinies, 1963.) Cumberland's 1894 courthouse . On their enjoyable 21st-century ghost tours of Cumberland, Keith and Annie Potts stand on the Washington Street sidewalk, in the shadow of the 1894 courthouse, and tell a poignant story with roots almost 200 years old. According to the notes I jotted in the darkness one Saturday night, it goes something like this: Many years ago, a 5-year-old girl, Belle, while playing with her doll, fell down the well here -- but survived, only to die a year later in a carriage accident. The well long ago was filled in by construction, but could her doll still be down there? Some have reported seeing a phantom little girl sitting on the curb outside the courthouse, crying for her doll ... The child's fall was recalled 54 years later in Will Lowdermilk's classic History of Cumberland *: A remarkable accident occurred in the summer of 1824, the result of which was little less than miracul...

St. Patrick's Catholic church in Cumberland is the scene of a classic Allegany County ghost story. Here's the earliest version I can find, published in 1900: During the Civil War Father Brennan had a number of painful experiences, the most painful of which was the execution of a young soldier with whom he became acquainted in his capacity of spiritual director. In July, 1864, Francis Gillespie, of the Fifteenth New York Regiment, was hanged near Rose Hill Cemetery, after trial by court-martial. The circumstances in the case were such as to excite sympathy for the soldier, but not sufficient to excuse or extenuate the horrible deed of which he had been guilty. Gillespie had been charged with violating some army regulation, and his lieutenant, William Shearer, had given orders to “ hang him up by the thumbs.” The soldier was left hanging in excruciating torture until he was almost dead. He swore vengeance on the lieutenant; and when the regiment was travelling from P...