Weird Western Maryland

Here's another supernatural "token" described in Florence Harris Abel's entertaining book The Beitzel Family. To the old-time Beitzels, remember, a token was what others might call an omen: A token was the sign or signal of someone’s death, often occurring with the manifestation of the person’s image or a symbolic occurrence. Just as a ghost is often not recognized as a ghost until it is gone, so a token frequently is not recognized as a token until after the person has died. Some think that as the spirit begins to loosen itself from the earthly body, it enters the presence of persons it has known in this life. … The older generation frequently talked of seeing tokens. Abel titles this story "The Bee in the Cupboard." One night in April 1930, in Henry J. Beitzel and Cynthia Beitzel's kitchen at Keyser's Ridge, all the family members present heard a buzzing in the cupboard, like a bee trying to free itself. Abel continues: Upon inspection, the buzz...

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 ...

  Trestle over Potomac at Twenty-first Bridge Road, Rawlings, looking toward West Virginia. Too many ghost stories in old newspapers are vague on where, exactly, something took place. Refreshingly pinpointed, however, is this account from 1898, which I quote in full. My only change was to break up the long paragraphs, for online readability: Trainmen on the Baltimore and Ohio and West Virginia Central railroads employed near Cumberland, Md., were recently frightened by the shape of a headless woman that makes her appearance at Greenwade’s siding, near Twenty-first bridge, between Cumberland and Keyser, W.Va. Freight trains are side tracked there, and when the trainmen are waiting a headless woman emerges from an old culvert or bridge and walks up and down the track. Whenever any of the men attempt to follow her, she disappears. One railroad man was so badly frightened that he left the service of the road. Others say that if the headless woman keeps up her antics they, too, wi...

Oak Hill Cemetery in Lonaconing is the setting of this undated post at the Ghosts of America website, by a writer who identifies only as “Jeri”: This sighting occurred in the late 1990s. I told a few people about what we saw, but was [sic] received with skepticism. I finally just stopped telling the story. I stumbled across ghostsofamerica.com and decided to tell the story one more time. My husband and I were at Oak Hill Cemetery on a late afternoon in July. No one else was there. We drove around to the top row, parked the car, and got out to look for ancestors buried there. It was odd how quickly a strong wind started to blow. Both of us were looking down at the lower road, and a figure (seemingly oblivious to us) was walking in the direction of where it elbowed up to the next level. He was dressed as an old time miner. What he had on was very recognizable. He had on a mining hat and was carrying what looked like a lunch bucket. He looked like he was covered in coal dust. It was...