Haunted Ozarks

by Janice Tremeear

Overview

Tourists flock to the Ozarks region every year to dip their paddles in the pure waters of its wilderness or lose themselves in the happy bustle of its theme parks. But the serene hills and hollows often hide something darker. The Civil War and the Trail of Tears have marked the region, as did the James-Younger Gang and the Baldknobbers. Ghosts linger in resorts and penitentiaries, while UFO's and buried treasure rest in uneasy graves. Those startled by seeing a hellhound run through their backyard, however, might also catch a glimpse of author Janice Tremeear and her team of researchers in hot pursuit of the mysteries of the Ozarks.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781609491529
Publisher:	History Press, The
Publication date:	08/25/2011
Pages:	128
Sales rank:	1,009,076
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.50(d)

About the Author

Born in St. Louis, Janice has lived most of her life in Missouri. She is a second-generation dowser. In tune with the paranormal from an early age, she now directs her interest and research into investigating the unknown with her team Route 66 Paranormal Alliance. She has three grown children and four grandchildren. She currently lives in Springfield, Missouri.

Read an Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

St. Francois Mountains

If you kill a toad, your cows will give bloody milk.

— Ozark superstition

Missouri boasts its own volcanic history in the location of the St. Francois Mountains, an outcrop of Precambrian igneous rock formed of spewed magma, hot gases and acid debris 250 million years ago. This fell and cooled, forming a dense layer of fine-grained igneous rhyolite over a heart of coarse-grained granite.

Shallow seas formed inland layering dolomite and sandstone, sediment upon sediment, several feet thick. The St. Francois Mountains (often misspelled St. Francis Mountains, matching local pronunciation) are one of the oldest exposures of rock in North America, with the Ozarks Dome elevations and stratigraphic inclines radiating downward from Taum Sauk's peak. This area is thought to be the only American Midwest region to have never been submerged, existing as an island archipelago in the Paleozoic seas. Even fossilized coral and the remains of reefs are found among the rock flanking the mountains.

The St. Francois Mountains are the center of the Missouri mining region, yielding iron, lead, barite, zinc, silver, manganese, cobalt, nickel ores and granite and limestone quarries. Potosi, Missouri, was considered the richest lead deposit in the world. Bell Mountain, near Potosi, is one of the tallest landforms in North America and part of the Missouri Wilderness. Part of the St. Francois Mountains, Bell has a twelve-mile trail ascending to its peak.

Historic Mine La Motte, near Fredericktown, saw lead mining activity by the French as early as 1720. An old granite quarry lies on the edge of Elephant Rocks State Park, a spectacular outcropping of huge, weathered, pinkish granite boulders set in a row like circus elephants on parade.

This range of mountains is said to contain some of the most unique natural features of the state of Missouri, with the most ancient landscapes and least-populated counties. Elephant Rocks, Johnson's Shut-Ins, the Black River and Sliver Mines and Devil's Tollgate are part of the attractions in the area.

Johnson's Shut-Ins lie pocketed away in the St. Francois Mountains among chutes, rivers, gorges and waterfalls. Plains cut out by the constant flow of water now host drought-hardy plants (normally found in the Southwest deserts) among the exposed rocks that share their space with the eastern collared lizard (which rises up to run on its back legs) and scorpions. There is a saying in the area: "Never put on your boots in the morning without shaking them out first."

Ancient peoples of America inhabited the Arcadia Valley at the end of the last ice age. They hunted big game, mastodon and the giant ground sloth. As the larger animals died off, the Indians adapted to hunting smaller game and to become forager-gatherers. Their arrowheads and spears became fluted for hunting; they made needles for sewing, nets for fishing and mortars for grinding seeds. Fish and vegetables became staples in their diet.

What is now Missouri once was home to the Hopewell Indians. They fired clay pots and tools, traded furs and built large ceremonial mounds. St. Louis once housed several of these mounds and was nicknamed the "Mound City." The largest of these mounds stood at what is now the intersection of Mound and Broadway Streets.

During the Mississipian period, the Native Americans depended more on the rivers and grew crops in the fertile riverbeds. Hernando de Soto and his men encountered the Indians in 1541 after crossing the Mississippi into Calpista and Palisema, modern-day Arcadia Valley and the Black River Recreation Area (this area includes Pilot Knob and Ironton and extends west to the Current River).

The last classified era of Native American development is the Historic period. Starting in 1700, the European explorers discovered tribes of Osage, Delaware, Kickapoo, Shawnee, Piankashaw and others.

It is thought that the Osage were the only Missouri-native tribe. The white man drove other Indians westward as they took over their lands across North America. The Osage were warlike and covered Missouri, Kansas, Oklahoma and Arkansas. Their numbers were greater than those of other tribes. Only the strongest males were allowed to marry and often gained the maiden of their choice, plus her sisters, implementing selective breeding that produced warriors over six feet tall.

A treaty with the Osage took from them most of their claim to the Ozark Plateau, but the Indians thought the treaty did not exclude them from hunting in the area. This often caused trouble with the white settlers, even though the Indians were mostly friendly and even traded and hunted alongside the white man. Various treaties relocated many tribes, and Native Americans became a rarity in the region after 1830. The Trail of Tears passes through the Ozarks, and the loss of many innocent lives haunts our soil. The first white settlers noted about twenty thousand Indians in Missouri.

One superior main street links two towns in the valley, Ironton and Arcadia. Small-town geniality and nineteenth-century buildings stand as a testimonial to the history of the Ozarks in this region. Ephraim Stout was the first white settler in the valley in 1805. On the banks of Stout's Creek, the first ironworks west of the Mississippi River were erected.

Arcadia Academy

Arcadia Valley Academy (1846) boasts some of the most beautiful architecture and stained-glass windows in the state. It is haunted by the Ursuline nuns who purchased the former Methodist high school and turned the building into a girls' school and convent. Some of the best citizens of southeast Missouri graduated from the school.

When the nuns first bought the property, only two of the original buildings existed. The sixteen-room school had only three rooms that were habitable. The unfinished four-story brick building built in 1870 also had three usable rooms.

For 150 years, the academy has towered over the valley. Built by Jerome C. Berryman, the building served as a Union hospital during the Civil War. After the nuns bought the academy, it operated as a school until 1970. When the nuns moved to St. Louis in 1985, the convent closed and is now under private ownership. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a historic district, the academy has two hundred rooms and forty-seven toilets. The gymnasium has a truss system designed in Germany, and the auditorium seats 250 people. The campus occupies seventeen acres and features nine buildings; only one building remains of the original campus, and it houses a bed-and-breakfast.

When run by the nuns, the girls' lives were strictly monitored; silence was to be maintained except during recreation.

Today, animals seem agitated at the site. Doors open in the night, and footsteps are heard in the halls, supposedly belonging to the nuns who ran the school. Children are often heard playing in the buildings. A Civil War soldier roams the location. A man buried in the cemetery on-site can be seen in the rooms or the hallway. Sounds of large objects being dragged over the floors are heard. Singing is reported. Doors locking and unlocking, odors, mists, the feeling of being touched and shadowy figures are all on the list of anomalies at the academy.

The Legend of Mina Sauk Falls

Mina Sauk Falls in the Shut-Ins at Taum Sauk Mountain is the tallest waterfall in Missouri, and according to legend, the mountain's face displays the grief of Mina Sauk. She was the daughter of Sauk-Ton-Qua, called Taum Sauk by the white man and chief of the Piankishaw.

The Piankishaw tribe was smaller than the Osage, "the masters" of the area, and the Cherokee, but spent peaceful summers in the Arcadia Valley, "land of the flowers," hunting and raising corn. Limestone shelters along the bluffs of the Mississipi became their homes during the winter.

Mina's tale tells of her beauty and how men desired her. She met a young Osage warrior in the woods, and he wooed her in secret. The couple was discovered, and Mina's improper behavior cost the young man his life. He was executed on a porphyry outcropping of rock overlooking Taum Sauk Creek and facing Wildcat Mountain. Tossed off the mountain, he was speared by the warriors above when he landed on the succession of rock benches. At last, he lay dying in the valley below.

Mina, in her despair, fought her restraining tribesmen and broke free to leap from the peak, plunging over the cascade to the granite ledge two hundred feet below. This displeased the Great Spirit; the earth shook and trembled, and the rock broke away, revealing a stream of water rushing down to wash away the blood from the rock benches below.

The place where Mina lay became the origin of the name of the falls, and today small flowers with crimson petals bloom there, signifying the color of blood spilled that day.

Taum Sauk and its surrounding uplift neighbors are volcanic ancients, older many times over than the Appalachian Mountains. These mountains are part of the few areas never submerged by the seas. Glades — rocky, open expanses — dot the park, showing the scattered proof of volcanic birth and giving home to desert-adapted animals and plants such as Indian grass, little bluestem, rattlesnake master, ashy sunflower and white prairie clover.

Parlor Bed-and-Breakfast

Towns near the mountain claim their fair share of ghosts. Doorbells ring at both the front and back of the Parlor Bed-and-Breakfast in Ironton, Missouri. Clocks stop and then restart, radios turn off and on and motion-activated Christmas decorations become active when no one is near to set them into motion.

Snuggled in the Arcadia Valley, the Parlor invites guests to witness the antics of its disembodied tenants. The B&B is listed as having been a funeral parlor in a former life and is located near the haunted Fort Davidson Civil War battlefield, where the spirits of the soldiers who died there wander within sight of the ditch where their bodies were tossed. Also nearby is the equally haunted Pilot Knob Civil War Cemetery.

The Parlor is a lovely turn-of-the-century home built in 1908 by Charles J. Tual, noted architect of the late 1800s and early 1900s. The home was designed as a present for his bride and features stained-glass windows, turret rooms and private balconies.

A Mr. Howell bought the home in 1960 and operated a funeral parlor within its walls for a time. The current owner's grandfather's funeral was held there. The home was restored to its original state after being purchased by the current owners in 2000 and opened as the Parlor Bed-and-Breakfast.

Renovations seem to have awakened the old girl, as they do many older locations, although the B&B owners had been "warned" about the home. Voices were heard during the renovations. A shadowy female was spotted walking from the kitchen into the dining room. Apparitions stand at the foot of the guests' beds.

I often hear tales of people who buy a historic building with no knowledge of ghostly activity, only to have the spirits wake up once workmen enter and begin tearing into walls and foundations. When the front doorbell at the Parlor rings, it's without the batteries in place needed to make the doorbell operational. Warm and loving feelings are present here, unlike the heavy, oppressive "something" that many haunted locations share. People feel someone coming up behind them but no one is ever there.

A child has been seen jumping on the bottom of a bed in a room said to have belonged to a little girl. A phantom lady has been seen walking up the staircase that was walled off from the rest of the house. Clocks fall off the walls, curtains fly from the windows and objects disappear. Shadows are seen, a woman in a gray dress touches people, voices whisper and the temperature changes. Lights go off and on, and water is heard running in the bathroom when no one is present. Money disappears and reappears. A little boy watches people through a dining room window. Someone seems to play with a ball inside the house, bouncing it over the floor.

Fort Davidson

A mere three hundred yards from the base of Pilot Knob Mountain, ghosts wander a battlefield, ready to continue their war. Confederate and Union soldiers have been seen on the ground where a rugged, but strategic, fort once stood. Missouri was a vital "border state" during the war, part of the Trans-Mississippi Theater, with over 600,000 square miles of prime land. The state was in many ways a wasteland in terms of the war, but it was also strategic for the flow of men and supplies. Control of St. Louis and the state was vital to both sides to give total access to the Mississippi River.

On September 27, 1864, Major General Sterling Price led a force of Confederate soldiers through Arcadia Valley in an attack on the earthen Fort Davidson as he moved through Ironton on his way to St. Louis.

Fort Davidson was a hexagonal fortress with walls nine feet high and ten feet thick. It was surrounded by a nine-foot-deep dry moat, with two long rifle pits running out from the walls. A reinforced board fence topped the thick wall. Entry was gained only by means of a drawbridge on the southeastern corner. To further the fort's protection, a cleared field extended in all directions beyond the walls, leaving any enemy exposed to guards keeping watch in the fort. The fort lay in a valley with large hills on three sides. In its center was a buried powder magazine. Artillery for the fort consisted of four thirty-two-pound siege guns, three twenty-four-pound howitzers and six three-inch ordnance rifles.

Price planned to seize the arsenal at St. Louis to boost the Confederate's campaign. He crossed from Arkansas into Missouri in September 1864 and moved north to Ironton near the southern terminus of the Iron Mountain Railroad.

With twelve thousand mounted infantry and three thousand unarmed men, the garrison of fifteen hundred men and seven guns at Pilot Knob was too tempting. Price received word that Union troops were heading south to intercept him and dispatched a detachment to destroy the railroad. He then focused his attention on capturing the fort.

Under Price, Major General John Sappington Marmaduke and Major General James Fagan drove their cavalry through Ironton Gap to defeat and capture Major James Wilson's Calvary between Pilot Knob and Sheppard Mountain. For Wilson's role in the December 25, 1863 massacre outside Doniphan, a Confederate military tribunal executed him and six of his troopers.

Wilson's troops had been ordered by Colonel R.G. Woodson to set free Union prisoners held at the town of Ponder. They rode out of Pilot Knob midmorning on the twenty-third for Doniphan, eighty miles to the south.

At 3:00 a.m. on December 25, Wilson's cavalry passed through Doniphan and continued west to Ponder, following the tracks of 150 horses in the winter mud of Missouri. They captured pickets as they went, preventing any warning for those gathered at the Pulliam Farm in southwestern Ripley County. On the farm, almost 150 officers and men of the Missouri State Guard's Fifteenth Cavalry Regiment, 102 Union prisoners, 60 civilians, many women and children and men of Company C, Missouri State Militia, met for a religious service led by Reverend Colonel Timothy Reeves. A Christmas dinner would follow for the reported 300 people at Pulliam's. More than a normal town gathering would be expected for a Christmas celebration.

Records indicate that the troops at Pulliam's had their arms stacked while they ate dinner when two companies of the Union Missouri State Militia, under Wilson's command, surprised them, shooting into the crowd and attacking with sabers. Over two hundred mounted cavalrymen rode into the farm, killing thirty Confederate men instantly and wounding several others. Reports said that most of the civilians were killed or wounded as well. Only the thirty-five men who guarded the prisoners on the farm were armed at the time Wilson's men descended.

The Union suffered no casualties, indicating that the Confederates did not have the chance to fire a single shot; 112 officers and men survived.

Bodies were taken to Doniphan for burial in the Old Doniphan Cemetery south of the courthouse. Tradition says that Negro men dug graves, and the town women wrapped the bodies for burial. Other bodies were buried where they fell in the Ponder and Union Grove Cemeteries.

That act has forever been known as Wilson's Massacre. The site of the bloody raid is called by many names: Battle Hollow, Battleground Hollow and Battlefield Hollow. Maps no longer show the location, but residents know where the incident took place.

After capture at Pilot Knob, Wilson and his men were stripped to the waist and marched barefoot behind Fagan's column to a farm ten miles west of Union and fifteen miles south of Washington, Missouri. Speculation has it that Wilson and his men were tried for murder and shot on October 24, 1864, by a firing squad composed of men from the Fifteenth Missouri Cavalry Regiment.

Other accounts claim that in September 1864, Major James Wilson, along with six of his men captured by the Confederates, was held for one week before being turned over to Major Tim Reeves, CSA (a guerrilla by Union standards) under Marmaduke's command. Wilson was taken out and hanged, and the other men were shot.

(Continues…)

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Excerpted from "Haunted Ozarks"
by .
Copyright © 2011 Janice Tremeear.
Excerpted by permission of The History Press.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.

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Table of Contents

Dedication and Acknowledgements,
Introduction,
St. Francois mountains,
Arcadia Academy,
The Legend of Mina Sauk Falls,
Parlor Bed-and-Breakfast,
Fort Davidson,
Caledonia Wine Cottage,
Gad's Hill Robbery,
Salem Plateau,
Wood-Smith Castle,
Jefferson County,
Kimmswick,
Kimmswick Bone Bed,
Wayne County,
Leeper Mansion,
Franklin County,
Washington,
John B. Busch Brewery,
Enoch's Bridge,
Phelps County,
Rolla,
Spook Hollow Road,
Houston House, Newburg,
Pulaski County,
Cry Baby Hollow,
Benton, Camden, Miller and Morgan Counties,
Lake of the Ozarks,
Slicker War,
Ha Ha Tonka State Park,
Ha Ha Tonka Castle,
Miller County,
Iberia Academy,
Cooper County,
Ravenswood Mansion, Boonville,
Overton Bottoms Conservation Area,
Ozark Avalon,
Cole County,
Jefferson City,
Missouri State Penitentiary,
Springfield Plateau,
Springfield,
Fantastic Caverns,
Cobras in Springfield,
Kerr Cemetery,
Halltown,
Kendrick House, Carthage,
Southwest Missouri,
Branson,
Shepherd of the Hills,
Baldknobbers,
Arkansas,
Boston Mountains,
Eureka Springs,
Crescent Hotel,
Basin Hotel,
Mount Judea,
Sam's Throne,
Bibliography,
About the Author,