Haunted Places: III Waverly Hills Sanatorium

I decided to continue the series of places that are considered haunted but my reasons for this are not to promote the spread of any paranormal thinking, but because I find it fascinating how people enjoy such activities and how this belief is formed in the collective mind. I will not analyze that here, but I will present another interesting "case" of a building considered haunted.

Waverly Hills Sanatorium didn’t start off as a creepy, death filled building, but as a lovingly made family home for Major Thomas H. Hays’ family who bought the land on which the Sanatorium is

situated in 1883.

Things changed quickly when The Board of Tuberculosis purchased the home as they needed more space due to the Tuberculosis epidemic that was tearing through Louisville in the first years of the 20th century.

With antibiotics not being invented yet, tuberculosis was a big deal, and when the epidemic hit its peak people would die just about every day at Waverly Hills. The seemingly continuous flow of bodies out of the Sanatorium put a damp on the patient’s spirits and didn’t do much to help the survival rate. So to avoid the uncomfortable sight, doctors decided to use a cart in the 500 feet long tunnel to wheel them out. The tunnel has supposedly seen close to 100,000 dead bodies during its lifetime thus earning it nicknames like “the death tunnel” or “body chute”.

Visitors of the abandoned Sanatorium say that weird noises and sometimes screams and moans can be heard within its walls. 

To make things even creepier the legends say that a young nurse hanged herself with a functioning light bulb wire after finding out she was pregnant out of wedlock with the owner’s child and had contracted tuberculosis. It’s said that she can still be seen sometimes in room 502, where she committed suicide. 

As antibiotics led to a quick fall in Tuberculosis cases, the Waverly Hills Sanatorium was sold and transformed into a geriatric center that cared to old sufferers of dementia. The center didn’t last long, as reports of improper care and sometimes out right neglect quickly condemned it. 

If suicide, tuberculosis sick ghosts, and dementia ridden old people aren’t creepy enough for you, please add that  recent owners wanted to convert the building into a prison while other wanted to build a 150 feet tall statue of Jesus. Both ideas fell through for lack of finances.

Current owners are holding haunted tours of the old Sanatorium trying to restore the building with the profits, however, I don’t know if new windows and fresh paint can cover demented tuberculosis zombie ghost death screams, still…  good luck with that!

Sources and More:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Waverly_Hills_Sanatorium

https://www.prairieghosts.com/waverly_tb.html

Haunted Places: II Monte Cristo Homestead

According to Wikipedia, the Monte Cristo homestead is one of the most haunted places in Australia.

Source Wikipedia

It was constructed by a local pioneer named Christopher William Crawley in 1885 and it is literally the “mysterious house on the hill” being located on a hill in Junee, New South Wales. The house seem to have had a lot of ghostly residents but one of the most famous and most seen is Mrs. Crawley, especially since she was known to be a pretty harsh woman. Since she spent a lot of time in the Drawing Room and the Chapel she is always seen there, dressed in black and carrying a large silver cross. Also, her presence is felt like cold.

A maid fell from the balcony and the blood stained steps were cleaned and you can still see the colored stain from the bleach. There were also other deaths in this house, a woman dying giving birth and even Mr. Crawley himself died of blood poisoning. 

Footsteps have been heard walking through empty rooms, along the hall and down the stairs which is strange in itself. However, what is even stranger is that the steps sound as though the person is walking on hard wood or lino floors even though the entire house is now carpeted.

Different objects were seen moving around but also strange happenings hear the stairs. A baby fell from her nanny’s arms and down the stairs and it seems that young children become agitate near or around the staircase. 

Their website has stories about other gruesome deaths:

The Coach House/Stables was also the sleeping quarters for a stable boy named Morris, who was one day too ill to rise for work. The boss did not believe the boy, and set fire to his bedding. Unfortunately, Morris was too ill to escape and was burnt to death.

A mentally retarded man named Harold, the son of a housekeeper working at Monte Cristo, was kept locked in shackles in the Caretaker's Cottage for forty years. He was found curled up at the feet of his mothers dead body, and sent to a home for the insane where he died shortly afterwards.

The most recent death at Monte Cristo occurred in 1961 when caretaker Jackie Simpson was murdered by a local youth. After watching the movie Psycho several times, the boy made his way up to the grounds of the homestead with a rifle and shot the caretaker dead in his cottage. It is believed that he then scawled the words "DIE JACK HA HA" on the wooden door, a macabre inscription that can still be seen to this day.

So next time you find yourself in Australia and you want a bit of adrenaline, you can definitely visit the eerie Monte Cristo Homestead.