I was watching another episode of the late lamented History Channel series HAUNTED HISTORY last night, this one about ghosts of Washington, DC and environs. It had the usual appearances in the White House--Abraham Lincoln, Abigail Adams, and Dolley Madison--; the sad tale of Stephen Decatur, the naval hero who died in a duel and sightings of whose ghost caused a window in his former home to be blocked up; and Octagon House, the misnamed former home of the Tayloe family, which has nearly as many ghosts as the White House itself.

My favorite of all DC stories actually comes from the city of Alexandria, Virginia, founded in the late seventeenth century and annexed by President George Washington in the 1790s when the federal city was being planned. After half a century as part of the District, Alexandria was returned to the state of Virginia in 1846 and now is home to the Department of Defense and many government officials and media people who work inside the Beltway.

In 1816, though, when this story takes place, Alexandria was still part of DC. A popular tavern and inn, Gadsby's, was already a favorite spot in the area. It was there that the Female Stranger died, and there she still haunts.

The young woman and her husband arrived in Alexandria in the autumn of 1816 and rented a room at Gadsby's Tavern. The lady was already gravely ill when she checked in, but the tavern's staff took tender care of her, sending for a doctor and helping her frantic husband with nursing duties. When it became apparent that she could not live, the couple made a strange request of the staff: that never, under any circumstances, would they reveal her name, or that of her husband.

The staff agreed. Legend has it that they even went so far as to alter the guest register to conceal the identities of their guests.

Two days after the curious request for eternal anonymity, the woman died. As her husband was indigent, but promised to make remission for any funds expended by the generous locals, she was buried at the expense of the tavernkeeper and others.

The husband, as you have probably already guessed, vanished the day after the funeral and was never heard from again. The locals, however, went so far as to provide the young woman with a tombstone. It's flat, and has a long inscription, said to have been written by her husband before his precipitous departure. The inscription reads:

To the memory of a
FEMALE STRANGER
whose mortal sufferings terminated
on the 14th day of October 1816
Aged 23 years and 8 months

This stone was placed here by her disconsolate
Husband in whose arms she sighed out her
latest breath and who under God
did his utmost even to soothe the cold
dead ear of death.

How loved how valued once avails thee not
To Whom related or by whom begot
A heap of dust alone remains of thee
Tis all though art and all the proud shall be

To him gave all the Prophets witness that
through his name whosoever believeth in
him shall receive remission of sins
Acts. 10th Chap. 43rd verse”

It's said that the Female Stranger still haunts the room at Gadsby's Tavern where she died, and also the cemetery where she has lain in her nameless, but nonetheless marked, grave for nearly two centuries.

The staff of Gadsby's Tavern, who cared for her in her last days, took the secret of her name to their graves. To this day, no one has any idea who she was, or why she laid this strange charge on her benefactors.

For more about the legend of the Female Stranger, check out these sites:

http://subvatican.com/femalestranger.html

http://alexandriadailyphoto.wordpress.com/2006/10/17/tale-of-the-female-stranger/

And on that sorrowful note, fair thee well.

I'm petrified of horses. When I was a baby, just walking a bit, one sneezed on me, and I was traumatized, apparently thinking the big critter had exploded.

However, I love watching the Kentucky Derby. What I know about horse racing and odds-making can be written on the head of a pin, but I love seeing A) how many celebrities there are in the crowd; B) how outrageous the ladies' hats will get, C)listening to "My Old Kentucky Home" (like our state song "Tennessee Waltz," a tearjerker), and D)watching the horses and their jockeys walk to the starting gates. The silks! The colors! The flowers!

So today, here I am, parked in front of the TV, with the race still nearly forty-five minutes away. I know the favorite to win is called Big Brown, and his current odds are at five to two.

Generally speaking, I tend to root for fillies and geldings--because the fillies show such heart running against stallions, and geldings--uh, well, they have special problems.

But we can't forget arguably the greatest horse of all the ones who have run the Derby: the immortal Secretariat.



He has held an unbroken record track time of one minute fifty nine and two fifths seconds since 1973. I've seen records set by humans that I thought would never fall--the main one being baseball's Lou Gehrig's consecutive games record, broken by Cal Ripken Jr.--but I don't expect to see Secretariat's record fall--

But then, the race isn't over yet.

And on that shallow attempt at profundity, fair thee well.



Update: Big Brown won with a time of two minutes one and four fifths seconds. Unfortunately, the second place finisher, the lone filly in the race, Eight Bells, broke both front ankles at the end of the race and had to be euthanized on the spot. I cannot help but think of Barbaro and the valiant fight he put up after breaking a leg in last year's Preakness--Rest in peace, little girl. You gave it your all. Literally.

Now mind you, this cat looks nothing like my Blackadder, who's a solid black domestic shorthair. However, I do expect at any minute he'll show up at the door and politely ask to see "the menu"--the Sibley Guide--He is still being harassed, this time by a mockingbird who apparently has a nest somewhere near his sanctuary under the japonica bush. I've looked out the window three different times today and seen Blackadder running for his life while the bird swoops down at him, flailing her wings (it's the she-bird) and shrieking "GIT! GIT! GIT FROM HERE!"



The mockingbird is our state bird here in Tennessee. It's called the mockingbird for a reason; it mimics the calls of other birds, from sparrows to bluebirds to even hawks and owls. Country and bluegrass fiddlers have long been fond of showing off their prowess by performing an 1855 song called "Listen to the Mockingbird." Written by a woman named Alice Hawthorne (who used the pseudonym Septimus Winner), it's a typical mid-nineteenth century dead-sweetheart song; the male protagonist is mourning the death of "sweet Hallie/She's sleeping in the valley/And the mockingbird is singing where she lies." Fiddlers play it fast and love the bird calls they throw in between choruses.

My favorite version was not recorded by a fiddle player, though; it was done by guitarist extraordinaire Chet Atkins, who called it "Hot Mockingbird" and left out the bird calls in favor of playing with the main melody.



Sad to say, Blackadder is not a music lover. So I suppose he won't be asking me to play "Listen to the Mockingbird" to distract the bird.

Me, I've got Chet Atkins playing on the soundtrack in my head.

And on that musical note, fair thee well.

“I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky;
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by.” John Masefield, British poet (1878-1967)

Tonight on History International I've been watching an episode of HAUNTED HISTORY, a series I've never forgiven History for abandoning, seeing that it combined two of my greatest loves, history and ghost stories. This one was about haunted ships, including the cursed liner GREAT EASTERN.

Designed by the British engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806-1859), GREAT EASTERN has been described as the TITANIC of her day. Construction on her began in 1857. At 680 feet, she was five times larger than any other ship of the time; she was supremely luxurious and could carry four thousand passengers and four hundred crew. She was propelled by a combination of steam-driven paddlewheels and propellers, plus sail, and had the unique feature of a double hull--which has a bearing on the haunting that followed.

Yet she was a cursed ship, it seems, from the very beginning. At launch--she was placed in the water before she was completely finished--a mooring cable snapped and killed two workmen.

A riveter--who hammered in rivets to hold the hull together--and a young boy, his helper, vanished during construction, seemingly without trace.

On her first sea trial, a boiler exploded. Two men were killed outright, five were severely scalded and maimed for life, and one, who threw himself overboard to avoid the steam, was crushed to death by a propeller.

The captain and four crew members, returning to shore in a dinghy, drowned when their little boat capsized.

Word gets around. When at last GREAT EASTERN went to sea, she carried only thirty-five paying passengers. Those passengers were terrified throughout the maiden voyage by tapping sounds, moans and shouts that seemed to come from the ship's double hull.

On arrival in New York Harbor, she caused more havoc and death; she came in too close to the landing dock, splintering five feet of it. Two inspectors who came out to survey the damage accidentally drowned, as did a drunken sailor who fell overboard while in his cups.

Back in England, her builder, Isambard Kingdom Brunel, died after a series of strokes at the age of fifty-three. His great liner had been at sea less than a year.

At some point after Brunel's death, GREAT EASTERN ran up on a rock while dropping anchor and gashed her hull. Riveters brought in to repair the damage heard ghostly tapping, and refused to work. She was finally repaired, though, and in 1866 commenced the only disaster-free years of her career when Cyrus Field bought her and used her to lay the first transatlantic telegraph cable. She made five consecutive voyages without a single death.

From there it was downhill all the way, however. At one point she was bought by the French government and refurbished as a luxury liner, but financial mismanagement ended that venture. In May 1889, the once queenly ship was sold for scrap. As she was being dismantled, a mutiny broke out among the work gangs and one man was killed--the final death associated with the great ship. In thirty-one years, thirty-four men died while dealing with her.

It was reported in a newspaper of the day that two skeletons were found between the two layers of her hull, on the port (left) side--the remains of the riveter and his mate, who had disappeared during her original construction.



The full story of GREAT EASTERN is also told in Raymond Lamont Brown's PHANTOMS OF THE SEA (1972).

And on that watery note, fair thee well.