Baltimore Ghosts: History, Mystery, Legends & Lore

by Ed Okonowicz

Take a tour of Baltimore's haunted historic sites in this book based on more than a dozen personal interviews with park rangers, graveyard workers, saloon keepers and museum curators. The book includes more than 60 photographs of graveyards, tombstones, forts, ships, haunted restaurants and historic locations. The book's highlights include the city's colorful history as explained through ghost tales and legends, unexplained activities at the Edgar Allan Poe House and Poe gravesite; 19th century grave robbing practices at the University of Maryland Medical College; spirits in the "catacombs" graveyard beneath Westminster Church; the "Gallows Ghost" and many other active spirits at Fort McHenry; graves and stories in Green Mount Cemetery (including the burial plot of John Wilkes Booth); sailor spirits on the USS Constellation in the Inner Harbor tourist area; several saloon ghosts and sightings in Fells Point; the Legend of "Black Aggie," an active tombstone statue; secret tunnels under Federal Hill; the story of the mysterious Phantom of O'Donnel Heights... and more. In addition a special 1-to-5 "tombstone rating," which was provided by the Baltimore Society for Paranormal Research, is included at the end of each chapter. These tombstone symbols indicate the level of hauntings at each of these public sites. To help teachers use this book in the classroom, a special teacher's guide is available separately. The book is entitled "Baltimore Ghosts and History Teacher's Guide" and was prepared by Cassandra Cogan, a middle school special education teacher in Cecil County, Md. This second edition includes the story Concert by Candlelight, which received a Storytelling World honor award.

144 pages, Perfect Paperback

First published January 1, 2006

About the author

Ed Okonowicz, a Delaware native, is an editor and writer at the University of Delaware, where he earned a bachelor's degree in education and a master's degree in communication. Also a profesional storyteller, Ed is a member of the National Storytelling Association and specializes in local legends and folklore of the Delaware and Chesapeake Bays, as well as topics related to the Eastern Shore of Maryland.

Reviews

[Dennis Phillips · Rating 5 out of 5]

Over and over again I run across ghost books that contain mostly old unsubstantiated legends and very few real ghost stories. Legends and folklore are fine but I strenuously object to buying a book that purports to be about ghosts only to find that the title was meant to deceive. This book contains several old legends and some chapters don't deal with ghosts at all. For example, the chapter that deals with grave robbers has not one ghost, it is certainly a creepy story but there aren't any ghosts. There is also a chapter concerning the legend of Black Aggie and another chapter basically deals with the who's who of Baltimore history that can be found buried in Green Mount Cemetery, including the grave of John Wilkes Booth. All of these chapters are highly interesting but they contain nothing about ghosts. The difference between this book and others that contain several non-ghostly tales is that this author is entirely honest and has included the words legend and lore in the subtitle. Honesty, that's all I ask.

The stories mentioned above, while containing no ghosts are extremely creepy and informative. After reading the chapter about grave robbers I now know where the term "rot-gut whiskey" comes from and I also now know where to find the infamous Black Aggie statue. Ed Okonowicz is quickly becoming one of my favorite "ghost" authors, not only because his writing is so informative but also because the stories that do contain ghosts are very well written and witty. One absolutely hilarious anecdote that Okonowicz includes in this book concerns the curator of the Edgar Allen Poe house. It seems that after he first started his new job the curator, when asked what he did for a living, would tell people that he worked at the Poe house. Many people responded by commending him on his generous spirit and at first he was simply dumbfounded by these responses. After a while though the curator figured out that many people understood him to say that he worked at the po' (poor) house. Baltimore is still a very Southern city it seems.

As I mentioned earlier, the ghost stories in this book are superb and each and every one of them is backed up by recent eyewitness testimony. As an added bonus a group of ghost hunters have rated each haunt discussed based on the activity at the location. The rating is called the Haunt And Unexplained Reports rating, HAUR (pronounced horror) for short and is based on one to five tombstones.

In the introduction the author says that he collected far more stories than he could squeeze into one book. I hope this means that there will be a sequel out very soon.

REVIEWER'S NOTE - In the second edition of this book Mr. Okonowicz has added an award-winning story about a very strange performance given by someone just like himself to a very appreciative audience. This added bit of fiction is a very imaginative and spooky way for the author to end this superb book. It is a fictitious story isn't it Ed?

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Ghost Stories" from a region often give a more personal story of the history of that place. For example, I might read a bunch of history about Fort McHenry and never learn about the soldier who committed suicide in the brig. That makes it more of a human story, I think. Fort McHenry isn't just a famous place, there was a whole cast of people there with lives and thoughts coinciding with the nation and world changing events.

This book also includes some mysteries and unknowns from history that aren't necessarily ghost stories. I was preparing to take my kids to tour the Surratt House in Clinton, MD. It's the first stop that John Wilkes Booth made after assassinating President Lincoln. Mary Surratt was hung for her part in the conspiracy. "Baltimore Ghosts" talked about the burial of John Wilkes Booth and some of the secrecy surrounding it. The kids were really interested in the mystery and some of the unanswered questions as well as the photographs of the Booth gravestone.

The publishers have more books in this series of ghost stories from other nearby regions and I want to read them.