Sorry for the long pause between haunted real estate posts. We’ve been busy on the family front with serious illness and hospitalization (my dad) and blogging about ghosts has been a luxury that my time budget couldn’t afford. But now I’m (we’re) getting a little break with a visit to the east coast to see family and with that breather I’m able to investigate a little and blog a little.
Today my family and I toured Fort Delaware (on Pea Patch Island) in Delaware. It’s now a state park but was a Civil War POW camp and is supposedly the most haunted place in the state. It was made even more famous by having an episode of Ghost Hunters feature it.
A friendly docent named Scott Debski told us a bunch of interesting stories about the place, and I’m afraid my blog post really won’t do his storytelling (or the ambiance of the place) justice. Even so, I’ll give it a shot.
One sad, salient story relates to the death of a child near the entrance of the fort. During the Civil War era, a young Italian boy named Stefano ran errands for the captured officers. One ran the poor boy ragged! During one race down the 
slipperly granite stairs, Stefano took a bad tumble, badly injuring himself as he rolled down the bent stairway until he crashed at the base of it – dead or mortally injured and dead soon thereafter.
The spot where Stefano landed is oddly darker than the stone pavers around it, which I hope will be visible enough with the photo taken with my Treo.
There’s a long, darkened walkway where some have experienced hints of hauntings. We walked through (and I borrowed my son’s new digital camera to snap a lot of pics) but saw/felt nothing. (Unfortunately, an extremely boistrous group of enthusiastic primary schoolers was just a few feet behind us. I don’t begrudge them being there in the least, but would have preferred a quieter walk through the place.)
Toward the end of our stay on the island, I asked Scott if he’d ever heard, seen, or otherwise experienced a ghost at the fort. He regaled us with two stories from his first night there (happening at around 3am) in which there were distinct sounds (a fife playing and a woman crying) with no natural explanation. Both came from directions in which the sounds were impossible. (He tells it better.)
More to come soon!
Mary
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