SPIRIT TALES AND MAGIC
Our host; Dr.G had his first paranormal experience at only eight years old. With over five decades of storytelling, magic and paranormal story collection he is an award winning story teller on a mission to revive firelight and the telling of stories!
SPIRIT TALES AND MAGIC
A field hospital, a chimney skeleton, and a phone that rings unplugged—what could go wrong?
Some places hold a charge you can feel in your skin before your mind catches up. We head across Mississippi with a listener’s prompt as our compass and land in rooms, bridges, inns, and lawns where history presses close—sometimes with names and dates, sometimes with footsteps, sometimes with a phone that rings at 2 a.m. even when the cord is out of the wall.
We start in Vicksburg at the McRaven House—field hospital, campsite, and home to Mary Elizabeth’s enduring presence—and follow the expertly led Ghost Walk that threads the siege, yellow fever, and antebellum duels through the city’s brickwork. In Natchez, King’s Tavern layers true crime over folklore: bones in a chimney, a jeweled dagger in a second fireplace, and a mistress named Madeline who refuses to be footnoted. Enterprise brings us to Stuckey’s Bridge on the Chunky River, where a lantern still wanders in story and shadow, while Jackson’s Fairview Inn offers lighter chills: marbles clacking in empty halls and the notorious unplugged phone that still finds a ring.
We lift our eyes to Mount Helena in Rolling Fork, a white facade rising from an Indigenous mound, now a wedding venue with a lady in white staring from the windowpanes. And we close in Columbus at Friendship Cemetery, where soldiers rest and a weeping angel reputedly feels like flesh. Along the way, we swap personal field notes—a cemetery chair that seemed to grow a leg under our hand—and we talk honestly about why ghost tourism is booming: these sites blend preserved architecture, lived memory, and community storytelling in ways that make the past feel near enough to touch.
If you love haunted history, Mississippi is generous: McRaven House, King’s Tavern, Stuckey’s Bridge, Fairview Inn, Mount Helena, and Friendship Cemetery belong on any paranormal travel list. Hit play, then tell us your must‑visit haunt or share your own ghost story. Subscribe, rate, and pass this one to a friend who travels with a flashlight.
Hey everybody, it's Dr. G Spirit Tales and Magic. How are you doing today? We're hoping that your October is going well. We're a little earlier than usual today, but Kissander and I's nights are going to start being tied up with shows and investigating things and many other things that we don't talk about. One of the things that we do when we look at areas is we look at tourism numbers. Now, there have been several places, and I just found out today that Mississippi has joined the list of record-breaking tourists to the state. But I'm glad to see that you know that is going on for you guys. So Stephen writes, Hey Doc, I mentioned the top six ghost stories of Mississippi. Can you brush over them for me on the next podcast? I'll understand if you can. Thanks. I wouldn't know of any reason why we couldn't mention the six scariest places. A couple of these I'm doing from memory, a couple of them I'm not. It's about time for Cassandra and I to head back down there and check things out. Uh New Orleans is another one. We need to stop in there and have a peek as well. So the six scariest places in Mississippi, you'd have to talk about the McGraven house. That's in Vicksburg. They say that more than 14 ghosts still haunt Mississippi's most haunted house. That's McRaven. At least five people have died inside the home. And the remains of eleven are buried on the property. Bones still resurface after storms on McRaven's three acres of lush gardens that once served as the Confederate campsite and field hospital. The pre-Civil War home is still lavishly furnished with antiques and relics of strange and spooky history. The house was built in 1797 by highwayman Andrew Glass, and the looter's untimely death would make him the first of many spirits to haunt this property. The most active spirit is said to be Mary Elizabeth Howard. She died during childbirth at just 15 years old in the upstairs bedroom in 1836. Now they say her apparition has appeared to numerous witnesses, and some of her belongings are still on display at McGraven. Her husband, Sheriff Stephen Howard, purchased the home in 1836, making him its second owner. After that, John H. Bobb turned the property into a field hospital for wounded soldiers after major explosions and battles. Another former occupant who still runs the house is its last resident, William Murray. He died there in nineteen eleven. Eventually his whole family did too. Murray's two daughters strangely let the whole house fall into Reuben and lived there until their own deaths. There's a haunted Vicksburg ghost walk. It's fairly long. I think it's like 10 or 12 blocks, but it's expertly led. It covers the Trail of Tears, anti-bellum duels, yellow fever epidemic, and I think it was a 47-day siege, if I'm not sure, that pushed Vicksburg to the top of mini list as being one of the most haunted places in the United States. Now there's a lot of people that say that, but I think that place definitely has a gun run at it. I wouldn't dispute that. You've got King's Tavern in Natchez, Mississippi. King's Tavern goes back to about the 1700s, and I believe it is one of the oldest structures still standing. It's also said to be the most haunted restaurant in Mississippi. There have been several ghost sightings, including Madeline, the waitress at the tavern, and the owner's mistress. There's a legend that says the tavern's owner's wife stabbed Madeline to death after learning of the affair. The tavern became a private residence until 1817, and had been the site of some seriously spooky occurrences ever since. They say a shadow figure has appeared in the mirrors. People have heard sounds of a baby crying in the empty rooms upstairs, and others have felt warmth coming from a bed as if someone were sleeping in it next to them. The skeletal remains of two men and one woman were actually found in the chimney. Many assumed that the mistress Madeline was among the ruin. Later, a jeweled dagger, the purported weapon, was found hidden in a different fireplace. The restaurant is no longer open. The building is uh I think it's currently on the market. Cassandra and I are gonna have to look into that. That would be an interesting place to put a Cassandra's. If we go from there to Enterprise, Mississippi, Stucky's bridge is there. The old covered bridge is really pretty in the daytime, but its sword path sets a creepy scene at night. The legend starts with a wayward member of the infamous Dalton gang, a man called Stuckey, who frequently robbed and murdered travelers in the southwest of Lauderdale County. Stuckey was finally caught and hanged from the bridge in eighteen fifty. Many say he's still around the area today. You might see Stuckey's ghost roaming the riverbank with a lantern in hand. Others have claimed to see an apparition hanging from the bridge. The bridge, I believe, crosses the Chunky River, I want to say. That's near Meridian, Mississippi. I don't believe that it is any longer operational. I don't even think it's a public road anymore. But teenagers and curious folklorists still seek a glimpse of old man Stuckey. There is uh a book, and I'm trying to remember, I believe it's called Southern Gothic, which goes into a little more detail about that bridge. Back in the place I grew up, there was a cover bridge where two bodies were found after a very horrific murder. And I don't know that I should go into the details of that without checking to make sure that it's one, not still under investigation, and two, something that is too creepy, maybe, not sure. But let's just say that these two people had a very gruesome death. And then, of course, they were missing. Well, if they're missing, how do we know they had a gruesome death? Or we know because of the way we found them at the bridge. Now that bridge from the outside, and I've been to that one many times. I grew up there. So that bridge is great in the daytime. You look at it and you go, oh, what a cool place. I've gone down there and taking pictures for other people. Um couple of friends of the family, I shot their prom pictures down there. About the time the sun goes down, people claim that they hear weeping. Some claim they hear loud voices and gunshots and a very hideous scream. Probably 20 or 30 people that I know of have reported those same things. And these are people who are not connected, didn't know each other. We'll put some research into covered bridge and bridge stories because I'm sure that there are many. But back to Mississippi, if we go to Jackson, we find the Fairview Inn. Now, one of Jackson's few remaining architecturally intact houses from the 1900s is a boutique hotel. They call it the Fairview Inn. Guests and employees at this house-turned hotel have acknowledged many friendly apparitions, and they say that people still roam the halls and walls. Following an investigation by the Mississippi Paranormal Research Institute a few years ago, an article reports that people have heard little kids playing marbles, being startled by strange phone calls and felt warmth where there was no warmth. I have an acquaintance who was there. When he gets a room wherever he gets a room, he unplugs the phone. Because accidents happen and people dial the wrong room number, and he doesn't want to be bothered, so he unplugs the phone. So he unplugs the phone in the Fairview Inn. Gotta go to sleep. Two o'clock in the morning, phone rings, wakes him up. Phone's still unplugged. Interesting. I do believe so. You can go there, get a cocktail in the library, and you find some of the locals there. Ask them their favorite ghost stories. Because there are fit plenty of them. From there, we're gonna run over to Rolling Fork, Mississippi. And I believe it's Mount Helena. This one's from memory. So I believe on the surface, Mount Helena is a colonial revival home. It's in Rolling Fork, Mississippi. I know that for short. The small town that birthed the teddy bear, as a matter of fact. I believe that was in 1902. Property has a romantic kind of speckled backstory. It was built atop a ceremonial Indian mound in Mississippi's Delta region. And I believe it was originally built as a retirement retirement home for Helen and George Harris. That occurred about in the late 1800s, I want to say 1896, 1897. The first building burned to the ground before they could move in. So they had to start over. After 49 years of marriage, George died in 1911. Helen lived at the Mount Helena until she died in, I believe, 1917. They're both buried nearby. People report seeing a lady in a white gown peering from the windows or standing in the front yard. The Mississippi Paranormal Society investigated the property and recorded some weird voice phenomenon and captured some shadow figures and lots of orbs and photos. Today in Mount Helena's uh very stunning wedding venue. If you get a chance to go there, you get down to the bottom of the hill and you look up. And I don't know if it's still white or not, but if it is, there there's this huge white building. It looks like you're looking up to Mount Olympus or something. It's a very stunning view. Now it's kind of a more romantic, less spooky past kind of a place. Some of the employees there are told not to talk about the ghosts or anything from the past. It's funny how business kind of attempts to ruin things like that. Yeah, along those lines, Moundsville State Penitentiary. Like I said, a grip in that area. Not in Moundsville, but close to it. Close enough, it's a very short drive. And I wanted to, after the penitentiary closed, remodel a certain section of it and put in a Cassandra's. Cassandra's is a magic storytelling venue. It's dinner and a show. It's also a place you could have your wedding rehearsal, dinner, or whatever you want to do. Um currently there are none of those in operations. They take the place of uh places we have called illusions at. The last one that was opened was Illusions at the Office Lounge in Wheeling, West Virginia. The section of that place that has been remodeled, and I got no, no, no, you can't do that for a decade. We'll go somewhere else. So, of course, they let somebody else do it. But when you go there and you go into the remodel, the nice part, there are a few ghosts here. You know, the ghosts are all out there. Been in a lot of ghosty places, taken a lot of ghost tours. Every once in a while, we'll take a millimeter or something with us and poke around just a tiny bit. Mounds will pen. It's haunted from the front door to the back door and the right side to the left side, from the basement to the attic. And doesn't have a non-haunted part. Just for fun. Now, if we go to Columbus, Mississippi, and I have a friend that's had an experience with this one. Friendship Cemetery. It's kind of a poignant and eerie landmark, if you will. It encapsulates the unthinkable mass loss of the Civil War. The cemetery was established, I believe, in 1849 as the final resting place of local citizens and around 2,200 soldiers who fell during the Civil War Battle of Shiloh, which I believe took place in 1862. You can meander through the military section of the cemetery, and you may meet one of the fallen soldiers. There's a lot of talk about apparitions, and I have never seen one myself, but allegedly there are many pictures taken where a soldier is in the picture. Now, one of the things that personally creeps me out about that cemetery, there's a weeping angel in that cemetery. He was a preacher. It said that if you touch its hand, some reported that it feels like flesh. I have not been there to feel that, but I have a friend who was, and we talked a very long time about that. In Martinsferry, Ohio, there's a chair in a cemetery. A lot of legends about the chair, and we've talked about the chair before on the podcast. You sit in the chair, you die in an auto accident. I did a little more than sit in a chair, but the first time I encountered the chair, we were playing this crazy game where they you allow somebody to blindfold you. You get to look around the cemetery. You stand in one place and you turn very slowly, and you look all around the cemetery. Then the blindfold goes on and they lead you somewhere. And you touch a stone and see if you can feel anything. So, like they say, kneel, and I knelt down and say, touch the stone, and I reach up, and I swear I'm touching somebody's leg. So I very slowly pulled my hand back, and I said, sorry about that. Then I don't get an answer. So I reach out again. There's no leg, and I touch it, I feel it. I'm like, ah, it's the chair. So I'm at the chair. I take off my blindfold and I turn around. And they're all standing 60 feet away down a little bit of a hill. None of them wanting to go anywhere near the chair. So in my mind, I touched somebody's leg. Was it the leg of someone sitting in the chair? That would be interesting, wouldn't it? Those are some haunted places in Mississippi. And again, hats off to you guys. I'm glad that you're having a record tourist year. Uh you're tooling around the U.S. and you want to stop at a place that will take you back in time a little bit and that will amaze you by its hospitality, at least if it's anything like it was 20 years ago. Then you should put Mississippi on the list. Mount Sterling, Kentucky goes on that list as well. Do you have a graveyard or a must-visit place on your list? We'd love to know about it. We'll be all over the place as October continues. And as always, we're gonna tell you that there is indeed a world unseen. It's a world that exists all around us all the time. And every now and then, for whatever the reason, we catch a glimpse of it, and the dead get in. And as always, my friends, we're also going to say, Send us your ghost stories, but hey, tell a ghost story. It's good for you. Good afternoon from Phoenix. We'll talk tomorrow.
