By james art In Celtic tradition, Halloween is the one night of the year when the spirits of the dead can return to Earth. But tour guides from Carolina Haunts and History believe that some ghosts roam the city of Winston-Salem year-round.
For this haunted edition of Piedmont Pit Stops, WFDD’s April Laissle takes a ghost tour of the city’s historic West End.
Ghost on the Hill
Just as the sun sets on the crisp fall evening, we find the tour group waiting near the stately Rosenbacher House. Our guide, Kim Glazer, is dressed in a long black dress and carries a candle-lit lantern. She begins with a question.
“Do I have people who believe in ghosts with me tonight?” she says.
A few hands go up.
“Okay, so my job is not to make anyone a believer,” she says. “And to present things in a way that makes you think, and then it’s up to you whether it changes your mind or not.”
With that we set off. Leaves crunch under our feet as we follow her along the winding sidewalks of the West End. We end up stopping at a park called Grace Court.
“So across the street, here at the top of the stairs, there’s a woman seen in a long blue dress and a white apron,” she says. “Now she starts here at the top of the hill, drives her down to the old YWCA building, and then comes back up, just wandering around that area. This next story I have to share with you is just one of the explanations why she may still be here with us.
Glaser explains that we are near the site of the famous Hotel Zinzendorf, a four-story Victorian-style resort with 10 elaborate towers.
“This hotel opened in May 1892 and burned down Thanksgiving Day 1892, taking with it the dream of Winston becoming a resort town,” she says.
The fire started in the laundry room.
“And then it spread to every single floor where maids worked, wearing their uniform of a long blue dress and white apron.”
She tells us the maid isn’t the only paranormal activity reported here.
“Such a significant and traumatic event like this can leave a mark on the land, and these are known as residual hauntings,” she says. “Residual hauntings allow people to experience many, many similar things, like the smell of smoke, like the fire is still burning, that feeling of temperature change if you get close, and of course, seeing a woman in a long blue dress.”
Bringing legends to life
The story is a mixture of fact and legend. And Dan Riddell, the co-founder of Carolina History and Haunts, says that’s exactly what he intended when he designed these tours. He got the idea after taking a ghost tour on a trip to Lexington, Virginia.
“Leaves were crunching on the ground, a black cat in the graveyard and all that stuff,” he says. “And the guy comes out with the lantern and the top hat and the long coat and starts not just telling us ghost stories, but combining the story behind it where you can learn an appreciation of the city.” And I absolutely fell in love with him.”
He and his wife, who is a history teacher, immediately began thinking about how they could recreate the experience back home in Greensboro. They began by interviewing residents and business owners downtown.
“It’s weird to ask someone if they have any ghost stories, but people were very receptive to it and started sharing their experiences with us,” he says. “And what we’re doing is we’re working backwards, so we’re learning people’s experiences, but we’re not just telling a ghost story on a tour, because anyone could do that. We want to find the story, dig into it and find out what it means.”
After collecting local legends, they worked with libraries and local historians to clarify them. Their first tour started in Greensboro in 2008. Fall is their busiest season, but they work year-round. Most of their customers are visitors from out of town, but many are local and often bring their families.
“Because they want to hear the history of the area, because people are proud of it,” he says. “They are proud of what Winston has been through, even though some of it may be problematic.”
As the tour comes to a close, we return to the Rosenbacher House, where Glaser points out one of the ways people of the past tried to prevent some of these disturbing hauntings described in the night.
“White is most likely the original color of the home, but the light blue on the porch ceilings and trim is the color known as blue.” It is based on the belief that spirits cannot cross water.
Despite this color choice, Glaser says the home is still believed to be haunted. But that doesn’t stop our fellow tourists, believers and non-believers alike, from going inside to see for themselves.