The first time I heard about the Goatman was in my elementary school library. I don’t remember when — probably third or fourth grade. I was an avowed fan of “Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark,” so I picked up a book with a similar collection of ghost stories and urban legends. That’s when I found out there was a half-human, half-goat monster lurking in the woods near my home, right in Prince George’s County.
I remember the story claiming the Goatman had been a scientist at the Beltsville Agricultural Research Center who did research on goats, but “something went wrong,” and now he attacked cars with an ax. I also remember getting in trouble after I told my younger brother and his friends about the Goatman, possibly laying it on a little thick, and one of their parents called my mother to complain.
People love to be scared — that is the lure of any intriguing story that tells of mysterious sounds and candlelight emanating from an empty room, bloodthirsty beasts hiding in the forest, or spirits of the undead haunting a historic building. Now that it’s officially Scary Season, we thought we’d share some spooky tales set in the D.C. area. Each is associated with a location you can still see today.
Visit them yourself … if you dare. — FH
Bladensburg Dueling Grounds
Ghosts are said to appear at sites where people experienced a violent death — which would make the Bladensburg Dueling Grounds one of the most likely places to encounter a spirit inside the Beltway. More than 50 duels were fought just outside D.C., adjacent to what is now Fort Lincoln Cemetery, alongside a tributary of the Anacostia River that is alternatively known as Bloody Run and Dueling Creek. Combatants who fell mortally wounded here include Commodore Stephen Decatur, a hero of the U.S. Navy; Daniel Key, the son of Francis Scott Key, who fought a fellow Naval Academy midshipman over a dispute about the speed of a steamboat; and Rep. Jonathan Cilley of Maine, whose death at the hands of Rep. William Graves of Kentucky in 1838 led to Congress banning challenges to duels in Washington.
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These days, what’s left of the grounds has the appearance of a no-frills suburban park: long and flat, shaded by a towering oak tree, with a simple gazebo. Dueling Creek trickles by in a concrete culvert, past historical markers discussing the Dueling Grounds and the Battle of Bladensburg, which was fought here in 1814. In the late afternoon, you can hear train horns, birdsong, chirping insects and the occasional rumble of a bus. But don’t be lulled: In his landmark book “Ghosts! Washington Revisited,” journalist John Alexander recounts reports of “shades often silhouetted against the moonlight” and the experience of a young boy who saw the apparition of an old man, “dark, but not really transparent,” that vanished when the boy stepped on a twig.
But even if you don’t see a ghost pacing among the trees, the gazebo offers a nice place to rest and contemplate your own mortality. — FH
Bladensburg Road and 38th Street, Colmar Manor. Open dawn to dusk. colmarmanor.org.
‘Blair Witch’ woods
News flash: The Blair Witch isn’t real, and neither are the Black Hills, which the fictional witch is said to haunt in the 1999 film “The Blair Witch Project.” But don’t let a pesky thing like facts stop you from getting your Halloween haunt on.
You have two options to experience the “The Blair Witch Project,” filmed throughout Maryland. The first is to go to Burkittsville, Md., where the film is said to take place. (Note: Please don’t steal the town signs; after the film’s release, the town had to redesign them due to repeated pilfering of its original wooden ones.) The second option is to visit Gathland State Park, a wooded expanse near Burkittsville, where you can spend the night just like the ill-fated trio in the film. (And like The Post’s Natalie B. Compton once did.)
To satiate your inner film nerd, rather than revel in the lore of the Blair Witch, visit the primary filming site at Seneca Creek State Park in Gaithersburg. Or join ranger Erik Ledbetter for a hike Oct. 29 from 1 to 3 p.m. at the Button Farm Living History Center to learn about how the movie was filmed and visit shooting locations. — OM
Gathland State Park: 900 Arnoldtown Rd., Jefferson. Seneca Creek State Park: 11950 Clopper Rd., Gaithersburg
The Omni Shoreham Hotel
On Oct. 30, 1930, the Shoreham Hotel, built by real estate developer Harry Bralove, celebrated its opening with a grand party. The Woodley Park hotel, now known as the Omni Shoreham, was designed to offer high-rolling guests beautiful views of Rock Creek Park and luxurious accommodations. But trouble soon plagued minority shareholder Henry Doherty, who lived with his family in what is now Suite 870. One morning, legend has it, Doherty’s housekeeper, Juliette Brown, died suddenly while calling down to the front desk. Later, Doherty’s wife and then daughter died in the suite. After the deaths, “Henry Doherty returned to Chile but continued to pay $85 a month to rent the suite until the 1960s, when he sold his share in the hotel,” according to a 1997 Post article.
After Doherty left, the suite sat abandoned for years. But that doesn’t necessarily mean its former occupants left the building. According to local lore, guests in nearby rooms began to complain about loud noises coming from the suite — which happened to be vacant. In 2007, Washingtonian Magazine sent a journalist to investigate the suite, but he didn’t find concrete evidence of a haunting. In the late 1990s, the hotel tried to market the apparently haunted suite as an attraction, but these days, management prefers to tamp down any talk of ghosts. Requests to visit the suite and interview staff members for this article were declined. — OM
2500 Calvert St. NW.
Bunny Man Bridge
Spend Halloween night at a dark, foreboding single-lane tunnel under railroad tracks in the woods near Clifton, Va., and you might come face to face with the Bunny Man — a homicidal criminal who stalked this area in the early 20th century, slashing the throats of his victims and gutting them like animals before hanging the bodies from what’s known as Bunny Man Bridge — always on Oct. 31.
That is, if you believe everything you read on the internet.
Around the turn of the millennium, a horror story titled “The Clifton Bunny Man” began circulating online. The eerie tale involved inmates from an asylum escaping during a “Fugitive”-style bus crash, gory child murders and supernatural appearances.
Fairfax County archivist Brian A. Conley dug deep into the published version, proving that much of it was pure fiction — but also uncovering what might have been the original spark for the legend: In October 1970, a man wearing a bunny suit accosted a man and a woman in a parked car on Fairfax’s Guinea Road, accused them of trespassing, and hurled a hatchet through the car’s window. A week later, there was another sighting on the same road. This time, “The Rabbit” was chopping a house’s porch with an ax, again complaining about trespassers.
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Word spread after The Post covered the incidents, and soon children were reporting sightings of the Bunny Man on both sides of the Potomac. Decades later, the legend (loosely) inspired the Bunnyman slasher film series, which, along with the internet story, sparked new interest in Bunny Man and his bridge, especially around Halloween.
So how did the Colchester Overpass — that spooky one-lane tunnel in Clifton — become associated with the legend, to the point that it’s now dubbed “Bunny Man Bridge” on Google Maps? Conley speculates that it’s because the secluded bridge was a popular party spot for Fairfax teenagers in the 1970s and ’80s. “Where there is beer and bonfires, there are stories told,” he said in an email. “I believe many teens heard the story in literal sight of the Colchester Road Overpass.”
In that setting, it’s easy to see how the tale of terror spread. — FH
Colchester Road (Route 612), south of Fairfax Station Road, Clifton. research.fairfaxcounty.gov/local-history/bunnyman.
‘The Exorcist’ steps
Wedged between a stone wall and what was once a brick warehouse, now owned by Georgetown University, is a set of 75 steep, concrete stairs. For some, these narrow steps may look like little more than an aerobic challenge (some fervid Georgetown athletes seem to view them an extension of the StairMaster), but fans of the 1973 horror classic “The Exorcist” will recognize them from the film’s climactic showdown: A priest, played by Jason Miller, sacrifices himself to save a possessed 12-year-old girl by throwing himself out a window, tumbling down the steps to his death.
On a recent visit, a cool wind blew down from the stairs, which connect Prospect Street NW and Canal Road NW, rustling the draping ivy. But as dusk approached, more and more visitors, including those on a ghost tour, gathered near the bottom; the crowds hadn’t come to search — Ghostbusters-style — for priestly spirits, but to take selfies with the plaque marking the filming location and re-create shots from the movie. While the steps attract more film buffs than apparition hunters, there is a chilling feeling to the claustrophobia-inducing passage, especially in the evenings. Maybe take a demon-repelling medallion on your next visit, just to be safe. — SS
Between Canal Road NW and Prospect Street NW, where M Street NW becomes Canal Road NW.
Gadsby’s Tavern
In September 1816, a well-dressed man and woman arrived in Alexandria aboard a ship from the West Indies. The man asked for the best accommodations at the City Hotel — now part of Gadsby’s Tavern — explaining that his wife was seriously ill. He refused to publicly divulge either of their names, even when a doctor was called. According to a pamphlet called “Lady of Legend” sold at Gadsby’s, she died of typhoid fever in her hotel room on Oct. 14. Her “disconsolate husband” erected an ornate table tomb in St. Paul’s Cemetery nearby, dedicated to “a Female Stranger.” Even in death, the woman stayed anonymous, leading to numerous theories about the couple’s true identity, including the unlikely idea that she was Theodosia Burr, the daughter of Aaron Burr.
The Female Stranger remains one of the hotel’s most celebrated guests, alongside George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette. Unlike them, however, she may never have left. Passersby have claimed to have seen a woman holding a candle in the window of Room 8 — supposedly the room in which the Female Stranger died — in the middle of the night, when the museum is locked up tight. There is also a story about the ghost of a woman in 19th-century clothing carrying a candle from the hotel ballroom to Room 8 before disappearing — leaving behind an unlit candle, warm to the touch.
Michele Longo, the director of education at Gadsby’s, which is now a restaurant and a city-owned museum, has been with the museum for more than 15 years and hosted many overnight events, including with troops of Girl Scouts. She swears she’s never seen anything unusual, but “at the end of the day, it all goes back to, this is a local legend. Her story has staying power. Who doesn’t love a mystery?” — FH
134 N. Royal St., Alexandria. Open Thursday to Tuesday. alexandriava.gov/GadsbysTavern. $5, $3 for children age 5-12, free for children age 4 and younger.
The Goatman of Fletchertown Road
On Nov. 4, 1971, a couple in Old Bowie went looking for their missing dog. Not far from a set of railroad tracks, they were shocked to find her head and nothing else. “Ginger, a sprightly mongrel who closely resembled a German shepherd, has been decapitated cleanly at the neck,” The Post reported later that month. “The body is not found.”
The Goatman had apparently claimed another victim.
The Goatman has been spotted for decades in the dark woods in Prince George’s County. The University of Maryland’s Maryland Folklore collection, an archive of folk tales, ghost stories and other oral histories collected by students as far back as the 1940s, contains numerous local variations on the Goatman story that place him all over the county, including “The Goatman of Tucker Road,” set in Fort Washington, and “The Goatman and Crybaby Bridge: Local Legends of Lottsford Road,” closer to Bowie. In some versions, he’s an old hermit with a goatlike beard. In others, he’s a raging, bipedal hybrid of a goat and a man who attacks cars with an ax and runs off with people’s dogs.
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Fletchertown Road, the secluded area reputed to be a lover’s lane, eventually became the center of the Goatman legend, where teenagers gathered to party and, eventually, scare themselves while searching for him in the 1970s and ’80s.
But does the Goatman still stalk Prince George’s County? When The Post went out to investigate the phenomena in “remote Prince George’s woods” in 1971, a reporter found “an occasional discarded mattress or junked car” on the edges of the “dense woods” and a gutted refrigerator spray-painted with “Goatman was here.” These days, along Fletchertown Road, Goatman would be hiding in the woods at the suburban respite Northridge Park, watching people walk their dogs around an artificial lake. There are few places to pull over and park, let alone cruise around Goatman hunting with your buds on a Friday night.
Still, if you want to tempt fate … — FH
Fletchertown Road, Bowie.
Mary Surratt Boarding House
When you walk into Wok and Roll, the late-night Chinatown karaoke bar serving Chinese and Japanese fare, you’ll see the expected: saketinis lining the counters, the remnants of fried dumplings strewn across tables and a drunken 20-something belting out the lyrics to “Before He Cheats” to a room of uncomfortable patrons. You might also see a ghost.
Mary Surratt was the first woman executed by the United States government. When the death of her husband in 1862 exacerbated her already-dire financial situation, she rented out their Maryland property (to a man who was later a key witness in her trial) and opened a boardinghouse on H Street NW. One frequent visitor was actor and secessionist John Wilkes Booth, who began hosting meetings at the house to organize a scheme to kidnap President Abraham Lincoln. When that failed, Booth’s intentions turned murderous — Lincoln was killed at nearby Ford’s Theatre in 1865. Surratt was charged as a member of the conspiracy, and executed at Fort McNair three months later.
Some speculation remains, even more than a century later, about Surratt’s involvement in the murder plot; by some accounts, she was a minor player only in the kidnapping scheme. Maybe that’s why her spirit, struggling with the unresolved circumstances of death, may revisit the site of her crimes. Unexplained noises and cries have been reported in the former boardinghouse, especially on the second floor — though they might be harder to hear over the commotion of the private karaoke rooms that now occupy the space. — SS
604 H St. NW. wokandrolldc.com.
National Building Museum
Some longtime Washingtonians might remember the days when the building north of Judiciary Square belonged to the Pension Bureau. But long before the property was used for processing the pensions of Civil War veterans, widows and orphans, it belonged to a city jail nicknamed the “Blue Jug.” This, along with its ties to Civil War history, serves as the basis for some of the National Building Museum’s most haunting tales — including the 1940s-era story of night watchmen spotting a ghostly figure on horseback.
During the day, the building’s dramatic architecture might inspire wonder. But according to Amanda Hodges, the museum’s visitor services manager, the columns become “imposing in a much scarier way” at night. “It takes on a whole new persona,” she said. “You get a little disoriented and wonder what’s behind all the arches.”
Hodges also serves as a guide on the museum’s ghost tours, which are offered evenings throughout October. And while she said she’s keeping most of the building’s haunted tales behind the tour’s $20 paywall, she will say this: “I was not a person who ever had any inclination that a person could see a ghost until, one day, I truly saw one. I can’t unsee what I saw.” — SS
401 F St. NW. nbm.org.
The Maryland Inn
You can’t spend 250 years in the hotel business without encountering a couple of ghosts — and this historic inn, which celebrated the milestone birthday last year, is home to several. The most retold story is that of a woman remembered simply as “The Bride,” the fiancée of Navy captain Charles Campbell. She waited for him to return from sea in a fourth-floor room of the inn (on some accounts for weeks, others for days), and when she was finally alerted that his arrival day had come, she donned the dress she had sewn for the occasion and paced anxiously around the room. But commotion outside her window stopped her — the captain, who had paused to try to glimpse her from the street, was struck and killed by a horse-pulled cart. She later leaped from the window, and visitors say they can still hear her footsteps as she continues to pace the room.
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According to some guests, Campbell also haunts the inn, though he supposedly prefers spending his time in the basement’s Drummer’s Lot Pub. Perhaps he appreciates the company of a Revolutionary War soldier, who is also said to linger in the pub, singing sea shanties in a distant voice. — SS
16 Church Cir., Annapolis.
Walsh mansion
Socialite and mining heiress Evalyn Walsh McLean used to boast that things that were bad luck for other people were good luck for her. Perhaps that’s why she wasn’t afraid to purchase the supposedly cursed Hope Diamond, once owned by King Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette (pre-guillotine).
But maybe she should have been nervous. Tragedy soon befell Walsh McLean, one of the Hope’s last private owners before it was donated to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958: Her 9-year-old son was struck and killed by a swerving automobile; her daughter died from an overdose of sleeping pills; and her husband, an alcoholic and heir to The Washington Post, tried to divorce her after his series of affairs and was eventually committed to an insane asylum with a declaration of insanity. Walsh McLean’s ghost can reportedly still be seen descending her mansion’s palatial stairway, now the Indonesian Embassy.
The rumors of the Hope Diamond’s curse were captured in a 1908 Washington Post article titled “Remarkable Jewel of VooDoo: Hope Diamond has brought trouble to all who have owned it.” But as Gabriela Farfan, the curator of gems and minerals in the Museum of Natural History, explains, this is a common marketing tool in the gem industry. “Some of those owners were desperate to sell and likely decided that even bad publicity is good publicity,” she said. Thankfully, Farfan also said the museum has faced no ill fortune on account of the priceless stone. — SS
2020 Massachusetts Ave. NW.
The National Theatre
If you’re a theater kid, you’ve probably dealt with a stage spirit — or at least the threat of one. At the National Theatre, which opened in 1835, that spirit is John McCullough. The actor was allegedly killed beneath the National during the 1880s after fighting with a fellow thespian. Since his death, there have been tales of crew members seeing the friendly apparition backstage.
“Every theater has its lore,” explained Ryan Baker, director of marketing for the National Theatre, who hasn’t experienced any hauntings at the National but stresses the history that is etched into the soul of the building. That history is apparent in the old show art on the walls, one of which is for “Sweet Charity” and honors the life of choreographer and actor Bob Fosse, who had a fatal heart attack outside the National in 1987.
The theater is “really alive with spirit, spirit of the legacy of so many legends in the theater world and of so many incredible, groundbreaking shows that had their runs here,” according to Baker. While there aren’t any spooky shows taking place at the National this Halloween, “Mrs. Doubtfire” will be playing until the 15th, then “The Wiz” will be onstage Oct. 24-29 if you think you can coax out the spirit of John McCullough for a haunting performance. — OM
1321 Pennsylvania Ave. NW.
The Octagon Museum
If any place could turn someone into a ghost believer, it’s the Octagon Museum.
Built for John Tayloe III and his wife, Ann Ogle Tayloe, the historic home, which was completed in 1801, housed President James Madison and his family for six months after the British burned down the White House in 1814 and was the spot where Madison signed the Treaty of Ghent in February 1815, formally ending the War of 1812.
Wars may have been ended in this home, but the party never stopped. “People have walked past and it sounds like there’s a big gathering happening, there’s glass clinking, commotion happening, and the police come and there’s no one here,” said Amanda Ferrario, manager of the Octagon Museum. Ferrario has had to deal with her own sensor-based alarms going off more than a few times during her almost two years at the museum.
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At least one employee has quit after an encounter in the basement — a cleaning woman who sought new employment years ago after claiming to see a man tipping his top hat to her. The basement, which houses the kitchen, often makes guests uncomfortable; some refuse to even venture down the narrow staircase to see it. The underground space is also a reminder of the conditions forced upon enslaved people who toiled in the house. “It is a space of trauma, and that’s something that we do recognize, especially with our history of enslavement here,” said Ferrario.
Many of the stories you hear about the home — like bodies being found in the walls or dramatic deaths via staircase — have been proved false. But other happenings remain unexplained. The museum is open Fridays and Saturdays, with twice-daily guided tours. If you want an evening dedicated to the macabre, sign up for Poltergeists and Pints on Oct. 28, a $40 event at the museum where guests will get a candlelit tour, access to primary documents to show the authentically spooky history of the house and drinks from DC Brau. — OM
1799 New York Ave. NW. architectsfoundation.org/octagon-museum. Fridays and Saturdays, 11 a.m.-4 p.m. $10; $5 for children under 18, D.C. residents, students, teachers, seniors and military; free for children under 5.
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