Olivia Apartments Haunted History Tours and Paranormal Investigations

06/02/2024

https://fb.watch/ssIYIGjv6K/

06/02/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/uTWHLcogfhidRx5Z/?mibextid=Nif5oz

This isn’t about the Northern Lights, which made their way into the Ozarks on May 10th, or rather, the lights are only one sliver of ‘this’. I had intended to write this the following day, but wondered if the visual ad nauseum of photos from back-yards warranted accretion. But frankly, my observation is that the visual aspect was the totality of the experience being uploaded to the void. And, that, decidedly was not our experience on May 10th. So, I waited.

The digital void has flowed onward, turning to the meme of the hour, the ‘hey, aren’t I clever’ posts, and business as usual info drops in the ever-louder din of the void that we all take part in, to one extent, or another. But, my mind has turned back to May 10th, repeatedly.

It was not a back-yard experience for starters. Mid-afternoon we started talking about watching the anticipated northern lights. Within a few hours we were headed for the darkest spot within a couple hundred miles. Light pollution is not something we think much of these days, especially at night, but you become very aware once you get out of its line of sight. The Bortle Scale and Light Pollution maps strip away any illusion of our connection to the skies our ancestors experienced. We had to settle for a Bortle Scale 2 spot. Scale 1 spots are few and far between, in our backlit screen world. The trip was immersive as we turned from U.S. Highway to state roads, to county roads which, in turn, shrunk to one lane, gravel trails, the likes of which I haven’t driven in decades. We rolled the windows down to take in the lights, greens and whites and pinks enveloping all of the skies we craned our gaze to catch. I had to smile when the years of inattention resulted in our having to back-up a half-mile, to find a way around the gravel obstacle. Thoughts drifted to times when we were not perpetually tied to a digital map and people didn’t know where you were every minute; times too many have never experienced; nor known the freedom of, and the inherent, potential danger of; which in turn are reminiscent of the farther recesses of time, when the legends of the Northern Lights were new.

The center of that Scale 2 spot was mesmerizing, an untended gravel road with more rock than gravel, barbed-wire fence, remnants of a long-unused cattle shed and farm equipment, and a solitary, weather-worn radio tower that made me swear Wolfman Jack was about to walk up on us and say we needed to howl at the low-lying moon-a crescent that was 3-D light against the black sphere silhouette, blacker than the black ether in which it hung. And the stars, more than I can remember in one sky, as if thousands of meteors teetered on the edge of the atmosphere.

But the sound. In a moment infamous for light, the sounds had the most effect. The expected May night sounds were absent; no far-off cars, planes, animals, insects, nor wind, with two exceptions. First, an occasional coyote howl, which was very near, and drew my attention to the nearby rise in the land, mere hundreds of yards to my right, with the heavy crescent moon seemingly inches above it. In my imagination, Wolfman Jack laughed in response. Perhaps it wasn’t just my imagination: “The Eskimos thought that the celestial phenomenon represented deceased family members, but instead of fearing the light, they beckoned and invoked it. They were sure that the dancing souls could be talked to, and they conjured up the light through rituals to whisper messages to their closest deceased relatives. It is also said that their dogs would howl at the light, and this meant that the dogs recognized their former owners.” And then, second, was the creaking of metal, swinging from some suspended thing, the sound you instantly recognize if you lived in the country and farming was a part of your routine; except there was no wind, and the sound was very near, in the still air. Once those familiar sounds were catalogued, the other seemed to pour in and hold attention. An otherworldly cacophony, which intellectually I was told for years has no empirical basis, but recently science has conceded a caveat (read to the end for the spoiler); but when they wash past you they are undeniable. They evoke the images of the masters, illustrating medieval tellings of myths of the north. Legends are divided on whether it is good or bad to react to the sky’s whistling. Much like tales of Irish fairies and North American indigenous tales of the Little People, some tales hint that you may call the whistling to you, but you may or may not like what you get in response. Some legends go as far as saying the lights may cut one’s head off if summoned. If you were not sure you wanted that fate, it was also believed that clapping your hands might keep the lights at bay. For the Scots, my own ancestors, the Northern Lights were the “Merry Dancers”. Even though this seems innocent enough, the dancers were warriors who had died in battle. In the Scottish archipelago the Hebrides, bloodstones, or heliotropes are a common sight. The Scots believed the red spots on the bloodstones were drops of blood, fallen from the sky as the Merry Dancers engaged in battle.

Listening intently, we were still as well. Instinctively, there is a sense you are experiencing something touching upon the other side. The feeling grew that we were not alone, that others stood watching us. The sense grew until I heard “I’m done taking photos.” The car door shut and with a shake of the head, “Man. It’s creepier here than it should be.”

“Yeah, it is kinda creepy.”

A sideways look, “If you admit it’s creepy, you know it’s creepy.”

I smiled. Wolfman Jack howled with laughter in my imagination.

We finally left, reluctantly, closer to the witching hour than midnight, this spot having left more than just an impression. We talked, stopped at a welcome gas station, grabbed snacks, and talked and drove.

“I want to go back there again. There’s something about that place, lights or no.”

“Me, too,” I nodded.

Wolfman Jack winked and put his sunglasses on and leaned into the microphone in my imagination; not the Top 40 Wolfman, but the young DJ outlaw at a border blaster station, coming across the air like those Merry Dancers reigning blood down from the battle in the sky, voice finding its way to that weather-worn radio tower in the dark of a Bortle Scale 2 spot, and all across the US, until corporate interests shut it all down; a listening experience few remember these days, about as rare as hearing the Northern Lights calling. Candidly, I don’t remember the outlaw voice, but there were hints in the older Wolfman Jack’s voice, which was a backdrop to my younger days. Likewise, perhaps (the original) Kowalski* was Hollywood’s Merry Dancer to the fictional outlaw DJ Supersoul’s warnings, in a way only those staring down the whistling of the Northern Lights ages ago would understand our electrified world and shared electronic dreams on the screen. Maybe the old ones will forgive us our forsaking the night sky.

"At night the heavens are starry and black, up here on top of the world, across the sky northern lights dance, reds and greens a-twirl. The Inuits say don't whistle, when the northern lights are high, lest they swoop to earth and carry you up to the luminescent sky."
"Labrador in Winter", Kate Tuthill

On the other hand, in Scandanavia and Japan, it was said a child conceived when the Northern Lights were visible would enjoy good luck and prosperity. the Sami people of Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia say the Northern Lights are the spirits of their ancestors, and are a sign of good fortune and that they have the power to heal and protect people from harm.

The solar storm that produced the May 10th Northern Lights was an unusually strong one, allowing them to be seen in the Ozarks. Similar storms allowed the lights to be seen as far south as Greece and Italy, affording the Northern Lights a spot in classical Greek and Roman mythology: “The Greeks held that Aurora (meaning wind) was the sister of Helios and Seline, the sun and moon respectively, and that she raced across the early morning sky in her multi-coloured chariot to alert her siblings to the dawning of a new day. The Romans also associated the Northern Lights with a new day believing them to be Aurora, the goddess of dawn.”

Many folktales associated the Northern Lights with otherworldly affairs, including:

“Many Inuit, the Arctic’s Indigenous peoples, believed they were spirits of the dead playing a game with a walrus skull as the “ball.” The Inuit of Nunivak Island in the Bering Sea had their own flipped take on this story, believing that it was walrus spirits playing with a human skull…Indigenous Greenlanders believed that the lights were dancing spirits of children who had died at birth…For Wisconsin’s Fox Native Americans, the aurora gave them a sense of foreboding—representing their slain enemies preparing for revenge…In Alaska, some Inuit groups saw the lights as the spirits of the animals they had hunted, namely beluga whales, seals, salmon and deer…The Inuit of Hudson Bay dreaded the lights, believing they were the lanterns of demons pursuing lost souls…In Finland, a mystical fox was thought to have created the aurora, its bushy tail spraying snow and throwing sparks into the sky…Some Algonquin peoples believed their cultural hero, Nanahbozho, relocated to the far north after he finished creating the Earth. He lit large fires, which reflected back to his people in the form of the northern lights. This let them know he was thinking of them, even from far away…In perhaps the best oxymoron in British folklore, Scottish legend refers to the lights as “Merry Dancers” engaged in bloody battle…Native Americans of the Great Plains thought the light display came from northern tribes cooking their dead enemies in huge pots over blazing fires…Inuit in Point Barrow, Alaska’s northernmost spot, believed the aurora was evil. They carried knives to protect themselves from it…In Estonia, one legend said the lights appeared when whales were playing games. Another said they were sleighs taking guests to a spectacular wedding feast…Wisconsin’s Menominee Native Americans saw the lights as torches used by benevolent giants to spear fish at night…Fishermen in northern Sweden took the lights as a good omen, believing they reflected large schools of herring in nearby seas.”
Marsea Nelson, Natural Habitat Adventures
Science has traditionally dismissed tales of the northern lights whistling as folktales, as people viewing the lights usually do not hear whistling, but folktales are often based in fact. Science recently confirmed this:

“[S]cientists set up recording equipment in the Finnish village of Fiskars and listened to the night sky. Most of the time the auroras were silent, but to their surprise they found that about 5% of the strongest auroras were associated with whistles, cracks and hisses. The researchers found that the noises always coincided with a temperature inversion (cold air trapped under a lid of warm air) and appear to be caused by the release of static charge, linked to changes in atmospheric electricity caused by the aurora’s disturbance to Earth’s magnetic field.”

***
Another reconciliation of the experiences of the Northern Lights and science, pre-recent findings is found here:
“Some say that if you whistle at the Northern Lights, they will dance for you. The more cautious argue that one should never whistle when the Northern Lights are low, as it can bring great misfortune, even death. One story from Hay River, Northwest Territories, tells of five hunters who died because the bells on their dog harnesses caused the Northern Lights to come close to Earth. The hunters saw the lights descending, but even though they lay flat in the snow beside the sleds, they inhaled some part of the aurora and all perished.
Another mystery of the Northern Lights is the sound that they are said to make. The noise generated by the Aurora Borealis has been reported in legend, folklore and in modern times. The phenomenon is a mystery to scientists, as the thin air of the ionosphere where the lights are generated cannot carry sound waves.
In 1995 [before the Finnish study confirmed the empirical basis for the whistling], science writer Ned Rozell, of the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute, wrote an article entitled "Straining to Hear the Voice of the Aurora." Rozel interviewed Tom Hallinan, a professor of geophysics at the Institute. Hallinan had studied the aurora for decades and claimed to have heard it himself.
‘There's something going on,’ Hallinan was quoted as saying. ‘It's scientifically unreasonable, yet people do hear it.’
One theory is that the brain may sense electromagnetic waves from the aurora and through some unknown process, convert them to sound. A different theory holds the aurora creates electrical currents on the ground, which might create an electrical discharge from nearby objects such as trees or buildings which the human ear can then hear.
A Canadian anthropologist, Ernest Hawkes, published an account in 1916 which gave a more traditional explanation. According to his research at the beginning of the 1900s, the Labrador Inuit believed the aurora to be the torches of spirits illuminating a pathway to heaven for souls of people who died a voluntary or violent death. Hawkes related an Inuit belief that the spirits could be seen in the aurora kicking around the skull of a walrus in a game similar to soccer.
‘The whistling crackling noise which sometimes accompanies the aurora is the voices of these spirits trying to communicate with the people of the earth,’ Hawkes added. "They should always be answered in a whispering voice.’
Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen wrote something similar about a Greenland Inuit belief in this celestial soccer match, in 1932
‘It is this ball game of the departed souls that appears as the aurora borealis, and is heard as a whistling, rustling, crackling sound. The noise is made by the souls as they run across the frost-hardened snow of the heavens. If one happens to be out alone at night when the aurora borealis is visible, and hears this whistling sound, one has only to whistle in return and the light will come nearer, out of curiosity.’”
Dale Jarvis, Saltwire.com
*”Vanishing Point”, 1971
Sources:

https://astrobackyard.com/the-bortle-scale/;
https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/ =4.00&lat=45.8720&lon=14.5470&state=eyJiYXNlbWFwIjoiTGF5ZXJCaW5nUm9hZCIsIm92ZXJsYXkiOiJ3YV8yMDE1Iiwib3ZlcmxheWNvbG9yIjpmYWxzZSwib3ZlcmxheW9wYWNpdHkiOjYwLCJmZWF0dXJlc29wYWNpdHkiOjg1fQ==;
https://optcorp.com/blogs/telescopes-101/the-bortle-scale;
https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/68989061 #:~:text=It%20was%20caused%20by%20the,including%20satellites%20orbiting%20our%20planet;
https://www.saltwire.com/newfoundland-labrador/opinion/whistling-at-the-northern-lights-135097/ #:~:text=%22The%20whistling%20crackling%20noise%20which,the%20earth%2C%22%20Hawkes%20added;
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/359861885_Sound_producing_mechanism_in_the_temperature_inversion_layer_and_its_sensitivity_to_geomagnetic_activity;

https://www.theaurorazone.com/about-the-aurora/aurora-legends/;
https://northernlightsyukon.com/myth-legends-about-the-northern-lights/ #:~:text=The%20Norse%20believed%20that%20the,giants%20would%20battle%20each%20other;
https://www.nathab.com/blog/fifteen-native-tales-about-the-northern-lights/;
https://www.norwegian.travel/inspiration/northern-lights-myths #:~:text=Grotesque%20Myths&text=More%20macabre%20legends%20believed%20that,and%20North%20America%20as%20well;
https://www.hurtigruten.com/en-us/inspiration/northern-lights/myths-legends;
https://www.npr.org/2021/06/10/1004859458/what-causes-the-northern-lights-scientists-finally-know-for-sure;
https://www.kcur.org/news/2024-05-10/northern-lights-kansas-city-missouri-aurora-borealis-sky;
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2023/jan/05/noises-of-the-northern-lights-weatherwatch #:~:text=The%20researchers%20found%20that%20the,disturbance%20to%20Earth's%20magnetic%20field;
https://airlinkalaska.com/blog/what-sound-does-the-aurora-make/ #:~:text=Auroral%20sounds%20have%20been%20described,Lights%20do%20indeed%20make%20sounds

© Dark Ozarks 2024 | All Rights Reserved.

05/01/2024

Another form of pareidolia. Director of the Centre for Integrative Neuroscience at the University of Oxford, attributes auditory pareidolia to our brain's constant attempts to make sense of and find patterns in the world around us. It can be especially likely to occur when somewhat recognizable noises are masked by the background hum of a noisy environment, such as a restaurant or a bar.

https://www.livescience.com/health/neuroscience/why-do-people-hear-their-names-being-called-in-the-woods?utm_campaign=socialflow&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_content=livescience&fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1vpQZ_9YTMiC6vWONDNwJXfzxbt5em4c60UpEkKXf4Bq_nK1rrlw6fXS8_aem_ATzxYpLm3nY-cV7znITNyc4sj8Fte1pf2iSiBIQk2GpixkS1x0TbjeNFWkyltJ2eexm20S6D1FYqgBEgcBy2wcqY

Auditory pareidolia is a phenomenon in which people can hear familiar sounds from seemingly static background noise.

04/28/2024

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/DiP473mCThgLfFWX/?mibextid=oFDknk

Somewhere in northeast Arkansas...

If the ghost in the old, abandoned church in the ‘northeast corner of Arkansas’ is just a story to scare, or to prompt wayward teenagers to take to the byways in search of the heart-skipping startle they fear, yet secretly crave, it has a lot of details that point to something more. The clues lay in the backstory and the solid ground under our hiking boots.

There are variations on the story as it is told over time and person to person, but the gist of the tale goes something like this: A young man is one of the soldiers tasked with escorting a group of Native Americans to Indian Territory on what would become known as the Trail of Tears. Unlike many accounts handed down over time, it is made clear that the ordinary soldiers are subject to excruciating hardships from weather and diminishing food and supplies, as are their wards. In contrast, the officers, and the commanding officer in particular, observe this scene at a comfortable distance, usually, around a warm fireplace with rum or bourbon in the nearest commandeered Inn.

The ragtag column reaches the Mississippi River, somewhere in relative proximity to Memphis, Tennessee, during a winter rainstorm. The river is swollen from days of heavy rain. The commanding officer orders the crossing to begin, against the advice of his men. In short order, multiple flat boats are lost, along with some of those desperately clinging to the logs lashed together with rope. The scene continues for several days to transfer everyone to the Arkansas bank. This young soldier increasingly becomes angry and despondent, sharing his hard biscuit rations with small children and elderly women. In some versions he is reminded of his recently-departed grandmother with hints in the telling that she was Cherokee. A young man torn between his worlds, duties, beliefs, and ultimately between the two sides of that swollen river.

Our unnamed young man is among the last to cross the river on (perhaps) the fourth day. The scene on the west bank seems to be the proverbial last straw, as he breaks his last biscuit in half and gives one to a small girl and the other to an elderly woman, both shivering in the damp cold before a campfire struggling to burn. In some versions he takes off his tattered coat and wraps it around the pair before staggering off into the darkness.

In the middle of the night, our young man stumbles upon a clearing to find a small country church. He enters and finds a cloak hanging on a peg. Wrapping it about himself, he drifts to sleep on a pew. He awakens to fresh snow and a decision to make his way home to his family in the Carolinas (or elsewhere). Before he reaches the church door, it swings open, and his commanding officer stands on the threshold. With an exclamation of disgust, he calls down the young man as a deserter and raises his pistol.

Our young man falls to the floor, a single wound squarely between the eyes. Orders are dispatched to the accompanying men, and the young man is carried to the graveyard. After hours of back bent determination, a shallow grave is the only clue to the morning’s events, save the blood stains soaked into the planks of the church aisle. It was those stains that sent the parishioners to search the graveyard the following Sabbath. The constable was fetched, and an inquest held. Other than the field worn uniform, minus his coat, and the single bullet wound, the only hint of individuality found was a worn coin in the left boot.

Members of the church would speak in hushed tones of seeing the silent visage of a young soldier in the sanctuary of the church at unexpected moments; no doubt unsettling. Others would report the same visage near the shallow grave, years after he was reinterred with the prayers of the preacher and silent pleas for peaceful rest from the few duty-bound parishioners who turned out for a nameless stranger.

In due time, the congregation dispersed to other places and churches, leaving the old country church truly alone in the woods. But it is never alone they say.

Except for Decoration Day. Even today, a few hardy souls make the trip to clean and decorate the old graveyard where generations-removed kin folk still lie interred. Occasionally, even now, it is said that on Decoration Day, an unsuspecting descendent is confronted not with the vision of a distant relative at the expected tombstone, but instead, that of a young man, in an antiquated military uniform, that seems a bit familiar but not quite identifiable to those fairly conversant in Civil War images. They are all drawn to the dark round hole between his eyes before he fades into the May sunshine.

The clues? The worn coin in his left boot would have been placed there with the hope for prosperity or luck. A centuries-old tradition, which this tale imparts to those knowing in the old ways, that such protection was no match for the physical reality of the situation, or perhaps to remind them to be ever vigilante.

How do we know what had happened to our young man? In some versions that plot hole is sealed with an explanation that a diary is found at some point belonging to some witness of the events allowing the puzzle pieces to be put together.

And the clues under our hiking boots? Is there a place this tale may have actually occurred?

Randolph County, Arkansas is interesting as a possible inspiration of our ghost story. Though not a Mississippi River crossing, some details are either coincidences or perhaps the foundation of the story that grew in time; we leave that for you to decide.

What we know is that in 1838 one group, led by a Native American leader named Benge, took a route that passed across Randolph County, from Hix Ferry on Current River in the northeast corner of the county, to Miller’s Ford on Spring River just east of Imboden, fording four of the county’s five rivers in the cold of December. They camped four nights here, and buried several dead who didn't survive the river crossings.

“Hix Ferry, later Pitman Ferry, was the entry into Arkansas for most people who came here before Arkansas became a state. After the Louisiana Purchase, the federal government built a “military road” from Hix Ferry south and west so troops could be more easily moved as needed to defend the new territories from Spanish forces in Texas. This was also an early Union route of entry into Arkansas during the Civil War. Several north/ south skirmishes occurred around the ferry. But when the Benge group arrived at the ferry, Hix raised the price of crossing in hopes of making some easy extra money. Benge refused the price gouging, and his group forded the river upstream from the ferry.”

Benge and those in his care are one story in the Ozarks, but their story spans more than miles, and echoes through the mists of time.

“The detachment led by John Benge began its journey from Wills Valley, eight miles south of Fort Payne, Alabama. The detachment of 1,090 people passed through Huntsville and Gunter’s Landing in Alabama and Reynoldsburg Landing on the Tennessee River in Tennessee, and probably Columbia, Kentucky…The Benge detachment ended their journey near present-day Stilwell, Oklahoma, on January 17, 1839.”

The larger story of this ghost tale paints a picture such that one can envision a young soldier, pulled between devotion to home, family, service to country and disillusionment of his role in a particular place, signified by the muddy banks east and west, and the swollen river between. Does he watch over an abandoned church in the woods in the ‘northeast corner of Arkansas’, mostly forgotten, except on Decoration Day?

© Dark Ozarks, 2024 ׀ All Rights Reserved.

Sources:
Crowder, G. S., “Ghosts Along the Trail of Tears,” 2012, Quixote Press, Wever, IA.

Varnell, Curtis, Dr., “Decoration Day in the South,” utbhttps://residentnewsnetwork.com/decoration-day-in-the-south/

“Hike Randolph County: Trail of Tears,”https://www.arkansasguesthouse.com/downloads/Hike-Randolph-County-Trail-of-Tears.pdf

https://www.collater.al/en/mocassin-penny-loafer-coin-style/

https://www.icysedgwick.com/footwear-folklore/

https://www.nps.gov/places/trail-of-tears-benge-route-on-the-natchez-trace.htm #:~:text=The%20trail%20passes%20through%209,journey%20of%20compassion%20and%20understanding.

Photo source: https://estonianworld.com/life/restoring-an-old-estonian-church-depends-on-volunteers-and-donations/ (representative photo)

12/07/2023

https://fb.watch/oNQcS7QKfQ/?mibextid=Nif5oz

12/06/2023

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=674886261479652&id=100068748532422&mibextid=Nif5oz

LIVE WEDNESDAYS! TONIGHT. Tune in-- Josh and Lisa will be discussing noir tales from the Ozarks, including the connections that are not what you expect.

What questions would you like answered tonight?

JOIN US TONIGHT for Wednesdays Live at 8pm Eastern/7pm Central on Youtube Live and 830pm Eastern/ 730pm Central here on Facebook.

©️ Dark Ozarks, 2023

Photo credit: Jeremy Morris

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12/03/2023

Researchers determined it is likely a sprawling hunter-gatherer cemetery dating back some 6,500 years

https://www.sanluisobispo.com/news/nation-world/world/article282562933.html?fbclid=IwAR3gr5JpBU-X5FZKyFAGxgmy07cKAGf0mycUsi5Ki68zytOeYcsTjiR5y28

Up to 200 hunter-gatherer graves could be at the site, researchers said.

12/03/2023

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=673091081659170&id=100068748532422&mibextid=Nif5oz

When that old cabin hides secrets. Cabins are both real and allegorical in the hills. Symbols of tough people making their way in a tougher land, as well as the emblematic gawhuff of flatlanders thinking they are making jokes at the expense of the hillbillies. But they are something more in the tales handed down through the years. Cabins have even been phantoms themselves, described by travelers as abandoned, yet lights shining within or smoke curling from the chimney, only to be met with the stare of the listener, who flatly replies that there has never been a cabin where the teller is insistent they saw the visage.

Then, there are times that the old cabin contained the macabre, without the tidy explanation that it was not real at the end of the story, perhaps as a silent statement of the tough, and not always pious, people who found their way here.

This tale comes from Douglas County, Missouri near Mansfield. Despite our research, we were unable to find any answer to the "why" the perpetrators risked exposing themselves by disintering the subject of their crime two years after the fact.

The evidence of the crime was uncovered by Luke Porter, though why he was drawn into the abandoned cabin to find the scene is unstated, but raises its own question of why. What we are told is:

"...Luke Porter was passing close by an old abandoned log house, when he noticed that someone had been digging under the floor and that the hearth had been removed. He thought nothing of the matter until the other day, when he and other parties went to the house to make an investigation. They discovered that the hole was about the size of a grave, and the indications were that the body of a man had been removed from under the hearth. They found human hair of a grayish color and it is said a human skull was found. About two years ago a German came to Douglas County to buy land and stopped in that neighborhood. He disappeared suddenly. It is the supposition among the citizens of that neighborhood [Walls Township] that he met with foul play."

The supposition appears credible, even without more information found for a definitive conclusion. The cabin was witness to events which led to an apparent interment under the hearth, unusual to say the least; at once symbolic of the tough, and ruthless aspect of the hills and human nature but also a tangible reminder of that ruthlessness so often left out of musings of the simpler, good old days.

©️ Dark Ozarks, 2023

Source. The Laclede County Sentinel. March 28, 1902.

Photo: Representative photo, ©️ Dark Ozarks