Saturday, May 17, 2014

Singleton reported seeing ghost of 'Searching Lover' in late October 1985

George 'Buster' Singleton
(For decades, local historian and paranormal investigator George “Buster” Singleton published a weekly newspaper column called “Somewhere in Time.” The column below, which was titled “In search of a dead lover: A story of a Halloween wedding which never took place,” was originally published in the Oct. 30, 1986 edition of The Monroe Journal in Monroeville, Ala.)

Picture yourself sitting quietly at the edge of an old, old cemetery in the northeast corner of the county. The time is late; midnight has just passed. An owl hoots in the edge of the woods not far from where you are sitting. The hairs on your neck tingle. You ask yourself, why are you here?

Then you remember the story that you heard from an old man shortly after you moved to the area and became interested in the local folklore and ghost stories along the back roads and the forgotten communities of the county. The story of the Searching Lover becomes vivid in your memory.

On that late October night in 1985, you became bored with television and, to the dismay of your wife, took a thermos bottle of hot coffee, mounted your trail bike and set off to see for yourself whether or not the story was true.

You arrived at the cemetery just a few minutes before 10 o’clock. After hiding the trail bike in the weeds some distance away, you went about fixing yourself a place where a complete view of the cemetery was before you.

You quietly covered yourself with a military poncho liner that blended in very well with the colors of late October. The waiting began.

The air all at once became quite cold. You pulled the poncho liner closely around your shoulders. Perhaps it would have been wiser to have brought someone else along for company. Or maybe waited until another time to visit this place.

The owl hooted again, and, to make matters worse, a screech owl screamed a few yards away. Your teeth began to chatter; the chill of the night gripped you like a vise.

The gravestones in the bright moonlight cast ghostly shadows across the small cemetery. Your legs ached from sitting in so cramped a position. But you decided against any movement at the time.

You moved your eyes to the far side of the cemetery. You noticed a tall grave marker that you had failed to notice before. Then you realized that it was not a marker at all, but a tall man standing near the edge of the clearing. Could your eyes be playing tricks on you? It seemed that he was wearing a top hat, the type that was so common in the 1800s. You looked again; the man was bending over a headstone as though trying to read the inscriptions on the marble marker.

Your heart was pounding; you could hear each beat clearly. You asked yourself again, why am I here? You had been in several tight spots, but this one was different. The urge to run gripped your mind. But you fought back with all your strength; you managed to calm down and sit still.

You looked again; the man in the top hat had moved to another grave marker. He was bending over it, running his fingers across the name chiseled in the stone. He moved on to another marker; his movements were repeated. He moved slowly, again and again – each time bending over the headstone; each time feeling the name carved there.

Each of his movements brought him closer and closer to the edge of the cemetery and the place where you had chosen to hide.

You felt blood on your lip; you had bitten your lower lip and not been aware of it. You felt no pain. Your heartbeat was deafening; it sounded like a drum pounding.

With great effort, you looked again. The stranger in the top hat had stopped. This time he was bending down, then kneeling beside a small headstone. His hat was resting on the ground beside his left knee. His right hand rested gently atop the grave marker. His head was bowed. Moments passed; the taste of your own blood startled you. You slowly wiped your lip with your hand.

The man in the top hat rose to his feet. You could see now that he was dressed in fine clothing. A well-fitted frock-tailed coat hung from his shoulders. He replaced his top hat.

He turned and looked directly in your direction. He seemed to stare for a moment, as though looking beyond where you were hiding. He seemed to be looking into eternity.

He turned and walked slowly toward the center of the cemetery. He took one last look at the headstone where he was kneeling. He walked into the shadow of a large headstone. I saw him no more.

With great effort, you stood up and felt your lip again. It had stopped bleeding. You forced yourself to walk slowly toward the small marker where the tall stranger had been kneeling. As the pale moonlight cast its flickering light across the face of the headstone, you ran your fingers along the writing, over the letters chiseled in the marble. You read these words:

Sacred to the memory of
Susan Henderson
Age 19
Who departed this life
on the
31st day of October 1858
On the day of her Wedding

The owl hooted in the trees nearby. The story that you had been told was true; you walked slowly toward the tall weeds at the edge of the cemetery.


(Singleton, the author of the 1991 book “Of Foxfire and Phantom Soldiers,” passed away at the age of 79 on July 19, 2007. A longtime resident of Monroeville, he was born on Dec. 14, 1927 in Marengo County. He is buried in Pineville Cemetery in Monroeville. The column above and all of Singleton’s other columns are available to the public through the microfilm records at the Monroe County Public Library in Monroeville. Singleton’s columns are presented here each week for research and scholarship purposes and as part of an effort to keep his work and memory alive.)

No comments:

Post a Comment