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| Bladon Springs Cemetery in Choctaw County, Ala. |
Bladon Springs Cemetery in Choctaw County, Ala. has the
reputation for being one of the most haunted locations in the entire state. I’ve
heard about this spooky location for years, but couldn’t honestly say that I’d
ever been there in person, which is why I added it to my bucket list a couple
of years ago.
Yesterday, while geocaching in Choctaw County, I found
myself at Bladon Springs State Park, which is just up the road from this creepy
cemetery. On the way back to the main highway from the park, we came upon the cemetery
and took a few minutes to check it out. It more than lived up to its
reputation.
The best description of this cemetery that I’ve encountered
is in the book “Haunted Alabama Black Belt” by David Higdon and Brett Talley.
According to that book, which was published in 2013, the ghost of steamboat
captain Norman A. Staples “still walks the rows of chiseled stone at Bladon
Springs Cemetery.” Staples was born on March 28, 1868 and is said to have committed suicide on
Jan. 2, 1913.
Norman Staples and his father, James T. Staples, were turn-of-the-century steamboat entrepreneurs who had a run of very bad luck. James
designed and built “the grandest steamboat the rivers of Alabama had ever
seen,” and the ship, which was named the James T. Staples, was launched in
1908. James died soon thereafter, and ownership of the ship passed to Norman.
Norman soon got into deep debt, and creditors seized his steamboat in December 1912. They auctioned it
off, which caused Norman to suffer a break down and commit suicide by shooting himself in
the chest with a shotgun. After his burial at Bladon Springs Cemetery, which, through the woods, is a short distance from the banks of the Tombigbee River, things took a turn for the
weird.
A few days after Norman’s funeral, crewmen on the James T.
Staples claimed to see Norman's ghost walking the ship at night. The ship’s crew
quit and were replaced by new men, who also reported seeing Norman’s ghost. A
few days later, when the boat returned to its dock, “every rat on the ship came
like a flood off the decks, down to the shoreline and fled,” according to
Higdon and Talley’s book. On the night of Jan. 12, 1913, crewmen reported
seeing Norman’s ghost in the ship’s boiler room.
On Jan. 13, 1913, just 11 days after Norman’s suicide, the
steamboat docked at Powe’s Landing for fuel and supplies, and sometime later the
ship’s boiler exploded, killing 26 and injuring many others. The explosion
freed the boat from its moorings, and it drifted downriver some distance before
finally sinking near the bank near Bladon Springs Cemetery. The sinking
of the James T. Staples is said to have been the “last great steamboat accident
on the rivers of Alabama,” according to “Haunted Alabama Black Belt.”
If you’re interested in visiting Bladon Springs Cemetery,
it’s located on Choctaw County Road 6, about five miles off of U.S.
Highway 84 between Coffeeville and Silas. The cemetery is on the south side of
County Road 6, not far from Bladon Springs State Park.
Finding the grave of Norman Staples is easy. It’s toward to
the back of the cemetery, on the right hand side, near the base of a
moss-covered tree that’s hard to miss. His grave doesn’t have a tombstone, only
a flat slab that lists his name, birth date and date of death.
In the end, how may of you have ever been to Bladon Springs
Cemetery? What did you think about it? Do you know of any other creepy
locations worth checking out? Let us know in the comments section below.
Bass Cemetery in Irondale, Alabama is one spooky Cemetery.......
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