Monday, March 24, 2014

BUCKET LIST UPDATE No. 135: Visit Bladon Springs Cemetery in Choctaw County

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.

1 comment:

  1. Bass Cemetery in Irondale, Alabama is one spooky Cemetery.......

    ReplyDelete