Elizabeth Tucker - Haunted Southern Tier

Published by Haunted America

A Division of The History Press

Charleston, SC 29403

www.historypress.net

Copyright 2011 by Elizabeth Tucker

All rights reserved

All images are by Geoffrey Gould unless otherwise noted.

First published 2011

Second printing 2012

Third printing 2012

e-book edition 2013

Manufactured in the United States

ISBN 978.1.62584.160.5

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Tucker, Elizabeth, 1948

Haunted southern tier / Elizabeth Tucker.

p. cm.

print edition ISBN 978-1-60949-111-6

1. Haunted places--New York (State) 2. Ghosts--New York (State) I. Title.

BF1472.U6T79 2011

133.109747--dc23

2011021181

Notice: The information in this book is true and complete to the best of our knowledge. It is offered without guarantee on the part of the author or The History Press. The author and The History Press disclaim all liability in connection with the use of this book.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form whatsoever without prior written permission from the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

For my husband, Geoffrey Gould,

whose photographs bring out the beauty of the Southern Tier.

CONTENTS

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I am very grateful for the kind assistance of Josette Berardi and her daughter Nicole Rose, Jaimee Colbert, Eve Daniels, Carol and Alex Fischler, Dennis Frank, Robert Keller, Janet Langlois, Father John Martinichio, Thomas McEnteer, Gerald R. Smith, Susan Strehle, Frank and Shelley Takei, Theresa Wells, Maryanne White and Mason Winfield, all of whom I thank very much. I want to thank all of my wonderful students at Binghamton University, who have told and collected so many fine stories. I also want to thank my editor at The History Press, Whitney Tarella, for all of her support during the process of writing and editing. Warm thanks to all!

INTRODUCTION

A house-proud tycoon who throws bronze bars, a young Mohawk woman who sings after dying in a train wreck and a lady in white who hitchhikes to a prom or wedding she will never attend: these are just a few of the ghosts that haunt New Yorks Southern Tier. Some of these are ghosts of nineteenth-century settlers who became rich and built mansions; others remind us that Native Americans lived on the land before anyone else arrived. All of them help us understand this historic region of New York, which stands above the Northern Tier of Pennsylvania: Broome, Tioga, Chemung, Steuben, Allegany, Cattaraugus, Chautauqua and Delaware Counties.

It has taken a while for the Southern Tier to become known as a haunted region. Americans awareness of its ghostlore grew in 1959, when Rod Serling launched his hit television series The Twilight Zone. That exciting new show blended science fiction with supernatural and horror legends, suspense and thoughtful consideration of the past. I vividly recall watching The Twilight Zone during its first years, when I would sneak into my familys TV room for a break from homework. Some charactersa frightening hitchhiker, a talking doll and a man in search of his boyhood self on a carouselamazed and delighted me. I had no idea then that these characters came from the not-very-famous city of Binghamton, which would become my home when I applied for a job at Binghamton University. Now I am beginning my thirty-fourth year there as an English professor specializing in folklore. My ghost story files have become so enormous that they spill out onto the floor, threatening to cover the rug. It is time to open my file cabinet and share the Southern Tiers haunted history.

Carousel building in Binghamtons Recreation Park, where people claim to have seen Rod Serlings ghost.

I am not the first to describe the ghostlore of this region. Louis C. Jones included a few Southern Tier stories in his wonderful book Things That Go Bump in the Night (1959). DuWayne Leslie Bowen wrote two significant books about Seneca ghost stories, One More Story (1991) and A Few More Stories (2000). Mason Winfields Shadows of the Western Door (1997) includes fascinating material from the western part of the Southern Tier, as does his documentary film Phantom Tour: The Thirteen Most Haunted Places in Western New York (2003), co-written with Terry Fisher. Recently, paranormal investigator Dwayne Claud published a book titled Ghosts of the Southern Tier, NY (2010), which takes the reader on a ghost-hunting journey from one Southern Tier county to the next. Interest in Southern Tier ghostlore is rising, and there is plenty of material to go around.

Throughout this book I use the terms ghost and spirit interchangeably, but I find spirit especially appropriate for the lively ghosts of the Southern Tier. Among the various meanings of this term are the soul, an animating force and a lively, courageous attitude. Based on the Latin verb spirare (breathe), the word spirit suggests energy and depth of feeling. Southern Tier spirits are not pale shades or retiring wraiths. Expressing the life force they once possessed, these spirits of the dead have come back for good reasons. Deciphering those reasons has kept me and my students at Binghamton University happily occupied.

Researching ghost stories at colleges around the United States has shown me the connections between community spirit, ghost stories and local or regional history. Most of the stories Ive collected have been told as true, reflecting personal experiences that are important to their tellers. Beyond that personal meaning stand layers of history. Residents of the Southern Tier tell supernatural narratives about Native Americans, Spiritualists and nineteenth-century industrialists. They talk about haunted churches, mansions, large and small homes, colleges, hospitals and roadways. These ghost stories express narrators pride in their hometowns and colleges, awareness of conflicts and curiosity about a mystery that concerns us all: the borderline between life and death.

Why do ghosts come back to visit the living? In Things That Go Bump in the Night (1959), Louis C. Jones gives five reasons: to re-enact their own deaths; to complete unfinished business; to re-engage in what were their normal pursuits when they were alive; to protest or punish; or, finally, to warn, console, inform, guard, or reward the living. In my own research across the United States, I have found that ghosts prime motivations for haunting are to complete unfinished business and to console relatives and friends. Like those of us who keep busy living our lives, ghosts have much to do and want to stay close to the people they love.

This book does not attempt to cover all Southern Tier ghostlore, but it offers examples of the regions most important kinds of stories. You will notice an emphasis on stories of the eastern part of the Southern Tier. I know that part of the Tier best, having lived in the bowl-shaped valley of the Susquehanna and Chenango Rivers for more than thirty years. There have, however, been opportunities to get to know other parts of the region. As a graduate student, I spent one year in western New York, marveling at its epic snowstorms. Later I traveled through the western part of the Southern Tier, finding amazing stories there. I am always ready to get back on the Southern Tier Expressway in search of new adventures.