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THE LEGEND OF THE DARN MAN

7/27/2014

A couple weeks ago I did a post about "The Old Leatherman" of Connecticut http://www.micahackerman.com/blog/the-true-story-of-the-connecticut-leatherman Today I want to tell you guys about a similar story that is not quite as well known. It's the story of another wanderer nicknamed "The Darn Man."

The Darn Man was known to walk a continuous loop through portions of Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Eastern Connecticut. Unlike the Leatherman, who rarely spoke and was somewhat of a mystery, the Darn Man was very well spoken and wasn't reluctant to tell his story. The man whose name was not known said that he had fallen in love in his youth and was to be married. Unfortunately for him his would be wife never showed up for the wedding. The Darn Man would wander the countryside looking for his lost love. He was given the name "Darn Man" because of the long suit jacket (with tails) he wore since his wedding day. The jacket would be repaired with random pieces of cloth and stitched with different colored string, hence the name Darn Man.

The lonely man wandered the countryside depending on working odd jobs or the kindness of others who would take him in. One story says that he staid at one particular house repeatedly because they had a magazine that he would read repeatedly. It was thought that perhaps a picture in the magazine reminded him of his long lost love.

The Darn Man's days came to their end in a tragic way. He was staying with a generous boarder one evening when he heard a carriage approaching. All day he had been saying that his love was returning that night. As the carriage approached he heard the happy voice of a young female. The Darn Man ran out of the house into the darkened road to meet his love. The coach driver didn't see the man until it was too late and the Darn Man was trampled to death under the hooves of a team of horses. When the Darn Man died he had been wearing his wedding jacket for 60 years.

The Legend goes that if you walk the backroads of Connecticut at night you might hear an approaching carriage. You might even hear the happy voice of a young woman. If you do you should have a needle and thread handy, because the Darn Man might need his coat patched.

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HELL TOWN: GHOSTLY CURSED TOWN IN OHIO

7/23/2014

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Before I get into the meat of this blog post I want to let everyone know that my novel Wormwood will have a huge sale starting tomorrow and running into the weekend. The novel price Thursday (7/24) will be an incredibly low 99¢ The price will rise until it returns to it's original price. The book is currently ranked:

Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,324 Paid in Kindle Store
- #71 in War
- #74 in Post-Apocalyptic
- #79 in Dystopian

On to the blog post...

I recently found out about a whole town in Ohio that seems to be cursed. The town is nicknamed Helltown. Here is the story of how the town deteriorated into it's current state. From Paranormal.Lovetoknow.com:

"Of all the urban legends in Ohio, tales of Hell Town seem to be the most prevalent. Perhaps this is due to the actual facts that lay at the root of this story. The area known as Hell Town was once known as Boston Mills. The area was bought out by the US government to make way for Cuyahoga Valley National Park. The residents were not happy with the situation, but they were given no choice in the matter. Once they had vacated the town, the government officially closed the area. The buildings were occasionally set afire and used to train new firemen, and the once thriving town took on the appearance of a burned out ghost town."

There are many legends that are connected to Helltown including the story of haunted children that reside there. Rumor has it that a school bus ran out of gas near the town and that the driver left to go get help or gas. When he returned he found that all of the children had been murdered. The murders were said to be the heinous acts of a disturbed mental patient that recently escaped from a nearby asylum.

Here's another one from Paranormal.Lovetoknow.com:

Have you ever heard a tale about a church in the middle of the woods that's used for satanic worship? It seems that almost every place has one, and Hell Town is no exception. In this case, it's the church that used to be part of the Boston Mills community, and it supposedly comes with the standard upside-down cross that is always part of this particular type of urban legend.

Another of the rumor has to do with mutated citizens and that the reason that the town was abandoned was that too many kids were being born with strange mutations. This is from Wiki:

"Rumors began to surface that the government was trying to conceal a chemical spill. Other people, especially tourists, did not know of the eminent domain proceedings, and mistook the empty buildings for a long-standing ghost town. Today the village remains, but some homes are boarded up- these were homes purchased by the NPS and the occupants moved out, but the park has left most of the homes intact. Some have been demolished, including a few around 2008 on Latta Lane.

Rumors of the chemical spill may have come from the NPS's toxic waste discovery in 1985, when a hiker in the park became ill after touching something coming out of some rusted drums at the abandoned Krejci Dump. The Krejci dump is a very short distance from Boston Village, just at the top of Hines Hill Road."

"As mentioned above, a rumor persists about the town being the site of a chemical spill or a chemical plant explosion in the area. Usually, a butane plant is the cause. This is often used to explain the local legend of the "Peninsula Python", a gigantic snake that wanders the area's woods. However, there has never been a chemical plant in the area; the "Peninsula python" myth dates back to the 1940s.[5] There was, as mentioned above, a chemical dump a short distance from Boston Village in Krejci Dump, but no one other than the hiker was ever affected by the spill. The hiker became ill and was admitted to emergency care. It has been proven there has since never been a spill in that area"

The whole story reminds me of the town from the video game and movie "Silent Hill." But that game was actually based on Centralia, Pennsylvania. Centralia is a town that was abandoned when an underground gas fire started burning and basically never stopped. The streets caved in and dangerous sink holes can be found all over the town.

So what do you guys think? Could a whole town be evil or cursed?

In other news: On top of the huge sale for "Wormwood" My short story "Bait" will be FREE tomorrow (7/24) and my other short story "The Manuscript" will be FREE on Friday (7/25) You can find the links in the sidebar.

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THE SCARY STORY OF FIRE POLTERGEISTS

7/21/2014

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It appears that my internet problems have been solved, so hopefully my blog posts will be much more frequent now. Today I want to talk about another mysterious phenomena. The phenomena could be paranormal in nature as no known scientific explanations can be found. While searching deeper into the aspect of Poltergeists I found at least three separate incidents of so called "Fire Poltergeists."

The first incident occurred in January of 1932 in Bladenboro, North Carolina. A woman referred to as Mrs. Charles Williamson was in her home when her cotton dress mysteriously burst into flames. Mrs. Williamson hadn't been smoking, using flammable chemicals or standing near a fireplace. Thankfully Mrs. Williamson's husband and teenage daughter put out the flames, but the poltergeist wasn't done yet. This is from an article on listverse.com

"The ordeal by fire continued the same day inside a closet when a pair of Mrs. Williamson’s trousers burned until only ashes remained. The next day, in front of witnesses, a bed spontaneously began to burn as well as curtains in another room. For three more days, fires sprang out of nowhere, burning blue flames that couldn’t be extinguished until they’d entirely consumed the household object in question. No one was injured by the flames, either. The Williamsons had enough by day four and left the house."

The local police, electricians and firemen examined the house and could not find anything that could have caused the fires. After five days the fires mysteriously stopped.

The next incident occurred in April of 1941 in Odon, Indiana. Mr William Hackler was on his way out to his barn when he suddenly smelled smoke coming from his house. The man rushed back into his house to find a fire inside of the wall of an upstairs bedroom. This might sound explainable, in today's houses electrical lines run through the walls, but this house had no electricity. The fire department was called and they came and put out the fire, but like the first incident in North Carolina the Poltergeist wasn't finished. This is again from a separate article on Listverse.com:

"After the truck left, another fire broke out, this time in a mattress in an upstairs guest room. It seemed as though the fire had been set from inside the mattress! Throughout the day, more fires broke out all over the house, some under the gazes of astonished witnesses. By 2:00 p.m., more fire fighters were called in, and by the end of the day, twenty-eight seemingly spontaneous fires were extinguished, including one that started between the covers of a book.

The fires ended as mysteriously as they began. Hackler tore down the house and built a new one from the reclaimed lumber. Neither he nor his family experienced anything like the Odon fire poltergeist again."

The last is a series of incidents that seemed to follow around one family in August of 1958. Here is an excerpt from the site PrairieGhosts.com:

In August 1958, Fire Captain S.H. Joiner of Talladega, Alabama realized that he had a serious problem on his hands. His concerns revolved around a four-room log tenant house that was located about eight miles west of the city. By August 28, there had been 22 fires in this small home and 17 of them had occurred on the 27th alone! “It’s really a mystery,” Joiner told reporters. “ If it’s not a chemical reaction or spontaneous combustion, then I don’t what it could be.”

The house in question was occupied by Calvin Tuck, his wife, Willie Bell, and their six small children, aged from three months to nine years. The African-American family had been experiencing a series of fires that had literally gutted the structure. All four of the rooms had been ruined by smoke, along with most of their personal belongings. They had remained in the house as long as possible but during the eruption of fires on August 27, had finally moved out. Homeless and now destitute, the Tuck’s had no insurance on the house.

Strangely, nearly every 0ne of the fires had started near the ceiling, except for a mattress that had mysterious burst into flames. None of the fires had started on the floor. The flames were all reddish blue in color and “looked like sulphur burning”, according to witnesses. The source of the fires were completely bewildering as the house had a metal roof and had no electrical wiring inside. Talladega County Road Commissioner Leslie Hutto and a local contractor named Ortis Horton visited the house on August 27 and saw a fire start literally in front of their eyes! Hutto later said that he started scraping the wall with a knife and a flame flared up right in his face. He said that he also made a circle on the wall with the knife blade and that exact spot later began to burn. He and Horton reported that a fire started about every 15 minutes while they were at the house - and that they had no explanation for how they had begun!

The fires began a few days before this, around 8:30 am on the morning of August 25. The house caught fire three times and the next morning, it caught fire again two more times. It was not until a dozen fires had broken out that the Talladega Fire Department was summoned to the property. The call was answered by fireman Glover Williams, who said that the Tuck’s story about how the fires were starting was so fantastic that he summoned Captain Joiner to the scene.

News of the mysterious fires made the local newspapers and spread through the community. Within hours, over 200 people had gathered to watch the excitement but many of them stayed on through the night with buckets of water on hand in case a new blaze broke out.

With the first tenant house ruined, the Tuck’s moved into another one that was located nearby. Four new fires broke out in rapid succession and Calvin Tuck, exasperated, frightened and bewildered, did an almost inexplicable thing. He took all of his family’s remaining possessions (except for their furniture, which had been repossessed by the furniture company for lack of payment) and tossed them in a pile about 100 yards from the house. He lit a match to the pile and burned their belongings to ashes - then sat down on the ground and wept. This was the 27th fire and the only one that was ever explained.

The Tuck’s then moved into the house of their brother-in-law, Darnell Suttle, who must have been a brave and loyal relative. As the Tuck’s prepared to leave the second tenant house on their way to the Suttle home, the house immediately burst into flames. Witnesses stated that there had been no one around at the time and when the fire appeared it “all at once was burning all over.”

Calvin Tuck may have believed that by burning the family’s possessions, their troubles had ended, but he was wrong. The fires moved right along with them to the Suttle house. Five fires occurred the first day and were just as mysterious as those that had destroyed the Tuck’s other two houses.

On Labor Day morning, the Suttle house was visited by two police officers, Lieutenant Ben Cooley and Patrolman John Childers. They found the house in an uproar with clothes and furniture scattered all over the yard and the brood of children playing amongst it. Cooley noted that a quilt was hanging on a tree and before his eyes, it suddenly started burning. The whole quilt burst into flames, except for one small end. Within moments, the fire had gone out, leaving the cloth blackened and smoking. Curious, Cooley dragged the quilt onto the ground and attempted to set the unburned end on fire. It smoldered, but it would not burn by normal means. “I saw it, but I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I hadn’t seen it,” he said.

It is worth noting that at the time of the incident, Calvin Tuck was not at the house. He had been gone about 16 hours, but his wife was there. She and the Suttle’s showed the officers a newspaper and a window frame that had caught fire just minutes before they had arrived. Tubs and buckets of water had been left standing in every room as a precaution, although there was no running water in the house. According to a later report, two more fires broke out after the police left. A curtain caught fire around 9:15 and a loaf of bread burst into flames on the kitchen table around 10:00.

As the strangeness continued, things got tougher for the Tuck family. Darrell Sutton finally conceded that he had to protect his home and family, so he asked the Tuck’s to move out. Calvin did not own an automobile and so his father came over to move the family and offered to let them stay at his house. They moved into their fourth home in eight days on September 2. The family settled in and once again, buckets of water were placed in each room and even the family washing machine was left filled, just in case.

The source of the fires remained as bewildering as ever but Calvin Tuck decided to try a remedy of his own. Burning their belongings and running from the “fire disease” had not worked, so he decided to consult an “herb doctor” (voodoo practitioner). He was promptly informed that a voodoo hex had been placed on he and his family and for a price, he could provide Tuck with a spell that would remove the hex. Calvin quickly paid."

So what do you guys think? Were these real fire poltergeists? malevolent spirits or is there a scientific explanation?

In other news: This week I will be setting a lot of my short stories as FREE on Amazon. Keep checking back as I will post on this site what story is FREE on what days. I also will soon have some big news about my novel Wormwood which is still available at a reduced rate until August 1st. I will also have some news about the release date of my 2nd novel "The Third Gender" and about the release of the sequel to Wormwood "The Black Swarm" which will be out this winter.

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TRUE STORY THAT INSPIRED POLTERGEIST

7/15/2014

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Again, I know that the blog has been quiet lately, that should be remedied very soon.

Today I want to talk about a documented haunting that left its mark on Hollywood in particular. This haunting occurred in Enfield, England in the late seventies. Police were called by a mother of four children who reported that many strange things were going on. Here is what wiki has:

"In August 1977, single parent Peggy Hodgson called police to her rented home in Enfield after two of her four children claimed that furniture was moving and knocking sounds were heard on walls. A female police constable saw a chair slide on the floor but couldn't determine if it moved by itself or was pushed by someone. Later claims included allegedly demonic voices, loud noises, thrown rocks and toys, overturned chairs and levitation of children. Reports of further incidents in the house attracted considerable press attention and the story was covered in British newspapers such as the Daily Mail and Daily Mirror, until reports came to an end in 1979.[1][2][3] On Halloween 2011, BBC News featured comments from a radio interview with photographer Graham Morris, who claimed that a considerable portion of the events were genuine."

The reason that I found out about this poltergeist is that I always like to find out about horror movies that are based on true events. It turns out that the movie "Poltergeist" was inspired by this story. Rumor also has it that the word "Gozer" was written on the wall over and over. Of course many of you guys will remember that Gozer is that name of the super duper ghost in "Ghostbusters."

The house was investigated by paranormal investigators and the investigators heard strange noises.

I think this could be a real case, but there isn't a whole lot to go on. One thing that keeps coming back to me is that the children were heavily involved. Now this could represent an evil entity that is preying on children or it could just be a case of practical jokes played by very intuitive, but devious children. This is from Paranormal.about.com:

"The strange activity seemed to center around the daughter of Peggy Harper, a divorcee in her mid-40s. Again, it started on an August night. "Late at night," An Urban Ghost Story relates, "Janet, aged 11 and her brother Pete, aged 10, complained that their beds were 'jolting up and down and going all funny.' As soon as Mrs. Harper got to the room, the movements had stopped - as far as she was concerned her kids were making it all up."

But things got progressively more bizarre from there. Shuffling noises and knocks on the wall were followed by a heavy chest of drawers sliding by itself across the floor. Mrs. Harper promptly got her children out of the house and sought the assistance of a neighbor. "The neighbors searched the house and garden but found no one. Soon they also heard the knocks on the walls which continued at spaced out intervals. At 11 p.m. they called the police, who heard the knocks, one officer even saw a chair inexplicably move across the floor, and later signed a written statement to confirm the events."

What do you guys think?

In other news my short story "The Manuscript" is FREE today. You can get it for the next three days at no cost by clicking here

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HAVE I BECOME A MISSING PERSON?

7/7/2014

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I'm sorry that the posting on the blog has been sporadic. I have had serious internet connect-ability issues and I'm unable to access very often. If you've emailed me in the last week or so, unfortunately I haven't seen it and I will respond as soon as things are ironed out. I'm not ignoring anyone.

The good news is that Wormwood has been selling pretty well. It has been in and out of the top 100 lists on Amazon in both the WAR and Post-Apocalyptic genres. Thank you all so much to anyone who has read the book and I hope everyone has a chance to download it.

I hope to get all of my internet issues straightened out within a week. I will be sure to respond to all of your emails then. Also the blog will be back up in full force at that point and I will continue posting about all of those unexplained phenomena that we all like so much.

Thanks so much for all of your support
~Micah

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THE LEGEND OF THE DARN MAN

HELL TOWN: GHOSTLY CURSED TOWN IN OHIO

THE SCARY STORY OF FIRE POLTERGEISTS

TRUE STORY THAT INSPIRED POLTERGEIST

HAVE I BECOME A MISSING PERSON?

Micah Ackerman

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