Did everyone know that Hawks Nest State Park in Fayetteville used to be a coal mine? Well, something happened, like a flood or the mine collapsed or something I am not sure, but a whole lot of African-American mine workers died in the disaster.

I live in Glade Creek, WV, which is in Nicholas County. Behind my house, there are several acres of field and woods, and about 300 yards away from my house is where the actual mass grave of those mine workers is (my neighbor found that out at the library). Anyhow, my oldest brother, who was 17 at the time had a group of friends come over to camp in the horse field beside my house one night.

Around 11 pm, they came running into the house yelling and some of them were in tears (keep in mind these boys were between 15 and 17 years old), and told my mother they had seen the ghost of a large black man in the field (also, we did not know about the mine accident or the mass grave till after the fact). They were so scared, the refused to sleep anywhere else but my mothers bedroom floor that night. In an effort to show the boys that there was nothing to be afraid of and that they were acting childish, my mother and the other 6 kids, along with the oldest went to camp in the field beside my house the next week.

I was about 12 and to me this was so exciting, I was actually HOPING we would see something, but I wasn’t really prepared for what we saw next. We were sitting around a bonfire and something caught the attention of my youngest brother who was around 6 at the time (and also has autism). The rest of us turned in the direction he was facing and we saw a large figure topping the hill.

The silhouette came closer and closer, walked past us and down the next hill towards the pond. It disappeared, and no one said a word until the whole episode was over, it all lasted about 10 minutes. I didn’t feel scared, but I was not relaxed, I was extremely uneasy and I felt exhausted afterward. Needless to say, we didn’t stay there that night or any night after that and it has been almost 8 years.

One night my sister and I were sitting on the couch and we were looking out the window. We saw a man walking down the railroad tracks. We noticed that he had a bag on his back.

We watched him to make sure that he was not trying to steal anything. Then we noticed he had horns on his head, we turned off the lights, so that he could not see us. He stopped right at the window and watched us as if he could see us. We knew he could not see us. His eyes started to glow with a yellow light then he started to walk away and he just disappeared. We do not know where he went. I live there still to this day, and I have never seen him again.

My first experience with the paranormal came in the early 1970’s when my parents, sisters and I were living in Calhoun County WV.

At first, we were living in town but due to circumstances beyond our control, we had to move. It was short notice but dad came through and found a house for us to rent. He said it was “out of town” he just neglected to say how far. It was five miles out of town and two miles up a holler. We were the only house on that branch of the holler.

It was not what you would expect a haunted house to look like, at least not to my seven-year-old mind. Ghosts lived in castles and old deserted houses not like the little white one story house with a sun porch that I saw before me. Oh how wrong I was.

So many unusual things happened there, where do I begin and it was not just in the house the whole place seemed to be “alive” with spirits. In broad daylight, you would hear the sounds of galloping horses and the sounds of men voices, but when you looked outside there was nothing to be seen. Every morning we would hear the sounds of a car pulling up outside the house then you would hear two car doors slam then the sound of someone walking across the sun porch but just as the footsteps reached the front door nothing. It was just gone.

My older sister and I shared a bedroom at the time, and the room we slept in apparently was already taken when we moved in. At night, someone or something walked up and down between our beds. The room was constantly cold and you always had the feeling that someone was looking at you.

Once my mom got up in the night to go to the bathroom and on her way back to bed, she saw a light out our bedroom window. She stopped to watch it and make sure it was not some hunter messing around the house, but as she watched, the light got bigger and brighter until she saw a ghostly face in the window. It frightened her and she gasp and when she did it disappeared.

However, I think the most frightening part of the whole experience was the shadow. It was the shadow of a man; he wore a fedora and a long coat. He was solid black and he gave you the feeling of something vile, evil, and cruel. My experience with the shadow came just a few days before we moved from there. My sister and I had stayed up late to watch a movie and I had to go to the bathroom before going to sleep. I opened the door to the bedroom and started across the living room then I saw him. He looked right at me! I saw his head turn towards me, and I swear he looked at me! I have never been so scared in all my life. I do not think I even breathed while we stood there looking at each other then I just ran. After my sister calmed me down she went out and looked but he was gone.

As I said a few days later, we moved and I was never so happy to move. Over the next few months, several families lived in the little white house at the end of the holler but they never stayed long. Finally, someone bought it and completely remodeled it. I hope that the dark entity has gone back wherever it was he came from.

This is not my true encounter but it was been told around a lot.

A teacher for N.C. was looking for a job and finally found one in WV. She heard the last teacher left one night without saying anything.

A week later, she moved there. The lady in charge of the school, Mrs. Johnson, said she had to leave the school no later then 2:30.

Everyone in town was so nice to her, the students were angels, and it was just a perfect small town. For the next couple of months she left the school by 2:30.

Everyone was so nice to her she decided to do something nice to them by holding a Thanksgiving Play with all the students in it.

The next day of school, she stayed after to make plans. At 3:00, she heard an unusual call of a bird and right after that the room went to 60 degrees to 40 degrees all the sudden. She looked up a little frightened, and there was a girl who looked about 8 or 9 years old. The teacher just stared at her. Finally the little girl said, “Teacher what is our homework and where is my rag doll.” startled the teacher stood up real fast and scared the little girl. The little girl took off running and dropped a book on the way. The room temperature went back to the same 65 degrees.

The teacher went straight to Mrs. Johnson’s house and told her what happened. Mrs. Johnson yelled at her because she did not leave by 2:30 but then she settled down and said she will tell her the story another time.

The teacher thought about what happened and hoped the little girl would come back the next day. She hand stitched and rag doll and started looking through the book the little girl dropped. It was published in 1890!

The next day the teacher brought the book and rag doll with her and stayed after school until 3:00. At that time, the same thing happened. The bird calling, the temperature dropped, and the little girl entered.

The little girl said again, “teacher what is my homework and where is my rag doll.” this time the teacher stood up slowly and said to the little girl,” read the first 3 pages in this book and here is your rag doll.” she said handing the little girl both things. Then the little girl turned and vanished.

Then teacher ran straight to Mrs. Johnson’s house and told her what happened again and Mrs. Johnson asked her to go for a walk.

While they were walking, Mrs. Johnson told her of a little 9-year-old girl who went to that school. It just so happened the little girl was playing by a creek after school and slipped and hit her head on a rock and fell in. She drowned. At the end of the story, they reached a small graveyard. They walked up to a small grave with an angel on it and it said.

Emily Caldwell
Born 1902 – Died 1911

My daughter was 4 years old when she began to have, what we thought an imaginary friend. Every time she would do something she knew she wasn’t suppose too, she would blame it on her friend April. This was when her younger brother wasn’t old enough to play so she mostly played by herself since we didn’t live around to many kids of her own age. Our back yard was completely fenced in, and she had her swing and all that stuff out there, since it was fenced in I would let her play outside by herself checking on her occasionally as I would do my house work through the day. She would always be outside pushing her swing like she was swinging someone, she would talk to this little girl named April for the longest time.

I got worried about her and confided in my husband’s grand mother that had been born and raised in that area and what she told me gave me chills. She said that back in the early 20’s a family lived where we did and had 3 children 2 girls and one boy. The youngest child was only 4 years old at the time, she had been outside playing in a old barn that was on the property. She was in the loft playing when she accidentally fell through the boards and fell and broke her neck. Dying a short time after that. The little girl’s name was April.

This is not an encounter that I have had but more a story that has been passed through the years. I’m sure every body has heard the mysterious tale of Mamie Thurman, her brutal death, and the man who was paid to take the blame for it. As we all know she is said to walk about 22 HOLDEN every night in search of her true killer, and more importantly justice.

This little tale revolves around that. The small town of Logan, WV was booming with business, the coal mines were at their peek, so of course almost everyone worked in the mines in one form or another. With this booming business came transportation, thus there was a bus-stop at every corner on every road and every holler. There was one bus in particular, the bus that ran for the hoot owl shift on 22 Holden. This bus was like any other, until the night of the death of Mamie Thurman.

Weird events started to happen after that. The two men who had gotten off the bus at the last stop had went to another shift, the bus would still have to go that far through to be able to turn because of it’s size. Well one night the bus driver looked up as he was just minutes from his turning point and saw a lovely young woman in the far back of the bus. He scratched his head thinking to himself “how could I have missed her, I need a vacation”. He looked up at the young woman once more and smiled, which she politely smiled back.

When he reached his turning point at the end of this narrow road she pulled the cord to signal her stop. The driver was curious about this beautiful lady who was out so late at night. So with a smile he opened the door and raised his head as if to inquire on her situation, but to his surprise there was no beautiful woman leaving the bus. She had disappeared, just as queerly as she had came. By this time the driver had convinced himself that he was mad, but he had to check the bus one final time. With his knees quaking beneath him he slowly made his way to the back of the bus where he did find evidence of the mysterious creature, the seat was soaking wet just as the young lady was who had sat in the seat.

The same reenactment went on for weeks and the driver had become accustomed to her presence. His friend’s made awful fun at him when he told the story of his last stop, he was even threatened to be fired if the obscured lies did not stop, and he was, and so was the next man who ran that run. The men managed to convince their former boss to give them one more chance, they could prove it to him, which they did that also and were given their jobs back on one condition, that they would never speak of this strange happening again as long as the bus still ran. The men kept their secret for a long time, but business got bad in little old Logan, it wasn’t booming any more, it was barely alive, the buses stopped running and the stories kind of died for a while.

My grandmother “rest her soul” had told me this and other legends when I was a child. 22 Holden is connected to a 4 lane now, and I will tell you something odd that I would swear my own life against. You can pull your car off the road, like your going to enter 22 Holden, and it will pull your car up the hill, not far, but it is up hill, and you can actually watch your car being pulled up the hill, rolling right up it on its own. I don’t know if it’s an odd coincidence or if it’s Mamie Thurman telling you that if she can’t leave, neither can you.