Ghosts of Blackbeard, Custer and 'Bandange Man' may still haunt homes

There are lots of tales about haunted houses. You can believe them, or not.

Q. I recently saw a fascinating documentary about Blackbeard, and didn't know that he once lived in South Carolina. Is the home haunted?

A. Many believe so. It's nigh on the night of Halloween, so it's time for my annual column about haunted houses.

Few folks know that the infamous pirate, born Edward Teach, grew up in England. But he lived in a two-story home on a hill overlooking the Atlantic Ocean in Beaufort, North Carolina, in the early 1700s during a short-lived retirement from raiding the high seas. With him was his common-law wife, an 18-year-old French woman who most historians say was held there against her will.

Tired of her complaining, Blackbeard threw a rope over an old oak tree in the backyard after a heated argument and, as they said at the time, "stretched her neck." Locals say that her screams as the noose was placed around her throat often pierce the night's salty air today.

Blackbeard soon returned to the sea, but was killed in a battle aboard the HMS Jane in 1718. His corpse's head was then cut off and placed on the ship's bowsprit, and the rest of the body thrown overboard. Legend has it that his severed head shrieked with laughter as the lifeless body swam around the ship three times before sinking beneath the waves.

Some residents of Beaufort today claim to have seen Blackbeard's ghost emerge from the water at night with a lantern to scour the sandy beach, perhaps in an effort to locate his severed head. Locals call any strange or unexplained illuminations on or near the shoreline a "Teach's light."

Q. A few Halloweens ago, you wrote about the ghosts that haunt Gettysburg. Have there been any sightings at Little Bighorn, where Custer made his last stand?

A. Yes, literally thousands of sightings have been reported in and around Montana's 1.2-square-mile Little Bighorn Battlefield National Monument since Gen. George A. Custer and 263 of his cavalrymen were slain by Sioux and Cheyenne warriors there in 1876. Many reports were made by park rangers and other staffers, giving credence to their stories.

Employees who live in the park's simple on-site apartments tell of shimmering images that often appear at the foot of their beds after nightfall. Strange lights frequently float throughout the cemetery, where many of the cavalrymen and thousands of soldiers from later conflicts are buried.

The ghost of Custer himself has been seen, in full military regalia, roaming various parts of the battlefield. It also has been spotted at nearby Fort Abraham Lincoln, where he and his men departed for their ill-fated fight; the spirit of the blusterous general is believed to be giving one last inspection of the premises before retiring for the night.

One of the creepiest, most recent reports came from a Little Bighorn park ranger who lived in the "Stone House," a building made of rock in 1894 - smack in the middle of the battlefield area. The two-story building originally served as the home of the cemetery's caretaker, with the bottom floor occupied by the corpses of soldiers who had died in battles that followed Custer's Last Stand and were awaiting burial.

The park ranger awoke on his first night of duty, feeling that someone was sitting at the end of the bed. He quietly reached for his pistol in the darkness, but there was no reason to fire it: The shadowy figure of a torso dressed in an 1870s Calvary shirt and jacket but missing its head and legs, drifted through a solid wall and into the darkness.

Q. We spent our summer vacation in Oregon. We're very familiar with the tales of Sasquatch sightings, but a lot of stores there also sell postcards of "Bandage Man." What's this all about?

A. Ah, poor Bandage Man. He's always taken the back seat - sometimes, quite literally - to the Northwest's fabled Sasquatch, the furry big fellow that many Americans call "Big Foot."

The ghost of Bandage Man supposedly haunts Cannon Beach, Oregon, a town of about 1,600 people that's roughly 75 miles northwest of Portland. Many locals believe he's the gruesome ghost of a lumberjack who was chopped nearly to death in a sawmill accident, rushed to the hospital, was bandaged heavily, but died there.

Residents of Cannon Beach have reported coming back to their homes after a long day of work, only to find a broken window or door. Their valuables usually aren't missing, but there's a foul odor in the air and, sometimes, small pieces of bloody bandages.

Bandage Man apparently likes to travel, too. His bloody spirit, smelling of rotting flesh, has been reported as posing as a hitchhiker and then jumping (uninvited) into the back seat of a car.

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