READERS TALES
Ghosts of Point Lookout
Confederate Prison
During my senior year in
college (1982) I obtained a job registering campers at the campgrounds of Point
Lookout State Park in Scotland, Maryland. Being a college student for most means
being poor and things were no different for me. I was fortunate to rent a cabin
on the beautiful Potomac River side of the prison camp. At $70 a month it was a real
bargain compared to living on campus. This cabin was no more than a two room
cinderblock dwelling with hot water and no heat. Though the winters can be brutal
there, I didn't mind. The place lent just enough romance to appeal to a young woman.
Things
were great until I started being awakened at nights by loud crashes. The sounds came
from the kitchen and always sounded as if someone had taken an arm full of pots and pans
and thrown them in the floor. Needless to say the noise could "wake the
dead". This occurrence happened EVERY night. After the first month or so
of living there I obtained courage enough to mention this phenomenaa to some of my
friends. They were anxious to hear the crashes and volunteered to stay with me for a
few nights. They only needed one. My friends heard what I heard and were just
as anxious to leave as they were to come. Since I had experienced ghostly presences
most of my life, I was always shaken but not terrified. I stayed.
As
word got out of the hauntings at the Guard Dorm, which the cottage was known as, a
Park Ranger came to visit me. He wanted to explain that the cottage which was built
next to Fort Lincoln and near the site of the Prison Hospital was the site of the burial
grounds of amputated body parts from the soldiers who were imprisoned there during the
Civil War.
In
the spring of 1983 it was time for me to move on. I visited the old Guard Dorm this
past summer. It has been uninhabited for some time now. I wonder if things
still go bump in the night.
-Cindy.
