The Hanging of Rose Butler

The land where Washington Square Park is located in New York’s Greenwich Village was used for over a hundred years as a burial site.

It was initially used as an Indian burial ground.

Then after the Revolutionary War it was a potter’s field for criminals that were hanged in New York in the 1700s.

A Vault full of bones found
beneath the park.

There are an additional 20,000 souls buried in a mass grave, lost to a yellow fever epidemic that lasted from 1791 to 1821.

As New York’s wealthier citizens moved into the area, this extensive graveyard was covered over for a military parade ground.

It was at this point that the shallow graves of the potter’s field began to surface. As a result, several bones of the deceased poor were crushed underfoot.

The military parade ground at what was to become the park.

This stark history, plus the disturbance of these graves—point to this ground being haunted. After this location became a park in 1828, people began to note unexplained activity.

Today, the buildings that surround Washington Square, house the various NYU departments. The young people that flock to this park often do not know, about the morbid history of their favorite hangout.

Many bodies lie beneath the famous fountain and arch at this park.

Hangman's Elm

Most of NYUs students have never heard of Rose Butler, even though some have encountered her ghost. On windy nights, she is seen swinging from a large tree in the park’s northwest corner known as the “Hangman’s Elm.”

She is described as a shadow dangling in the tree that appears to disappear when witnesses move closer, to get a better view. Others have noticed this dangling figure from the various windows that overlook the park.

Some have seen her apparition walking through the park. Cold spots accompany her, even on hot summer days. Most disturbing is the witnesses who claim they felt her walk right through them.

Rose Butler was a house slave owned by the Morris family. At age sixteen, the family accused her of stealing. Previous owners had also caught her stealing.

Rose resentful, was also angered at the fact many blacks that were “free” lived near the Morris household.*

She hatched a plan to kill the family. She tried to burn down their house. She set it ablaze and tied their only exit shut.

But she only managed to burn part of the staircase, the family escaped unharmed.

Rose was arrested and tried for arson.

Arson was a heinous crime at the time—for there were not firefighters, and many perished in house fires.

Butler was condemned to death by hanging. This was a harsh penalty—for a woman. The case went all the way to the New York Supreme Court, but they upheld the ruling.

Some state this was because New York was in transition at the time. Slavery was on the decline, and there was a lot of tension between slaveholders and non-slaveholders.

At the age of nineteen, in 1799, Rose Butler was the last criminal hanged in what would become Washington Square Park. She was buried in the nearby potter’s field.

Some feel her grave was one of the many desecrated—hence the haunting.

*   She should have been free, slavery was an abomination, but some because of this sentiment, claim she was innocent--the fire was just an accident. But my research reflected otherwise.

But another question remains--

Since Rose didn't succeed, should she have been hanged? 

Execution Gone Wrong

Old Idaho Penitentiary

A gruesome murder in 1956 resulted in the first person being hanged indoors at the Old Idaho Penitentiary.

Raymond Allen Snowden was nicknamed an American version of Jack the Ripper when he brutally murdered a woman in Garden City. He stabbed Cora Dean, a local woman, and mother of two, 35 times.

During his trial, Snowden claimed the two got into an argument after a night of drinking. He said he backhanded Dean and then she kicked him. At this point, he lost it.

He took his one and a quarter inch pocketknife and slashed her throat first then thrust his blade into the back of her skull, severing her spinal cord.

He stashed his knife in front of a cigar store in Boise and then entered the building to use the restroom. Suspicious employees called the police. His knife was found, and Snowden was arrested.

Raymond Allen Snowden

Snowden later bragged he had killed two other women. But the murder of Cora Dean was enough. He was convicted of murder and sentenced to hang.

In October of 1957, witnesses, including family members of the victim, gathered on the second floor of the penitentiary to watch Snowden's execution.

There was a glass window between them and where Snowden stood on the trapdoors that would end his life. When an officer released these heavy doors with a lever, their weight smashed into the window shattering it.

Snowden dropped, but the rope did not snap his neck. Instead, he hung twisting and turning for over 15 minutes gasping for air. Witnesses later stated his gasps and grunts before he suffocated were nightmarish in tone.

The old Idaho penitentiary has been closed for years. Today it is on the National Register of Historic Places and is run as a museum.

Penitentiary's trapdoors.

Workers and visitors have heard sounds they feel must be Snowden. All state as they stood at the bottom of the gallows, they heard someone struggling for breath. These sounds can be heard both day and night.

Witnesses have also come forward to report feeling and seeing a dark entity in the area near the solitary confinement cell—nicknamed by the inmates “Siberia.” This entity has also been seen near the gallows.

Amelia Dyer: Britain’s Baby Butcher, Part V

Bargeman discovers corpse
of infant.

Just day’s before Amelia dumped the carpetbag containing Doris Marmon and Harry Simmons’ bodies into the Thames a bargeman had fished a package out of the river near this spot. It contained the body of an infant girl, Helena Fry.

The small Reading police force discovered a faintly legible address and the name “Mrs. Thomas” on the brown parcel paper that the baby was wrapped within.

This address was a former residence of Amelia Dyers.

The police then put Amelia under surveillance but they worried she would just disappear, so they arranged a meeting with her with a decoy—a young mother looking for adoptive services.

On April 3, 1896, the police arrived at her home while Amelia waited for this decoy. They smelled the decay of death but found no bodies.

They did find many distraught letters from mothers inquiring about their children, mounds of baby clothes and many more pawn receipts. They also found telegrams describing adoption arrangements and newspaper ads.

Pulling the carpetbag out.

Amelia was arrested on April 4^th for the murders of Doris Marmon and Harry Simmons. The Thames was searched, and 2 more bodies were found. Each child had been strangled with white seamstress tape.

Amelia told the police callously "that was how you could tell it was one of hers.”

Eleven days after Eveline Marmon watched tearfully as Amelia boarded a train with her daughter the police called her in to identify a small body.

On May 22^nd, Amelia pleaded guilty to the murder of Doris Marmon.

She used an insanity defense –offering her stays in mental institutions as proof-- but since the prosecution argued these stays coincided with her efforts to avoid the authorities and that they were short-lived, her defense was not believed.

Dyer sentenced to death.

The jury took 4 and half minutes at the Old Bailey to find Amelia Dyer guilty. On June 10, 1896, she was hanged at Newgate Prison. When asked if she had anything to say she said nothing.

Her loathsome actions along with other baby farm killers of the time that were hanged-- Margaret Waters, Annie Walters, and Amelia Sach to name a few-- did eventually led to welfare and other social reforms being instated.

Even though Amelia Dyer is Britain's most prolific serial killer her crimes were mostly forgotten until recent years when her records where placed online by the National Archives.

It is estimated that Amelia over her, 30-year career as a baby farmer was responsible for the deaths of over 400 infants.

Amelia's Ghost

Often prisons are haunted and Newgate which once stood just inside London is no exception to this rule. This structure built by the Romans was torn down in 1910 to make room for the Central Criminal Courts.

The original Roman gate, Newgate Prison before
it was demolished and prisoners being hanged
on the gallows.

Dead Man's Walk

On the side of the wall were Newgate once was is a narrow pathway that still exists today. It initially led from the prison to the quicklime pits where executed prisoners were buried.

It is not surprising since this pathway also was used to take condemned prisoners from their cells to the gallows that it was dubbed, “Dead Man’s Walk.”

A young warden, a Mr. Scott, at the time Amelia Dyer was hanged—later became Newgate’s chief warden.

He often told one grim tale of the prison being haunted.

Amelia Dyer after her arrest.

He was present at the hanging of Amelia Dyer in June of 1896. As Amelia was taken to the scaffold, she stopped and looked at Mr. Scott. She then said in a low voice, “I’ll meet you again, sir.”

Not long before Newgate was closed down, several wardens including Mr. Scott were gathered together, with a bottle of whiskey, to celebrate the end of their employment at the prison.

The room they stood within was next to the Women’s Felon Yard. A door, with a window in it, looked out over this yard.

As one fellow raised his glass for a toast, Scott became aware that someone was watching him. He then heard the words in his head, “I’ll meet you again someday, sir.”

He looked out the door’s window and saw the unmistakable face of Amelia Dyer. She looked at Scott for a moment and then left.

Scott rushed to the door and opened it but nothing was there except for a woman’s handkerchief that floated to the ground and landed at his feet.

There were no female prisoners in Newgate at this time—there had not been any for several years.

One photograph that was taken of Mr. Scott outside the prison’s execution shed has a distinct image of Amelia’s face peering over his shoulder.

Execution Shed

Some witnesses claim to have seen Amelia's ghost in Dead Man's Walk recently. Several ghosts have been spotted along this pathway.

In Part l of Amelia Dyer: Britain’s Baby Butcher illegitimate babies are left out in the cold and baby farming begins.

A Revolutionary Spy and a Cursed-Hanging Tree, Part l

From 1917 until 2001 this story was told around a campfire at Camp Glen Gray, a Boy Scout camp, located in the Ramapo Mountains in northeastern New Jersey.

Unlike most of the stories shared at this camp, this one has many elements of truth.

Scouts at Camp Glen Gray in the 1950s.

The scouts that heard this story were very scared when they discovered the incidents in this story happened right on the grounds of their camp. It was here in 1777 a Revolutionary War spy was executed.

The Cannonball Trail ran through this camp and was used as the main route to transport soldiers and supplies for the Continental Army. Along this route was a popular stop called The Mary Post Inn.

Modern-day hikers overlook Yellow
Trail a part of the original
Cannonball Trail.

The proprietor of this inn—Mary Post—was a beautiful young brunette who enchanted everyone she met.

Continental Soldiers.

American officers including members of George Washington’s staff often stayed at Mary’s inn. The inn was known to provide comfortable lodging and delicious food and drink. 

Mary, a gracious host, regularly participated in the soldier’s conversations with a quick wit. Unfortunately, these soldiers often imbibed too much of Mary’s beer and talked too much.

Beginning in 1776, Washington’s staff including Alexander Hamilton-- who served as America’s first secretary of the treasury—noticed the British had uncanny luck when it came to capturing the Continental supplies sent along the Cannonball Trail.

The British seemed to know exactly where to strike each time. The Americans realized a spy was in their midst. Mary Post immediately came under suspicion.

British grenadiers in 1777 New Jersey.

Hamilton sent Patriot operatives to watch Mary Post. Their suspicions were confirmed when these men observed Post mounting a horse late one night. She headed for New York City where the British were based.

She spent the night with her British lover, Major Carlton McDonnell.

With this information Hamilton decided to lay a trap. In early August a group of soldiers requested Post close the inn so they could hold a high-level strategy meeting. Post agreed.

As Mary served this group, they discussed a large shipment of equipment and supplies that would pass by her inn in eight days.

The next night Mary galloped away on her horse to tell this news to her lover. On Thursday, August 19^th a large contingent of British soldiers descended on the Cannonball Trail near Mary’s inn.

They expected to waylay and capture a large Continental supply convoy but instead an elite unit of Patriots soldiers that were hand-picked by Washington overwhelmed them.

The next day Mary Post was arrested at her Inn but as she was led out a group of local Patriots took her. Angry, they beat her ruthlessly then they affixed a hanging rope to a nearby maple tree.

The locals watched as it took 15 minutes for the rope to slowly tighten around Mary’s neck—prolonging her suffering, which satisfied the revenge-hungry crowd.

Mary’s last weak words were to accuse the British who failed to rescue her. She then cursed the maple tree, stating whoever harmed it would come to know the meaning of pain and suffering.

No one at the time took this curse seriously. But this tree would become the source for death, misery and unexplained incidents in the future.

In Part ll of A Revolutionary Spy and a Cursed Hanging Tree read about how this curse played out and about sightings of Mary Post’s ghost.

A Vigilante Hanging

Nevada City and the surrounding area, which included Virginia City, got their start when gold was discovered in Adler Gulch in 1863.

Nevada City was apart of Idaho Territory, until 1865, when it became the capital of Montana.

At this time, there was no law enforcement in the area—there was only a “miners court.”

Plummer Gang
robbing stagecoach.

So when George Ives, a member of the Plummer Gang * murdered a young Dutchman by the name of Nicholas Tibalt, in cold blood, it was vigilantes that responded.

Tibalt had been given gold by his employers, Burtchy and Clark, to buy mules. On his return trip, he was murdered, and the remaining gold and mules were stolen.

Ten days later, the body of Tibalt was brought back to Nevada City in a wagon. Ives, as he arrived in Virginia City, with the mules, had openly bragged, “the Dutchman would never trouble anybody again.”

Hearing about Ives’ boast, twenty-five men rode out to capture him. He was returned to Nevada City and put on trial. This proceeding, held outdoors, lasted three days as 2,000 area residents watched.

During his trial Ives’ “criminal friends”—including Sheriff Plummer of Virginia City-- tried to help him by planning his escape by intimidating witnesses—but neither worked.

Henry Plummer

Sheriff Plummer never arrived to lead the gang’s plan to help Ives, for he stayed away hearing vigilantes were looking for them, and the escape plan was thwarted because vigilante guards with loaded shotguns guarded Ives.

The miner’s court convicted Ives of the charges, and quickly arranged his hanging. A forty-foot pole was run through the window of an unfinished house, and a rope was draped over it.

Just fifty-eight minutes after he was found guilty, George Ives was hanged. He was buried next to his victim Tibalt—it was believed at the time that this would let Tibalt know his death had been avenged.

Outdoor museum Nevada City

Shortly after Ives’ hanging—the infamous Montana Vigilantes group was formed. Within the first month, twenty-four men found guilty by the vigilantes were hanged. Most of these men were apart of the Plummer Gang.

Just six years later, in 1869, the gold boom in Alder Gulch had ended, only a hundred people remained. By 1872, Nevada City was a ghost town.

During its heyday the placer mines of Alder Gulch yielded over thirty-five million dollars in gold.

By the early 1920s, many of the buildings in Nevada City had been destroyed.

In the 1950s a couple, Charles and Sue Bovey who collected Old Montana buildings bought Nevada City, and started to place other historic frontier buildings along the back streets of this ghost town.

They were careful to keep the original layout of the city intact.

In 1997, the State of Montana purchased the town. Today the Montana Heritage Commission runs Nevada City, as an outdoor museum. The last of the ninety historic buildings were placed on the site in 1978.

One hundred and fifty years after George Ives was hanged, three employees of the Montana Heritage Commission, Dan Thyer, Bill Peterson, and John Ellingsen were doing a research project at the site.

Historic Marker

Peterson took a photograph of Thyer and Ellingsen standing next to a historical marker that shows the spot where Ives was hanged.

When this photo was uploaded to a computer, the two men were not even in the shot. Instead, there is a mysterious, transparent figure of a man, who the three did not recognize.

They concluded this must be the ghost of George Ives.

The mysterious photo that was taken.

In the following short video Dan Thyer discusses the history of the Ives hanging, plus there is a clear shot of the mysterious figure that Peterson captured in the photograph.

* The Plummer Gang were Road Agents or highwaymen led by Sheriff Plummer. This was during the Civil War, and many wounded soldiers from both the North and South landed in Montana Territory. This made for a hostile atmosphere.

In May of 1864 Montana Territory was created by an Act of Congress and signed by President Abraham Lincoln. This insured Alder Gulch was under the jurisdiction of the United States—or the North.

The “vigilantes” were former wounded Northern soldiers who were there to ensure none of the 30 million dollars in gold mined in the Gulch in just 3 years from 1863 to 1866 reached the South.

So these vigilantes in remote Montana actually played a role in the outcome of the Civil War.

Ohio: Salem Cemetery’s Ghosts

Salem Cemetery

Originally called Salem Church Cemetery this burial ground has been in use since Ohio’s pioneer days. It is located in Belmont County amidst the Egypt Valley wilderness area.

It got its name from the church that once stood across from it. Vandals burned down this church in the 1960s. This isolated area is prone to vandalism so during the hunting season people are posted at Salem Cemetery to protect the area.

This cemetery has two ghosts that wander through it. One was a murderer the other was his victim.

In 1869 Louiza Fox was a 13-year old girl who lived with her family in this sparsely populated corner of Ohio in Kirkwood Township.

The main industry in the area was coal mining.

Thomas D. Carr was a coal miner and a much older man than Louiza. The two met when Carr visited his employer--Alex Hunter’s home. Louisa was employed as a domestic servant.

Carr was attracted to her and despite their difference in age quickly obtained the Fox’s permission to marry their daughter.

But they changed their minds when they heard about Carr’s bad reputation and propensity for violence.

Born in Sugar Hill, West Virginia Carr enlisted at the age of 15 in the Confederate infantry. He was captured at Cheat Run WVA and held in a POW camp.

Finding out about his “notorious character” Louisa’s parents broke their promise to Carr. They cancelled the wedding.

Carr became enraged when he found Louiza also wanted to end their engagement.

On the night of January 21, 1869 Carr waited behind a fence along the route Louiza walked home from work. He waylaid her with her younger brother Willy.

Carr approached the siblings and sent Willy on ahead stating he needed to talk to his ex fiancé. He then kissed Louiza goodbye and slit her throat with a razor and stabbed her fourteen times.

He dumped her body in a nearby ditch. Willy saw the whole thing from a distance. He told his family what happened and a posse was quickly formed to search for Carr.

The next morning Carr attempted to commit suicide by slashing his throat and shooting himself but he was found alive and arrested.

The formidable Judge Way presided over an exciting 5-day trial. When his death sentence was handed down Carr laughed and stated he did “not care a damn if it was to be tomorrow.”

On March 8, 1870 while waiting to be hung Carr made a full confession. He also admitted to killing 14 other people. This makes him one of the 1800’s most prolific serial killers.

While being held Carr became a morbid celebrity. He entertained two female teenage visitors whom had crushes on him--the 1800 version of murder groupies.

He gave these two girls pictures of himself and his rings. He told them “they would all meet in heaven.”

Carr’s hanging was delayed by a “legal technicality” but he was finally hanged on March 21, 1870. He was the first person to be legally hanged in Belmont County.

Louiza’s worn headstone in Salem Cemetery reads:

Louiza Catherine

Daughter of John E. & Mary A,

Fox

Murdered by Thomas Carr

Jan. 21, 1869

Aged 13 years 11 months

and 13 days

There is also a marker at the spot where Louiza was murdered--it notes the same information her gravestone has.

Both Louiza’s and Carr’s ghosts have been seen wandering the Valley.

Louiza's gravestone

Louiza’s ghost tends to linger near her gravestone. She is heard crying near this spot. She is also seen on Starkey Road near the place where she was murdered. This spot is just a mile away from her burial site.

Carr was buried on the grounds of the county courthouse in St. Clairsville were he was executed. But this hasn’t stopped his ghost from wandering around the cemetery and valley where he once lived.