He was born Herman Webster Mudgett, but he was better know as Dr. Henry Howard Holmes, or H.H. Holmes, and he was one of the first documented serial killers in modern America. He was born in 1861 in New Hampshire, and it's reported that his father was a violent alcoholic. He graduated from the University of Michigan Medical School in 1884, and while he was enrolled he stole cadavers and mutilated them, claiming they were victims of accidents, collecting insurance polices on them. Holmes moved to Chicago in 1886 to pursue a career in pharmaceuticals. He got a job[...]
Category
Horrific History
3 Hi all! Today's real life creepy place is in Jamaica, and trust me, it's creepy as hell. The place I'm talking about, Rose Hall House, is considered one of the most haunted places in the Western Hemisphere and the sinister figure at its center, the eponymous White Witch, makes Elizabeth Bathory look like a little girl ripping heads off her Barbies. Rose Hall House is located near Montego Bay, and its legendary owner was a British-born woman named Annie Palmer. The house was built in the 1770s and restored in the sixties. The story of Annie Palmer, much like Ba[...]
Hello all! In the last few weeks, I’ve been on an Eastern European kick. Now it’s time for some creepiness much closer to home—at least my home. So I present to you not one, not two… but three real life creepy places right here in Montreal. Montreal is one of the first European settlements in North America. For two thousand years prior, the territory was inhabited by Algonquin, Huron and Iroquois tribes; in 1535, a French guy named Jacques Cartier arrived on the scene, named the St-Lawrence River, founded what would later be Quebec City, and then moved d[...]
Today's real life creepy place isn't so much creepy as mystical, but it holds a very special significance to me: I grew up in that neighborhood and went for daily walks in this park when I was a child. The park is one of the oldest in Moscow, in a neighborhood called Sokolniki ("Falconers"). Moscow is an old place with a rich history, and Sokolniki is no exception. The park got its name from none other than Ivan the Terrible (1530-1584), who was fond of hunting with falcons. A well-known Russian folk tale about a famous falconer is also said to be inspired by[...]
Hi all! After my absence last time (what can I say, life intervened) I'm back with another Real Life Creepy Place. And this one is an oldie but goodie. Welcome to Centralia. Also known as the inspiration behind the Silent Hill games. Centralia is one of the most well-known ghost towns in North America. Abandoned since the eighties, it's situated near a town called Ashland (Ashland? I mean... really?), along a part of Route 61 that's now blocked off. Centralia used to be an ordinary small Pennsylvania town of less that 3000 inhabitants, a mining town that mainl[...]
I love books. I have over six hundred of them in my library, and I'm still finding creative ways to cram more in even though I'm running out of space on my shelves. I especially love leather-bound books, though I don't have too many of those (YA titles don't usually get released with ooh la la fancy bindings like that.) There's something warm and buttery about holding a hand bound volume -- but what if a book you thought was simple moo cow hide was actually something a little more sinister? One of the most famous examples of a book bound in human skin comes from[...]
Modern medicine is a beautiful thing. In 1495 Europe was hit with an acutely horrendous disease: syphilis. As it was a completely new disease being introduced to the population, the people of Europe had no resistance mechanisms to the grossness that was syphilis. And when I say gross, I mean it, people. Those first several years, before eventually being replaced by milder strains, the disease-- also known as "The Great Pox" or "The French Disease" -- manifested itself in its victims in truly grotesque ways. The following description was written by Ulrich Von H[...]