Hallowe'en: Mayhem, Mischief, and a Bit of Ghostly History

Updated October 2019

This updated version of the earlier posting shows a varied celebration of Hallowe'en in my area of southeastern lower Michigan - the metro-Detroit area,  and interspersed  throughout are snips and bits of Hallowe'en history and lore.  The many pictures and the historical information should hopefully bring what was  (and still is)  a children's holiday up to the level of adults as well,  for,  initially,  Hallowe'en was actually meant for adults.
Hope you enjoy it..

~   ~   ~

Yes,  you see an apostrophe in the title of this posting.  According to the historians at Greenfield Village,  this was the way Hallowe'en was spelled over a century ago,  for the word  "Hallowe'en"  is actually an abbreviation of  "All Hallows Eve."  The  "all"  and  "s"  were dropped,  "hallow"  and  "eve"  (short for even or evening)  became, as your English teacher might say,  a closed compound,  and,  over time,  became  "Hallowe'en." 

Jack of the lantern, mayhaps?

And Jack's horse...

And,  by the way,  All Saints Day  (originally called All Hallow's Day)  is November 1st,  the day following Hallowe'en.  All Saint’s  Day is a Christian festival celebrated on November 1st in honor of all the saints,  known and unknown.  Anglicans view All Souls' Day,  November 2nd,  as an extension of the observance of All Saints' Day and it serves to  "remember those who have died,"  in connection with the doctrines of the resurrection of the body and the Communion of Saints.  Beliefs and practices associated with All Souls' Day vary widely among Christian churches and denominations.

All Saints' Day-All Souls' Day

In some Christian denominations,  All Souls' Day remembers all of the souls of all Christians who have died.   The Christian celebration of All Saints'  Day and All Souls'  Day stems from a belief that there is a powerful spiritual bond between those in heaven  (the  "Church triumphant"),  and the living  (the  "Church militant").  Observing Christians typically remember deceased relatives on the day.  In Western Christianity these annual celebration are associated with the season of All Hallow Tide:  Hallowe’en,    All Saints' Day,  and All Souls’ Day.

In the British Isles,  it is known that churches were already celebrating All Saints on November 1st at the beginning of the 8th century to coincide with or replace the Celtic festival of Samhain.  James Frazer suggests that November 1st  was chosen because it was the date of the Celtic festival of the dead (Samhain).  However,  Ronald Hutton points out that,  according to Óengus of Tallaght  (d. ca. 824),  the 7th/8th century church in Ireland celebrated All Saints on April 20th.  He suggests that the November 1st date was a Germanic rather than a Celtic idea.
In America it is all celebrated in a myriad of different ways by as many different people.

Since this is a history-based blog,  well,  it only goes to show that I try to be as accurate as I can,  but there are books written about these old Holydays and if you have a deeper interest in them I suggest to seek them out.  I have not even touched the surface here.

Anyhow,  I've always somewhat enjoyed Hallowe'en,  though to me it's not up there with Christmas or the 4th of July,  and really wasn't even when I was young.  Yeah,  I dressed up and trick or treated with my friends way back then;  we covered blocks and blocks and would come home with pillow cases filled with sugar-sweetened loot.  But,  to me,  for the most part,  Hallowe'en was just a day to dress up funny or scary and get candy.  

Until somewhat a bit more recently.

The 1750 Giddings Home...with a full moon overhead.

Today,  however,  Hallowe'en has become a major holiday,  with adults turning their front  (and sometimes back)  yards into scenes of ghostly horrors.  In Romeo,  Michigan there is even an entire street where nearly every homeowner gets involved.  It's known as  Terror on Tillson Street  and we visit every Hallows Eve.  I have to admit,  I have never been to anything quite like it.  Some of  the most amazing displays of Hallowe'en horrors I've ever seen are everywhere,  and each one is totally different from the other,  from graveyards to a pirate ship to a torture chamber to - wait!  is that the Charlie Brown gang? - to hearses...
and the throngs of trick or treaters is like something out of a Disney movie.
It is really cool.
It sort of made Hallowe'en...um...come alive  (so to speak)  for me - - - 

I have never seen so many trick or treaters than on Tillson Street in Romeo,  Michigan

The  (mostly)  Victorian homes on Tilsson Street really go all out in their Hallowee'n decorations

All that it takes to make a scary scene is a little imagination...

Even something as simple as corn stalks and a jack-o-lantern can make for a spooky display.  Of course,  the old Victorian houses help quite a bit,  too!

Yes,  just a bit spooky...

Wait - - is that a pirate ship?  Maybe it's what's left of the Black Pearl!

Ghosts in the attic

Tilson Street is scary enough in the daytime,  but let's check it out at night...on Hallowe'en night!

How'd you like to walk through a cornfield and have these two jacks of the lanterns pop out at you?

The beautiful Victorian homes of Romeo are a perfect stage for creating Hallowe'en horror.

Frightfully cool...!

Jack Skellington and his dog,  Zero,  enjoy an All Hallow's Eve.

Here's an abandoned house...it really is!  My son and I were brave enough to walk up to it,  on Hallowe'en nonetheless!  As I turned around to take a picture before we left,  something caught my eye.
Do you see it?

Goblins,  imps,  fairies,  and trolls were thought to do a lot of mischief on Hallowe'en;  it was the night spirits were out,  and farmers bolted their doors and avoided walking alone at night.  This was the night when doors were blocked with carts,  or attacked with a fusillade of turnips.  Plows and carts were carried off and hidden.  Gates were taken off their hinges and thrown into a neighboring ditch or pond.  Horses were led from the stables and left in the fields a few miles away.

My daughter-in-law getting into the Hallowe'en spirit...

Then there is Hallowe'en at Greenfield Village.  Yes,  this historic open-air museum does a fine kid-friendly Hallowe'en presentation,  and they utilize much of the Village itself to entertain the thousands of visitors who step through the gates every fifteen minutes.  The costumed presenters are dressed in period-accurate clothing of  Hallowe'en past,  though there is little to no gore;  like I said,  it's kid-friendly.  But there is an eeriness,  however,  for everything takes place beginning at dusk and into the autumn darkness,  and that in itself can be quite spooky.  While there,  visitors will get to meet a variety of costumed characters interspersed throughout the city streets.  They will also meet Ichabod Crane as well as the Headless Horseman,  and even experience what it was like to cross a mystic covered bridge much like the one in Sleepy Hollow.  In fact,  you'll almost feel as if you actually were in that fabled village of Washington Irving's Sleepy Hollow.

Imagine walking down your street and seeing this - - - - Greenfield Village really does a fine job in decorating for Hallowe'en

My daughter did her best to imitate.

Look through any window, yeah, what do you see?  No smiling faces all around in the Menlo Park laboratory!

Many of the costumes the presenters wear at Greenfield are based on costumes from story books from the days of old...

...but quite a few of the visitors also wear pretty cool costumes as well.

Yes,  the above photo was also taken at Greenfield Village during the Hallowe'en evening event...

The telling of ghost stories on Hallowe'en derives from both the Druids'  belief that the ancestral dead arise on this night and the Christian directive to honor the souls of the departed at Hallowmas.
It was only natural,  then,  at early American harvest time get-togethers,  when the communities would gather for such harvest time activities as corn-husking parties,  apple paring parties,  sugar and sorghum making days,  and even at thresherman dinner parties,  that ghost stories would become an integral part of these autumn celebrations.  Many American ghost stories evolved from actual superstitions and rituals practiced by those who lived in the British Isles.  These tales of the ancestral dead were told and retold by the elders to a spellbound crowd,  late at night,  after all of the activities were done,  when the moon was fully risen and the trees outside shook with the autumn wind.  That's when people gathered around a fire and told one another tales of the silenced dead lying in graves nearby.

Who's that I see walking in these woods?  Why, it's Little Red Riding Hood!  And she's at the edge of the Sleepy Hollow forest!

Yikes!  The headless horseman is chasing Ichabod Crane!

Ichabod is galloping toward the covered bridge!

But the covered bridge doesn't seem any less scarier...

Greenfield Village truly does a wonderful job in their Hallowe'en presentation! 
What fun!

Now,  here is a bit I found about the supposed story behind the story of  Washington Irving's  "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow's"  plot and its ties to the American Revolution:
"The story is set in 1790 in the countryside around the Dutch settlement of Tarry Town  (historical Tarrytown,  New York),  in a secluded glen called Sleepy Hollow.  Sleepy Hollow is renowned for its ghosts and the haunting atmosphere that pervades the imaginations of its inhabitants and visitors.  Some residents say this town was bewitched during the early days of the Dutch settlement.  Other residents say an old Native American chief,  the wizard of his tribe,  held his powwows here before the country was discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson.  The most infamous spectre in the Hollow is the Headless Horseman,  said to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper whose head had been carried away by a cannon-ball during some nameless battle of the American Revolutionary War,  and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in the gloom of night,  as if on the wings of the wind.  and  who rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head.
This dominant spirit seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air,  and, as noted,  is the apparition of a figure on horseback,  without a head.
His haunts are not confined to the valley,  but extend at times to the adjacent roads,  and especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance.  Indeed,  certain of the most authentic historians of those parts,  who have been careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this spectre,  allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly quest of his head,  and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow,  like a midnight blast,  is owing to his being belated,  and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak."

There just may be some actual history to Irving's 1822 ghost story.
Read on...

"After the Battle of White Plains in October 1776,  the country south of the Bronx River was abandoned by the Continental Army and occupied by the British.  The Americans were fortified north of Peekskill,  leaving Westchester County a 30-mile stretch of scorched and desolated no-man's land,  vulnerable to outlaws,  raiders,  and vigilantes.  Besides droves of Loyalist rangers and British light infantry,  Hessian Jägers—renowned sharpshooters and horsemen—were among the raiders who often skirmished with Patriot militias.  The Headless Horseman,  being a decapitated Hessian soldier,  may have indeed been based loosely on the discovery of just such a Jäger's headless corpse found in Sleepy Hollow after a violent skirmish,  and later buried by the Van Tassel family,  in an unmarked grave in the Old Dutch Burying Ground.  The dénouement of the fictional tale is set at the bridge over the Pocantico River in the area of the Old Dutch Church and Burying Ground in Sleepy Hollow."
Interesting, huh?

Speaking of Sleepy Hollow,  my favorite manufacturer of lighted ceramic houses,  Dept. 56,  has a Sleepy Hollow collection.  You have probably guessed that,  yes,  I have numerous pieces from this set.  It adds to the fall flavors that I love so much this time of year.

A scene right out of Sleepy Hollow.

The Headless Horseman pulls from his grave to grab the head of his next victim

Ichabod Crane scurries towards the covered bridge.  By the way,  I made that bridge  (based on the Ackley Covered Bridge at Greenfield Village)  with popsicle sticks.

Not from the Sleepy Hollow series, but this haunted train depot  is pretty cool in that the lights flash and it has sound effects.

Also from Department 56:

Dept. 56:  Major Andre's Tree

 Major John André was a British Army officer who was hanged on October 2,  1780 as a spy by the Continental Army during the American Revolutionary War for assisting Benedict Arnold's attempted surrender of the fort at West Point,  New York to the British.
According to Ben Tallmadge,  who was instrumental in organizing a spy ring to relay information to George Washington:  "The Commander-in-Chief  (Washington)  ordered that the execution  (oj John Andre)  should take place on the 2nd of October.  Major Andre,  having received his regimentals from New York,  appeared in the complete uniform of a British officer,  and in truth,  he was a most elegant and accomplished gentleman.  After he was informed of his sentence,  he showed no signs of perturbed emotions,  but wrote a most touching and finished letter to Gen.  Washington,  requesting that the mode of his death might be adapted to the feelings of a man of honor.  The universal usage of nations having affixed to the crime of a spy,  death by the gibbet,  his request could not be granted.  As I was with him most of the time from his capture,  and walked with him as he went to the place of execution,  I never discovered any emotions of fear respecting his future destiny before I reached Tappan,  nor of emotion when his sentence was made known to him.  When he came within sight of the gibbet,  he appeared to be startled,  and inquired with some emotion whether he was not to be shot.  Being informed that the mode first appointed for his death could not consistently be altered,  he exclaimed,  "How hard is my fate!''  but immediately added,  "it will soon be over.''  I then shook hands with him under the gallows and retired.
Major Andre was executed in his military uniform..."

I've owned this tree as part of my Dept.  56 collection for years 
and never read the  'placard'  attached.
Shame on me!

A key component of the short story  “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”  recalls the tale of Major John André for whom  “Many dismal tales were told about funeral trains,  and mourning cries and wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major André was taken,  and which stood in the neighborhood.”   The giant tulip tree which features prominently in the tale was  “connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate André,  who had been taken prisoner hard by;  and was universally known by the name of Major André’s tree.”

The Dept.  56 version of 
Jack of the Lantern holding his 
lighted turnip.

But there is more history coming from Dept. 56 and their ceramic villages & accessories:
Jack O' Lantern - - or - - Jack of the Lantern.
Vegetable and fruit carving is an old tradition and exists across the world.
According to folklore researchers,  the original story and the tradition of making Jack-o’-lanterns for Halloween come from Ireland.
Traditional holds about Jack-of-the-lantern  (Stingy Jack)  and how he made a deal with the devil not to take his soul.  According to one version of the story,  when Jack died he was too sinful to go to heaven,  and the devil had already promised not to take his soul.
So Jack had nowhere to go.  When he complained to the devil that without light,  he couldn’t see where to go,  the Devil gave him an ember from the flames of Hades to guide him in the darkness of the afterlife.
Jack took a turnip,  his favorite food,  carved it into a lantern and put the ember inside it.  With his lantern ready,  he began to wander in search of a resting place endlessly.
Besides the ritual bonfires  (meant to ward off evil spirits)  that are lit on this day,  mumming and guising  (Trick-or-treating)  were also rituals performed during Samhain.
The traditional illumination for guisers or pranksters abroad on the night was provided by turnips or mangel wurzels,  hollowed out to act as lanterns,  lit with coal or a candle,  and often carved with grotesque faces.
Turnip lanterns usually represented supernatural beings and were used to chase evil spirits.  Guisers used them to scare people,  while in some cases they were set on windowsills to guard homes against evil.
Irish immigrants brought the jack-o’-lantern custom to North America.  Here,  turnips were slowly replaced by pumpkins to make the iconic Halloween decorations,  and eventually became the plant of choice.

And here are actual carved  (and lighted)  turnips 
made at our 1860s harvest presentation.
How cool is this?

There is evidence that turnips were used to carve what was called a  "Hoberdy's Lantern"  in Worcestershire,  England,  at the end of the 18th century.  The folklorist Jabez Allies recalls:
“In my juvenile days I remember to have seen peasant boys make,  what they called a  ‘Hoberdy's Lantern,’  by hollowing out a turnip,  and cutting eyes,  nose,  and mouth therein,  in the true moon-like style;  and having lighted it up by inserting the stump of a candle,  they used to place it upon a hedge to frighten unwary travellers in the night.”

Adaptations of Washington Irving's short story  "The Legend of Sleepy Hollow"  (1820)  often show the Headless Horseman with a pumpkin or jack-o'-lantern in place of his severed head,  as you saw above.  In the original story,  a shattered pumpkin is discovered next to Ichabod Crane's abandoned hat on the morning after Crane's supposed encounter with the Horseman.

A pumpkin tree

The carved pumpkin lantern's association with Halloween is also recorded in the November 1, 1866 edition of the Daily News from Kingston, Ontario:“The old time custom of keeping up Hallowe'en was not forgotten last night by the youngsters of the city.  They had their maskings and their merry-makings,  and perambulated the streets after dark in a way which was no doubt amusing to themselves.  There was a great sacrifice of pumpkins from which to make transparent heads and face,  lighted up by the unfailing two inches of tallow candle.”
On Halloween in 1835,  the Dublin Penny Journal wrote a long story on the legend of  "Jack-o'-the-Lantern".  In 1837,  the Limerick Chronicle refers to a local pub holding a carved gourd competition and presenting a prize to  "the best crown of Jack McLantern."  The term  "McLantern"  also appears in an 1841 publication of the same paper.
And then we also have the poet John Greenleaf Whittier,  who was born in Massachusetts in 1807,  who wrote the poem  "The Pumpkin"  (1850):
Oh!—fruit loved of boyhood!—the old days recalling,
When wood-grapes were purpling and brown nuts were falling!
When wild,  ugly faces we carved in its skin,
Glaring out through the dark with a candle within!

(Many,  many thanks to our reenacting friends,  the Woodruff family,  for the idea of carving turnips at our celebration of harvest past.  This was a definite highlight.)

On to the next stop on our journey through Hallowe'en past:

The cemetery-------------

Out of the graveyard comes a ghost...
(photograph taken by Heather Thornton)

The picture above was taken inside Mount Elliott Cemetery,  which is the oldest still existing cemetery in the city of Detroit,  founded in 1841.  The first burial in the cemetery occurred only twelve days after its establishment when Robert Elliott,  an architect,  judge,  and founding member of the committee that created the cemetery,  was laid to rest.  He had been killed in a construction accident.  The cemetery was christened  "Mount Elliott"  in his honor.

My son looking a bit creepy in the fake  (but cool looking)  cemetery at Greenfield Village 

Other autumn happenings tend to have a Hallowe'en theme,  even if that was not the intention.  For nearly a decade I participated in cemetery walks.  As strange as it may seem, this is a wonderful way to bring local history to life.  It also helps to bring people into these villages of the dead to show that they aren't necessarily scary places.  In fact,  a couple years ago my daughter and I teamed up to portray a long-deceased,  um,  father and daughter.  The tour groups were shocked upon seeing a 10 year old girl acting out the life of a young girl who died at that same age back in 1910.  Perhaps the most touching moment was when an elderly couple stayed behind after the tour group moved on and told us,  with teary eyes,  that they lost their young daughter many years ago and we had helped to bring them closure.
Wow...

My daughter and I in the Clinton Grove Cemetery in Mt. Clemens,  Michigan in 2010.  It is very unusual to see a child participate in such a thing - and very gutsy,  to be honest.

Sometimes cemetery walks can be a bit creepy...

...especially at night!

Speaking of cemeteries,  mourning presentations of the 19th century seems to be on the rise.  As reenactments I am seeing more women dressed in the traditional clothing of women who lost a loved one.  In fact, at Greenfield Village during the Civil War Days over Memorial Weekend they used to have an actual house of mourning and showed just what it was like for a family to have lost a loved one back then.

My friend Kim Parr and her friend Stephanie began the mourning program at Greenfield Village's  Adams House many years ago.  Kim is a mourning historian and does presentations for many historical groups throughout the year.

Kim also portrays mourning inside the Crocker House in Mt.  Clemens during the cemetery walks.

Rebecca has a wonderfully mournful photo here,  showing the despair of the widow.

Kristen mourned for the loss of her husband,  killed in the battle of Fredricksburg in December of 1862.  Note the mirror of the dresser is draped with black fabric,  for virtually anything reflective  (or shiny in many cases)  would be covered,  such as mirrors and glass of any kind, including picture frame glass.

The widow in mourning looks for her husband's grave...
beckoning him to return to her...

...but he is there,  comforting her from beyond the grave...
(one of my own ghost pictures here taken at Greenfield Village)

Such a sad,  sad sight to see,  a wife in mourning for her husband.  Here,  she cannot bear to leave her husband's  body lying in the cold ground. 
(photo courtesy of Heather Persetic)

There are cool things one can do with the computer,  such as make ghost photos.  I am no pro at this but I do see myself improving with each passing  "trick."
So,  no,  none of the  "captures"  you see in the ghostly photographs in this post are real....or are they?

American history is steeped in ghostly tales,  and the souls from the past may not always rest easy.  Traumatic events such as war,  murder,  accidental deaths,  and even some souls not realizing they are no longer alive have played out in every town and city across the nation.  And situations like these are seemingly at the root of practically every ghost story ever passed around at every campfire,  told with reverence in a shaky voice or recorded in a written record.

This Firestone Farm ghost picture is a composite of four different photos.  I don't have my faux ghost photos perfected yet but I sure do have fun trying!

An untimely death is almost always found at the heart of a haunted location because it's easy to understand how the spirits of people who meet a tragic or untimely end would have a hard time moving on to the other side.

I wonder if these presenters knew they had a visitor watching them...?

This ominous-looking structure was built in the mid-1700's.  
Could it be?...hmmm...

They may be so shocked by their own death that they don't know it's time to leave this world.  Or perhaps they're so angry about what happened to them that they feel bound to the realm of the living so they can try to share their stories...

Wait-------do you see....?

Could this be Anna Daggett, who died in 1832,  still a-waiting for her husband to return?

There is a Daggett ghost story imparted to me by a former presenter which tells of feeling, but not seeing, the tug of a child. This presenter was speaking with visitors at the keeping room door (to the right of the kitchen) when she felt what she thought was a child grabbing and pulling on her skirts, but as she looked around, there no child was to be found, nor had anyone around seen anything or even reacted to how she searched for her little "tugger."

And what about the little girl who likes to tug on the petticoats of the presenters?
I see her...do you?

A security guard at Greenfield Village heard voices one evening after closing coming from the 1750 Giddings House parlor. 
I wonder...

Who---or what---is peaking around the corner at the 
birthplace of Henry Ford?

Holy cow!  It's coming towards me!

The Commander's house in Historic Fort Wayne located in Detroit can be a mite scary,  too!

Spirits seem to like to descend stairs at the Waterloo Farm as well...

And finally,  my daughter pictured below,  loved the TV show NCIS when she was younger,  as did we all in my family.  So when she was asked what she wanted to be for Hallowe'en a few years back she did not hesitate one bit in saying,  "Abby!"  Abby Sciuto was the  'goth'  forensic scientist on the show and is probably one of the most recognized characters in television today.  It took a bit of searching but I found an NCIS Abby name tag,  a white coat,  dog collar,  a black wig,  and my wife did her tats,  including the spider web on the neck.  My son's then girlfriend  (now wife)  gave my daughter a pair of her goth boots to wear as well.  Let me tell you,  everybody knew who she was.  In fact,  at one point she was literally surrounded by people saying,  "Look! It's Abby!"  and camera flashes going off everywhere.  Her costume was such a hit that she wore it two years in a row.

My daughter as Abby Sciuto 

And here's the last picture for good measure:

Hallowe'en 1965.

Yeah, that's me as Mickey Mouse and my brother,  Tom,  
as a pirate.

Our costumes were so good and made of such high quality that people actually thought we were who we pretended to be!

Seriously!

Every time we yelled  "Trick or Treat"  at the door, the people 
handing out candy would say,  "Oh My!  A scary pirate!"  and 
then,  "Oh!  There's Mickey Mouse!"

Yeah...we were  that  good.

I've seemed to have grown to enjoy Hallowe'en a bit more as I've gotten older,  mainly due to portraying it more as history rather than scary,  though the scary fun is kind of neat,  too.  I won't go to the various  'haunted houses'  that dot the area,  however.  From what I've heard they're nothing more than a shock-fest set with  'spooks'  grabbing people and screaming in their faces.
No,  don't want nothing to do with that.
But a haunted hayride might be fun to try...


Until next time, see you in time.


Some of the information in this post came directly from the book
Halloween: An American Holiday, An American History by Lesley Pratt Bannatyne
Some also came from a variable of Wikipedia pages.
Turnips & Pumpkin info came directly - word for word - from HERE

To read about some of the hauntings inside Greenfield Village, please click HERE

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