Book adds to ghostly Murrell Home experience

By BETTY RIDGE

For the past 16 years, people attending the annual ghost story evenings at the Murrell Home have taken home plenty of spooky memories, but this year, the historic mansion is offering more than just scary stories.

If hearing several storytellers recount mysterious events revolving around the Murrell Home or northeastern Oklahoma whets your appetites you may also want to take home a copy of the newly-published “Ghost Stories from the Murrell Home,” compiled and transcribed by Jennifer Sparks.

Sparks has worked on collecting the legends for a couple of years.

“Everyone comes in and wants to know if the place is haunted,” said Amanda Pritchett, historical interpreter and gift shop manager. “We had some stories we had collected over the years, from the Indian Pioneer Papers and such. We had some more stories that had been passed down.”

Sparks became interested in getting all the stories written down, and with the help of others who knew of old legends, she did so.

The book contains a variety of legends, as well as photos of the Murrell Home’s interiors, of other sites mentioned in the stories, and of historical figures such as George Murrell and John Ross.

The first section contains stories about the Murrell Home; the second, stories from the Park Hill area; and the final one includes stories from the surrounding area.

Some of them will be familiar to people who have attended the ghost story nights over the years; many families make this an annual Halloween event. Even if you’ve heard about the mysterious black dog that suddenly appeared along the creek behind the home one night more than 150 years ago, the story still can raise the hairs on the back of your neck. And it may make you look nervously in the direction of the creek when departing the ghost story evening.

Known figures appear in the stories, such as “Mrs. Murrell’s Death,” “George Murrell’s Last Visit,” and “The Death and Burial of William Coodey Ross.” Other figures are more elusive: There’s “the woman” in the attic window, in blue, and on the balcony. There’s also the “little girl” who appears on the stairs and in the dining room.

George Murrell loved to set a bountiful table for his guests at Hunter’s Home, as the Murrell Home was called in the days he occupied it, between the time construction began in 1844 and the Civil War. So it’s no surprise that even culinary ghosts have been reported, as in the stories “The Coffee Grinder” and “Bacon Frying.”

Among the Park Hill and area stories are “Rose Cottage,” “The Forgotten Thicket,” “Moving Cookson Cemetery” and “The Little People.”

During the ghost story nights, visitors will enter through the front door, into the front hall decorated by candles, jack-o’-lanterns, cobwebs, and appropriately ghostly decor. They will move from room to room, with storytellers recounting different legends in each room. Whatever the story, certain scary noises, whether associated with a creaky old house or something else, are sure to make themselves known sometime during the night.

Sparks will draw on the stories she compiled as she takes one of the storytelling posts. Other spinners of scary stories include veterans of previous ghost story events, longtime Tahlequah educator Beth Herrington, former Site Manager Shirley Pettengill, master Cherokee storyteller Robert Lewis and Don Brown.

The book contains a disclaimer stating that the Friends of the Murrell Home and the Murrell Home staff do not vouch for the veracity of the ghost tales.

“We’re not exactly promoting paranormal activity. We’re just passing along oral traditions about the house,” Site Manager David Fowler said.

While Pettengill tells stories she has heard in 15 years of managing the Murrell Home, she remains a skeptic. Pritchett has worked there seven years, and is somewhat skeptical as well. But last year, after the ghost stories, something happened that made her wonder.

She recounts the story in the book. The group had finished locking up for the night and retired to the office, where security cameras are located. First, they noticed movements in the parlor and kitchen, but Pritchett thought those might be some sort of video glitches.

“They were fascinating to me, so I watched them,” she said.

Then, a black object appeared in a door to the parlor.

“We saw a black ball about this big [indicating with her hands the size of a person’s head] that was there. It came across the room, went by the John Ross couch, and then went out. I don’t know what it was. I wouldn’t say it was a ghost, but I saw something,” she said.

The object moved at about the same speed as a person walking, she said.

Fowler took over the site manager’s job this summer after Pettengill’s retirement. This will be his first Halloween at the Murrell Home. He formerly had worked at the Fort Gibson historic site, and said he never saw anything supernatural in the more than eight years he lived at the fort.

What does he expect this year?

“We’re going to have fun,” he said. “I don’t know what I’m expecting. I’m just keeping an open mind. I’m not a skeptic; I just haven’t had the experience.”

While he’s glad for people to tell scary stories about the Murrell Home, he strongly discourages anyone from making a midnight visit with the goal of spotting spooks personally. They may instead become part of the spotlight — one held by a Cherokee County deputy.

But he does encourage people to explore the new book.

“It would make a great Christmas gift, or Halloween gift — and it won’t rot your teeth,” he said.