36. The Real Ghosts Of... Octagon Hall: Part 1

Step into the shadowy halls of Octagon Hall as we kick off our two-part investigation at one of the most paranormally active locations in the South. In this first episode, we dive deep into the chilling history and eerie legends surrounding this Civil War-era mansion. From the untimely deaths that left restless spirits behind to the unsettling lore of lingering soldiers, join us as we unravel the haunted past of Octagon Hall. Before we step into the investigation, we'll explore the stories that might explain the ghostly activity you're about to witness. Ready to meet the spirits?

-----------------------------------------------

EXCLUSIVE BONUS CONTENT + LIVE HANGOUTS: https://www.patreon.com/ParaPeculiar

MEDIUMSHIP MENTORSHIP WITH NICOLE: https://www.therealghostsof.com/mentorship 

LURK: https://www.instagram.com/therealghostsof/ 

WATCH: https://www.youtube.com/@therealghostsof 

Do you have any stories you'd like to share for a Wine & Spirits episode or somewhere you'd like us to investigate? Send us a message and let us know!

therealghostsof@gmail.com

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:02

Welcome to the Real Ghosts of Podcast, where we explore haunted locations in and around Austin, Texas. We're your hosts, Nicole Ricardo and Damien Shelacey.

SPEAKER_00 0:17

Listen along as we couple in-depth historical research and paranormal investigative techniques with a sixth sense of the unknown.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Okay, we're recording.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

We are recording.

SPEAKER_02 0:34

We're recording.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

And we're back.

SPEAKER_02 0:36

We're back.

SPEAKER_01 0:36

We're back.

SPEAKER_02 0:37

And we went on a trip.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

We went on a trip. The great paranormal road trip.

SPEAKER_02 0:42

The the para the para-road trip 2024 was pretty wild.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

We went all the way up to Kentucky, didn't we?

SPEAKER_02 0:50

Uh yeah, we went well we went a few places. Yeah. So we went to October Hall.

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Well, yeah, a few places.

SPEAKER_02 1:04

We went to the Bell Witch Cave.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

So exciting for me.

SPEAKER_02 1:08

We went to Louisville. We did to go to Waverly Hill Sanatorium.

SPEAKER_01 1:17

Which is something I know that me, I mean, I've wanted to go there for a long time.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

I mean, yeah, that's like paranormal bucket list. Like I have wanted to go there for like as long as I can remember.

SPEAKER_01 1:31

Yeah. It did not disappoint.

SPEAKER_02 1:34

It was pretty fucking sweet.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Pretty sweet.

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Um, so anyway, yeah, that's okay. Well, we're now we're back, and so now you get to hear all of it. Uh, this episode is going to be on Octagon Hall. It'll probably be two episodes, maybe three, I don't know. We'll figure out as we're recording.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Because Octagon Hall is, I mean, part of this road trip. First off, it's it was an amazing trip altogether. You're gonna hear all about it. We're gonna really dive into it. Waverly Hills, Belwich Cave, Octagon Hall, all of them had their own little pieces of sort of profound, sort of amazing activity.

SPEAKER_02 2:12

Yeah, they were all really fucking cool. And it it's something that was interesting to me is we also kind of I feel like came away with a few like lessons. Oh yeah. You know, from just the trip overall um lessons that were imparted upon us from the other side, I don't know, from from someone, from someone else that wasn't us. Um so I guess I don't know, we should talk about that at the end too.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

We will. And I also think to start, we gotta give we have to give a huge both shout-out and a thank you to our road dogs. Our road dogs, our roadies, our road dogs, our roadies with Sir Talking Hair. Sir Talking Hair and the Mayor Wayne always has the Indy Para House vote. Wayne.

SPEAKER_02 3:00

Wayne, he he is in fact the the mayor of Indy Para House.

SPEAKER_01 3:04

Yeah, and you've got the capo.

SPEAKER_02 3:07

What's that?

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Eric. Sir Talking Hair. Yeah, the two of them. Thank you to both of them. They they came along and they They were our crew for the trip. They were our crew. We were in Eric's truck, which we may have haunted on the trip, poor guy.

SPEAKER_02 3:21

Yeah, we'll do we'll talk, we'll talk about it. We'll get there. We'll get there. Um, they put up with our shit. Um they were fucking along for the ride. I created this whole insane itinerary. Yeah. And we know how I am when there are changes to anything. Oh, yeah. Okay, it's not good.

SPEAKER_01 3:39

The biggest part of your itinerary that I have to be so thankful for them to even deal with us is the last day. The last day. So the the the whole trip, and we will get into this, but the whole trip, your itinerary was broken down to like drive a few hours, stop, see a place, you know, blah, blah, blah.

SPEAKER_02 3:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:56

The last day, we literally left Louisville, Kentucky.

SPEAKER_02 4:00

And we drove back to Austin.

SPEAKER_01 4:01

And we drove back to Austin, I think 16 hours ago. It was 14.

SPEAKER_02 4:05

It was a lot, but I did. Okay, well, to be fair, by that point, so when we started, uh, it was me, you, Eric, Wayne flew later and met us in. Because Wayne is bougie. Which is well, he doesn't he doesn't like being in college. He's the mayor. He's the mayor. Politicians don't look like that. The mayor can do what he wants, okay? That's fine. Um anyway, that's also where Chelsea came and met us. But anyway, yeah, so the last day driving back to Austin, yeah, it was four of us at that point. So I'm like, you know what? Like, yeah, it might suck a little bit, but also between fucking four of us, we can figure it out and get ourselves back to Austin.

SPEAKER_01 4:43

We did it. I I tried to keep count of the amount of buckies that we stopped at on the way. I don't know for sure if you love it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 4:51

Um I like their fucking coffee, you know.

SPEAKER_01 4:53

You can go make your own coffee and they have all the fucking the white chocolate syrup and the different like we're not gonna talk about it now, but we are gonna get into that in this episode because there is something that I discovered on this trip, which is of course the wild borderline supernatural phenomenon that is the gas station coffee created by Nicole.

SPEAKER_03 5:14

Yeah. Listen.

SPEAKER_01 5:15

It's something to behold. It feels like possession afterwards, it feels like divine intervention. It feels like you're speaking in tongues because you've had so much sugar.

SPEAKER_02 5:24

It's so good.

SPEAKER_01 5:25

We'll talk about it later.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

It has specifically out of Bucky's.

SPEAKER_01 5:28

You know what? I think we should for the listeners. At some point, you're gonna get the exact recipe.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

I will. I'll do it. Write it down so we don't forget.

SPEAKER_01 5:37

Spill that hot tea or that the hot coffee.

SPEAKER_02 5:40

I'll spill that hot coffee. Yeah. In this episode, Nicole makes note send Bucky's an email. And you know, we are gonna sponsor our episodes slash road trips. Please.

SPEAKER_01 5:53

We're also gonna tell you a little bit about the trip in general because there were places that we did not uh do anything paranormal related, such as Memphis.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 6:04

But we did have a fried peanut butter banana sandwich in the place that Elvis did it.

SPEAKER_02 6:10

Peanut butter banana bacon. Yeah. And this was an You gotta have the bacon in there.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

You gotta have it, and you gotta go to that specific place because that whole sandwich, that whole idea was the Elvis thing. That's what it's called.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

I don't know. And it was really cool, wasn't it?

SPEAKER_01 6:25

It was it was good. It was good.

SPEAKER_02 6:27

So, well, I guess I don't know. Is there anything you want to talk about Memphis first before we get into August? Because technically on the trip, so we that was the first stop. So we left Austin, we drove to Memphis.

SPEAKER_01 6:37

We left Austin. Eric picked me up at the house, 5 a.m. and we were yeah, we were on the road by 5 30 or 6.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

It was early, but then we got to Memphis and we had the whole next day. We just like were chilling in Memphis.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

Can we talk about the hotel that we stayed at in Memphis?

SPEAKER_02 6:55

That may or may not have a gunshot in the window. Well, probably did, but we did.

SPEAKER_01 7:02

We showed up to the hotel, and the first thing that happened were air.

SPEAKER_02 7:06

All of all the different rooms, too, were disgusting. Disgusting. It literally was like like you know, when you go in a room and you take a shower, but you don't turn any of the like fans or vents or whatever on, and everything is just like has condensation everywhere and is like dripping wet. Like we're not we're not talking about humidity here, okay?

SPEAKER_01 7:24

No, we're talking about it if it would have rained in your room specifically and that feeling after the rain when the sun comes out.

SPEAKER_02 7:32

It it was pretty bad. And like we stayed in shitholes pretty much the entire time. But this was we really, we really went in strong here. The shitholiest of the shitholes.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Look, here's the deal was first. Nicole and I, we on our travels, and we do this a lot, you know, since since we've been gone, you know, we haven't been dormant. We've we've literally been investigating, we've been traveling. Anyways, we do, and I think for a lot of reasons, we do we stay in shitholes. We stay in shitholes, but it also allows us to really dive into the area, the place that we are at. Because listen, as much as we love a bougie hotel.

SPEAKER_02 8:09

I do it because it's cheap, and I would rather go on more investigation.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

I'm trying to get philosophical so that people don't just think we're cheap. Anyways, what happened? We show up at the first motel in Memphis, and Eric, who has been driving us, road dogging us, I'm sure he's tired, he just wants a good room, he wants to lay down. We were all tired at that point.

SPEAKER_03 8:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:25

He goes into his room and he's like, What is going on? There was steam everywhere. It was all over the wind. Like it looked like someone had just taken a wildly hot shower, like a hot one. There was steam everywhere. There's water all over the floor of the room.

SPEAKER_02 8:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

And it smelt of marijuana.

SPEAKER_02 8:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:43

And Eric's like, what is going on here? He went to the people and he goes, Hey man, this is happening. Smells like pot. It's wet. The guy just goes, No worries, we'll get you in the room.

SPEAKER_02 8:52

Yeah, I got it. I mean, all of the like they expected stuff. Just sucked. They just all sucked. But uh, yeah, Memphis. Um, we got we we tried barbecue spaghetti. Oh we tried to go to like a barbecue place, like the two places that were the most recommended were like closed because we were there. It was like a Sunday and Monday.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

We did go. I don't know.

SPEAKER_02 9:13

I guess people aren't open on Sundays and Mondays, so whatever.

SPEAKER_01 9:15

We did go to a legit spot for Memphis barbecue. Uh the problem.

SPEAKER_02 9:19

Okay, but can we talk about the bologna sandwich because that's the same thing? Yes, we're gonna talk about that.

SPEAKER_01 9:22

Well, look, I was and you and I are both, when it comes to food, we're we're in the same boat. When we go to a place, that's one of the things. If we're not investigating haunted locations, you know, we literally are after the food.

SPEAKER_02 9:33

I plan shit around food.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Food and ghost. Like food, ghost, drink, done, right? But listen, we are spoiled, I think. We live in Texas. The barbecue here is so superior to anything that Tennessee could offer, in my opinion. Well, it's just showed up and they did yeah, the barbecue spaghetti, okay, great, but like right? It was kind of just jail food, and then you have like the What? Yeah, it's fucking barbecue spaghetti dude.

SPEAKER_02 10:00

This is the real go so podcast, not the parapecular podcast, okay?

SPEAKER_01 10:05

But the people know what I'm talking about. It's it's spaghetti. And it was good. It was good.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

I it was pretty good though. The bologna sandwich, though, really? I mean, was it I was into it. I fucking liked it. Well, let me ask you, were you like smoked bologna?

SPEAKER_01 10:17

Were you into it in the sense that you think you would write a blog post about it and how it relates to the place, or do you think it was just a good thing?

SPEAKER_02 10:27

Like, I mean, I could if you like. I think actually that would probably that fucking bologna sandwich with the fucking coleslaw and this barbecue spaghetti, and after being in Memphis and seeing like the areas there and meeting the people there, it's a lot of like blue-collar, you know, like people are like they're whatever, they just like they're working in the diner or where I don't know, wherever they're working. But it's like, yes, I feel like that would be the perfect blog post to write on relating it to Memphis. Like that makes perfect sense to me, actually. So, yes, I could.

SPEAKER_00 10:59

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 11:00

And for anyone that's wondering why Nicole's going on a rant about writing blog posts about food, actually, I don't talk about this often, but literally the very first thing that I started online was a food blog.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

That's actually, and that's so funny because that is something that I've actually brought up, and I think our listeners probably enjoy that too. Because when we go and we investigate, you and I are really good about uh taking in the place that we're at. Like we don't we don't show up at a place investigate, and then we're like, oh, we don't see the town. We we want to dive in. So the baloney sandwich was.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

We want to get to know the area. We went to the fucking Bass Pro shop and the Illuminati pyramid. Let's get there, let's get there.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

I want to I want to finish up on the baloney because we didn't. It was it was a part of I want one now. It was a part of the experience of doing that. I just, and while I enjoyed it, right, and I don't think I had a baloney sandwich. I know this is the not the periplier podcast, but I've not had a baloney sandwich since I was in county jail. And yeah, I think I mean that was years ago for traffic tickets.

SPEAKER_02 12:00

Traffic tickets, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 12:02

That's better than saying, yeah, I did it for murder or something, right? But like, uh yeah, traffic tickets. That's yeah, yeah. I'm I'm I'm really tough. Listen, it takes a really hard person streetwise to not pay tickets and get warrants for those tickets.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Yes, and get taken to jail for them. That's congratulations. What a great life achievement. We're gonna add it into our bio when we speaking.

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Oh, fuck me.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Damien went to county jail for a traffic ticket.

SPEAKER_01 12:30

No, it's all about baloney sandwiches. No, I so I had not had one since then, though. And and it was good, but you know what it wasn't? It wasn't like good Texas brisket brilliant.

SPEAKER_02 12:39

I mean, yeah, but it's this is okay. We were literally talking about this earlier, though. It's the difference. Like, I'm not judging a fucking like hole in the wall barbecue place to the same standard as I'm gonna judge, say, I don't know, Franklin's barbecue.

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Well, hold on. Are you though judging Tennessee style barbecue to Texas style barbecue? That's the challenge for me. We we live it's like chili. I go to Cincinnati.

SPEAKER_02 13:03

I mean, barbecue is barbecue. People talk about chili with noodles.

SPEAKER_01 13:06

I'm like, no. Barbecue's barbecue?

SPEAKER_02 13:10

I'm not a barbecue person. Listen, I don't want the fucking meat sweats all night. Okay. I'm there for the sides. Give me the fucking bleach cobbler, give me the fucking mac and cheese, give me that fucking hash brown cow.

SPEAKER_01 13:28

We should do intermittent episodes, honestly, of the places we eat at in between investigations. Because you just said that it made me think of something. Every time we've gone out somewhere to an investigation, and I want to stop at like a barbecue place. Your big question is let's see the sides.

SPEAKER_02 13:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 13:43

You have the mac and cheese, like that the sides do it for you, and I'm judging the brisket. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_02 13:48

Yeah, so if they're in mac and a few.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

So combined, we're judging the entirety of the restaurant itself.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

Okay, well listen.

SPEAKER_01 13:54

Last thing on this though, uh the tea.

SPEAKER_02 13:57

Yeah, that was awful. That was not it was the m biggest It was the biggest disappointment of tea I've ever had in my life.

SPEAKER_01 14:06

Um I don't think I tasted like Kool-Aid.

SPEAKER_02 14:08

And I make that statement confidently.

SPEAKER_01 14:10

And you were excited about it, weren't you?

SPEAKER_02 14:12

I I'm a Southern girly. I love sweet tea. Yeah. Don't get in the way of me and my fucking sweet tea.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Well, Memphis, Memphis sweet tea, you got Memphis.

SPEAKER_02 14:21

Yeah, it was not good. Alright, well, anyway, we're almost 15 minutes in, and we're still talking about food in Memphis. Let's talk about something weird.

SPEAKER_01 14:30

Yeah, well, if we're still just gonna we're gonna segue out of Memphis and talk about the pyramid.

SPEAKER_02 14:35

The Illuminati Bass Pro.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

We'll do a quick, we stop there using the Illuminati Bass Pro, which is a weird, confusing.

SPEAKER_02 14:41

Which I just have to say is really funny because I even so okay, my little brother is literally the exact opposite of me. He is, I don't know, fixes boats. He's a marine mechanic and like he's out on boats and fishing, and he has, I don't know, a truck that you have to step into and whatnot. Don't you have it? Okay. And so I sent I sent him a picture of the the fucking pyramid, right? And he immediately texts back and he's like, where the Illuminati goes to shop. And I said, and I sent you that because you literally just said it, and you were like, No, he didn't say that.

SPEAKER_01 15:13

Like, well, because not a lot of people know about that, and we are gonna touch on this very briefly before we get into this stuff, because this is an important part of the trip. Because I I do think it's important people to understand the restaurants we ate at the places we went, because this pyramid, it's a huge pyramid, but it is, as you said, a b a bass pro shop. It's a bass pro shop with a gun range in there, and there's a big Oh yeah, we tried to shoot at the gun range. We did try to shoot and you know the the synchronicity or the fortuitously, no one came and let us in there. We probably shouldn't.

SPEAKER_02 15:44

So we have gone. Went bowling instead inside of the bass pro shop, which was inside of the Wahlbergers by Mark Mark Wahlberg.

SPEAKER_01 15:55

By Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch.

SPEAKER_02 15:57

And in yeah, inside of there. There's a bowling alley that looks like you're under the sea. Plus someone please make it make sense.

SPEAKER_01 16:04

It was actually wild because we tried the beer and I hated it. The Wahlberg beer. I hated it. I did not like it. We went bowling there, I didn't like the lanes, I played horribly. I I you beat me. I think you beat me.

SPEAKER_02 16:18

Yeah, I was like, I took a picture of it.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

Yeah, you did to document. That'll go on our Patreon. Uh so that everyone could see it. Um, but we did, but why did we stop at the pyramid? Because there is that interesting story of the Illuminati and that there's apparently a crystal skull hidden in there. I did at one point, we were in line to go outside up at the top, and I went off in that back area, remember? And it was like closed off, and I was like, uh, and I went back there to see if there's like a secret hidden entrance somewhere.

SPEAKER_02 16:44

And we we asked somebody about it, and he's looking at us like we're fucking insane. I don't think that kid had ever heard of it before. He's like, literally, these people are fucking idiots.

SPEAKER_01 16:53

No, they're wild. But it was great.

SPEAKER_02 16:54

If you ever go to Memphis, go to the Bass Pro Shop. I think it was the coolest thing that we did there.

SPEAKER_01 16:59

It was. It was. I think we even bought gifts from there. I bought a Sasquatch bag.

SPEAKER_02 17:04

Yeah, you got a fucking Bigfoot tote bag from Bass Pro.

SPEAKER_01 17:07

There is a gun range. We almost went shooting. There is the Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch restaurant where you can get their beers. There's a higher class restaurant, you can get Bass Pro Shop hats. Eric, that's his new investigation hat. He literally bought one from there. And there is the big uh elevator ride all the way up to the top.

SPEAKER_02 17:24

And like Graceland's there too, which I guess is cool. But also that was like, well, we drove past it, but we didn't go in because like what they wanted. It was like fucking 90 or 100 bucks for a fucking ticket. I'm like, what the fuck is this? Disney World?

SPEAKER_01 17:37

You can see well, for a lot of people it is, but like we you could see it.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

We drove by there's no rides. Where's it's a small world? Well, where's my Mickey Mouse balloons? No, but some that's not Disney World.

SPEAKER_01 17:47

Some people prefer to see the living room where Elvis was wasted and shooting at televisions in his house. It's something we can all aspire to.

SPEAKER_02 17:55

Cool, yeah. I'm uh sure. But like Plus there are ghost sightings of Elvis there.

SPEAKER_01 18:02

Well, yeah. Ghost sightings of Elvis there. At Graceland.

SPEAKER_02 18:07

Well, somebody get us in at Graceland.

SPEAKER_01 18:09

Somebody go let us investigate. Wouldn't there be a wild like EVP? Well, how are you doing there?

SPEAKER_02 18:13

Listen, I'm gonna put out a call to action here. If anybody here is able to get us in.

SPEAKER_01 18:20

Do we have any Memphis listeners?

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Private over investigation at Graceland, you can come with us.

SPEAKER_01 18:26

Or one of the many homes in that area that we did visit, the Victorian style homes.

SPEAKER_02 18:31

Oh my god, those Victorian, yeah, beautiful. Beautiful part of Memphis. If you go to Memphis, you gotta go. Yeah, that was oh yeah, and we went to Sun Studios too. That was cool.

SPEAKER_01 18:40

That was that was really cool. Sun Studios too. That was super neat, huh? You were jazzing out about the records, you really liked it. Sun Studios was great.

SPEAKER_02 18:46

Well, I yeah, I like music things.

SPEAKER_01 18:48

So that was Memphis. Why did we stop in Memphis? Because we were driving to Kentucky, and that was a nice way to stop and not have to drive like crazy all the way to Kentucky in the first round of the trip.

SPEAKER_02 18:57

Yeah. So we stopped there. Stopped there, shitty motel, carried on Franklin, Kentucky, which actually was really fucking cute. I love Franklin, Kentucky. I'm in love with it. I kind of want to move there.

SPEAKER_01 19:08

I think we should. I I love, I'm in love with Franklin, Kentucky.

SPEAKER_02 19:11

Rogos of Podcast now coming to you from Franklin, Kentucky.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

And Chelsea, who was also part of our adventures this time, is in Indiana. She's close enough.

SPEAKER_02 19:19

Yeah, she is.

SPEAKER_01 19:20

Um Octagon's really cute hall.

SPEAKER_02 19:23

I I just have to say, and I don't know if if you and I are in the same boat here, but yeah, we haven't really talked about literally any of this. Any of it. We've been saving it. So yeah, Octagon Hall.

SPEAKER_01 19:35

I have to tell you, um, out of all of the places I've been over the years, all of the things I've seen and done, paranormal-wise, I believe Octagon Hall might be my favorite place we've ever gone, or I've ever gone, even before you and I were connected doing this. There was a special, a special, special place.

SPEAKER_02 20:01

Yeah. I think I Unexpectedly. I think it's definitely it's it just felt so magical. That's a good word, isn't it? It felt so magical.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

And you were, well, the second we showed up, you were you could see it. Like the magic was like you got feral Nicole. No, you no, you had pixie dust, Nicole. Like you were a big beaming smile.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

That's literally like it felt like like if there is anywhere that there are like fucking fairies running around, it's definitely that property on the. And I mean it felt like that though, too. Like at dusk, you know, and all the little fucking lightning bugs start coming out, and well it it's just magical.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

It was wild. And we, you know, when we did show up, um the curators uh the people that run the museum were not there yet. We just kind of jumped over the gate and went in, and you were just walking around the property and we're taking pictures of the house, and and and immediately when you show it's in the middle of nowhere. Okay, and I mean when we say the octagon hall, I mean the house is octagon shaped. Literally shaped like an octagon, but it's on this huge piece of property, beautiful though. Yeah, beautiful property with a cornfield behind it and all this stuff. And we go in, we're showing and Nicole, you I mean, immediately got out of the car and I could see it in your eyeballs, like you were just like looking around, and you were on the property, and you weren't worried about taking pictures, you were literally feeling it. Yes, and at one point I couldn't find you. I was like, where the fuck is she? I was checking the well, did she fall down the well? Like a little feral pixie, you know, is she in the cornfield? But magical's a good word for it.

SPEAKER_02 21:35

That's because I found the secret cemetery.

SPEAKER_01 21:38

Well, no, I think Eric and I did.

SPEAKER_02 21:40

You found it after I did, like, find me, that's where I was.

SPEAKER_01 21:43

Oh. That isn't interesting, and there was goats out there and a dog. But anyways, we showed up. Um, and we had some time before the directors of the museum had shown up. Wonderful people.

SPEAKER_02 22:00

They were very sweet.

SPEAKER_01 22:01

Amazing.

SPEAKER_02 22:02

Beth, shout out to Beth, our new BFF.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

Hello, Beth.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

She was fucking great. We hope you're doing okay. She's a hoot. I want to move to Franklin just to like go hang out with Beth.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

Just to like drink beers at the local bar with Beth and talk about this shit.

SPEAKER_02 22:16

No, I want to go sit on the fucking porch at Octagon and have some beers with Beth and Barry, you know.

SPEAKER_01 22:23

He was great too. I mean, they were just the most amazing people. And I really I wanted to take, I do want to take some time to really illustrate that. Like when we showed up to the property, and then they finally showed up to meet us, because they, you know, they're gonna let us in, give us a key, because we're gonna be there all night. Um, show us around the property. One thing about Octagon Hall that I am very much a fan of. If you're an investigator and you like this kind of traveling and doing this stuff, you have to understand Octagon Hall, they will vet you. They vet their teams.

SPEAKER_02 22:54

And I to do a private overnight paranormal investigation, you have to have been a team. I believe it's it's for like two or three years.

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 23:01

At least together.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

And you have to give them all your socials, they need to look at you. So what happened is we show up, and the very first thing is like, I think because they had vetted us, they knew all about us. They knew about our investigating techniques, which we'll touch on. They knew the way that we think about this, and immediately they were like, We think that you guys, this is great. And they were just so friendly to us, weren't they? Yeah, and then the best part, maybe of the whole trip, man. Yeah, you know, they tell us about this stuff, about the house, we're just talking to them.

SPEAKER_02 23:33

Well, okay, here. So before you say this, quick spoiler alert, you're gonna get the full history shortly. However, Octagon Hall, so it is a brick structure. The bricks that it is made out of, each brick was individually handmade by workers on when this was a plantation.

SPEAKER_01 23:54

Well, workers is a is a nice UV.

SPEAKER_02 23:56

By the by the enslaved people that uh were, I guess, there at the the when it was a plantation or farm still. Um, but each one of those bricks was individually handmade and on the property and then used to build the actual buildings, which is three layers. Three layers of brick deep, yes.

SPEAKER_01 24:18

So after talking to the owners, they're getting to know us, they're they're they're talking to us about the history, they're giving us a tour. They gave us some serious hot gosp, which we will not say on the podcast about some other popular paranormal teams. I wish I could say it.

SPEAKER_02 24:33

I mean, I'll say it on parapicul.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

We can if you're up for it. But it's literally outing the most popular paranormal team you can in YouTube history to it. Spicy Nicole. So everyone, I want to just point paint this picture. Everyone, when you got in that mode, you literally you moved up and your shoulders get up, and I see a fire in your eyes.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

Okay, it's that okay. Again, Libra, justice. Get it. Okay, yeah. It just makes me mad. When tell them when people get popular and they shouldn't be because they're faking shit. Okay, so here you go. Sam and Colby. Oh, wait. No, no, no, it's not them. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, Sam and Colby. The identical. We don't have any hot gas on.

SPEAKER_01 25:12

We don't even know the name because we don't even look at them. The identical twins. We don't know the names.

SPEAKER_02 25:15

The twin I think it's just called the twins. Yeah, we don't the cu the No, that's Sam Antonio.

SPEAKER_01 25:19

It's it's he's too long hair tattooed.

SPEAKER_02 25:21

I don't know, the fucking twins. The attractive ones. But whatever. They're yeah, apparently they fake all their shit, and they literally have like the knife there that it it's it part of their display of like shit that they found on the property, whatever. And they like have the fucking video of them like down there, and they like use this dull ass knife to like cut scratches, you know. Um, and then they're like, uh, I got scratch. I'm like, I'm just can I just say, first of all, that is not sanitary, and I hope that you use some fucking alcohol or something, something to clean that out after you did that, but also like I just uh well, not only that, as long as we've been in this, how many times have you both seen, experienced, and even had on yourself scratches?

SPEAKER_01 26:06

There never these big bloody like gashes on your body, they're red marks that burn. When these people do their videos, they're always cut, like bleeding everywhere.

SPEAKER_02 26:16

And that makes sense now because they're also banned from a lot of places, quite a few locations in Kentucky and Tennessee now.

SPEAKER_03 26:23

Apparently banned from there, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:25

Because of them doing stuff like that and like faking evidence and just generally not being like the greatest.

SPEAKER_01 26:31

Yeah, we don't, and that's something we don't abide by.

SPEAKER_02 26:33

We don't, we don't I don't it just makes me really mad when people get really popular and knowing that they are making a very significant profit off of this.

SPEAKER_03 26:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:44

And it's they're literally faking it where I'm like, okay, why can't the people who are actually serious about this shit God? Don't even get me started about this because then I'm gonna start talking about Rihanna, and she can't even actually sing, but she's a fucking famous pop star.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

So we will do a pop we'll do a Patreon episode all about this shit, and they can go over there. But we did get the hot goss on that, and that was it was interesting. But um, regardless, you know, when you show up there, first off, can I talk to can I just be excited for a second about the amount? Forget the land, all of it, it's all great.

SPEAKER_02 27:15

We talked about the brick. We didn't even talk about it.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

We didn't even go there, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that's the way they gave us, isn't it? You you said they gave us a brick from the museum, but an original and handmade on the property, brick from the house. And this was a beautiful moment for for for me, for us. We walk in there and he's sitting there at the table, isn't he?

SPEAKER_02 27:32

At the head of the table, this big majestic table.

SPEAKER_01 27:35

Big majestic guy.

SPEAKER_02 27:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

You know, and there's this brick sitting there, and we didn't expect this. We we we we really didn't, guys. And he sits down and they go, you know, we've looked at what y'all are doing, we really like your thinking, and we understand that you have this collection of haunted items, you got this museum. We wanted to give you a gift. And I'm thinking, what? And there it is, fully intact, this brick. And they go, This is a an original brick handmade on the property, yeah, part of the house. And they could have sold that for a lot of money.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

Yeah, he said that the only time that anybody else has ever gotten one of those bricks is they've done, they've allowed them to be raffled off a couple times for um like donation charity stuff. And he just gave us one, and he was so nice about it.

SPEAKER_01 28:20

And he was like, We really want you to have this. And you saw me, I was like, Oh my god. I I can't imagine the amount of times I was like, Thank you so much. This is so amazing. I that might be one of my most cherished, cherished pieces in our collection, just because of that that generosity that it was amazing. So great people. Um, highly suggest if you're an investigator, go out there, meet them. Um, great place, great place. But I want to just be excited for a second about not only the house in the land, but the amount of historical items full that the house is full of.

SPEAKER_02 28:55

Yeah, it's well, I mean, it is a museum.

SPEAKER_01 28:58

It's wild.

SPEAKER_02 28:59

Like that's literally like it is so it just so happens to be haunted, and so they allow paranormal investigations.

SPEAKER_01 29:05

Very fucking haunted, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 29:07

Um, however, what its actual purpose is, yeah, it's a museum, and yeah, the items that they have in there.

SPEAKER_01 29:14

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

It's wild.

SPEAKER_01 29:16

Well, they have the thing, and look, love it or hate it, but there is the handmade Confederate flag that was done by I believe from Harriet the Hand.

SPEAKER_02 29:26

Uh it was Or was it someone else? Oh fucking. We know it was handmade though in the Stonewall Jackson's wife or something.

SPEAKER_01 29:34

We'll have to get back on that one when we touch on that. We'll edit this part. But regardless, there's this flag in there.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Somebody calling a house.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

There's this flag in there. It is, it is, of course, a Confederate uh uh flag, but it is handmade back from back then, and and it's in such pristine condition. You can't help but look at it and be in awe of just the history and stories behind it.

SPEAKER_02 29:55

Oh, yeah, the stuff it would have seen. It's wild, and I mean that house is just it's full of that stuff, full of it. It's full of it.

SPEAKER_01 30:02

It's amazing. So we're all super excited about that, and that was us showing up to the house, which of course, after that, they give us the key, they leave, and we are left to our own devices there. So let's go ahead and uh get into the history of 1847, Andrew Jackson Caldwell sought to build a new, unique home for his growing family. Using bricks made on site and locally sourced lumber, Caldwell built the foundation of an eight-sided home. Reportedly, Caldwell built his home this way out of fear of storms, believing that the octagonal shape would protect from high winds.

SPEAKER_02 31:08

Was that a thing during that time that people thought? Because there was also at one point in mineral wells there was also an octagon-shaped building.

SPEAKER_01 31:20

So here's the funny thing. Yeah, I do. Octagon-shaped houses went through a very uh, and I mean a very brief time period of not even popularity, but of being built. There's not many examples of these homes, of but there are a few. Could it could they be more weather resistant? I yes, I believe so. But that's not yeah, yeah, but that's not why people were typically doing them. We don't even know if this is why he did it. There are other sources that say that this entire house was built around a Masonic thing.

SPEAKER_02 31:56

The Masonic thing.

SPEAKER_01 31:57

Yes, of capturing spirit.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 32:00

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_02 32:01

A Masonic spirit catcher.

SPEAKER_01 32:03

Yeah, but a lot of people know that he was very paranoid about wet.

SPEAKER_02 32:07

Which, if anybody knows what that is, let me know because I tried Googling it and there is approximately zero information. Masons, can I just come? Can I Hello, any Masons? Can I come infiltrate your society? Yeah. I'll wear a mustache.

SPEAKER_01 32:22

But here's the thing, though, is like they do say that he built this home out of the fear of storms. Now we do know from uh actual documents that that was a fear of his. So is it Masonic? We don't know. We will say a lot of the inside architecture, doors, windows, passageways are very Masonic in nature.

SPEAKER_02 32:45

Yeah, the little hidden things, which that was something that was really interesting when we were there getting to kind of go through everything and Beth is showing us around. She was able to point out these little, like tiny little details and things that you would probably just normally miss or not even give any thought to.

SPEAKER_01 33:03

The crosses on the doors.

SPEAKER_02 33:05

Mm-hmm. And how some of the inside walls are also built three bricks deep.

SPEAKER_01 33:10

Yep, three layers, yep.

SPEAKER_02 33:12

But yeah, yeah, that was interesting.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

So there is that sort of piece of it, but of course, uh other accounts are that he believed that the octagonal shape would protect from high winds. Now, while that shape uh might have been good uh a good source of protection from things like storms, can't really protect against uh protect against things like accidents, right? So during construction of the house, this is important because first off, we're gonna get to how long construction took at the house, but during construction, tragedy starts to happen immediately. Um, tragedy struck when Andrew's daughter, Mary Elizabeth, reportedly suffered fatal burns when her dress caught fire from the basement oven. Now we were down there, but we also know that apparently after her dress caught fire, she she got these burns. She was moved to an upstairs room and was in agony for days before finally succumbing to her wounds. That's the story.

SPEAKER_02 34:20

Yeah, so let now let's talk about the story. Can can we can we interject that here? Do you want to do it at the end?

SPEAKER_01 34:26

No, I think that's great because look, anytime I'm looking into the history of any place regarding paranormal activity, I I see this a lot, and I I I can't say it for sure yet for Octagon Hall. But when I start to hear a story of a little girl dancing around in the basement and some she her dress or her hair caught fire, this reminds me of folklore that I've heard before. And I start to question, did this happen? Now, in this story specifically, we actually there's questions.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

There we have questions, yes. Well, not just we, but we have questions.

SPEAKER_01 35:11

And we want answers. There are actual questions though. Um because here's the deal the house is certainly home to a number of stories. A number of stories, which we will get to, but the most famous story, seriously, it remains the story of the untimely death apparently of Mary Elizabeth during the home's construction in 1854, right? Injury suffered after her dress caught fire in the basement kitchen oven. It is said that the ghost of Mary Elizabeth is still very active at the Octagon House. Countless paranormal investigators receive EVPs of a little girl's voice. Many have seen what appears to be the ghost of Mary wandering around the house. The activity is countless. The story of Mary's death, it's a chilling one, and it has certainly continued to live on through the accounts of Mary's apparent haunting, right? The home that she died in. But as often happens with historical accounts relating to paranormal phenomena, this is a story that we don't know if it actually happened. So it's a bit of an elusive story.

SPEAKER_02 36:23

Okay, so let's talk about the the why we don't know if it actually happened, because this is a whole like ordeal.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 36:30

And the uh history nerd researcher in me just like loves it.

SPEAKER_01 36:34

Yes. So So the first inconsistency is simple. The accounts of the date of her death actually range from 1854 to 1859, depending on where you look. Some websites, some historical accounts will say 1854, some will say 1859, some will say somewhere in between.

SPEAKER_02 36:55

Right, who cares? We love making updates, right?

SPEAKER_01 36:58

Um But that's that's the first big inconsistency. That's a big inconsistency.

SPEAKER_02 37:03

Yes. And then there's the census record.

SPEAKER_01 37:05

So the conflicting census data actually shows her alive decades later, right? So basically, in the 1860 census, Mary E. Caldwell, age 23, is listed as residing with James and Fanny McElwyn, which is Mary's sister. That would be Mary's sister.

SPEAKER_02 37:32

And the thing with that though, if you add those dates up, if it was the same person, those ages don't match. Right? I don't have a calculator and I can't do math in my head. Listen, I have two degrees in music for a reason. Anyway, um, yeah, because when you sent those, I was like, those don't like add up. Yeah. And so when we were at Octagon and we're talking to Beth about it, because she also fully like acknowledged and confirmed, yeah, this is one of those back and forth, whatever. Um, but she was saying that this family they had the history of they just loved naming everyone like the same fucking thing. So there were a bunch of Mary Elizabeth in this family. So, and that was my initial thought, even just when you sent those census records, is like that sounds like it was probably like different Mary Elizabeth. So that doesn't help. That makes things a lot more confusing.

SPEAKER_01 38:28

It does, but for me, the kind of the smoking gun is what we know of that was recorded in the family Bible. Now, it's important to know that a family Bible is kind of lost art form, man, to be honest with you. And the more I've dove into this story, the more I've wanted to have a physical copy, something like that, a family Bible, because nowadays it's a Facebook wall, basically. But uh record in the family Bible of Andrew Jackson Caldwell does not indicate the death of Mary Elizabeth, right? Not that this is important because the family Bible was where you would record literally your family history, everything that happened. Now, when we talked, what was that? Did you hear that?

SPEAKER_02 39:17

No, what was that? Whistle. Was that actually a whistle? I heard it. That sounded like a door creak or something, but yes, I can see how that goddamn it.

SPEAKER_01 39:25

God damn it. Um PTSD.

SPEAKER_02 39:28

Alright, well, I don't know. I guess if you want to whistle, do it louder next time into the microphone, please. Thank you. Continue.

SPEAKER_01 39:34

But but so when we talked to them over there, they said, well, the Colin Wells were not good at keeping personal records. Now I take, I have to tell you, I take issue with that. Because how do we know that? How do we know that they just didn't record things in their family Bible? And then how do we take this story and say, we well, it was probably true because we know they probably didn't record it in their family Bible. Something as significant as a daughter's death by burning.

SPEAKER_02 40:00

So I don't think it would be a, oh, this is probably true because they were bad record keepers. I think so. The mean rab bad record keepers, Beth had said that um, so the second wife, which we'll get into this, okay. So the sec, yeah, his second wife, Harriet, um, apparently a lot of stuff that had to do with his first set of kids with his first wife was not really uh tracked, and that at another point, like down in the family lineage, she said that there was a group of like, I don't know, 10 people or something, like 10 relatives that just were not even recorded in there. Um, and just it would have like large gaps of time that were missing. So is it possible that this occurred and they just forgot to notate it in the family Bible? Yes, it's possible. It's possible. Does that mean it's definitively like true or not true?

SPEAKER_01 40:59

No, probably unlikely though, because even as a bad record keeper, you would think that when your daughter dies, that's the thing, that's a thing you write down.

SPEAKER_02 41:08

But it wasn't her daughter, it was his though, it's the Caldwell family Bible.

SPEAKER_01 41:12

Let's take it, let's think, let's think about the patriarchy. Let's think about the patriarchy. Let's really try to put ourselves in that mind. This is his family, it's the Caldwell family.

SPEAKER_02 41:22

Sure, but if that's the case, then she wouldn't have forgotten all of those other records either. And she obviously had an attitude for reasons that we'll get to later, which by the way, I say that lovingly because she's like my new fucking hero. We're talking about Harriet, his second wife.

SPEAKER_01 41:37

Big fans of Harriet.

SPEAKER_02 41:38

We're big fucking Harriet fangirls. We're okay.

SPEAKER_01 41:41

We're we're Harriet girlies.

SPEAKER_02 41:43

We're Harriet fangirlies.

SPEAKER_01 41:44

So, but regardless though, still, no matter what, a grave marker on the property's family cemetery reads Mary Elizabeth Caldwell, 1848 through 1854. We saw it.

SPEAKER_02 41:59

If I'm gonna believe anything, it's gonna be the fucking headstone.

SPEAKER_01 42:03

Yes, TDH. Unless we don't know if the headstone came after the fact and after the story was concocted. We don't know. I asked them that, and even the curators there, the directors were like, we don't know. They are looking into it. I will say this about the people at Octagon Hall. They care about the history. They do, and they want to know everything because they don't want a typical ghost story that's just made up, they want real history.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

The actual truth, and which I do, obviously, we love that. Um, and they are in the process, uh, Beth said, of trying to get everything together to the point where they're able to publish it as a book with the actual history.

SPEAKER_01 42:43

With the actual history, you know.

SPEAKER_02 42:44

We look forward to that.

SPEAKER_01 42:45

We do. And here's the thing we can't say for sure what happened, right? Did Mary die after her dress caught fire in the basement? Does her ghost still haunt the halls of the octagon house? Most historical accounts that are easily found online suggest the story is true. But with just a little digging. Other facts possibly say otherwise. As Nicole said, we are still diving into that rabbit hole. We're still diving into that rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_02 43:19

The world may never know.

SPEAKER_01 43:21

They may never know, but we are on the case. Now, by most accounts, the home was actually completed around 1859 or 1860, which is interesting because if you think about it started construction in 1847. Being completed by 1859 or 1860, that's that's a long time to build the house, which you know, at first I didn't really understand until you're there. And you see the house itself and the th and the idea that not only is it three layers deep of brick, but there's hidden passages built into the house. House, it could have taken that long, but regardless, um, Caldwell definitely used the labor of his enslaved people to construct uh you know the house, including quarrying the limestone foundation, making the bricks, uh, which again we have one of those, and crafting the interior woodwork. Um, and as the name certainly implies, and I want everyone to have a visual idea of this, but uh the house has eight sides, right?

SPEAKER_02 44:25

Yeah, it's and I'll I'll post some pictures of it um and little video clips on our Instagram as well.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

Yeah, and the other cool piece of it is the two chimneys, they're octagonal in design as well. Uh, and each floor has four rooms. Three floors or two, two one, two, yeah, three floors. It's just basement normal, and then and the upstairs, and each one of those has four rooms. Um, what is the significance of this place? Well, during the Civil War, Octagon Hall served as a hospital for both Confederate and Union soldiers. This is important uh because he had an alleged support for the Confederacy, Caldwell. He was a Confederate sympathizer. Uh he was known to have harbored wounded Confederate soldiers from capture by Union forces and they hid them in the house. There was a big event that happened there in 1862. February of 1862, the property was utilized as an encampment by the largest Confederate Union uh unit, sorry, to be rec uh recruited from Kentucky. That was the Orphan Brigade. You can do a quick Google search on the Orphan Brigade, you'll hear all about it.

SPEAKER_02 45:37

Which I would also like to note if you do do that. That is one of the other um things that they have actually in the museum there. They have a lot of original documents and stuff from the Orphan Brigade, which is just not only that, dude, they've got stuff from Frank and Jesse James, which is wild.

SPEAKER_01 45:54

Which is wild.

SPEAKER_02 45:55

They have some cool stuff. Anyway, continue.

SPEAKER_01 45:56

But when the Orphan Brigade showed up there, an estimated, this is wild, an estimated 8,000 to 12,000 Confederate soldiers camped on the grounds during that time. Um they camped, they left. Two days later, the Union Army uh came looking for the Confederates and they took occupation of the home. This would not have been good, called well had the Confederate ties, he was certainly hiding uh wounded soldiers in the walls of this wild home. Um this is where this gets kind of tragic. So the Union soldiers, when they showed up, they were literally looking for hidden Confederate soldiers in this house. They couldn't find them. And you know why if you've been there, because these uh secret passages in the walls are very easy to to cover up.

SPEAKER_02 46:53

Yeah, and they were it's really uh it's pretty brilliant to be honest, the way that they had things done, where it's like, okay, you would go up like upstairs, and then there's in the closet this little like false floorboard that you would go into, and then you like you're literally like you go kind of lower yourself down a floor and you're in the wall, just fucking sitting there, or like the very front steps of the the building. They actually hollowed out underneath the steps, and so you could go and like crawl, and you're just like laying there under the steps, you know. But they were very well concealed, uh, little hiding passages because they were it was kind of built into the home itself.

SPEAKER_01 47:37

Yes, and it's worth noting that Caldwell would do wild things, like he would purposely have his uh his livestock and his wagons and whatnot blocking roads so Confederate soldiers could not do things, and he would be You mean so the Union soldiers couldn't do things? Or excuse me, the Union soldiers, yeah, yeah. So he was uh kind of an agitation to them.

SPEAKER_02 47:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:00

They kind of responded in in ways that uh we don't talk about a lot in the history of the wars.

SPEAKER_02 48:06

Yeah, there was some retaliation.

SPEAKER_01 48:08

They well, the big ones is there was apparently some rape of his pe I don't know that, but what I do know Allegedly. Alleged. What we do know is that Union soldiers literally killed off the family's livestock and threw the carcasses of their livestock into the well, the water well of the family's home to pollute the water.

SPEAKER_02 48:28

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 48:29

That's wild.

SPEAKER_02 48:31

Yeah. No matter what side you're on, that's just that's just wild. It's a shitty thing to do. Doesn't matter what you're causing. Obviously, it's whatever. Both both sides did shitty things, but it's just, you know, that's just a crazy story, though.

SPEAKER_01 48:42

That's a lot. Because imagine like some of the hardships we deal with today. Like, imagine that's your hardship. You go down to the local pub, you're like, what happened to you today? Well, my livestock got killed and dumped into my well. I gotta deal with that now. That's wild.

SPEAKER_02 48:54

Yeah, just not having water. I mean, that's uh kind of a big kind of tough.

SPEAKER_01 49:00

So, you know, look, regardless, the amount of deaths, overall agony reported on the property uh is pretty immense because again, when we talk about this being used as a hospital for wounded soldiers, um, you know, the Civil War, what people forget to think about this literally was going through people's front yards. This place has the this the history of being both a hospital for Confederate and Union soldiers. So you got the agony there, you've got people dying. There's a wonderful story. I say wonderful, but it's an interesting story of the guy who had a foot injury, uh, a Confederate soldier. He was hiding in a passage uh uh in the house from the Union soldiers, and he took his boot off and he bled out because of his injury, and he died right there in the passageway.

SPEAKER_02 49:44

Yeah, yeah, because the boot was serving as a kind of like tourniquet, and then he took it off and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:52

And not only that, we it it has to be said that, you know, the atrocities of the war and everything else, and family deaths and injuries, but there was also uh it's reported that as many as 62 enslaved people were owned by Caldwell. That number goes up and down. Um 62 roughly were owned by Caldwell and they were died and were buried on the property.

SPEAKER_02 50:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:21

It's full of unmarked graves. Yeah, it's full of marked graves, but also unmarked graves. And we know that from digging into history of other cases when when we talk about enslaved people at the time, they didn't keep good records of them.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

Yeah, and I mean that's a whole other obviously the record keeper or the record keeping for all of that is very was very neglected. Um but that was something I thought that that was really interesting, even when we were just back in that cemetery with the mark graves that they have on site. The other thing that is, you know, again, allegedly, and this is just you know giant hypotheses, but there were three children specifically that were buried back there that were also listed as um not just black, they were listed as mulatto, which is mixed race, right? Right. And so there's there is also the suspicion that whether it was consensual, non-consensual, we don't know, we'll never know, but that he also had um children with some of his enslaved uh people, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 51:32

Yeah, and that's the thing. We'll never really know that because again of those records, like that they'll never really be made. You can't you just can't make heads or tails of that. Um here's the deal besides the secret tunnels or passageways, I'd say, in the house, there's actually tunnels underground as well, allegedly.

SPEAKER_02 51:53

Oh yeah, well, because it sits on that whole Kentucky cave system.

SPEAKER_01 51:57

Yeah. Mm-hmm. Which is wild because the stories are that they would use those tunnels to get soldiers to and from. Right. Um one thing is for sure that we know the horrors of the horrors, the absolute horrors of the Civil War certainly left their stain on the house and its property. The grief, despair, sadness, the loneliness and guilt experienced by both sides found its way to that property. My question is, are those stories still being told today through ghostly whispers and phantom beings? Right? What do you think? You've been there now at this point.

SPEAKER_02 52:40

Yeah, there was I yeah. Uh no notes. Nothing to add. No notes, nothing to add.

SPEAKER_01 52:49

Uh Andrew Jackson Caldwell, he actually eventually died in 1866 of the same thing that his first wife died of typhoid fever. He was 47. That's close to my age.

SPEAKER_02 53:04

Like people die of typhoid fever.

SPEAKER_01 53:06

Maybe. 47 though. Like that was like considered old back then.

SPEAKER_02 53:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:11

So he died in 1866, typhoid fever. He was 47. Uh, he died uh in the home. Harriet Caldwell lived in Octagon Hall.

SPEAKER_02 53:20

This was his second.

SPEAKER_01 53:21

Second wife, Harriet the Hand.

SPEAKER_02 53:23

Harriet the Hand. That's not her actual nickname, that's just what we nicknamed her.

SPEAKER_01 53:27

Because of a story that that apparently she had a hand removed in an altercation.

SPEAKER_02 53:33

She got a little, she was given some sass to some soldiers because she, I don't know, didn't like what they were doing. And so, in retaliation, because you're a woman, and how dare you speak to a man like that? Uh, they remove her hand popped off her fucking hand.

SPEAKER_01 53:49

And which is why if you look at new content of us, Nicole now has a wooden hand because of the same Yeah, which is why Damien now has a wooden hand.

SPEAKER_02 53:57

Um I again, regardless of you know, we will never be able to actually validate whether or not that story is true. It's just kind of, you know, local lore, legend, whatever. However, her hand, her hand actually was uh cut cut off. Something happened to it at some point because yeah, there's the picture of the two of them together, and you can see one of her hands, it is very clearly a wooden hand.

SPEAKER_01 54:23

Yeah, so other piece of this that I found interesting is in my research, you know, you look, and and and he, Andrew Caldwell apparently again died 1866, typhoid fever, 47, in the home. But I've also heard accounts that it was elsewhere that he died. So I that's a back and forth as well. That's a back and forth as well. Um, but uh Harriet Caldwell, she lived there until 1918.

SPEAKER_02 54:51

Yeah, she was there for a while.

SPEAKER_01 54:53

Raise kids.

SPEAKER_02 54:54

Yeah, she and that whole farm doing that too by herself. One-handed.

SPEAKER_01 55:01

Yeah, well, yes. One-handed, one wood hand, one fucking a bunch of kids. In a time that keeping up with property like that, livestock, like that was you've been to Franklin, there's nothing there now.

SPEAKER_02 55:18

Yeah, well, I mean, also just the fact that in that time that she was a woman doing all of this. That's a tough like I can only imagine the shit that she must have gotten it, you know, from people in the community just trying because she never remarried either.

SPEAKER_01 55:32

You saw the picture of them, which is hanging there in Octagon Hall. That's a hard-looking woman.

SPEAKER_02 55:38

Oh, yeah, she didn't give a single fuck.

SPEAKER_01 55:41

She would fucking mow you down, maybe I fucking love Harriet.

SPEAKER_02 55:46

I want to be Harriet when I grow up.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Do you? She uh something interesting that she did that we're gonna touch on real quick, but she she did. She sold the uh she sold Octagon Hall in 1918 to a doctor from Nashville called Miles Williams. Uh the house actually remained in their family, the Williams family, all the way up until 1954. When he died, the doctor, when the doctor died, uh that home, it just got used as a rental property all the way up until essentially 2001. And that's when the building was purchased by the Octagon Hall Foundation, which is what it is now, uh, this museum. The last piece of this of Harriet's sort of adventures there, this is my favorite. So we we talked about how Andrew had a first wife who had died, and then he marries Harriet. Well, after Andrew died, uh some years later, and again, we don't know the exact time frame. We've we talked to the the owners, the curators of this place, and we they they even they don't know the exact time frame, but it this happened. She had Andrew's body dug up and removed from its original resting place because her the original resting place was by his first wife, and Harriet said, Fuck that. You're not being buried next to your first wife. That's a flex. That's a wild flex.

SPEAKER_02 57:10

She had, yeah, so now the two of them are buried together. Yeah. In fact, yeah. I mean, yeah, it's just such a What are your thoughts on that?

SPEAKER_01 57:18

I want to know your thoughts on that.

SPEAKER_02 57:19

She has big Harriet Harriet needs a light, a lightning bolt on her middle finger, like me. You know, I feel like that's that kind of move.

SPEAKER_01 57:27

That's like a middle finger, but it's a it's a judge. You can carve the lightning fig. It wouldn't need to be a tattoo. Carve it into her wooden hand.

SPEAKER_02 57:35

Carve it into her wooden hand, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:37

Splintery wooden hard ass fuck hand.

SPEAKER_02 57:39

That's wild.

SPEAKER_01 57:41

Yeah, but what are your real thoughts on that? I want to know that. Like, that's an interesting flex to do and throughout history, because imagine this wasn't that's not a flex that would be seen by the public, right? This isn't something that she would post on social media. This is this was a fucking personal flex.

SPEAKER_02 57:58

Well, I d I can see it. I mean, there's like how okay, from a female's perspective, how often is it that we, you know, after the fact that like something happens, whatever, and let's say, I don't know, here we'll use modern terminology. Okay, you're dating some fuck boy, right? And I don't know, you had this spot, right? It's your spot, but you like pass it every day. You're going to work, and every time you see the spot, you're like, fuck that guy, you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

I wish I could splinter him with my hand. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 58:28

And it's like he fucking deserved it, you know. But then so you gotta imagine Harriet, you know, she's still like, he dies, he gets buried next to his first wife, he's fucking at rest, whatever. And she's like, listen, I'm here dealing with your fucking nine kids or however many in this fucking house and farming all the shit. And you're over here and fucking, I don't know, running through the pearly gates with rainbows and butterflies with your first wife. Like, fuck you. I'm over here taking everything. Yeah, I'm fucking digging up your body. No, you're not, you don't get a peaceful resting place. Get over here, you know? Maybe I'm just vengeful. Well um moving on.

SPEAKER_01 59:12

Uh, the uh that's a hot take. I love that.

SPEAKER_02 59:17

Why is that a hot take?

SPEAKER_01 59:18

I feel like No, it's a beautiful, because you're right.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

There is that like every time she walked past that grave, she just had to have gotten more and more mad.

SPEAKER_01 59:27

Do you think that she ever used any kind of um I don't know, maybe occult practices during the time of when they were buried? Think about that. Like, how would that torture her and to eventually she was like, fuck this, I'm digging you up. Think about back then to get a guy to exhibit a body and be like, dig up my ex-husband, because I'm not having him buried by this person. They'd be like, What the fuck? You know, it'd be wild. Regardless, look.

SPEAKER_02 59:54

Harriet, you can get it.

SPEAKER_01 59:56

And that's right. That's why we call her Harriet the Hand, because of the apparent wooden hand, which is apparent in pictures that you see. Yeah. Uh if I'm being honest. Um, look, the the house has survived the the perpetual forward trajectory of time, right? It's collected each story, passing through it, no matter how tragic, no matter how beautiful, right? It's all still there. Every moment from its history forms a living snapshot of a place throughout time. If Walls can talk, I'm willing to bet that Octagon Hall has um got a lot to say and it is waiting for you to hear its voice.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:42

The end.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:43

The end a nice way to put it, but you know what I mean. The stories of that place, you feel it when you show up, don't you? You feel that history.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:50

Yeah, it is it is definitely one of the most magical places.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:56

Is it magical because of Harriet's story and her badassery?

SPEAKER_02 1:01:00

Oh, well, it definitely helps, yeah. Listen, I can relate to being petty and vengeful.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:07

Yeah, and hopefully one day you'll have a wooden hand to go along with it. Um, it's worth noting that's the history surface level, in a way, of Octagon Hall, because when you look through the history of this place, you're gonna get differing accounts. You're gonna get uh challenges that come from census records. So the you and I, we showed up with all this information and we talked to the curators of the museum, and even they are like, well, we are still working on it because we just don't know. And this isn't people forget, you know, this is this is Civil War history which is so convoluted all the time. It takes a serious deep dive to make any sense of it. That's the history we have. Go out there and look. If there's anything that you come up with that you didn't hear, let us know, because we are still actively researching the history of this place as well, because it is something that's so interesting, and we do want to make sure that we know as much about the truth as we can.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:09

Mm-hmm. And that is the history of Octagon Hall. So, our next episode, we're gonna get into our investigation. Boys of wild. Yeah, here we go.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:27

If you enjoy following along our investigations, consider joining our Patreon. You can find that at patreon.com backslash parapeculier.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:37

And a huge shout out to Dr. Angela Glestro, who composed all of our original music for The Real Ghosts of. If you are interested in getting any music for your own show, film, whatever, you can find her on Instagram and check her out there at Angela Glestro.