Ghosts, Critters, and Sacred Places of Washington and Oregon

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August 2003 Ghost Stories

In recent weeks it has come to my attention that certain parties are using my ghost stories and those of my contributors as references for their own commercial enterprises. If you or someone you know is writing a for profit book on ghosts in the Pacific Northwest, PLEASE DO NOT!!! copy or use the following stories or any other materials within this website as references without my permission.

Jefferson Davis (25 April 2003)

9 July 2003

FROM Jeff R.

SUBJECT: Forest Grove Ghosts

I'll follow-up on the groups you mentioned--the ghost thing seems to be continually an itch I can't scratch. You reply is much appreciated, considering where you're writing from. Speaking of... Sorry, but I can't help but ask, what are you doing in southwest Asia? Are you in the reserves and involved in the current military actions or is it a business thing? I don't mean to impose on your privacy--I'm just curious.

Drop me a note when you get back in the States and I'll let you know if I have a production going.

Best,

Hello,

I was a student at Pacific University and I have some stories that you may be interested in following up on. One of them is quite well known but therest are experiences that only myself and a few select others have experienced. There are a number of houses in the surrounding area that the University uses for students and administration that has a number of odd happenings and stories behind them..

Please contact me if you are interested. I am now living in France so eMail is the best way to contact me.

Thank you, Jeff

10 July 2003

FROM: Jeff R.

SUBJECT Forest Grove

Hey again,

I am preparing a word document with everything I know for you.  Someday, I could show you around when we both

get back to a normal life.  I am here working studying and working on producing films.  It's interesting.  Where are you

 stationed?  Abroad?  If you're Oregon reserves then you were one of the first to leave, right?  Well, hold tight for a day

or two until I get some time to properly tell you the stories.

Stay safe.

Jeff

9 July 2003

FROM: The K's

SUBJECT: Haunted Houses in Calif

Hello:

I found your web site while looking for haunted attractions for northern California. We are taking our family vacation to San Francisco (from McMinnville OR...40 miles south of Portland) in our motor home. We thought it would be fun to visit as many haunted locations as we can. We would like to travel down 101 most of the way, but are open to taking different routes. Can you recommend any places? We are leaving the 18th of this month. I see that you are out of the country often, hope you get this.

Thank you.
Susie & Randy

DATE: 10 July 2003

FROM: Scott Why

SUBJECT: Hot Lake Sanitarium

I was looking for information on the Hot Lake Hotel, Sanatarium in La Grande Oregon and found your website, I recently went for a visit, and while we did not experience a lot of paranormal experiences we did have a couple, I would love to hear or read more from a professional like yourself on the subject.

DATE: 13 July 2003

FROM: Ashley Lewis

SUBJECT: Starvation Heights

Jeff,

Hi my name is Ashley L. I have been researching a lot on Starvation Heights and the history of it. I have been told many different things and I am very curious on all this information. Your information was very helpful to me, but I dont understand the part were you said there is people living in the house now. I was told that there is only a foundation left to see. I also was wondering if I could get directions on to where it is so that I can see everything. I would also like to know if the grave yard that is down on the end of orchard and to the right a little ways on Olalla Valley Rd. has anything to do with Linda Hazzard, her patients, and Starvation Heights? This place has become VERY interesting to me and I would greatly appriciate your help.

Thank you,
Ashley L

DATE: 17 July 2003

FROM: Jeff Taylor

SUBJECT: Questions

I can often, lets say, feel the presence of spirits, its not something I brag about, or show off, as its a very eirie feeling, and tends to scare the hell out of me. Lately I've noticed an increase in these feeling around the Tri-Cities, WA area...have you heard of an increase in sighting, etc in other places?

DATE: 25 July 2003

FROM: Shleigh

SUBJECT: Ghosts in Salem

In North East Salem

On rainy days a ghost will appear. he was a semi truck driver...........I�ll find out more and give you more info at

Hayesville Elementry School

DATE: 25 July 2003

FROM: Kevin K

SUBJECT: SEATTLE Area Ghosts

I have done a little asking around Seattle about places that are haunted. Been through several. One that I have found interesting is the old G.A.R. Cemetery just on the north side of Lakeview Cemetery in Seattle. There have been several sightings of figures in old Civil War uniforms walking around the cemetery late at night. People that live next to it have reported them numerous times.

Thanks,

Kevin

DATE: 28 July 2003

FROM: Alice Mc

SUBJECT: Some Photographs

Hi...

Are you here in Oregon? I have some recent photographs that I would like to run by someone wiser than I. I believe I caught my brother's essence in several recent photographs. I didn't pay much it at first, thinking it was a glare on the most noticeable shot. But when I laid out the sequence, I found it in many more shots. Not all, however.

We were blowing up paint cans with a 22 and some other gun to relieve the stress of my brother's passing and me cleaning up the estate. The easiest argument is that it is paint spray, or gun smoke. He was shooting the rifle from about 50 yds away and I had my camera set up making a triangle of about 25 yds away from the shooter and the target. The paint spray loses its argument with the very first picture I took. I was showing our blank canvas (4 X 8 press board) with the first can of paint positioned on the stumps. No shots had been fired yet.

I dunno, I am sure there is an easy explanation. If you are in town, I work in downtown Ptld. I would love to show these to you and get an honest opinion.

Sincerely,
Alice Mc

My Reply to her letter:

HI Alice,

Normally I am in the Portland/Vancouver area. Unfortunately, my Uncle Sam sent me about 10 time zones away from home. If you try contacting my friend Ross at AGHOST, he might be able to help you with your fascinating picture problem. He's in my links section of my website: www.ghostsandcritters.com. If you can wait about six months, I'll be home and able to take a look myself.

Sincerely,
Jeff Davis

Alice�s Response to my Reply

So tell me, Jeff. What is tomorrow going to bring, since you are already there... Strange concept. Anyway, sorry you're so far away. I pray you will return safely to your friends and family in short order.

And thank you for taking time to write me back. Perhaps, I will just wait that 6 months... maybe at this time, I just don't want to know if all it is, is dust in the wind, caught on film.

Todays high in Portland - 100+ - my poor webbed feet are quacking.

Sincerely
Alice

DATE: 30 July 2003

FROM: Cheryl R.

SUBJECT: The White Eagle

Hi Jeff.

I used to work at The White Eagle (1980). At that time the manager's name was Charles. I was told about the Shanghai (sp?) tunnels downstairs when I first stated there and went down there with Charles to see. My experience was with the upstairs though. I heard it used to be a brothel and that there was a woman ghost, but I never saw her. I saw a man. It was a rainy morning. I got off the bus and headed up the hill to work.

I happened to look up at the windows over the doorway and I saw a man looking down at me. Thats all he was doing, I could see him very clearly standing up there looking down at me. He was wearing a tee-shirt. When I went in I asked Charles who was upstairs and when his face turned pale my stomach dropped. We went up to investigate and big surprise no one was there. I didn't like the creepy feel of it though and went downstairs ...pronto.

While I was there I saw that man looking down at me from that window 3 other times, all on rainy mornings on my way in to work. Just wanted to share my memories of that place.

Just wanted to share my memories of that place.

Cheryl R.

DATE: 5 August 2003

FROM: Tamara

SUBJECT: Ghost Story!! VERY SCARY!

My family and I lived in Orange Texas nine years ago, and while my husband was gone working in the oil fields my youngest son was in the bathroom brushing his teeth, when he looked up into the mirror and saw a bald man with a burned face looking at him in the mirror. It scared him so bad that he ran out of the house and stayed out there until we came home. That was the start of it all. He never seen him again but a lot of other things started to happen. My daughters, [who by the way never heard my son's story}were young at the time, three and five had a walk-in closet that I thought would be a neat place for them to play because it was so big but they hated that closet refusing to even go in there to get their toys.

Anyway we started to have things happen, and at first it was just strange funny things like my underwear would disappear and be replace with underwear I had never seen before. One time I came home and all of my clothes were thrown everywhere. Then my daughter who was five came running into my room saying that she didn't want to sleep in her room while those shadow people watched her. Both of my daughters seen them. They said three were sitting on the sofa in their room, one being a male and two female, and one standing at the foot of their bed, a male.

I wondered how they knew what sex they were, but they knew. Every time they saw them they said the shadow people were watching them while they slept. Then my son seen one at the foot of his bed watching him sleep. Now in all this time I had been telling them that they were just having bad dreams, until I seen one. I had fallen asleep on our sofa in the living room and I woke up for some reason and at the foot of the sofa was this shadow person.

I knew it was a female although I don't know how, she had no features and no hair, But I knew it was a female. Now you have to understand that I'm a big coward so it was strange that I didn't scream or run. I lifted up on to my elbow and looked at her and I knew she was looking at me. Then she got up and ran hunched over being I would guess seven or eight feet tall, with extremely long arms and long fingers. They were completely black and not transparent. I want to say that the shadow people never scared me, I always had the feeling that they were watching over us. I would love to know if there is anyone out there that would know what it might be that we saw, we've carried the haunting memory with us for a long time.
Tammara

DATE: 7 August 2003

FROM: Jessie

SUBJECT:

There is no such thing as gost�s

DATE: 10 August 2003

FROM: Tim R.

SUBJECT: Book Order

I would like to order all four of your books please. Thanks for putting them together for us.

Regards,
Tim R.

PS Can you autograph them for me?

My Reply to Tim

HI Tim,

I would love to autograph the books for you... unfortunately l'm in Afghanistan right now, so I am afraid that I cannot. My wife is handling the business right now, so I hope that she has some pre-signed copies left. I hope. Thanks for ordering.

Sincerely,
Jeff Davis

His Response

Hi Jeff,

Are you a member of the military over there? I'm an old Jarhead Marine myself. Be careful and thanks again for the great books.

Warm Regards
Tim Robertson

DATE: 10 August 2003

FROM: Amada

SUBJECT: Living in Eatonville, WA

I am extremely interested in "this sort of thing" as someone who has always been particularly sensitive. The northwest is teeming with activity, and it's great that someone is shedding light on that. I am impressed with your website and publications, and encourage you to keep up the good work. I have several of my own experiences as well, and would encourage you at any point to visit the cemeteries of Eatonville. Headstones date to the mid nineteenth century, and there is a particular section of the main cemetery dedicated to Japanese prisoners of war from the forties that seems to be particularly active and unsettled. Again, keep up the good work.

-Amanda

DATE: 16 AUGUST 2003

FROM: Steve

SUBJECT: Ran across your site

Dear Jeff--

You may or may not remember me, but I'm a writer and we met several years ago when McMenamin's historian gave us a tour of the White Eagle. You gave me a copy of your book at that time. I never did find an outlet for the White Eagle story I was planning to do--the ups and downs of freelancing--and have pretty much put journalism aside to focus on playwriting again. It's paying off...I've had a bevy of productions this year, with three more scheduled in Portland in the fall.

I'm writing to ask what you know about these "ghost meetings"? I saw a website talking about ghost hunters getting together, and you had a note on it regarding Portland. Are they legit? How many folks do they get together? Any info you can offer would be appreciated.

I guess my negligible ghost hunting foray wasn't a waste of time because I ended up writing a couple of short plays about ghosts. Reader's Theater in Portland is doing the longest of them (about an hour) in October about a woman living in London whose flat may or may not be haunted by Jack the Ripper. Not surprisingly, it's called "Whitechapel." There should be stuff about it in the paper closer to the production (Oct 10/11th) if you want to check it out. I also had a nice little production of it in Austin earlier this year.

From your website, it looks like you've been busy. Hope you've had some experiences at least as interesting as your Vancouver Barracks tape.

Best,
Steve

My reply to Steve

HI Steve,

Thanks for writing. I think that I remember talking to you, you're tall and had a beard? If I'm wrong, I'm sorry. Soon you will be meeting and greeting the public at your plays and people will come up and ask you to remember too. I say that with all hope that your plays become successes and make their way to the bigger stages.

The next big ghosty type event is the NW Paranormal Conference in Seattle. All of the Ghost Hunting groups will probably be in attendance. The most serious group of ghost hunters in the Portland area is the Trail's End. The Vancouver Ghost Hunter's Alliance are pretty serious, though they have some kind of membership dispute. I guess you have to meet them to decide how you would characterize them. Remembering the membership of any volunteer group can have quite a range.

I would like to attend your plays, except I'm in southwest Asia right now. I guess I'll have to wait for the second run this coming season? Best wishes and I will save this email and try to look you up when I get home.

Sincerely,
Jeff Davis

Steve responded to my reply email:

Jeff

Thank you for getting back to me. You're close on your description...I have a beard but I'm short. I know what you're talking about with people...I occasionally get that at opening night receptions. I pretty much that I can't remember everyone's name, but it's weird when they say they know you and you have no recollection of them at all.

Drop me a note when you get back in the States and I'll let you know if I have a production going.

Best,
Steve

DATE: 21 August 2003

FROM: Hallie

SUBJECT: Vancouver Barracks

Very interesting site. I tried to find your books at the library, but - no soap. Maybe later this year, since we approved their bond measure...in the winter of '01 I was working for a contractor repairing and restoring the windows in a number of the Vancouver barracks buildings. the foreman told me about his experiences there, and though I wanted to see *something* I never really did. There were odd things that happened, though. The building we set up as our 'shop' - where we stored our tools and supplies &c. was vacant and I can't remember the number (it's been a while... there were the four barracks buildings that were occupied, and I remember the numbers for those - 987, 989, 991 and 993. This was post-9/11, so they were fenced off with a guard shack controlling access to the area at that time. There was another unoccupied building, number 607, that we also worked on. 614, the hospital building, was originally in the contract, but was dropped for lack of funding toward the end. I couldn't tell if I was disappointed or relieved, because we'd all heard stories about the morgue hauntings and felt the general creepiness.)

Our shop building had a fire alarm system in it. It was always making odd beeping sounds that could never be remedied by the maintenance guy, who'd tried over and over to make it work properly. One day, early on in the summer of '01, the foreman - who was one of only two total people on the job at that point - was working late on the second floor of the building. His partner -- who got a creepy feeling in the basement of that building and thereafter refused to go downstairs -- had already left. He�d put in a call to the maintenance guy to come out and see about the freaky fire alarm system. As a carpenter, you make a racket when you work, so he's pounding away, tearing the windows out, and pauses in his work long enough to hear footsteps across the floor. Now, the building is vacant - wide open - grade school tiled floors and vast, empty echoey rooms. Stray school desks here

and there, but not much going on. The paths through the rooms get a little labyrinthine in places, but several rooms are the size of cafeterias - with no more than two plainly visible and distant exits and nowhere to hide. Other rooms are bedroom sized, but completely bare. He hears the footsteps and hollers, 'hello!' thinking it must be the maintenance dude. Nothing. Whatever - he goes back to work. The footsteps again, and jingling keys. This sound is coming from the empty, cafeteria-sized room next to him, and very close. he peeks out there, and still hears the keys, the footsteps, but there's no one there. The foreman left for the day.

He told me that the attic of that building had been used for indoor target practice in the winter in the 1800s... the savagery of earlier centuries astounds me. Makes one grateful for video games, almost. He didn't like it in the attic and spent as little time up there as possible. he mentioned that there were a number of accidental slayings up there as a result (duh) of young, military men shooting firearms in close quarters. Nobody liked it up there, especially since the lights didn't work, for any electrical reason, and could not be made to work no matter what we did.

The fire alarm system never did calm down. As the low man on the totem pole of this job, I spent a lot of time cleaning up after the work, in the buildings alone. We worked ten hour shifts in the winter time, which meant of course that it was dark when we arrived to work and dark again hours before we left. I would clean creepy feeling rooms when it was light out and move to the 'okay' rooms as it got darker. I wasn't wild about it, but it all pays the same, you know? the basement that creeped out the other gal kinda bothered me, but I never saw anything in there. The fire alarm would play with me, though. I�d be alone, stamping windows with ID numbers or sweeping up, and it would beep crazily - beep beep beep beep beep beep - and then I would go over to the alarm system on the wall and look at it and the lights would be flashing like a Christmas tree but no sound.

Then I�d turn away and it would beep and beep. When I was cleaning, it would shriek at me intermittently, and then I�d turn thecorner to go down to the basement and it would stop. Then I�d look back round at the alarm and it would freak out again - beep beep beep beep beep beep... I don't know if it was just messing with me or what.

Building 993 was by far the strangest feeling one of the lot. It was furnished and occupied in a completely different way than the others, too. We got to hear a couple stories about the basement latrine, but if was too chicken to go down there. By then I was starting to think that wanting to see something, back when I started the job, was a work of temporary insanity on my part.One day a co-worker and I were in the tiny vacant barracks building just across the parking lot from the hospital. A couple of gals with clipboards and flashlights were going round through the buildings doing an environmental survey or something. We saw them from outside and waved at them through a basement window. They waved back. we went back to work. A little later they came running back to the building asking for our help locating a phone because someone was dead in the hospital building and they wanted to call the police.

With a lot more aplomb than I myself could muster, my coworker mentioned that there was a teaching dummy in the building (fort Vancouver has medical training gear around, even in the abandoned buildings) and did they know that? because it might not really be a dead person.. He happened to know that the painter's foreman was a jokester and used to have the resuscitation dummy hanging from a rope so that it would swing down in the path of whoever opened the front door. The hospital gets a lot of attention because of its reputation, and he wanted to deliver something exciting for the ghost hunters, I guess. I doubt he knew anyone was going to be up there on official business, since the building had by then been dropped from our contract.The gals said no, no - there was a SMELL of death in the basement (morgue) of the building and that we should call the police. They had started their survey work at one end of the hall and worked their way toward the morgue. They first saw a broken window, then beer bottles, then empty shotgun shells, and then the odor of death as they walked down the hallway. Turning toward one of the rooms, they saw a pair of sweatpants-clad legs and ran screaming out of the building. To make it sound even more like a Scooby-Doo cartoon, the lights to the basement didn't work, and they had a hard time opening the front doors to get out.

Not wanting to phone in a fraudulent call, my coworker offered to go up there to check it out first. I went with him out of a sheer, terrible fascination. He only told me later that he didn't really want to go at all, but didn't feel like he had much of a choice. We went down there with an 18 volt flashlight and one of the two of the survey gals -- the other refused to set foot in the place again and stayed on the porch. We found all the evidence that they described, but the 'body' was indeed the resuscitation dummy, Annie. There of course was no way to tell this the way the painter had arranged it.

They weren't kidding about the smell of death, either, but it turned out that a squirrel had gotten into the basement (probablythrough the broken window) and couldn't for the (literal) life of him find the way out - and he accounted for the smell. I didn't like the feeling of that basement one bit and was glad as hell to leave, even though we hadn't seen anything but the painter's hoax. Something we were told about the hospital later, when we told this tale to the job superintendent, was that, during the war, bodies were stacking up faster than the morgue could process them. Eventually, after the front porch and all available space was taken, they stacked the bodies out in a shed outside the hospital to await processing. Even after it was over and the bodies were properly processed and disposed, and the shed torn down, nothing would grow there for ages. Eventually it was paved into the parking lot.

That is there today

Hallie
Portland,

DATE: 26 August 2003

FROM: Adrien

SUBJECT: Mocking Ghosts

Me and my family have been experience ghostly activity for about 5 years. We moved into a house that was really old and it was three stories. The ghost (or ghost) are constantly mocking us. Once on with the volume blasting. They mock our voices too. My mom will come from her room and say �WHAT?� Like I called for her, but I didn�t. Or I will hear my sister calling me, or even my boyfriend calling out for me, but he�s not thee. We moved out of that house and now we live across town. They (or it) followed us and is constantly going on. Doors will open, lights will con on, stereos will urn on and when my mother makes chocolate chip cookies she has to constantly watch the temperature of the oven. If she leaves the room and comes back, the temperature will be full blas and the cookies will be burnt. Tha�s the only time they (or it) messes with the oven. I have an open mind about this, I know it is a ghost or ghosts. Even my friends have witnessed it, and family members. It�s kinda freaky. Is it common for ghosts to mock you like that? I�ve never heard of mocking ghosts

Adrien

DATE: 29 August 2003

FROM: Jason and Kalen

SUBJECT: Haunted Duplex in Auburn

Hi, There is a very haunted duplex in Auburn. My friend and I both experienced this. She was pinned down and her TV would go on and off. Very scary! I can't remember the address but I remember it is by the Kentucky fried chicken next street over from the cemetery. Just e-mail me for more info.

Kalen B.

DATE: 30 August 2003

FROM: Tiny

SUBJECT: Camp Adair Ghost

Hi, I think you are mistaken about who that ghost at Camp Adair is. 3 years ago, we went to take photos of the old long wooden

yellow buildings there because a relative was there for a few months in WWII in 1943 when it became a naval hospital . We were

 at 2 particular long buildings awhile when we heard something inside one. This was loud enough to hear outside the building.... like

 a metal creak and thump (sound of hopping off a bed).We peeked thru the window and no one was there. My wife insisted there

was.  We heard a voice I thought that said "No";  then a second time sounded like "No one".

Then on one of our trips out there again we visited the monument farther down and looked up those army regiments who served t

here.  Then we researched them and found out a Ewald J. Novian died at Camp Adair January 15, 1943; he was a private in the

 96th  division "deadeyes" 383rd infantry combat unit at the time; you may want to contact the 96th and see if anyone remembers

him and how he died; and somebody may want to go back out there again with a tape recorder. This email is just informational for

 you we do not wish to be named in any way. That was a young mans voice we did hear.

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