5. Pick Your Poison

Diamond?  Yes, please.  That's the message the ghosts are sending us, but is it hidden inside the hotel?  We learn something about the old walls of a jail at Fort McHenry that may come in handy later.  

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Transcript

Jonathan and hannah met at a fancy dinner at the lord baltimore hotel…but months later…her husband wouldn’t be around anymore.  And neither would they.  But the voices we heard on the mezzanine and the spirits in the ballroom may be a sign that… this love triangle isn’t over yet.

Welcome to the Low Budget Ghost Squad, episode five.

I’m Natalie

I’m Alison

And I’m Ethan

Nat:  thanks for coming back to hear more.  This time we’re in Baltimore Maryland.   And we started doing these adventures in Arkansas.. and we’ve kept it going… because for some reason these spirits keep finding us.  in the previous episode at the lord Baltimore, we had been back in the ballroom.  Ethan – you want to tell what we saw.

Ethan:  it looked like some ghosts may be trying to communicate with us… named Hannah and Jonathan.  but then they don’t seem to want us in there anymore.

Nat:  Ethan used his morse code knowledge to figure out a message being sent through the blinking lights on the ceiling.

Alison:  guys, those lights only start blinking when we walk in.  we’ve seen it – they’re not going off when other people are there.  I mean it’s almost as if they think we’re snooping around.  

Nat:  what???

Ethan:  so I think they tried to say the word diamond to us – I think.

Alison:  I’m listening.

Nat:  so we went back to see if we could find either our friend Clovis. She’s 102 by the way but you’ wouldn’t know it talking to her or watching her.  Also, we thought maybe we’d see Christopher – who works here. because there’s a big chance he’s related to this Jonathan ghost guy.

Ethan: we got the names Jonathan and Hannah on our ghost app that transcribes what spirits are trying to tell you. and it fits with everything we know so far. 

Nat:  Except for those weirdo words like apple and eggs.

Alison: Christopher has this collection of hotel archives that he’s found for us…and pictures from his family.  And he let us borrow them so we could check them out. 

Nat: and he found us in the lobby – and we told him about the word “diamond” – he immediately opened another folder that he brought saying – I thought this one was interesting. And oh it was.  It said after Hannah’s husband, Robert Fielding died of a heart attack in this hotel, his family…I mean, obviously not his wife…but his sisters and nieces and what have you… raised a stink about a missing diamond necklace. It had been in the family forever.

Ethan: Hannah claimed Robert had sold it when the stock market crashed and tried to keep his business going.  But the family always thought she had stolen it after he died.  But he may have given it to her before that so maybe it’s not actually stealing.

Alison:  I mean, they weren’t having it.  they went to the newspaper and the gossip columns talked about it all…because it was a scandal.  Husband dies in hotel, much younger wife seen in town with young boyfriend who worked at that hotel... and now a diamond necklace is missing.   Straight out of a murder mystery.

Nat: but Christopher then told us – his family had always thought they hid it somewhere because no one ever saw it again.   That was in December of 1929.  Now, a few weeks later – on Christmas eve, Hannah and Jonathan had been out to some holiday celebration and came back to the hotel in a trolley.  The newspaper articles claimed when Hannah got out of the trolley – she just stood there in the street staring up at the hotel – like she saw something.  And she wouldn’t move.

Alison:  reminds me of what happened to us when we saw a shadow figure in our window.

Nat:  exactly - Jonathan was trying to pull her out of the way because another trolley was coming and I guess the driver didn’t see them.  But witnesses said she had a look of panic and it wasn’t at the trolley coming her way.

Ethan: and get this – she was saying what sounded like Robert, no.

Nat:  now, did hannah see Robert up in that window and that’s why she wouldn’t move?  I mean, I probably wouldn’t either.  The deaths of hannah and Jonathan had been ruled an accident.  The trolley driver said he didn’t see them.  But again remember this was just weeks after her husband Robert died in the hotel of a heart attack. 

Alison: I want to say… if Robert died in early December… and she’s running around in public with Jonathan… I mean, that looks really bad.  

Nat:  she probably wasn’t the first to be doing something like that.  But that’s probably why his family was so obsessed with getting that necklace back from her.  You could compare that thing to, maybe, a little less than the titanic necklace you know from the movie. But it’s still pretty fabulous.

MUSIC

Nat: We took a break from our ghost mysteries – somewhat.  We ventured to Fort McHenry – for a little history while we were in Baltimore.  You know the much dreaded history lesson that Ethan complains about.

Alison: and mom wanted to take the free bus to get there.

Ethan:  alison, that’s what low budget means.  You take the free stuff.  

Nat: I don’t know what the problem was there. Anyway, it was from this fort, that Francis Scott key saw the u-s flag still flying after the British bombardment during the war of 1812… I just love that word bombardment.  He was so inspired that he wrote the poem that would become America’s national anthem. Great display by the way if you ever get a chance to go there.

Alison:  Fort McHenry had been a small fort at first called Fort Whetstone, I think that’s how you say that.  It was built for the American revolution…but in 1798 they expanded it to what would become Fort McHenry- named after James McHenry who was from Baltimore and was George Washington’s secretary of war and at one point a buddy of alexander Hamilton.  (singing Alexander Hamilton)   I’d start from the beginning of the song but we have too young a viewers because there are some bad words in there.

Nat:  allegedly - people have been executed at the fort.  and during the civil war it also served as a prison.  

Nat: and then it was a hospital for a while during world war one and then in 1918 you had a flu epidemic around the world.  So you had patients there for that.  but what this all means is that there’s been a lot of death and anguish surrounding it and, in our world, that means ghost stories.

Ethan:  I’ll tell one of them – so this army lieutenant was killed in the war of 1812... – Levi Claggett.  and people have claimed to see a soldier walking along the upper wall.  

Nat:  that’s believed to levi I think because of where he was killed.  Not quite sure.  But tourists will ask – “hey...is there a re-enactment going on today.  I saw somebody dressed up.”  but no – no re-enactment and Levi Claggett was gone.

Alison: and mom thought she saw him and she started taking pictures. 

Nat:  ok so in my defense – all I could see was a silhouette and that story was on my mind so of course as a low budget ghost squad member I start taking pictures…lots of pictures.  and it turns out it was just some woman...and there were two or three kids up there with her.  but you couldn’t see them at the time and the way the sun was… 

Alison:  and she didn’t look like an old soldier either.  So another story involves a woman whose husband may have been stationed there in the 1920s. but I don’t think she liked it that much.  She’s known to push people down the stairs. According to some of these ghost hunting sites – she lost her children maybe in the flu epidemic at the fort.  And one woman reported that she felt like she was being watched…maybe by this unhappy wife.

Nat:  they do have national park rangers who work there…so maybe they were watching her too. What was she doing? Anyway, the thing that sticks out to me at Fort McHenry when it comes to ghosts is the jail.  Some have claimed if you touch the wall, you may feel a random warm spot which I guess would mean a spirit was there.  This was a place where probably not nice things went on.  So, who knows who could still be hanging around.  You can see our pictures that we took from inside the jail of us testing it out on our social media.  I’ll be honest – our ghost app didn’t register much.  A little orange here and there – not red.  Nothing like at the lord Baltimore.

Nat:  when we got back, I had to go get another phone charger because all our phones were about to die – again, we know why.   ghosts like to zap that energy.   But I walked into our room on the 16th floor– and there she was.  That woman that I’ve seen in the middle of the night.  But now it’s the middle of the day.  She looked at me and was like looking to see if anyone else was standing there with me.  I can’t explain it. It was just the way her eyes were looking around.  And she was not happy that I was there by myself.  And then the door slammed in my face.  So what did this low budget ghost squad member do?  I slowly opened it back up.

Alison:  why would you do that?

Nat:  because we had a ghost emergency.  We had a ghost in our room.  the lights were flashing. And she was, I don’t know how to describe this like vanishing or fading and then she was gone.

Nat:  Christopher and others have said spirits just appear in rooms… or in the hallways.  But it still freaks you out when you see it.  Oh and get this, we heard you can sometimes smell something like lavender in the air when a spirit is around.  That’s a new one to me.

Ethan: When mom came back downstairs we had already met up with clovis again.  This time she was alone. 

Alison:  Clovis told us she wanted to look around some... and when I say – told us she wanted to look around, that meant we had to go with her right then.  

Nat:  yeah she wasn’t waiting.  but that’s fine with me because she seems to know more than anyone else. and remember being there helps her memory come back.

Alison: she wanted to go into the speakeasy – she said it was somewhere that had been off limits to her as a child.  And Her mother would have been furious if she had gone in there for obvious reasons.

Ethan: she said she used to watch people go in, some would try to be sneaky, others didn’t really care if somebody saw them.

Nat:  because remember it was technically illegal because in a speakeasy they sell liquor which you weren’t allowed to do for a while in the united states.

Alison: so now, she always goes inside there.  Every visit. No matter what.  

Nat: and this was really funny and sweet at the same time.  she looked up toward the ceiling and said – look where I am, mama and you can’t stop me.

Nat: and clovis says she’s seen a ghost or two.

Ethan: she has seen Molly.  Remember, she’s the little girl ghost who plays with a red ball. Clovis says She saw her when she was younger. She said it looked like Molly wanted to play. But Clovis just ran away.  

Alison: Nobody believed her at first, especially her mom. But as the years and decades went by and more and more stories were being told about molly – she thinks her mother finally believed her.  she thinks.

Nat:  as clovis was going around the speakeasy she told us that it was originally two stories and of course hidden away.  Everything was renovated in 2013 and that’s how they found it.  allegedly they found old, tarnished silverware, some antique fixtures, and some bottles. 

Alison: empty bourbon bottles.  And she remembered this because they all had the same label - a liquor company that had gone out of business decades ago.  

Nat: it was Apple Valley.  Which is a Cute name I guess.  And it was high-end apparently, the drink of choice by the well-to that came into the secret bar.  They would also have plenty on hand to send up to the rooms of certain, special guests – you know, the ones with the money, like Robert fielding.

Ethan:  and you may have noticed what we noticed– Apple Valley.  Apple – the strange word that appeared with all those red bars on the ghost app.  apple.  

Alison:  coincidence?  I think not.  

Nat:  clovis wasn’t done sharing her stories.  She remembered a scary time she was there..it was in 1980.  there was a fire and people had to evacuate.  Everything was ok – it was contained to a suite that was used for storage pretty much by then.  So really just some mattresses burned.  But according to the newspaper the Baltimore sun, the police said it was a like a circus outside… you had traffic, everybody coming out of the hotel and then just the nose-ees who wanted to watch it all happen.

Alison: you say that like that wouldn’t be us.

Nat:  good point.

Ethan:  but as we listened to her tell the story – she said it was on the 18-th floor.  That’s where Robert Fielding had died…where his room had been.  

Alison: not to mention there had been two other fires about 18 months before that.

Nat: We were having fun listening to her tell stories… But then Augustus the security guard appeared – looked at clovis and said miss clovis, you ok in here with them?  

Alison:  and she said – these are my friends… and they’re talking to ghosts.

Ethan: he laughed and said yeah I know who they are…those podcast people who are always running all over the place. and with that he left.

MUSIC

Nat: Earlier we noticed that we still had some of the logs and folders that Christopher had let us borrow.  I guess he didn’t notice that we didn’t give them all back when we had seen him earlier in the day.  And I am so glad we still had some of those because of what we found. 

MUSIC

Nat:  you know when this hotel opened you could get a room for as little as three dollars.  A suite could run you up to 17 bucks.  Now that may have been big money at the time. It advertised that every room had a radio – and I believe they all had some sort of bath too.  Which, if you think about it, was probably a big deal.  This was considered one of the finest hotels here. The opening party back in 1928 was broadcasted over the radio.  So, the well-to-do may have come to stay, just to be here in this grand hotel.  That was probably the case for Robert and Hannah Fielding when he died of that heart attack in December of 1929. Well, I should say heart attack, not heart attack because we are a little suspicious.  

Alison: we were back in our room sifting through every thing

 Ethan: one of the logs that Christopher gave us was a security log.

Nat:  and that security logs detailed everything that happened the morning Robert fielding died. 

Ethan: so – the logs said Hannah came running out of their room yelling about needing help.  

Alison: remember we mentioned that each floor had a clerk or a position like that to hand out keys and kind of keep an eye on things on the different floor. Well, the clerk on duty near the Fielding’s’ room was named Mary – according to the log.  And she said she ran down to their suite and saw Robert dead.   Mary came back out and ran to her post.  She tried to reach out to the front desk to tell them what happened, but she couldn’t get through.  

Nat:  so she claimed that guy from the laundry… was there at her desk. she thought his name was john or Jonathan or something like that.  Hmm hmm.  He was pushing a laundry cart – and she said he offered to go downstairs to get help.

Alison:  I can assume that was probably our ghost Jonathan… you know Hannah’s boyfriend who she met here at the hotel.  and I can probably guess that he wasn’t in any big hurry to go get help. 

Nat: at the same time, we all three saw a note written in there.  and it was scribbled off to the side.  It said the clerk’s name was Mary McPhail.  and with Mary McPhail that morning - was her young daughter… Clovis.

Nat:  you won’t believe how detailed this thing was.:  Robert’s body was slumped over on the table.  And remember the newspaper that mentioned the bourbon that had been dripping on the floor?  I mean it was weirdly descriptive Well, that bourbon was the Apple Valley brand.  Like the ghost app said.  Apple.

Alison: But in the list of everything on the table…along with the body… there wasn’t a glass, or a plate mentioned.  It had all the utensils on the list and napkin and fruit bowl but and even what was in the fruit bowl.

Nat: so had a breakfast plate missing and bourbon glass too. 

Ethan: and it said Hannah was hysterical – yelling I love you to Robert over and over again and she was clinging to his body.  They had to pull her away just to move him.

Alison: and you guys – his medicine was also on the table. It was something they used back then for problems. But not now.

Nat:  yeah, definitely not now.  It was strychnine - it’s a poison.  And if you take too much… or if you’re given too much let’s say in your breakfast…. Well….

Coming up on the low budget ghost squad

Nat:  you do not even want to know how I ended up hiding under a table and I think the ghosts are sending a message on the wall of the ballroom.

Nat:  The Low Budget Ghost Squad is part of Spellbound Productions.  Created, written, directed, produced, edited and whatever else by yours truly.  Lucinda Peterson did the awesome art work.  And thank you to Alison and Ethan for playing along with this because it’s not as much fun to ghost hunt and solve mysteries by yourself