8 Haunted Places with Christmas Names

The first episode of Haunted Christmas, the second themed season on the podcast, explores haunted places with Christmas names…both secular and religious. But which ones?

Well, I shared eight places that had both paranormal activity and the names of things commonly associated with Christmas. Think decorations, reindeer, and people and places connected with the birth of Jesus.

The episode is now available for your listening pleasure wherever you get your podcasts from. I’ve also embedded it below. But I’ll quickly recap the places here in case you’re just curious to know what they are.

Haunted Places with Christmas Names

1. Evergreen Cemetery – Owego, New York

In this cemetery, you’ll find the grave of Sa-Sa-Na Loft, a Mohawk Indian maiden who was killed in a train crash in the area. 

During her life, she had converted to Christianity and enthusiastically spread the gospel in the area. The people were so saddened by her tragic death that they raised the money for her obelisk, wanting to not only erect something in her honor and memory but also to bury her in their cemetery.

However, Sa-Sa-Na’s family wanted to bring her home with them. But the people of Owego won out and Sa-Sa-Na was buried there.

Some said that shortly after her internment, soft voices chanting Mohawk songs floated out from the woods. Was it her ancestors come to comfort her, or family members quietly grieving unseen and sheltered by the trees?

2. Evergreen, Alabama

We often hear of houses having paranormal activity because they’ve been built over Native American burial grounds, but an Interstate? According to Dennis Hauck’s Haunted Places: The National Directory, a 40-mile stretch of I-65 that runs between the towns of Evergreen in Conecuh County and Greenville in Butler County is built over sacred Creek Indian burial grounds.

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Hauck wrote that “the road is even, straight, and well maintained, but the accident rate is well above average.”

He also included a stat that from 1984 to 1990, there were 519 accidents resulting in 208 injuries and 23 deaths on this portion of I-65. The book was revised in 2002 but this entry wasn’t updated with newer info.

However, I did a little digging because for some reason it rang a bell. So I Googled “trouble spots I-65 Alabama crash rates.”

The first article to pop up was one dated June 19, 2021, from WBRC with the headline: “9 juveniles, 1 adult killed in Saturday’s ‘horrific’ I-65 crash in Butler County.”

Ah. That’s why it sounded familiar. I remembered seeing that wreck on both national and local news.

But would the article say anything about whether that was a known trouble spot? In a way, it did.

Butler County Coroner Wayne Garlock was quoted as saying, “That particular area of the accident is prone to hydroplaning.”

At the time the article was published, an official investigation of the crash was underway. It had been raining that day and they did suspect hydroplaning played a part in the wreck involving 17 vehicles, seven of which caught fire, and the whole wreck that resulted in 10 dead.

Basically, it’d be wise to drive a little more carefully on this part of I-65 when passing through Evergreen in Conecuh County and Greenville in Butler County Alabama. Especially if it’s raining.

3. The Evergreen Cemetery – Evergreen Park, Illinois

This haunting is also listed in Hauck’s Haunted Places directory, as well as online at HauntedPlaces.org.

The book describes the ghost as a brunette girl, while the website says she’s a teenager. At any rate, we know she’s younger rather than older.

Both agree she’s thought to be buried in the cemetery, but her restless spirit prefers to hitchhike. At least in the 1980s she did. But it wasn’t just cars she hitched rides in.

Hauck’s book even includes an account where she got on a CTA bus –without paying of course because what do ghosts need money for?

But rules are rules so the driver went to confront her about trying to ride for free. Well, she did what any ghost might do…she vanished in front of him. Either from fright, embarrassment or just because she could, I don’t know. Only she does.

But if you happen to pass through the west part of Chicago and see a girl hitchhiking, just know there’s a good chance she’s only along for the ride for a short while and may not even say goodbye before it’s over.

And don’t expect a tip.

4. Snowflake, Arizona

Snowflake, Arizona, is the site of one of the most well-known UFO abduction cases in U.S. history.  It’s the one the 1993 movie Fire in the Sky was based on.

On November 6, 1975, Travis Walton and six of his co-workers claimed to have seen a UFO while they were driving. They stopped and Walton got out to take a closer look. That’s when allegedly he was beamed up.

His co-workers fled in terror but when they went back to get him, he was gone. And he stayed gone for five days.

5. Holly Pond, Alabama

On October 13, 2013, a witness reported an unidentified low-flying, black, triangle-shaped object in the skies near Holly Pond according to the MUFON Network.

UFO-Hunters.com also lists that report as well as another one that happened in the area a few years later on March 15, 2018. This time the witness noted, “three round balls glowing” that didn’t cast any light as well as “a little blinking red light” on the very back on the top of the black triangle-shaped craft.

We like to stereotype Santa as driving a sleigh, but let’s think about this for a moment. It’s not very practical. A UFO on the other hand…well, now we’re talking some advantages that solve a lot of mysteries. Especially stealth and speed. That does make a lot more sense how Old St. Nick can traverse the entire globe so fast, doesn’t it?

6. Donner Memorial State Park – Truckee, California

The Donner party found themselves snowbound and stranded in the Sierra Nevadas during the winter of 1846 to 1847. The group started off with 81 pioneers. Only 45 were alive and able to leave that spring. History reported that about half resorted to cannibalism in order to survive.

But what’s interesting about that is I don’t know if they all discussed consuming each other as food ran out before the group split into two, but when they did separate, each group had members who resulted to cannibalism.

In December 1846, 15 of the party’s strongest members left in search of help. But after several days they were starving and about to die and decided the only sure food source was one of them. But would they draw lots for human sacrifice or have a duel and then eat the loser?

They didn’t have to resign themselves to that dilemma. Instead, they roasted and ate those who ended up dying of natural causes, thus enabling seven of them to get to a ranch where they started organizing help to rescue everyone else.

Back at camp, about half of them also resorted to cannibalism in order to survive. Again, they ate those who died on their own. However, the last survivor to be rescued was Lewis Keseberg, who History reported, “was found in April 1847, supposedly half-mad and surrounded by the cannibalized bodies of his former companions.”

He was accused but never convicted of murdering others to eat them.

An article in the Toronto Sun called the horror those pioneers endured “an ordeal by hunger.” With such a gruesome history, it’s no wonder some say this area is haunted.

One of the ghosts many believe roam there is Tamsen Donner, the wife of the Donner Party’s leader, George. When help came for them, she sent the children along but stayed behind with her husband, who was too sick and weak to travel. They both ended up dying, but some say her restless spirit remains.

Is that the yellowish figure hovering above the ground that some claim to have seen? Or is it the spirit of one of the other victims of that ill-fated expedition?

7. St Marys, Georgia

We’ve covered the secular side of the haunted places with Christmas names spectrum. We’ll wrap up by jaunting to a couple with religious names, starting with St. Marys, Georgia.

Orange Hall House Museum

There are other houses rumored to be haunted in St. Marys, which you would expect given the city’s long history, but none capture the imagination more than the Orange Hall House Museum, which the city regards as its “crown jewel.”

And rightly so. It definitely took my breath away the first time I saw it when we went to St Marys to catch the ferry for a day trip to Cumberland Island, which St. Marys is the gateway for.

Without knowing anything about its history, I couldn’t help but wonder if the house was haunted. I later learned it did have ghost stories associated with it. Everything from people claiming to see apparitions to hearing strange, unexplainable sounds and witnessing strange, unexplainable activity.

Construction on the Greek Revival-style mansion was completed in 1838. Its first resident was Horace Southworth Pratt, a Presbyterian minister who’d arrived in St. Marys in the early 1820s and established the First Presbyterian Church.

His first wife, Jane, died in 1829 and never lived in Orange Hall. However, she was the love of Horace’s life, who did remarry a few years after her death. It’s rumored he named his daughter Jane after her, but Jane also met an early end by dying of yellow fever in childhood. Some say she may be the little ghost girl who is said to haunt Orange Hall.

But she’s not the only one. Two other spirits are also said to haunt the home, a man and a woman. It’s such a lovely place I’m really surprised there aren’t more restless spirits who remained there.

Especially considering its history. During the Civil War, it became the headquarters for the Ninth Main Volunteer Union Army. After the war, it’s been everything from a private residence again to an apartment building to even the City Library.

Now it’s a museum that is sometimes open for tours and sometimes even gives ghost tours.

St. Marys Riverview Hotel

Then there’s St Marys Riverview Hotel, with waterfront views right across from the ferry. Over the years, notable guests who have stayed in the hotel include business magnate John D. Rockefeller, Sr., author Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, industrialist Andrew Carnegie, and even weatherman Willard Scott.

Each of the hotel’s 20 rooms is even named after some of the famous guests, such as #10 Carnegie, #17 Rockefeller, and #11 Williard Scott.

But it’s room #8, the Brandon, which is rumored to be haunted by a male spirit who, as Haunted Rooms put it, “likes to mess around with the lights.” The most-shared story about the room says that when the hotel suffered a power outage, the lights in room 8 still stayed on.

8. Bethlehem, Pennsylvania

Bethlehem, PA, seemed like a fitting place to end a tour of haunted places with Christmas names for the podcast episode, and it does for this post too.

There are a few listings for Bethlehem in Dennis Hauck’s Haunted Places directory, including what he called a “cantankerous ghost” who “pesters students and employees in the Linderman Library at Lehigh University.”

Moravian College is also said to be home to a number of ghosts, including what Hauck described as “noisy spirits” who dwell in the tunnels under the south campus, as well as an elderly couple who has been spotted in a women’s dorm. War-era ghosts have also been reported at the college, including a Revolutionary War nurse and a young man who died during World War I.

But ghosts aren’t the only type of paranormal activity people have reported in Bethlehem., PA. There have been several UFO sightings here too, some even fairly recently. But none right around Christmas really.

However, my favorite Bethlehem haunt involves a haunted hotel, which is especially fitting for a haunted place with a religious name.

Historic Hotel Bethlehem

In the mid-1700s, the Moravians built the first house in the area on the spot where the present-day hotel now stands. In the late 1700s, they then built the first hotel on that spot, the Eagle Hotel.

The present-day luxury hotel, the Historic Hotel Bethlehem, was built in 1922 and stands in the heart of Historic Moravian Bethlehem, which is a U.S National Historic Landmark District.

It’s believed that four restless spirits reside in the hotel. Three of which they’re pretty sure they know the identities of, but one that remains a mystery.

Bethlehem’s Town Guide

Let’s start with Francis “Daddy” Thomas, a.k.a. Bethlehem’s Town Guide. He was a German immigrant who arrived in the Colonies when he was six years old. He became a cabinetmaker and was married to his wife for 53 years, but they never had any children.

However, they did raise three children of missionaries sent to Bethlehem to attend the girl’s Seminary.

He sounds like he was a really nice guy willing to help anyone out, and he especially loved assisting visitors to Bethlehem. He died in 1822 but on the Historic Hotel Bethlehem’s website they say many believe “he still attends to Bethlehem’s visitors and guests, with a wonderful sense of fun and humor.”

His ghost is most often seen in the Boiler Room part of the hotel.

The Barefoot Ghost

Then there’s the barefoot ghost of Mrs. Brong. For a short time in the 1800s when it was still the Eagle Hotel, she and her husband were the hotel’s landlords.

But the arrangement didn’t last long. Her husband liked to drink with the guests a little too much…rather, he liked to drink a little too much. Drinking with the guests was just another excuse to imbibe some more.

His wife preferred not to wear stockings or shoes, which in 1833 was considered quite scandalous. But I love how the account was related on the hotel’s website:

Guests off the just arriving stagecoach would be greeted most politely and to their shock and mortification, would find her “pedal extremities completely exposed!”

Kitchen staff and guests have reported a woman in period clothing with bare feet in the kitchen and restaurant area of the hotel so many believe it could be the ghost of Mrs. Brong.

The Stage Star/Lady Hope

Another ghost with a connection to the old Eagle Hotel is the singer May Yohe. Her grandfather owned and operated the hotel and she was born there in 1866. Even as a child she would sing and dance for guests. She was so talented, the Moravians pooled their money to send her to Paris for operatic training and she did become a stage star.

Performing in England for Queen Victoria’s son, Prince Edward, is how she ended up meeting and marrying Lord Francis Clinton Hope, who owned a famous and storied stone you may have heard of, the Hope Diamond, which some believe is cursed.

Lady Francis Hope, as May came to be known, did wear the stone a few times. I’m not sure if that’s why she turned out to not be very lucky in love, but at the turn of the century she divorced her husband and married an American soldier, but later ended up divorcing him too.

Were her happiest times singing and dancing in the hotel’s lobby? Is that why sometimes the piano player turns on all by itself, and is that who some say they hear singing and dancing, especially in the lobby and third floor exercise room? No one’s hundred percent positive of course, but they do believe it’s possible.

The Room with a Boo

Then there’s the curious case of room 932 on the ninth floor, which the hotel fondly refers to as their “room with a boo.”

They don’t know who haunts it or why, but as the hotel puts it, it has been the site of some “peculiar paranormal activity.”

They report that one couple staying in the room was awoken by a man standing by the bed asking them why they were in his room. When they turned the lights on, no one was there.

Many people have also reported seeing reflections in the mirror that disappear moments later. Objects moving, such as papers standing upright or flying off the desk and lamps flashing on and off are also commonly reported experiences. Someone even reported the bathroom wallpaper turning pink!

When the hotel invited a paranormal investigator to stay overnight in the room in 2007, he caught EVPs that said “It’s Mary,” “What a beautiful bathroom”, “I’ve locked myself in the closet”, and “Look out the window.“

Apparently, the room does have a lovely view, which is why they call it a room with a boo –that may or may not be haunted by a woman named Mary in addition to others.

Listen to the Haunted Places with Christmas Names Episode

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Which of these haunted places would you like to visit for Christmas?