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Headline: Ghost muster Medium visits areas reputed to be haunted

Date: October 26. 1997

Edition: ARLINGTON AM

Page: 1

Word Count: 2359

Section: ZONE/CITIZEN-JOURNAL

Author: BRIAN D. CRECENTE CHRISTY GONZALES Star-Telegram Writer

Text- ARLINGTON - It started as a few unexplained sights and sounds. A cat scratching at the door when there was no cat. Shadows dancing across the walls with no one to cast them.

For years, Delta Upsilon members have passed on tales of the unseen member of their household. He's just one of the legends of the Arlington area. From a deadly train wreck to the infamous tree used by vigilantes to hang horse thieves, Arlington's history is riddled with fascinating legends. Last week, we told you how we evolved from Star-Telegram reporters to connoisseurs of fear as we chronicled our misadventures through commercial haunted houses in the area. Recently, we trekked to some Arlington area locations rumored to be haunted accompanied by Sharon Steinecke, a medium who says she can see, hear and communicate with ghosts. Steinecke said she has attracted ghosts since she was a child and she uses her talents to help ghosts find their way to "the other side."

THE WANDERING FIREMAN The headline of the March 15, 1885, edition of The World told the tale: "Engine No. 642 lies in quicksand! " The engine hauling passenger train No. 304, as well as mail and baggage cars, was headed east, parallel to what is now Division Street, down the long hill from Handley when the accident happened. Torrential rains caused the trestle at Village Creek to give way, plummeting the engine and its passenger train into 12 feet of water. J.C. Habeck, an Ohio man whose job was to tend the furnace in the train's steam engine, was killed in the wreck. The Pacific Company also lost a safe. Half a month later, unable to pull the engine from the swollen banks of Village Creek, the railroad began rebuilding the trestle an top of the still-buried engine. To this day, people say the lone fireman wanders the banks of Village Creek in search of the missing money.

A few days ago, as Steinecke stood on the muddy banks beneath the rebuilt bridge, she said she heard an abnormal train whistle - long and shrill.

"This man really didn't think he was going to die. nut he did get scared at the very end," she said. "This guy is scared because of something he hears. She closed her eyes, and feet spread, put her hands on her hips.

We stood in silence for a while, hearing nothing but the sound of lapping water from the creek and passing traffic from above. "I think the event is haunting it," Steinecke said, explaining that there are two types of "hauntings. " One is an impression left by a tragic event; the other comes from a ghost who has not "made it to the other side. " The way she sees it, the fireman feels a great deal of responsibility. She doesn't think that he's looking for money, but that he continues to try to warn passing trains of impending doom.

There were two men in the engine, talking and laughing before one noticed that something wasn't right about the bridge, she said. But by then, it was too late.

"Both men tried to help each other, but the one who survived owes his life to the one who died," she said. The ghost is not mean, she said, but kind of sad. "I bet you're going to find him here more on a rainy night, riding with them across the tracks," she said. "I don't think he's the least bit harmful.

HANGMAN'S TREE Between the Civil War and the 1900s, many horse thieves and runaway slaves were hanged from a huge oak tree near the Trinity River. One of its branches was parallel to the ground, making it a frequent lynching spot. The tree soon became known as "Hangman’s Tree." In February 1862, the nearby Leonard's Mill, which was later rebuilt as Randol Mill, was burned to the ground. Some people thought that the relatives of two men who had recently been accused of horse stealing and strung up on the tree might have done it. Legend has it that the tortured souls of men who died hanging from the tree were appeased when it was struck by lightning in the 1920s. But some legends claim restless ghosts still roam along the riverbank just west of Precinct Line Road where so many were killed. We managed to attract the company of a large black chow on our trip to the tree. At first she kept her distance, but then it seemed as if she were guiding us to our destination. Steinecke said many cats and sometimes dogs can sense or see ghosts. Some pets tolerate them; some don't. She said the chow could see the ghosts at Hangman's Tree. The gray sky grew darker as we approached a wall of tall trees that lined the river. "This is it," Steinecke said, stopping abruptly near the edge of the field. The dog walked a little farther and then sat facing the trees. Steinecke walked a few feet from us and stared off into the distance over our shoulders in the direction of the river. She said she felt a lot of activity, or energy, at the site.

"I hear crying more than anything else - women crying," she said, wringing her hands. "Murders is what they are because some of them are innocent men. There was no reason for them to have died so violently. She stood with her eyes shut and her face turned toward the sky for a minute. Then she started talking about the history of the place. "At least four or five are standing off in the area just watching us,” she said. We looked behind us and saw that the dog was staring in one direction, as if she were watching something or someone. She moved closer to us and sat back down but kept staring at the same spot. One of us felt as if something were moving closer, causing the dog to come closer. "They are curious. They want to know what we are doing here,” Steinecke said. She said the place has a long and bloody history. Sometimes several died on the same day. There was always crying. "They're too scared to stay here and too scared to go, so they're stuck," she said. "No justice here. No justice here. Steinecke said these ghosts likely manifest themselves at night. "I think if somebody stayed here during the night and was really quiet, they'd have the pants scared off of them," she said. "They would hear crying and maybe see ghost lights." Steinecke said it was not a good idea to tread on ghost ground for very long. One of us immediately suggested we leave. The dog, as if on cue, began making her way back through the grass. We followed.

THE GHOST THAT WOULDN'T LEAVE The two-story white house, which sits on Abram Street nestled between two fast-food restaurants, looks innocuous enough on the outside. But some-say a sorrowful and often violent ghost lurks inside. "I feel one female ghost who is very, very sad about being here,” Steinecke said as she grasped the front doorknob. "She's a dark-haired woman and she has a lot of tears associated with her. " She closed her eyes and let her other hand drift softly across the door. She told us of the house's history. The woman loved the house, she said. She lost a child there. Her voice rose angrily as she said that the woman does not want to stay, and she smacked her palm against the door. "I think her husband did her in, quite frankly," she said. "I get the impression of someone saying 'Get out Of here. '” Standing behind her on the porch, we both felt uneasy, as if someone were watching from behind the slightly transparent drapes that hung in the windows overlooking the front yard. We heard a clicking noise that made one of us jump. "I hear something, like doors opening and closing," she said. We put our ears to the door. Nothing. We worked our way around to the side of the house, stopping at a set of windows to peer inside. We stood there for a minute, hands cupped around our eyes, staring in silence. Nothing. Steinecke led us to the back porch. She stood with her back to the doors. We faced the house and only took -our eyes off the twin doors to glance nervously around us.

She told us of a dressmaker and a lawyer who were pushed down a flight of stairs from the attic by a possessive ghost. "Why the top of the house is so important to her, I don't know," she said. "Unless she had her nursery up there. " One of us had been uneasily standing in front of the porch steps as Steinecke spoke and suddenly decided to seek cover next to the other. Steinecke abruptly stopped talking, cocked her head to one side, and got a weird half-smile and her face as she stared at a space oust to the right of us. "She just stepped out," she said in a low voice. After a few seconds, Steinecke said the ghost had retreated to her home. We made our way back to the side of the building, and Steinecke asked us to press our palms against the glass, close our eyes and listen - to see if the ghost would touch us. After a few minutes, one of us felt a light brush on the palms as if someone were blowing on them. The other felt a very slight vibration, which could have been the wind. People who have worked in the house said they have had run-ins with a ghost. Vickey Farrar is an escrow officer for Landrith & Kulesz LLP, which owns the house and has an office next door. Farrar, who worked in the two-story house for several years, said strange things often happened there. She said it may have been the work of a ghost with a different history. "The story is, she was a young woman wanting to marry a certain gentleman, and her parents forbade her, and she killed herself," she said. Faqrar spent most of her time working in a downstairs office, the one that we peered into a few nights ago. "I would hear the front door open and close," she said. "I would get up and walk out there, and no one would be there. It would happen a lot. " Other tenants said boxes were moved, put up against doors so that no one could open them from the outside. She said the tenants moved out, in part, because of that.

Pics

DELTA UPSILON HOUSE The Delta Upsilon house was built in 1906 by William Thornton. It was the first house in Arlington with gas lights. Dorothy Rencurrel, Thornton's granddaughter, said he died in the house in 1913, and his wife, Josephine, died there in 1915. Rencurrel's aunts and father lived in the home for a time, and when she was a child, they would tell her stories. “When I was a little girl, I used to hear the ghost stories," she said. "We used to hear noises, and my aunts used to tell me it was him. “ The ghost was rather pleasant. I have no bad memories. It was not a scary ghost. " The Delta Upsilon fraternity bought the house in 1963 and has occupied it since, she said. A small group of fraternity members and their friends, including many who believe that the house is haunted, recently gathered around Steinecke as she walked from room to room. They hung back a bit hesitantly as she barged into the house, took a quick walk around the pool room and toured the downstairs bathroom. "Where's the kitchen? " she asked. "I keep being drawn to the kitchen. When asked why, she replied, "I don't know. Water. Kitchen and water. A feeling of things being spilled that shouldn't be. " Later, a fraternity member said pipes in the kitchen and bathrooms have been, replaced about 40 times in five years. Steinecke barrelled up the stairs and made her way down a long hallway to the last door on the right. Steinecke said she felt three ghosts - the ghost of an old man, a young ghost who may have committed suicide in or near the house, and a ghost who did not die in the house but was drawn to it. By this time, a crowd had gathered in the hall. Some smirkes and tittered. Others listened intently. Another followed Steinecke with a video recorder. After quickly exploring the first bedroom and issuing the occupant a warning, Steinecke turned and charged back down the hall to another door. Pushing it open, she marched straight to a closet in the back corner. "Y'all have heard screams," she said. One of the fraternity members cried, "Yes, thank you, God! I'm not crazy. " She stood quietly in the closet doorway and suddenly said, "Whoa," and retreated from the room. She said she had been confronted by the ghost of an angry old man. “Yeah, he's with us," she said. "He just told us to get out. Steinecke said the older ghost is probably unhappy that the house is inhabited by a fraternity. Brad Ido, a 25-year-old fraternity alumnus, said he lived in the room for 1 1/2 years. "I would never go back into the closet at night," he said. "I would hear footsteps and tapping. It was like the footsteps were going up the wall. " Another upstairs bedroom, Steinecke said, was a place where cats were experimented with, possibly sacrificed, by someone. The closet was particular place of dread for animals, she said. Delta Upsilon member Kurt Kmat, 23, lived in the room for more than a year. ''When I was in that room, I would-hear scratching and running around in my room at night," he said. Certain it was rats, he would turn on the lights but couldn't find the source of the scampering. "But I never had anything weird going on in that closet," Kmat said. Others listening to Steinecke said that one cat who lives in the house loves that room. Steinecke told the students that she felt a connection between the older ghost and a downstairs room that contains a pool table. "He finds that room pleasant," she said. Someone explained that the room used to be a library .

Kmat said he would understand a ghost being mad that the house is now a fraternity. “Not that we do anything bad in the house” he said. “We probably haven’t taken care of the house the way he would have.” Shannon Harral, whose boyfriend lives in the house, said friends and fraternity members have heard that the house is haunted, but a few members were persuaded.

“It was kinda funny to joke about,” she said. “But now it’s kind of freaky.”