THE CAR GRAVEYARD
Location: The Car Graveyard is an abandoned farm on a rural section of
Fifth Street where it turns into Borden Road in Elysville, Maryland, a mile and
a half north on Interstate 29 from Ellicott City on the north shore of the
Patapasco River, ten miles west of Baltimore on Highway 70.
Description Of Place: Covering thirty-seven acres of former farmland
at the base of rolling wooded hills and freshwater creeks, the Car Graveyard
includes a number of structures, including a six-room farmhouse with a cellar
and attic dating to pre-antebellum times, an old two-car garage, a barn and
several smaller sheds and structures, all of which are in different layers of deterioration.
It takes its name from the almost three hundred abandoned cars stored on the
property, the gamut of which range as sedans, trucks and sports cars from the
40s, 50s, 60s and 70s with the random mail truck, delivery van, bus and
recreational vehicle. Several of the cars have been overtaken by weeds and
brush; one car even has a tree growing out of the engine compartment. A virtual
scrap metal paradise, the grounds also cover a menagerie of non-car related
relics, such as old neon signage, piles of steel box springs, old concrete park
statues, old bicycles hanging on a tree and an old railroad caboose once used as
a work shed.
Ghostly Manifestations: Motorists taking the scenic route from
Highway 795 down to Ellicott City or merely getting lost on their way to
Baltimore on Highway 70 are likely going to find a straight sight. Among the countless
fields of farmland, quaint remote homes and rolling woodlands, they are likely
going to discover a row of cars along the side of the road lined up as if
watching films on a nonexistent drive-in across the street. Further up, beyond
the trees, they are likely to see a larger mass graveyard of cars surrounded by
trees and wild brush on a huge acreage of property scattered in every direction
and just beyond that in the center of all these forgotten vehicles is the dilapidated
edifice of a two-story farmhouse that must have been grand in its day. Today,
locals call it the Car Graveyard, and reportedly, it's still being added to this
very day.
"Oh yeah," Emil Barnes confesses. "People still abandon cars here. I don't know if they're making offerings here or what, but a few months ago, someone left an old tan 1989 Citation on the main drive, and I had to use my truck to force it back out of the way. I don't know how many cars are on the property, but last I checked it was up to 312, but then we had a storm whip through here a while back, and knocked down a few trees and I noticed a back field with around fifty to sixty old cars from roundabout the Fifties so who knows."
Now in his Sixties, Barnes, known as Eb to his family and friends, is one of the last local members of the Barnes family to have actually lived in the house in the Forties. He was five to eight years old at the time, and today, he still owns and operates his grandfather's old garage, possibly the oldest and most trusted garage in Elysville. Over the years, he still comes to the farm to pull parts he needs for older model cars, like a radiator, a fender or an entire door, or just sell off the collection one at a time to car enthusiasts looking to rebuild a classic car. Sometimes, he comes out in his tow truck to just move them around and discover a treasure long forgotten, like a Classic 60s Mustang or a two rear-window Corvette and have an impromptu barbecue on the grounds with friends. However, when he does come out here, he also keeps another nervous eye open for whatever else might be wandering around. On several occasions, he reports having seen figures sitting in the junked out cars on his family property, but when he looks back, they're gone.
"When I was growing up, there were a lot of stories about the house being haunted." He continues. "In fact, that might be why we stopped living out here."
Although Barnes has never had any experiences, he is more than willing to pass on the stories about the ghosts on the property while he can. According to family lore, the house is haunted by the tall thin figure of an old man who casually walks through the halls as if he's looking over the place. Several members of the Barnes family saw him between the Summer of 1947 and Winter of 1948 when the family moved here. Many of the descriptions are the same. A tall thin figure in a dark suit, dressed as a mortician or mourner, comes down the steps to the attic and then down the front staircase to the front parlor and wanders into the dining room. He has white hair, a pale face worn by age and his expression is that of stunned sorrow or mournful surprise. Eb's aunt saw him coming down the front stairs one night and ran out of the house screaming. Another relative woke up in the middle of the night to see him in the doorway staring at them. Eb's father reportedly saw him several times, either wandering in a strict adhered routine down the hallway or descending down the front stairs to the parlor.
"Can we get into the house?" William Collins asked in 2011.
"Oh, I don't go in there." Eb confessed. "No way to get into it either. It's been packed full of as much stuff as the property itself. Hutches, cabinets, trunks, boxes, furniture, all that stuff you want to keep but don't have room to store. There's only a foot wide walkway through the place and it's stacked ceiling high against the front doors and the inside of the front entryway. I reckon if you wanted to get in, it would be through the mud porch, but that's been padlocked, and every time we need to get in, we can't find the key and have to cut the key off to open it."
A close examination of the house reveals the reality of his words. While the windows are darkened, one soon realizes they are looking at the rears of furniture piled high against the windows or boxes and trunks stacked ten fold high.
"Who's the ghost supposed to be?"
"I don't know." Eb continued as he walked past an old Oldsmobile on the grounds and tried pulling a tarp back over an exposed corner. "All I know is that it's been known the house has been haunted for generations. My dad said the house had once been owned by Old Man Hawkings, and his family had had it eleven years before us before he sold it to us. None of them live in the area anymore, but even then, they knew it was haunted back then too,"
"What was it that forced your family from the house?"
"Well..." Eb reflected. "One winter morning my mother came down to start breakfast and as she entered the parlor, she saw the ghost of the old man sitting in the bench and staring right after with the death gaze of his. He didn't do anything. He just sat there looking at her, but the sudden appearance of him staring at her terrified her so much she ran upstairs and wouldn't leave her room. Of course, he was gone when my dad later checked, but by that point, it was clear even he had had enough. We moved out shortly thereafter, lived in the small house behind his garage."
"Has anyone seen him since?"
"Oh, my cousins claimed to see him still sitting and staring from that bench afterward when they'd visit the house, but I don't know truthful they can be. My dad said he'd see him standing and staring from the windows from time to time and even traipsing down the road to the house at times, but then with the house crammed full of stuff, it's no wonder he has to come outside to do his walk."
"You mentioned something about other ghosts in the house. What do you know about them?"
"While we lived here," Eb continues. "There were also random appearances of a woman in a long black dress. She didn't appear as often, but she was described as looking much younger than the old man with long blonde hair, but with the same trance-like death stare as she moved through the house. You would enter rooms, and she'd suddenly pass behind you and disappear or be seen briefly in the shadows. Seems though we'd see her more in the summer than the old guy. My cousin once claimed to wake up and see her sitting on top of him with her hands on his shoulders, but like I said, they never actually lived in the house, they just stayed as guests from time to time, so I don't know how reliable he is."
"When was she last seen?"
"I'd say a few years after we'd moved out." Eb recalled while leaning back against one of the cars. "I'd come out here to open the house and pull some furniture for a relation who had just bought a house. Back in those days, we could actually go in and out the front door with a truck parked right up against the porch, but then, the house wasn't as crowded. Anyway, we was searching for beds and moving furniture around when Callie (his nephew's wife) suddenly shrieked. She was in the kitchen going through the cupboards when someone entered the room behind her from the hall and quickly entered the dining room. When we asked her who she saw, she described the same female ghost my brothers and I had seen as kids, but being a seamstress, she accurately described the figure as wearing a long black nightgown with bare shoulders and long skirts dangling behind her. When told it was nothing, she was adamant we had surprised someone living in the house.
"There's also the kids. We'd hear
sounds of kids laughing and playing in the house when no one was here. We'd
never see them, but every so often when I was out here with my dad bringing out
another car, we'd see the figures of young kids racing up the old path up the
hill through the woods. It's no longer there, but the path ends at an old
cemetery still in use today, but you have to drive around to Utley Road to reach
it. It's full of yellow fever victims from the 1880s."
History: Formerly Daniels, Maryland, Elysville is the fifth largest
city in the county, having been founded in the 1790s by Amish and Mennonite
groups from Baltimore. However, there is no history available on the Car
Graveyard. Dating back to before the Civil War, it was formerly known as the Old
Borden Place, but no one named Borden even lived there. This name comes from the
fact that Fifth Street was formerly known as Borden Road until 1947, and much of
the rural part of the road still goes by that name. (It had been named for Isaac
P. Borden who had been mayor of Elysville in the 1880s.) No records can be found
for the house because the local land records have been moved three times over
the years (in 1859, 1888 and 1933) and today rest in three separate places in
the local library, a local school and the city courthouse. What is known as that
the Barnes Family acquired it in the 1940s and only briefly lived there before
Emil's grandfather started storing old and wrecked cars on the property in a
collection that evidently went out of control and was added to by other
relatives leaving their old cars there. Even the house has been used for
storage, holding four generations of relics, antiques and furniture.
Identity Of Ghosts: As yet, no identities have been applied to any
of the apparitions. Rumors are the spirit might be one of the gentleman farmers
who lived in the area in the 1880s. As for the female spirit, she might actually
be connected to one of the wrecked cars on the property as several of the cars
have been towed away from car accidents over the years. The known phenomenon in
the house has also included voices, footsteps, the sounds of doors and cabinets opening
and closing and even light poltergeist activity.
Source/Comments: The Veil (Episode: "Face in the Mirror")
- Activity loosely based on the Old Tipton House in Harridge, Tennessee.