ORCHARD HOUSE

Location: Theodore is thirteen and a half miles from Mobile, Alabama on Interstate 90 at the southwest tip of Alabama. Surrounded by miles of farmland, Orchard House (aka the Old Route House, Brooks House, Spirit Hall and the Cornstalk House is located northeast from town at the fork of Plantation Road and Route 59.

Description Of Place: Surrounded by acres of corn and obscuring an apple orchard between Route 59 and Plantation Road, the Orchard House is a white dilapidated pitched roof farm house with a domed glass window over the entryway. It has five bedrooms, an Early American kitchen with an in-door water pump and a partial cellar. 

Ghostly Manifestations: In the Eighties, Andrea McFarland and her twin brother, Andrew, would ride out to the old deserted house on Route 59 and help their mother collect apples that had fallen on the ground. Sometimes, they meet another family out there, but most of the time, they weren't bothered. The apple trees had been planted years before and had continued to prosper surrounded by the corn fields. Most days, they would collect two to three baskets for apple pies, homemade apple ice cream or eating straight from the tree. Some people who looked at the Orchard House guarding the forgotten apple grove claimed they saw people looking out from the windows, but no one believed in those stories. The house was deserted. Huge padlocks sealed every door and entrance. Windows along the ground were covered up by plywood nailed to the house. However, on this occasion, something was different. Another local family known as the Switzers were already parked by the side of the road to collect some apples. Andrea met and became friendly with their daughter, Amelia Switzer, a few months older. While exploring, Andrea had tried to peek under the plywood over the front left window and accidentally broke the dried out lower part of the plywood off, revealing the open window underneath. Unseen and unnoticed by their parents, the girls managed to step off the edge of the front porch and struggle through the window.

"It was empty with a few pieces of furniture." Andrea revealed years later. "I think it was the dining room because it had a huge wooden table but no chairs around it. The only chair I saw was against the corner, and it was under shelves built into the wall next to this wide open doorway with an external decorative frieze around it. The floors were hardwood, and the ceiling had a huge wooden chandelier without lights in it. I think it was the type for holding candles. Both Amelia and I wanted to explore the house. I definitely want to see what was upstairs. I think the front hallway had boxes along the walls. It also had one of those staircases that went up about so far toward the front of the house, and then vanished up to the top floor behind a wall."

As Amelia explored the kitchen and came into the front hall, Andrea peeked into the study under the stairwell and tried opening the door next to it. It was probably a coat closet or the door to the cellar. She wasn't scared; she was more excited than scared, but then she wanted to go up the stairs to see if she could find any toys. Through her mind, she wondered who lived in this house and where they were. The house was old and run-down, but it wasn't falling apart. The rubber on her sneakers squeaked on the old wood stairs. She climbed up one step then the second. On the third, she looked down to Amelia coming up behind her. On the fourth, she placed her hand on the railing to her right and started to turn around the middle landing for the top of the stairs to the second floor.

Seconds later, she was slamming into Andrew trying to climb in through the same window she had climbed through minutes earlier.

"At the top of those stairs," Andrea remembers the incident as if it were yesterday. "I saw a a man standing up there and looking at me, and around him were all these other people. I don't recall faces or clothing; I just remember this crowd of individuals crowding the top of the stairs and looking at me, as if "What are you doing in here?" Upon seeing them, I just spun around and pushed poor Amelia out of my way. I don't know how far she tumbled, I was just scared to death we might in be in trouble. I ran for the window and smacked into Andrew in my way, the two of us landing on the hard ground under the window."

A minute later, Andrea was embellishing her story and claiming an old man had been yelling at her. A few minutes to break down her story, and the truth came out to her parents and Amelia's. Mr. McFarland called for help, the police came and the house was searched. Nobody was found in the house, and if someone had been locked inside the house from the outside, they must have got out the same way the girls had got in. Nevertheless, a month later when the trip came again to search for leftover apples in the orchard, another wood panel was nailed over the window over the old one.

Although uninhabited and apparently deserted, Orchard House remains Theodore's unconfirmed haunted house. No one knows anyone who ever lived there, which makes it a bit heard for a researcher to get stories. It is known that the house was once used as the meeting hall for the old Civil War Historical Society, a group of history aficionados with a devotion to Civil War memorabilia. The group broke up in 1975, and since then, the house has been used to store objects for a future historical museum to be opened in the house. Denise Hood, an assistant to Mayor Buford Thomas, serves at the head of the town committee to start the museum.

"I don't believe in ghosts," She states right out. "But I do know strange things have happened in the house. Every year, we do an audit of the house's contents, a process that takes about two weeks and it always occurs in the summer. The house isn't modernized, and it gets incredibly hot inside, especially upstairs where the windows aren't covered. We had around fifteen to twenty volunteers and community workers going through the house, counting boxes and their contents, moving stuff around and just generally taking inventory.

"Back in '95," Hood continues. "We were in the attic of the house, which was miserable. There were metal bed posts that were hot enough to sting our hands, and the air was unpleasant to try and breath. One of the workers suddenly commented, "They finally turned the AC on." and I ignored it a second then thought, "Wait a second, this house doesn't have air conditioning." There was no way for a cold breeze to be in the house, and yet, I felt this sudden chill come over me. We all felt it. It genuinely felt as if there was a cold breeze entering that attic, but what it was and what caused it, I don't know."

The upstairs of the house is crowded and crampt with boxes and furniture. Bedrooms are filled with furniture and boxes of antiques donated to the city by locals. Just to look out the upstairs window in one room involves climbing over a bureau, several boxes, several racks of headboards then shimming over rugs rolled against a wall and some boxes. It's a hard enough trick for a normal-sized man, but something has no problem maneuvering through the room. William Bond works as a groundskeeper for the city, keeping the grounds around city hall, the police station and fire station up to code. He also mows the property at Orchard House for town picnics and outings, but every so often, he insists he's being watched.

"That right front window..." He points it out. "I've seen someone in that window at least once if not more. I'm not sure who it is, or how they got in there, but as long they're up there and I'm out here, I try not to think about it."

Others have seen this figure looking out the window. Route 59 is a frequently traveled road between Theodore and Mobile, and several people take Plantation Road off Orchard House as a more pleasant back road to avoid the lights and traffic from the highway. Thomas Cooper is one of those people. The peaceful back road may twist and turn and take him a bit longer out of his way, but at least he doesn't have to hit the train crossing and lights in the city limits in order to get home. He reports having seen something in that upstairs window on several occasions. To him, it looks like a man in a dark suit. When he started hearing the ghost stories other people were telling, he thought he would start keeping a camera in his car to try and catch it. For several weeks, the figure remain elusive, but then on April 18, 2006, he was driving home from Mobile where he worked as a manager for the Halcyon Theater. As he approached Plantation Road, he started slowing to make the turn, and then he saw it.

"It looked like a tall thin man in a uniform." Cooper reported. "I could see it had buttons and those decorative objects on the shoulders. I think it was the decorative uniform for a Civil War soldier, but I've never seen anything in a book that remotely came close. He also had a large wide brimmed hat, and a thick beard. I shot two photos from inside the car, then got out and tried a few more, but he stepped to the side and vanished. Unfortunately, I tried to share my best picture with the newspaper, and despite not running it, I never got the photo back, but I still got one out of the five shots I took that day."

Not everyone sees the figure in the window. Beginning in December 1987, several motorists have squealed to a stop on Route 59 after seeing a woman in long red hair and a white dress running out from no where. Jack Cobb had the most terrifying encounter with her in 1993: "I was driving home on Route 59 from Pascagoula after delivering a desk to my sister, and by time I started reaching the city limits, it was already getting dark. That far in the country around here, there's no lights, very few traffic and not much but cornfields as far as the eye can see. There wasn't even a moon that night. Anyway, I was doing maybe 55 to 60 miles per hour through there, and right where Plantation Road goes off, this woman suddenly appears in my headlights and freezes in front of me. I stood on the brakes to stop, but it was too late. I hit her, and she sailed over the front of my car, I jerked the wheel like this and went straight into the ditch. Now, I was scared. I had never hit anyone before, and here I was just a few miles from home, climbing out of my car and scrambling though the dark looking for this woman I had hit. In thirty minutes, five more cars stopped, including the State Police, and I'm telling what I saw, and we're going up and down the road looking for this girl and she's no where in sight. I know I saw a girl; I know what one looks like, but we never found anything."

Since then, at least eight drivers have told the police they nearly hit a woman in the road near the Orchard House. She almost always rushes out on a diagonal trip from the house between Route 59 and Plantation Road. Others coming the other way have seen her coming from around the back of the house and vanishing in the front yard.

"We don't know who she is," Hood comments. "Or where she's going. We've never had an investigation here, nor have we ever had a psychic in the house. Yet, every Halloween, the Theodore Gazette publishes a new story about how this spirit tries to cross the street. Teenagers go out there parking and looking for her, but she never shows up when expected."

"One year for a Halloween story," Constance Darling, the editor of the Theodore Gazette, contributes. "We decided we'd get someone to volunteer getting locked up in the house if they gave their story to us to print. In doing so, we had to promise the county we'd cover any damages done to the house and have a waiver signed to cover any injury in the house. We actually had over a hundred volunteers apply from the area, mostly paranormal enthusiasts, but we chose local dentist Matt Daniels because he sounded the most earnest."

Armed with a sleeping bag, a lantern and a bag of snacks, Daniels entered the house at 6:43 on October 18, 1996. Denise Hood, William Bond and columnist Andrew Condon representing the paper were in attendance to see Daniels enter the house. Two police officers also stayed on duty outside just in case. Bond would be by in the morning to unlock the doors at 7AM. People expected Daniels to come out of the house a raving lunatic trying the break down the doors or windows after enduring screams and apparitions, but when he awakened in the morning on the sofa in the study, Daniels described it as an uneventful experience.

"I heard creaking noises, squirrels on the roof, cars driving by and the faraway sounds of crickets," He mentioned to the newspaper. "But it just seemed to be an old house. I tried several times to experience something. I never went upstairs, but I walked through the bottom of the house several times through the kitchen, dining room and study, but I never saw any ghosts. I do remember seeing several framed pictures propped against the wall in the parlor, and on one trip, I noticed they had been turned out and were facing the room. I thought - "That's not right." but then I wondered, "Maybe I just thought they were facing the other way before." I just pushed the idea out of my mind, retired in the study, and slept soundly until I was awakened the next morning."

"The most unusual story I heard about the house happened just last year." Darling adds. "The way I hear it an estimate was being made on the house to do a complete renovation to get it ready as a museum. Denise Hood was in the house, and so was James Beard from the city council and Maddie Kornman from the State Historical Museum. They were deciding what to move in, what to restore and what had to be replaced and while they were in the kitchen, two of the high school kids here to help got into a argument. Apparently, it was some sort of clash of egos. Denise ordered them to stop yelling, but they started it up again, and Denise ordered them out of the house, but for some reason, they came back in again. I had just arrived to get the details for the newspaper, and there was Denise in the dining room, trying to contain the situation, these two girls screaming, their friends watching and talking, and all of a sudden, this loud unearthly scream comes through the house. It was the most unearthly thing I've ever heard. It sounded as if someone was being murdered. I don't know what it was, but it shut those girls up."   

History: Orchard House has been a reported haunted house for several generations. Used as a storehouse for county records and antiques, it is believed to have been part of a former apple plantation but no records are known about the house. It's history was once confused with the Thibodeaux House located eight miles down the road in an October 31, 1943 newspaper. It has been county property since 1953. 

Identity Of Ghosts: No one has any research on the identities of the man in the window or the red-haired female apparition. 

Source/Ghosts: The Haunted House (1940) - Loosely based on the Bellebois Mansion in Memphis, Tennessee, the Old Shopwell House in Lake Odessa, Michigan and Glenwood in Natchez, Mississippi. 

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