Once again, it’s Halloween season, and the usual haunted houses, hayrides, and holiday festivities are making their annual return. If you are getting bored with your family’s 15th trip to Linvilla, there is a new option. What better way to celebrate Halloween than in a graveyard?

Last week, I went to St. Paul’s Cemetery in Ardmore for a telling of “local ghost stories.”  A one night only event, it involved a little bit of history about the graveyard, as well as the history and legends of “paranormal” activity around the Main Line. Places such as Harriton House, Bryn Mawr College, and the Anthony Wayne Inn all have very interesting paranormal backgrounds.

Shortly after the introduction, our tour guide blew his whistle. He led us to one of the buildings in the graveyard, the Old Dutch Schoolhouse. The Schoolhouse was built in 1787, and there are many stories that surround it. It is a well-preserved one-room schoolhouse. When school was in session, all of the students, no matter what grade, would crowd into that same space for their lessons. There was only one schoolmaster, and they would live in the upper floor of the schoolhouse. One of the particularly fascinating parts of the schoolhouse’s history is that when another, larger school was built and the schoolhouse began to be used for cemetery purposes, bodies could be stored in the basement for the fee of 25 cents per month.

However, one can only listen to history for so long around Halloween. I wanted to hear some ghost stories. I did not have to wait for too long, because my tour guide quickly started in on several tales. One notable one was “Tuggy the Witch and the Ghouls of Harriton.” However, HHS is safe from the ghouls…so far.

This story takes place at the Harriton House in Bryn Mawr. You may remember going there on a field trip in middle school. Harriton House dates back to 1682, when William Penn owned it. The first house built there was named Bryn Mawr, which means “high hill” in Welsh. In 1719, a wealthy Quaker who also happened to be a tobacco farmer bought the land. This Mr. Harrison grew tobacco at Harriton, and “employed” slave labor to farm the crop.

One of his slaves, Tuggy, despised life in Pennsylvania and wanted to return to her family in Maryland. After one of Harrison’s daughters died, she came up with a voodoo plan. She would bring back the dearly departed daughter to kill Harrison! There was a catch – the dead body Tuggy was going to resurrect would not kill Tuggy’s intended victim, but her instead. To prevent this from happening, Tuggy prepared a poisonous brew which she slipped into Harrison’s evening hot chocolate, just to make sure that the deed could be done.

That evening, Tuggy delivered Harrison’s hot chocolate to him, and then slipped out to the daughter’s freshly dug grave. With her sharpened stake ready, she drove it into the ground, piercing the corpse’s heart. When Tuggy tried and failed to rise and escape the scene of the crime, she let out a bloodcurdling shriek. Harrison heard this and dropped his hot chocolate! He sent a servant down to the family graveyard to investigate. They found Tuggy dead, lying face-up with her eyes as wide as saucers. The corpse had not killed her. She had died of sheer frightafter driving the stake through her dress.

Though I was expecting a more action-packed ending, it seemed to be this way with all of the stories there – in order to be child-friendly, the endings were logical instead of grotesque. Additionally, I was a bit disappointed that they did not include more history about the people who are buried in the graveyard. When I attended this event two years ago, my tour included both a creepy story and the accomplishments of people buried there. Overall, I’m not sure if I would go again, but the hot apple cider, donuts, candy, and spider rings at the end definitely made up for the lack of zombies.

For more information about St. Paul’s Graveyard, historical places on the Main Line, and what this event was like in previous years, visit:

http://ardmore.patch.com/groups/editors-picks/p/digging-up-the-past-at-st-paul-s-cemetery

www.lowermerionhistory.org/