From Octavia Hatcher, the infamous woman who was buried alive, to the spooky second floor of Pikeville’s local Italian restaurant, Chirico’s. Join me as you are about to embark on this years Hillbilly Ghost Walking Tour!
It’s going to be spook-tacular!
If you are curious of any upcoming events, here is a link to Paranormal Adventures Event Page: https://paranormal-adventures-events.ticketleap.com
Stop #1: The Expo Center
Explanation of why/how the Expo Center is haunted:
(Summary of Youtube Video)
There used to be a hotel at the entrance of the Expo Center called The Hatcher Hotel which also had a department store connected to the hotel called the Watson Department Store. The reason that it is so infamous is because of the owners who were James and Octavia Hatcher.
James was so distraught after Octavia was buried alive that he actually preformed a séance daily or weekly trying to contact his dead wife to make sure that she was okay. Nobody knows if he succeeded and some even say that his parents and siblings might have even helped out with the séances.
James became a very strange man after his wife died. He had an air tight coffin made for himself which he had on display at the lobby in the hotel for patrons to see. He also had a lot of weird medical devices for people to view and printed strange quotes all over the walls of his home. He also purposely placed Octavia’s burial site so that he could see her gravestone every day outside his window.
Another scary thing is that someone was buried within the walls of the Expo center after having fallen into concrete while it was under construction. There have been a lot of weird activity that occurs on the bottom floor. People get locked in rooms, bathrooms, things go missing and appear later. A lot of the workers share experiences of things that occur to them: A video is shown of a recording of a moment where workers were caught late at night where music was playing… however, no sound systems connected!
Stop #2: The Old Court House
Summary:
This video shares about the Hatfield and McCoy Hog Trial. (Please forgive me for the background noises. (I was not aware that the tour was going to be in the middle of Hillbilly days) If you would like to know more about the feud between the Hatfield’s and McCoy’s, please check out my blog about the History of Pikeville!
But here is the scary part about the Court House: It is said that late at night, you can see a bright, glowing ball of light that flies within the top floor and within the clock tower… there is no entrance to the clock tower, so what could the bright light be? (dun dun dunnnnnnnnnn!)
Stop #3: Chirico’s Restaurant
Summary:
The reason why Mr. McCoy decided to live here he build a riverboat house and that was the only way to bring in goods into Pikeville. The weird thing was how Mr. McCoy died, after 30 years of feuding, he died by falling into a fire that he was attending to.
There have been weird happenings on the second floor above Chirico’s, which is only used for storage: footsteps can be heard as well as things being moved around and dropped onto the floor.
Please comment below if you see anything paranormal in these photos!
Stop #4: The Story of Octavia Hatcher
In 1889, at the age of 30, James Hatcher was married in Pikeville to a young woman named Octavia Smith, the daughter of Jacob Smith, an early settler. Their life together would be tragically brief and their union would produce one son, Jacob, who was born shortly before his mother died. The baby died soon after he was born, possibly leading to the depression and illness that preceded Octavia’s own death.
The illness took a turn for the worse in April of that same year and she slipped into a coma. The doctors were unable to determine a cause for it and when she died on May 2, it was thought that she had perished from an unknown illness.
The funeral services were held and almost immediately carried out. It was an unseasonably hot spring and as Octavia was not embalmed , no was time was wasted in placing her in her grave at the Hatcher family plot. James had just suffered a terrible double tragedy – but his grief was not yet over.
Several days after Octavia’s death, several other people began suffering from the same coma-like symptoms that Octavia exhibited at the time of her death. Research conducted by Herma Shelton shows that this illness was a sort of sleeping sickness that was brought on by the bite of a certain fly. When news of this began to spread, Hatcher and members of his family (some of them doctors) began to worry that this may have been the same illness that Octavia had contracted. Their fears turned to panic as they realized that she may have been buried alive!
An emergency exhumation was conducted and Octavia’s casket was opened. They found the poor young woman in a horrific state. Apparently, the coffin had not been airtight and she had managed to survive for a few days, trapped beneath the ground. The lining on the lid of the coffin had been torn and shredded by Octavia’s bloody nails and her face had been scratched and contorted into an expression of terror. She must have awakened from her sleep to find herself trapped in the casket. Then, unable to escape, she had undoubtedly succumbed to a terrifying death!
Stop #5: Pikeville City Park
Due to the history of the Civil War camps in the exact location of Pikeville’s City Park, it is said that in the early morning a fog will appear from the river and the formation of fallen soldiers appear within the park with tents, ready for another day of battle.
Last Stop: Dill’s cemetary
unfortunately, my camera read “low battery” and would no longer turn on while I was on the cemetery. So I had to turn to my phone for pictures.
To my surprise however… as I was walking home, I turned my camera on to see if I could use the last of the battery to view some pictures… only to expect my camera to still have 1/2 a full battery left!!!
Again, please comment below if you see anything paranormal of any of the images above. I did have somebody from the same group send me the following the image from HER camera:
I hope you enjoyed this week’s blog! If I learn of any new ghost sightings in Pikeville, I’ll keep you ghosted!
Till’ next time!
If you are still curious about ghosts, ghost hunting, and of the like, here is a video of Buzzfeed’s ghost hunting of Kentucky’s most haunted place: The Waverly Hills Hospital. Watch if you dare…
A Traveling Clouds 