(THE PICKET)- Just two weeks before Halloween, Sharpsburg Civil War Ghost Tours offered a two hour Halloween-Samhain Ghost Tour special that was anything but scary.
The Ghost tour is $15 per person and has to be paid for before the tour begins, however the guides did not verify who paid.
The tour starts at Captain Benders Tavern on 111 E. Main St., in Sharpsburg, Maryland, where tour guides Mark and Julia start the story that will lead guests around the town.
The two tell hearsay stories that other residents of Sharpsburg have shared with them over time.
The Sharpsburg Civil War Ghost Tours website is misleading. The brief description advertising the tour says, “Halloween is just around the corner and the veil between the living and the dead is drawing close to its thinnest margin. Do you know the historical origins of Halloween? Do you know what happened in Sharpsburg in October 1862?”
I took the tour and I still don’t know what happened in Sharpsburg in October 1862. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention, or maybe my guides Mark and Julia never mentioned it. They did mention events that happened Sept. 16, 17 and 18.
There was a battle that took place over those three days where the youngest solider of the Civil War, just 13 years old, Charley King, died and his body was lost. We were told that residents may have seen his ghost near an old fire station.
Mark told us that we may taste pennies or blood in our mouths while walking around the town because of the amount of blood that was in the streets during the three-day battle.
The tour’s main focus was about a man named Aaron Good and how he dug up the graves of Civil War soldiers to identify them for their families. The guides led us to believe in the beginning that Good did this for free, until the end of the tour we find out that he was an extortionist. They took us on a two hour walk around Sharpsburg to tell us Good was an extortionist.
The advertising for the tour leads people to believe that they are going on a spooky ghost tour around Sharpsburg when in reality they are going on a walk around Sharpsburg to hear about Civil War history.
I would recommend this tour for history buffs but if you are looking for a scary Halloween experience this tour is not for you.