In case you missed my Death and the City Presentation at Witchtober Fest at the Good Beans Cafe on October 12, here it is.
Flint is a city plagued with
extremely high numbers of violent deaths. More so than your average small
city. Flint’s murder rates have made
headlines in the past several years but the truth is, murder is nothing new
here.
My Haunted Flint co-author Joe,
has a weekly column here on the blog called Freaky Flint History, which recounts
tales of weird deaths from the early 20th Century. Stories of
jealousy, rage, and strange accidents abound. What is it about this land that
turns normal people into murderous monsters?
Flint is filled with ghost
stories. Are the multitudes of violent deaths to blame? Or is there something else lurking underneath it all, causing the murders and the hauntings?
Is there something sinister
attached to the land itself? An ancient curse, perhaps?
Read Haunted Flint to learn more about Flint's curse.
Today I’m going to talk about
some of the death haunts in and around the Flint area. Old mortuaries, funeral
homes, and cemeteries.
Spencer House Photo by Joe Schipani |
Spencer
House of Mortuary
Places that have housed the dead
are always filled with strong energy but is it spirits or imprints of grief
from the living people left behind?
Built in 1910, the Spencer House of
Mortuary had many incarnations. In 1955 Dr. Merrill Spencer and his wife,
Edith, converted the home into the Spencer House of Mortuary for African
Americans. It closed in 1997 and was boarded up for years which fueled more
rumors of the building being haunted. Spencer House had its fair share of whispered
tales of shadowy figures in the windows and sounds of distant screams filling
the night.
Mrs. Spencer donated Spencer
House of Mortuary to the Historic Carriage Town Neighborhood Association. In
2012 The Flint Public Art Project turned the mortuary into a center for the
arts.
On a cold and dreary May evening
in 2016 my co-author, Joe Schipani, had the chance to participate in a
paranormal investigation with the Haunt Investigators of Michigan. After a slow
start Joe was ready to give up hope of anything interesting happening. Then a
shadowy figure appeared on a sensor in a small hallway upstairs. As they
approached he disappeared, then reappeared farther down the hallway, then again
at the top of the stairs. Poof he disappeared again. They continued searching
for him. When he finally appeared again
he was ready to play. The investigators interacted with him and discovered his
name was George Kepler and that another spirit named Rose was with him. Later
on that evening the group encountered two more spirits downstairs. One of the spirits
was a child that liked to dance.
In November 2018 the building was
torn down but that didn’t stop the spooky occurrences. Neighbors are often
awakened in the middle of the night by moans and screams coming from the
property where the mortuary once stood.
Abandoned funeral homes and mortuaries
are always rumored to be haunted and there are usually rumors about human
remains being left behind.
In 99 percent of the cases, there
is no truth to the rumors.
However, in 2006, human ashes
were found in the shuttered Collins Memorial Funeral Home on Clio Road.
In 2017 the State of Michigan
revoked the mortuary license of Swanson Funeral Home on Martin Luther King
Avenue after discovering stacks of un-refrigerated bodies and numerous other
violations. They also found 300 sets of unclaimed cremains which were
eventually laid to rest at New Calvary Catholic Cemetery.
The sad thing is that it took the
state over 2 years to investigate and shut them down. Claims were made in 2015
that there were stacks of rotting bodies and other unsanitary conditions. But
the state didn’t close them down until 2017.
It’s shameful the way these two
funeral homes neglected the remains of the dead.
Other locations in Flint have
suffered as well. Reports have been coming in that several cemeteries in
Genesee County are severely neglected. One of them is Avondale.
Avondale Photo by Ari Napolitano |
Avondale
Cemetery is one of Flint’s oldest remaining burial grounds. Not as well kept as
Glenwood but still a favorite destination for local explorers. Full of
crumbling tombstones and ancient mausoleums, the cemetery is filled with
history…and spirits.
Disturbed
spirits are a popular trope for horror movies and ghost stories. Often combined
with a tale of the house or building being built on top of an old cemetery,
where bodies were left behind.
Avondale Photo by Ari Napolitano |
In
Flint this frightening tale is more than just a spooky story.
The
Flint City Cemetery was established in 1842 when Flint was still just a
village. By the 1950s trash and overgrown weeds had taken over.
The
city decided to redevelop the land.
Around
1200 remains were reinterred at the Flint City Cemetery at the corner of Linden
Rd and Pasadena Avenue. Around 925 of the remains were unknowns. Bodies had
been buried on top of each other. Some of the remains exhumed were wearing
buckskins.
The
property was sold to Albert J Koerts in 1958, who owned Koerts Glass and Paint.
The
remaining residents of the old City Cemetery were reburied in Avondale along
with 122 grave markers.
Or
were they?
The
section where the gravestones were moved to inside Avondale is called Pioneer’s
Row. The stones are arranged in two rows, very close together, in a way that
suggests stones and bones are probably not buried together.
In
1985 the remains of more than 24 bodies were found during construction in the
basement of the Holiday Inn Express at 1150 Longway Boulevard and I-475. They
were eventually reburied at the Flint City Cemetery.
Rumors
swirl that Albert J Koerts, who purchased the old cemetery property, just moved
the grave markers to Avondale which means the remains of some of Flint's
earliest residents may still be lost under Flint buildings and parking lots.
Unfortunately Koerts is long dead and took that secret to his grave.
Holiday Inn Photo by Joe Schipani |
Those
remains found under the hotel? Do they belong to grave markers in Avondale or
do they belong in the Flint City Cemetery?
Both the Holiday Inn and Avondale Cemetery have numerous reports of haunting encounters.
Both the Holiday Inn and Avondale Cemetery have numerous reports of haunting encounters.
Several
psychic mediums say that Avondale is filled with spirits, they see them
clearly...everywhere. The cemetery is a popular destination for both vandals
and ghost hunters in Flint. Orbs and strange noises have been reported along
with numerous sightings. More than one dead body has been discovered right outside
the perimeter.
Are
angry spirits lurking because their final resting place was disturbed?
Do
ghosts linger when they do not receive a proper burial?
Haunted Flint
Haunted America Series
Roxanne Rhoads and Joe Schipani
Publisher: The History Press
Release Date: September 2, 2019
ISBN-10: 1467143049
ISBN-13: 978-1467143042
Book Description:
Sinister Secrets in Flint’s History
Home to ancient burial grounds, unsolved murders, economic depression, and a water crisis, Flint emits an unholy energy rife with ghostly encounters.
Colonel Thomas Stockton’s ever vigilant ghost keeps a watchful eye over his family home at Spring Grove, where guests occasionally hear the thump of his heavy boots.
Restless spirits long separated from their graves lurk among the ancient stones in Avondale Cemetery.
Carriage maker W.A. Paterson’s spirit continuously wanders the halls of the Dryden Building, and something sinister and unnamed resides in a Knob Hill mansion waiting to prey on impressionable young men.
Join authors Roxanne Rhoads and Joe Schipani on a chilling tour of Flint’s most haunted locations.
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