Friday, February 11, 2011

More Mobile Mysteries

Behind the old library in downtown Mobile hides a little graveyard known as the Church Street Cemetery. Herein one can find the mysterious "Boyington Oak". It's story involves a man in the 1880s sentenced to hang for killing his friend. Seeing that his pleas of innocence were falling upon deaf ears, the man delivered a promise: an oak tree would rise up from his grave in proof of his innocence. The oak still stands, a testament to wrongful persecution.


Multiple rebuilds of this building have left history layered like a patina on the site of Webb Hall on the University of South Alabama campus. The latest building, built in 1913, still houses ghosts of the past. Witnesses have described the movement of shadowy wraiths at the periphery of their vision, as well as the sound of rustling petticoats.

3 comments:

Sharon Day said...

Wicked cool stories. I think perhaps an acorn in his pocket might have helped speed that final proclamation, huh?

Cullan Hudson said...

Or, and I'm pretty sure of this, the story was fabricated later to explain the oak growing from a grave.

Ken Summers said...

According to the old legend, on certain occasions you could hear the tree whispering, "I am innocent."

It's one of those classic American ghost stories. I remember reading the story as a child.