Haunted Fort Worth

Rita Cook

• Publisher: The History Press
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9781609491765
• eBook ISBN: 9781614234081
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

In Fort Worth, the past and present exist side by side and spirits walk among the living. Stay the night at Miss Molly's Hotel; the oldest bed-and-breakfast in the city boasts frequent eerie occurrences and unexplained sightings. Nearby, Cattlemen's Fort Worth Steak House features a special like no other, just watch out for flying liquor! From Bonnie and Clyde's old "haunts" to the once notorious Hell's Half Acre, Fort Worth is filled with historic spots rumored to play host to lingering ghosts and specters.

PART I

CEMETERIES

Let’s face it: cemeteries are fun to get scared in, even though I have always asked myself why someone would want to stay in a cemetery after he or she was dead. I have heard some answers over the years that sounded legitimate, like you want to stay with your body. Maybe—or perhaps you just can’t believe you’re actually dead.

Nevertheless, there are a few old cemeteries in Fort Worth and its environs that are spooky and said to be haunted, so we’ll begin there.

Cemeteries always seem to be haunted.

OAKWOOD CEMETERY

701 Grand Avenue

Fort Worth, Texas

Old and new graves depicting wealth spill out across the acreage that is now Oakwood Cemetery. This cemetery was founded in 1879 by one of Fort Worth’s first settlers, John Peter Smith, upon the death of his stepson. Smith later became a civic leader, mayor and philanthropist. At the time of his donation of twenty acres to the city for the cemetery, the location (simply called New Cemetery) was on a bluff above the Trinity River. It now overlooks downtown Fort Worth. Over the years it has grown to about one hundred acres in all. The area actually consists of three cemeteries—Oakwood, Calvary and Trinity—and a walk through the large and beautiful grounds will show a number of Fort Worth and Tarrant County prominent men and women who were buried here, including plots owned by lodges, unions, Catholics, Protestants and men and women from every race and creed. There are also tracts dedicated to Union and Confederate soldiers. One strip, called Soldier’s Row, is land dedicated to Confederate veterans and their wives. The chapel inside the grounds was built in 1914. Oakwood Cemetery became a recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1966.

While the original cemetery was just that, “New Cemetery,” it was Calvary Cemetery that held appeal for the local Catholics who buried their dead there. Trinity Cemetery was designated as the burial ground for the city’s African Americans.

Oakwood Cemetery.

With such a plethora of history inside its gates, it is no wonder that haunted stories abound inside the grounds of Oakwood Cemetery. Often designated as the “final resting place of cattle kings and oil barons,” the most popular story from Oakwood is of neither but, rather, of a white figure who roams the grounds at night. This figure is often reported by residents who live near the cemetery, and a few folks swear it’s a woman wearing a bridal dress. Was she a jilted lover, perhaps? Another story goes that the woman is not looking for her lost love at all but instead moves through the grounds with a lantern held high looking for her children, lost and buried years ago inside the gates of Oakwood.

Sitting in a residential section of Fort Worth on Grand Avenue and Gould Street on the city’s north side, Oakwood Cemetery is at once alluring and eerie. There are oak trees as old as the cemetery itself shading much of the land, but when there on a rainy day, you begin to imagine this woman moving in and out of the tombstones just beyond your eyes. The mausoleums and gravel roads also offer pause—what’s down that road or inside the old ornate tomb? Or are your eyes playing tricks on you after all?

You might also keep your eyes open for the famed Jim Courtright, who was a big character in Hell’s Half Acre, working to bring law to that section of town. Dying after a gunfight that he lost, he was laid to rest in Oakwood.

Not one to tempt fate, Russell (my trusty photographer and husband) and I spent a few hours inside but ultimately didn’t see the white lady. We did, however, feel the eyes all over us. You can feel the energy there, like someone is watching you. With that said, we decided to make our hasty retreat just after sundown.

PIONEERS REST CEMETERY

600 block Samuels Avenue

Fort Worth, Texas

Even though we were assured we could get inside by the local ghost hunter, we never found our way inside Pioneers Rest Cemetery. We were lacking a big ole key to open the lock on the entrance gate. So instead we walked around the cemetery, peering inside and taking note that the burial ground in this spot began in the summer of 1850, when Sophie and Willis Arnold—children of Major Ripley A. Arnold (1817–1853)—died. Arnold was a commander of the troops at Fort Worth and his friend, Dr. Adolphus Gouhenant, had set aside a three-acre burial site at that time for burials. This is now the location on Samuels Avenue.

Pioneers Rest.

In 1871, after a cemetery association had been established, a man named Baldwin Samuels gave three adjoining acres to the existing burial grounds of the oldest cemetery in town.

In addition to Arnold’s children, eleven soldiers who died at the fort were also buried on the grounds between 1849 and 1850. A number of other early Fort Worth settlers, including seventy-five Civil War veterans, were buried here, and the site also has the graves of Major Arnold and General Edward H. Tarrant (1799–1858). Tarrant County, where Fort Worth is located, was named after him. Other well-known Fort Worth names buried here include the Daggetts, the Zane-Cettis and the Peaks.

So is the cemetery haunted? And if it is, who could it be that still maintains residence here? Major Ripley Arnold, who died on September 6, 1853, might still hang around since his children were buried here. A U.S. military figure and founder of Fort Worth, Arnold was a West Point graduate in 1838 and fought not only in the Seminole Indian War but also in the War with Mexico. He was a major under General William J. Worth, and he founded Camp Worth on the banks of the Trinity River, naming it after the dead General Worth. Arnold was killed by Dr. Josephus M. Steiner in a duel in Fort Graham, located in Hill County, Texas, after he went there to arrest him for disturbing the peace. While Arnold was originally buried at Fort Graham, his remains were brought back—but perhaps not to rest in peace after all.

James J. Byrne (d. August 13, 1880) is also buried in Pioneers Rest Cemetery. He was a Civil War Union soldier who migrated to New York from Ireland when he was young. After the Civil War, President Andrew Johnson made Byrne a United States marshal for the Northern District of Texas. On August 10, 1880, Byrne left Fort Quitman, Texas, for the Pecos on a stagecoach that was attacked by a band of Apache. The stagecoach was able to get back to the fort for protection, but not without Byrne being shot and wounded in the hip and back, thus leading to his death three days later of gangrene.

Could General Edward H. Tarrant still haunt the grounds where he was buried? After all, his is a big name in the city of Fort Worth and the surrounding area. He died on August 2, 1850, at Fort Belknap after being a prominent figure in early Texas history and a veteran of the War of 1812. He also participated in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815 and was a veteran of the 1836 Texas War for Independence, commander of the 1837 Northwest Frontier Rangers and general of militia at the 1841 Indian Battle of Village Creek.

With lots of trees covering the grounds, the graves are nestled inside, many too old to read after succumbing to age and weather. All the while, the cemetery has been surrounded by new buildings that have sprung up in Fort Worth in recent years. In proximity to the Trinity River, it’s a good final resting place any way you look at it. According to the local ghost hunter, the place is definitely haunted—you just have to be attuned to figuring out by who.

MOUNT OLIVET CEMETERY

2205 North Sylvania Avenue

Fort Worth, Texas

When we pulled up at Mount Olivet Cemetery—which was founded in 1907 by Flavious G. McPeak (1858–1933) and his wife, Johnnie Clara Lester McPeak (1858–1936)—we noticed an almost modern façade hiding the older graves.

Mount Olivet Cemetery.

Unlike the other cemeteries we had visited, Mount Olivet didn’t seem to have any energy at all, save for a lone dog running loose inside and running from us as well and a band playing in the corner of the cemetery at a Mexican funeral.

As you drive into the entrance, there is an ornamental globe to welcome visitors to the grounds, which consist of almost 130 acres. The oldest section of the cemetery is in the back. The cemetery was the first “perpetual care cemetery” in Fort Worth. The oldest marked grave is that of Zenas Ewin Kerr, buried April 11, 1907. Also interred here are 594 victims of the flu epidemic of 1918. The McPeaks and members of their family—who arrived in Fort Worth in 1894 from Tennessee—are also buried here. With ten children, the McPeaks had a house on Lake Street when they founded the cemetery. Flavious was a well-respected Fort Worth businessman.

The idea for Mount Olivet actually came about after the McPeaks visited the Mount Olivet Cemetery in Nashville, Tennessee, and liked it enough to come back to Fort Worth and design this one after its namesake. A mausoleum was completed in 1909, but a new one was built in 1983 and the original one was torn down at that time. A number of Tarrant County pioneers call this cemetery a final resting place.

As for who haunts, young and old alike, old graves and new, rumor is that the cemetery has been haunted for a long time, and with forty-seven thousand graves, there are likely a few ghosts that call this place home. A suggestion is to go to the cemetery and sit for a while, waiting to see what impressions come to you.

ROSE HILL MEMORIAL PARK

7301 East Lancaster Avenue

Fort Worth, Texas

Actually called Shannon Rose Hill Memorial Park, this cemetery’s claim to fame is that it’s where Lee Harvey Oswald, the accused assassin of thirty-fifth U.S. president John F. Kennedy, was buried. Does he still haunt the cemetery? It’s a good question, and if you find his grave, you just might feel the energy emanating from his stone. In order to find his simple gravestone, drive along the road on the side of the cemetery called Rose Hill Road. Find the house number 3112 and from the point when you have reached that house, then enter the cemetery. Once you are inside the cemetery, Oswald’s marker is a straight line from the house. There is also a big, dark pink mausoleum that sits nearby. The marker merely states “Oswald” on it, and there is no first name nor any dates of his birth or death.

Rose Hill Memorial Park.

More recently, Raymond Lee “Ray” Murray was also buried here. Murray died in April 2003 and was a professional baseball player known as “the Deacon.” Beginning his career in 1948, he was a catcher and played with the Cleveland Indians, Philadelphia Athletics and Baltimore Orioles.

Also buried in Rose Hill Memorial Park is James Clifton Wilson, who died in 1951 and was a U.S. congressman and federal judge. Spending more time in the town west of Fort Worth, Weatherford, Wilson was Parker County’s assistant district attorney from 1898 to 1900 and district attorney from 1902 to 1908. From 1908 to 1912, Wilson was chairman of Parker County’s Democratic Party. In 1912, he relocated to Fort Worth and served as Tarrant County assistant district attorney until 1913.

Do any of the ghosts of these famous names haunt Rose Hill Memorial Park? Some say yes. During the day, the cemetery is a peaceful place to sit and relax, but at night, go in at your own risk and take your chances.

PARKER MEMORIAL CEMETERY

FM 121 and Hall-Johnson Road

Grapevine, Texas

I heard from a local ghost hunter that Parker Memorial Cemetery was haunted, and after visiting myself, I concur. It’s an old place with old gravestones looking worse for the wear and sitting among trees that are happy to be left alone with the memories of the place that still vibrate, if you’re subtle enough to feel them.

The first burial at...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword, by Paula Schermerhorn
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction and Information about Fort Worth
• Part I. Cemeteries
• Part II. The More Talked-About Hauntings
• Part III. The Stockyards Area
• Part IV. Even More Ghost Stories
• Part V. Closed, but Still the Haunting
• Part VI. Some People Say It’s Haunted, but They Say No Way
• Part VII. Arlington Hauntings
• Part VIII. Other Ghosts Worth a Mention in and around Fort Worth
• Wrapping It All Up
• About the Author and Photographer