Bessie
Bartlett, the Little Ghost Girl
Bessie
Bartlett, the Little Ghost Girl
of Parkersburg, West Virginia
It is difficult to
decide whether this is one of the eeriest or saddest gho
st-pictures
I have ever seen. Despite the fact that there are apparent stains on bricks and
mortar in the basement walls (and remembering stories of shrines being
built to images of the Virgin Mary that turn up on slices of burnt toast) one
cannot deny what appears to be the image of a little girl in this picture -- even to the point
of the puffed sleeves of her pink dress, the fall of her long, dark,
parted hair, forearm and right wrist, and both of
her open eyes.
This picture was taken in the basement of an historical home in Parkersburg, West Virginia in the 1980s. The very ordinary-looking house was built in the 1870s by a prominent dentist by the name of Dr. Charles Bartlett who also kept his dentistry practice in his home.
Dr. Bartlett had a daughter named Bessie whom he dearly loved. Unfortunately, Bessie contracted what we now believe to be Typhoid Fever in 1879 and died at eleven years-old in the basement. Stories tell this is where Bessie's sick bed was placed because of the heat of late summer and that is why she was in the lower room.
After Bessie's death, the Bartlett family went through tremendous grieving. And she wasn't the only Bartlett child to die. An infant son also died in the home, and Bessie's brother would later die in California after becoming a Reverend in his late 20s.
In the 1980s, a man, who was considering moving his family into the historic house, took a picture in the basement of the former Bartlett home and the above picture is the result.
Do you see the image of a little girl? You can hardly miss it.
Intermittently, the house goes through various types of paranormal activity but Bessie's ghost has never been seen -- except for in this picture. She is buried in the Odd Fellows Cemetery in Parkersburg, not far from Arthur I. Boreman, the first governor of West Virginia.
Does Bessie still haunt the Bartlett home?
The above picture of the little ghost girl is a good example of what might be called a residual haunting or a place haunting. It is probably NOT what they call an "intelligent" haunting. (Meaning a real interactive ghost who has a message to deliver.)
The energies of her untimely passing remain imprinted upon the atmosphere of the home but her spirit is not trapped there. After all, what could have Bessie done in her eleven years to deserve such a cruel fate? Photographs, especially, will pick up on residual hauntings because of their "imprint" nature.
Emotion is energy, and for some apparent reason where tragedies occur these residual hauntings tend to hang on and support such after effects. Oftentimes, they will fade away, just like an old photograph, until another event takes place to "re-charge" the haunting, such as an historical re-enactment, the reopening of a crime case, or simply a visit from a psychic to the area.
Residual hauntings tend to replay, often for centuries. Bessie's house does have a great deal of paranormal activity though no one, so far, has witnessed her ghost, other than through orbs and the other usual ways ghost hunters collect their information through digital images or tapes. It is no doubt Bessie's spirit has found her way to a better place. -- S.S.
This is the Odd Fellows Cemetery off of Murdoch Avenue in Parkersburg where little Bessie Bartlett and her family are buried.
Here is the gravestone of Bessie Bartlett's parents.
Bessie has a small marker near her family.
Photographs by Steve Longacre, Susan Sheppard & Virginia Lyons
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