The Great House

Whenever I travel I take ghost tours. Doing so helps me improve my own product and I love them! I love how they respresent the culture of a place. I recently traveled to Jamaica with my husband. It wasn't a resort visit. We were there to donate a violin to a Catholic high school and relax along the south coast. We spent most of the time seeing a glimpse of the real Jamaica. It's not an easy life on the island. The poverty was obvious. So was the will and determination of the people. It is a diverse culture. Mixed in with the descendants of African slaves are German and East Indian people. It's an island filled with contradictions. The "all inclusive resort" was originally started on Jamaica. It is obvious that many tourist do not see the real island. We felt very lucky and also out of place traveling the roadways and visiting the cook shops. It was a trip that will stay with me for a long time. It is a place I can't wait to return to. 

Our last night in Jamaica we did stay in a resort. One night, that was enough! We arranged to take a ghost tour of Rose Hall. I was so excited. I couldn't wait to hear how the ghost stories and history of slavery were interwoven on the tour. It was a true disappointment. The tour was supposed to last an hour but when we arrived we were rushed to a tour that had already started. The entirety of our time in the great house and on the tour was 40 minutes. There were actors portraying the former slaves of the house and the brutal ruler, mistress Annie Palmer. The staged doors slamming, people running, etc,.. added a great deal of suspense to the event. That was impressive. However the lack of continuity, lack of history and the absolute disregard of the stories of the slaves was noticed. The stories centered around a fable, most of it from a novel, about Annie Palmer. All of it fiction. Ghost Adventures and other shows have gone to Rose Hall in search of ghosts that do not exist in the house. The myths around this place have become part of history in Montego Bay. What was most disappointing is that the tour developers have the opportunity to tell the real stories. The real stories of Jamaica are tragic and frightening. Taking this tour felt exploitive in the same way the walled in resorts felt so removed from the real island. The tour guide was excellent but even he could not make up for how badly the content was put together. 

Kells and Ghost Adventures

The Ghost Adventures Crew visited Seattle for the Travel Channel. They were locked down in Kells Irish Pub. The episode first aired on December 17, 2010. The episode focuses heavily on the mortuary, in which Kells is a tenant. The building itself has several levels and has been office spaces at the top, and several restaurants below.

The First Avenue side, 1921 First, now under construction, is where the Chapel is located. It has been dubbed "the place restaurants go to die"  by a local journalist. Every restaurant has struggled to stay open in the former Chapel space. Could it be that the victims of starvation specialist Linda Hazzard remain in there? The building is the first 'mortuary' in the world. Mr. Butterworth coined the term. A prestigious man who went on to open two additional mortuaries, his firm was implicated in one of Dr. Hazzard's murders but all charges were dropped. 

History is often stranger than stories, and that is true of the time period the mortuary was open at this location. Diphtheria, influenza, and murder all were causes of death. $50 was paid for bodies, by the city during the Klondike Goldrush. The offer was extended to all Undertakers in Seattle. It was an offer created by the city of Seattle in order to continue to woo Klondike miners to come through. During the early 1900s, 300,000 men and women made their way through Seattle in pursuit of gold. Dead miners in alleys was bad marketing. That is referenced in several books including Cemeteries of Seattle and this passage from Four White Horses and a Brass Band, "It was not uncommon for a thug to take a drunk for a walk and push him off a pier. An associate waiting below in a rowboat took good care that the victim drown and then tied the corpse where it could be handily located the next day."

Mr. E.R. Butterworth himself often forgave debts and was involved with charitable works. His descendants still live in Seattle. Some of the incidents the mortuary were involved in may be considered shady through a modern lense (as in television camera lense) but to call his dealings corrupt, as the Travel Channel does, is wrong. In truth, corruption was rampant in Seattle. Outside of the mortuary was far scarier than anything inside. The streets were filled with con artists, thugs, and swashbucklers yielding "medical licenses." Doctor Linda Hazzard is a very good example. If you want to read more about her, pick up a copy of Starvation Heights by Gregg Olsen. 

Stories have a way of growing in fantastical  ways. When I was on GAC I was very upset with their assumptions and made it known. The accusations against the Butterworth Mortuary are not adequately substantiated. Below are some links to explore these subjects further.

Read more: Hearse Races and Epidemics in Seattle, Wikipedia, Starvation Heights, Seattle Met: Exquisite Corpses

Seattle's Market Ghost Stories

By combining history, journalism, research, and lore, Mercedes introduces the people and the places of the Pike Place Market to the reader in Market Ghost Stories. As one reader wrote "Very well researched and written, and I especially liked that it was not your 'typical' ghost story book. It made the history of the area really come alive."  The book includes historical information about Seattle, archival photos, and paranormal occurrences in the Market. 

Mercedes at the Sub Seattle Tours bus, a tour she helped writeMercedes has grown up in the Pike Place Market. She runs a ghost tour at night through the Market, The Market Ghost Tour. Her father, Michael Yaeger, is the honorary mayor of Pike Place. Her family owns Watercolors Fresh Daily, in the Atrium. Since the age of seven, Mercedes has been a member of the Market community. 

As a tour guide and writer she has written or co-written several tours; Seattle's Public Market Tours, for the Pike Place Market Merchant's Association, The Sub Seattle Tour, for Bill Speidel Industries, The Market Ghost Tour & The Seattle Lust Tour. Her first published work was a coloring book of the Pike Place Market for which she was both the author and illustrator. The Pike Place Market Coloring Book and Market Ghost Stories are available through Amazon.com and at retail outlets, like Watercolors Fresh Daily, Simply Seattle, Elliott Bay Books, and Golden Age Collectibles in Seattle.

If you are interested in purchasing the book directly from the author stop by our office at 1410 Post Alley, Seattle WA 98101 1/2 hour before any scheduled tour. We carry a variety of books by local authors.

Can't make it for the tour? The book, Market Ghost Stories, written by the founder of the tours is in its 4th printing and published by the Market Ghost Tour. Mercedes was named a Literary Lion in 2011 by the Seattle King County Library System. The book is not a typical "ghost" book and reads like a historical narrative about the city and her experience with the ghost tours. $12.95 plus shipping. 161 pages with archival photos and a bibliography for future research.