GEORGIA's
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photojournalist">Paul Conklin</span></a> - <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/U.S._National_Archives_and_Records_Administration" class="extiw" title="en:U.S. National Archives and Records Administration">U.S. National Archives and Records Administration</a>, Public Domain, Link
History
In May 1803 at the height of the Slave Trade between Africa and the United States a ship from West Africa landed in Savannah, Georgia for the slave markets. On board were a number of people from the Igbo Tribe from what is now Nigeria.
These people were known through the American South as being unable to take slavery (of course who could) and being fiercely independent. The enslaved Igbo were bought by a plantation owner from St Simons Island and loaded back onto a smaller ship to be forced into work on the island.
It is unclear exactly how by the Igbo people took control of the ship, and threw off the crew who drowned in the Atlantic Ocean, but the ship would run aground in Dunbar Creek on St Simons Island. The Igbos then fled the ship and walked into Dunbar Creek to commit suicide by drowning themselves rather than be captured and forced back into slavery.
This incident became part of folklore and one of the greatest acts of resistance against slavery of African slaves in the United States.
There is no historical marker at this site, although it is well known to the locals, and has recently become part of the curriculum in coastal Georgia schools.
In the 1940's a sewage treatment plant was built right beside this site and it remains controversial to this day.
Paranormal Activity
Apparitions of the Igbos are still seen in this area as well as the phantom sounds of the song they sang to the water spirits to bring them back to Africa as they walked into the creek.
People have also reported feelings of being watched, hatred, fear and unease as well as an overwhelming feeling of loss. It has been said that it is very easy to feel the presence of the Igbos at this site as the energy here is very powerful.
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History
This home was built by Guy L Warren an agent of the Macon Western Railroad who was one of the town's first commissioners in 1840. The Civil War broke out soon after and the Confederate Forces soon seized the house as a field hospital.
On September 2, 1864 the area fell to the Union Forces and the 52nd Illinois Infantry took over the house and used it as their field hospital. The Battle of Jonesboro took place on the front lawn of this house. The battle was lost by the Confederates and soon Atlanta was taken - a huge step toward the end of the war.
In 1936 the new owner of the house (a relative of the one of the original Confederate defenders of Jonesboro) began a restoration of the building. When he removed the wallpaper, he discovered the names of the Union soldiers that had been confined to the hospital carved into the walls.
One of the visitors to the home in 1936-37 was Margaret Mitchell doing research for what would become one of the greatest novels in American history - Gone with The Wind.
The home is now the oldest structure in Jonesboro and can be booked for weddings, meetings etc.
Paranormal Activity
Given its history there is, remarkably, very little paranormal activity here.
Quite often the apparition of a Confederate soldier is seen holding a candle looking out of a window.
There are also reports of feelings of unease and of being watched.
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History
In the early to mid 19th century Georgia was one of the States who realized a facility was needed to take care of the developmentally disabled, mentally ill and the generally mentally deficient – idiots in their vernacular – other than the prisons and alm(poor)houses.
Under the direction of the Governor the State began to look for a site to build one upon. Milledgeville was chosen and the first building was constructed. In 1842 the Georgia Asylum Lunatic, Idiot and Epileptics Asylum was opened; their terms not mine.
According to the RVAGhost website here are some of the reasons for locking you up in the asylum:
Abortion
Desertion
Not getting along with an employee/employer
Emancipation
Marriage
Masturbation
Talking back to a police officer
Typhoid fever
On the wrong side of the street
Being too old with no place to go
And a medical condition that slaves supposedly got called “drapetomania”
The first head doctor, Thomas Greene, banned both chain and rope restraints and patients worked alongside the staff in the asylum’s operations as well as working on the farm.
Once the South lost the Civil War asylums like this were used, just like prisons, as a way of legally imprisoning the newly freed African-American population and putting them to work for free again.
By the 1960’s 17,000 (per a former hospital employee) patients using 200 buildings on the 20,000 acre site.
At this point Central State was the biggest asylum in the United States; perhaps the world.
Treat conditions had fallen about as far as they could; children were kept in cages and adults were trapped in strait jackets. Insulin and electrical shock were both used excessively as well as hydrotherapy; dropping a patient into a freezing tub filled with cold water and ice.
The doctor – none of which was a psychiatrist – to patient ration had fallen to 100 to 1.
Parents threatened their children they would be sent to Milledgeville if they didn’t behave.
As with other institutions, by the end of the 60’s deinstitutionalization began, and the population began to drop.
In 2010 the State announced that the hospital would be shut down. By then only the Powell Building was being used; the other buildings were abandoned and left to degrade.
The hospital was never shut down and the Powell Building still houses 200 patients classified as criminally insane by the Courts.
In fact, since 2018, a new facility is being built on the grounds.
There are at least 25,000 people buried on the grounds in unmarked graves.
The grounds are open to the public – you can even tour the site in an antique trolley – but entrance to the buildings is forbidden. There is on site security preventing anyone from going inside the severely dilapidated buildings.
There is also a self-guided driving tour of the site. If you decide to walk the site, you have to stay on the sidewalks.
The 5K Thriller Marathon is run here with zombies chasing the runners.
While you can’t spend the night here, you can rent a 19th century cottage on site to stay in overnight. Its located beside the pecan grove near the old infirmary.
Paranormal Activity
Reported Activity:
Apparitions of former patients and staff; shadow figures; time and dimensional slips; objects moving on their own; electrical disturbances; disembodied voices; unexplained noises including screams, moans, whispers, laughter and loud bangs; empathic feelings of sadness, loss and depression; physical symptoms including migraines, dizziness and nausea; light anomalies; feelings of being watched, not being wanted, not being alone and being followed; touches, tugs and pulls by unseen entities; objects being knocked from people’s hands by an unseen force and pretty much every other type of paranormal you can think of.