Poplar Hill Haunting

Hi, I'm Holly and I'm Hailey. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries, Tales from Appalachia. Welcome back. Well hello.

We made it another week. We sure did. Live it up. Live in the dream.

I say that all the time. You do say that all the time. Live in the dream. Yeah, it's you know.

Do you know that my son embarrassed the hell out of me? No, it's not. I think that's what kids, I think that's what they're supposed to do. I think it's just a part of life.

But I had gotten a call that I was getting my taxes done actually and I got a call from his school. He'd only been at school for about an hour and a half and I got a call that he had had diarrhea and then I need to come and pick him up and I was like, all right. You know, you're like, I just have this one thing to do. Just got to get these taxes done.

So it's fine. So I came and I picked him up and he gladly told me I had diarrhea and I was like, it's okay buddy. And so we go back home and he was kind of sick that day but really the diarrhea was gone within you know, by one o'clock he was up and around and saying, I'm hungry. So he was fine.

But the next day he wasn't allowed to go back to school because he had diarrhea so he can't come back for about a month. So it feels like it feels like there's so many rules that they care. Yeah. And anyway, so he was home the next day and I had to run errands and I was like, well, you're just gonna have to go with mom and run these errands.

And he was like, whoa, whoa. And so I took him to the post office and it wasn't crazy crowded. But you know, there was there was quite a few people in there and he bought in one of his monster trucks and he was like running around playing with the monster truck and a man had come in to check his like PO box and my son codes last night I had diarrhea. And I was like, oh my god.

And he's loud. And so everybody heard him, of course. And the man, it goes, oh, did you? And he goes, yeah, and it smelled so bad, but it's okay.

I'm fine now. And let me tell you, I didn't realize that there was an employee in the back and she comes out and looks and we all just start laughing. We just started laughing. I mean, what can you say to that?

Yeah. And but yeah, he was talking about his diarrhea and I was like, honey in the post office. So like after the fact we started talking about like, you know, she'll be announced to people just loudly in public about what's going on with our tummies. And he was like, yeah, but then I thought about it.

I'm sharing it on this platform. I mean, yeah. So I'm kind of doing the same thing that he's doing. So hey, whatever, he had diarrhea last night.

Bless it. Oh my gosh. Oh no. It was embarrassing.

Well, there's so much sickness going around right now. There's so much sickness. Yes. Crazy.

We've got some like crazy cases of flu out there that flu B is really bad. Yeah, they kind of a lot of people have heard hospitalized with that. But there are a lot of kids in a neighboring school that my son goes to that has had COVID. Yeah, a lot of COVID out.

Yeah, it's the school that I work in. We have a childcare facility inside of our school and it shut down for a few days due to COVID. Wow. That's yeah.

I was like running rampant through there. I've had several of like my students have had, you know, stomach bug COVID and like part of my job is to be in charge of like, I'm in charge of attendance for the whole school. So I'm gonna say cleaning it up. No, no, no, no, no, no, geez.

So I'm in charge of the attendance. So I kind of monitor, you know, and I'm keeping up with, you know, over 400 kids. So it's it's quite a bit to do. So I, you know, I'm looking through that.

But thankfully I have like it's set up to where it alerts me if I have a kid that's been out for three or more days consecutively. So I'm like, I can check on them. So I've made a ton of calls this week just like checking on kids that hadn't been there in a few days. And like, I would say 90% of them really go the other sick and have all this stuff going on.

Like respiratory infections, I had two out with that. I had one out with flu. I had, you know, some out with COVID, just like all this crazy stuff. And is it like really their parents answering or is it them answering saying, oh, yes, poor little Stevie's out sick and it's actually Stevie.

I can usually tell. Okay. Pretty, pretty quickly. Like who I'm talking to.

Yeah. But yeah, no, it's and. Has that happened? Oh, yeah.

Okay. Oh, yeah. That's happened. Not really with me, more so with like them getting like friends or older siblings to call them out of school.

Yeah. Yeah. So like that's happened before that we just, you know, and then obviously when you find out there's pretty big consequences for that, because parents, I mean, they still get a call. Yeah, like they get signed out really.

They're marked absent for their, you know, second, third, fourth, period class, whatever. And the other day that parent gets a call that says little, you know, was marked as absent in second period, third period, fourth period. So they get a call, so it kind of raps them out. Yeah.

Anyway, so yeah. And then the parents are like, how do you do when you put down in a baby? Yeah, that's the thing. Yeah.

But yeah, I hear that. So yeah, sickness is out there. Wash your hands. Don't touch your face.

Yes. Don't lick. Look, please don't lick anything. Anything really just keep your tongue in your mouth.

Yeah. Really just don't lick anything. Don't do that. I mean, whatever, you know, strange, whatever floats about.

Yeah. Yeah. Circuses, doorknobs. Yeah.

I hopefully you don't have to do for like little doorknobs, but I mean, no, not at all. Right. My kids are. Yeah.

I mean, at my son's age, probably right. Right. I did have a kid stick a fork in an outlet. Oh, my God.

Like, one of my seniors senior. Great. I just saw that. What would open home?

It's pretty much what it was. Like, I saw the referral come through and it was a teacher that written it like in our system was like, you know, not really sure if this is a discipline issue, but just felt like I should put something on their record here. I just told him to go to the assistant principal's office and tell them what you did. Oh, my God.

And he didn't want said he's like, I got a shock. Orking the outlet. Like, I don't know. Oh, did anything happen?

I don't think so. I don't know. I didn't like follow up on it. But he was like, but suddenly, you know, I feel really good.

Everybody seemed fine. Like there was no like medical emergency call that went out or anything. So I was doing his fine. I can't do the stupidest crap.

They do. But there, I mean, like stuff like that. I mean, I'm just cracking up. You know, my senior here in high school, I got in trouble for forging my gym teachers I mean, that is crime.

But I did because I had a project to do in the library and they were making me go to gym and I was like, listen, I don't think you understand. So the librarian was like, go get a note from your teacher that you can be up here. And I was like, hmm, she ain't gonna go for that. So I took one of the hall passes and sign her name to it.

So then she, the librarian calls down to the PE teacher and said, did you let Holly come up here? And she was like, what? No. Had to go to the assistant principal's office.

And he was very like, look, you've never been in trouble. He was like, but they want me to make you an example. And I was like, what? I have to be the example.

I'm a good kid. Sort of. And he was like, one day of in school suspension. And I was like, Oh, good.

I can work on my project. Oh, so when when it was like, why didn't you just send me there anyway? So that I could have done this, like, you know, cut out the middleman. Right.

Like, yeah, in school suspension, a whole day to do what I need to do. So much done. Yeah. Yeah.

And I remember going to my English teacher because that was who the project was for. And she was like, I SS, huh? And I was like, yeah, she was like, well, we should be the project done. And I was like, that's what I'm saying.

I'm not actually upset about it. No, I can't be too sad. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. All righty. Well, well, what's your story about today? Diarrhea, or?

No, um, orgery or we're going to talk about, um, a haunted location. Oh, yeah. All right. So we're going to go to Hillsborough, North Carolina.

Oh, we know where that is. It is right out of Raleigh. Yeah, we have a good friend that lives there is from there. She's from there.

She's from there. Yeah. Hillsborough Carolina. We're going to go to Poplar Hill.

Okay. And it's a historic plantation house. Oh, I don't know. That's not history.

But we're going to talk about it. Okay. So the home there on Poplar Hill, where I do like kind of a quick little summary here, um, home was the center of a very large plantation, formerly called Okenichi, Okenichi farm. Okay.

There's a lot of double letters in there. Um, yep. Okenichi farm and banks of the, you know, you know, I don't know if there's a lot going on. It was established on farming and hunting grounds for the Okenichi and saponi peoples, native peoples.

Gotcha. The land was granted to colonists Francis Corbin by the English and then made into a working plantation. Ownership later passed to the Hogg family, H-O-G-G. Okay.

Family. The farm was purchased in 1891 by tobacco industrialist and white supremacists. Oh, Julian Carr. Carr and his wife had the original 1794 plain farmhouse redone in that Greek revival style that you see in a lot of old plantation houses.

Yes. After Carr's death, the house was moved from its original location to a new lot in Hillsborough historic district. So they picked the house up and moved it. I actually really like when they do that.

It's kind of cool. I don't know if maybe not a plantation house. Well, no, not that bad. But other houses.

That's great. And like the lighthouse on the coast of Carolina, they've done that. I did not know that. The original site, the um, Hatteras Island lighthouse, they picked it up and they moved to inland because the tide was coming in and was going to wash it away.

Wow. That's really cool. They moved it back. It's very cool.

Very interesting. Yeah. Um, so Popper Hill later became a rental property. Um, and of course, 21st century, there were many tenants.

Probably an Airbnb now. Probably. Including the singer Tom Maxwell have broken their leases due to reported hauntings on the property. You can move it, but you can't move the ghost.

Right. All right. All right. So let's get into some more of the history there.

So like I said, it was originally farming and hunting grounds for the Okanichi and Saponi people. Um, the house itself was completed in 1794 on April 25th of 1891. The tobacco industrialist, widespread Australian car, he purchased um, all 663 acres of the property for a grand total of $10,000. Wow.

Yep. From James Hogg and his sister. I mean, I do that now. No problem.

Okay. All those years. Absolutely. So car and his wife, Nanny Graham was her name.

Yeah. Um, Nanny Graham Parish car was actually her full name. Nanny Graham was Nanny in a, in an IE. Is it short for like Nancy or Nanny?

All right. So they named the main house, Popper Hill. The cars hired Jules Gilmore Corner to redecorate the house into that Greek style that we talked about. Um, so it had a widow's walk, large front porch, um, colonnade, which is like a, like an overhang almost.

Yeah. Okay. Kind of, if you've seen pictures of like old southern plantation houses, they all kind of look the same. Right.

Um, it had a shallow balcony. He also put in French windows in the downstairs and created two formal entrances along the porch. Wow. That's fancy.

Yeah. Popper Hill was a secondary residence for the car family, whose main residence was in Somerset Villa, a large mansion in downtown Durham. So we're talking about money. Money, but not even that far away.

I mean, you have to say home, go to the beach or something. Exactly. Why would you have a second home like 20 minutes away? Right.

That's silly. Yeah. So Julian Carr, who had immense wealth due to the success of the WT Blackwell and company and Durham Cotton Manufacturing Company, sought to recreate the life of a gentleman farmer. What is a gentleman farmer?

Somebody who owns a lot of other human beings. Who's who doesn't do any of the work himself in profits, office, labor, yeah. Yeah. That's what you want to do.

What a gentleman. Yeah. Car developed the farm into a full-scale working farm with a large sheep barn, piggery, breeding pens, full dairy barn with 56 santions, five poultry houses, which had over 15,000, sorry, 15,000 chickens. That's a lot of chickens.

And a three-story barn with 36 stalls for horses and a basement for mules. Oh, had little chicken and twin land eggs. Okay. Car also constructed a half-mile horse track on the southern banks of the Inno River, northeast from the farm building.

So huge property, has lots of animals over 600 acres. Yeah, crazy. The farm was significantly damaged by a tornado. Oh, I thought it was the move.

No tornado in 1919. And so all the house is relatively untouched by the storm. The farming business never fully recovered. And due to his declining health, Carr sold the property in the early 1920s.

So, Poplar Hill was advertised for sale on October 26th of 1923 and the Durham Morning Herald, which it was listed by the Carver Real Estate. Sounds fancy. It was advertised again on November 22nd of 1923 by the Atlantic Coase Real Estate Company based out of Winston-Salem. So, already we're having problems selling this house.

Yeah, and we're pushing out a little bit because now we're trying to get people in Winston-Salem to come and buy it. So, surely before Carr's death on April 29th of 1924, the property was divided into several smaller farms and was actually sold off in pieces. So, that was probably an easier sell than a 663 acre plantation farm situation. In the 1940s, Nascar founder William Frans purchased the horse track built by Carr and launched the Oconichy Speedway.

So, he turned the horse track into a speedway. What do I have? Which is kind of interesting. I feel like, yes.

Yes. We had, there's a, what used to be a little raceway in Ashland. Yeah. And I remember when it was a raceway like you'd hear.

But they turned it into a park. Yeah. And so, what used to be the raceway became like a racetrack, like bicycles and bikes to walk on that kind of thing. Yeah.

Interesting. Clever. In the 50s, there were small farms that had once been part of the plantation were sold and developed in December of a neighborhood, which happens a lot with farmland. Yeah, it does.

In 1980, Popper Hill was moved from his original location to the other side of the inner river on the southern end of Cameron Street in the Hillsborough Historic District. And this happened by James Freeland, who did that. Gotcha. Freeland had planned to turn the house into a restaurant but decided against it after facing opposition from Hillsborough residents.

They were like, nah, maybe let's not eaten that place. Oh, weird to them. I can see that. It's kind of like on people when like people get married on plantations.

I don't like that. I don't like that. I don't like that. It feels very uncomfy.

It feels uncomfortable. Very disrespectful. I think would be the term. Yeah, not great.

I don't like Cheers and Champagne in a place where people were horrifically tortured. Yeah, I just know. Not really for me. Nothing.

Wow, sounds amazing. I'll be here. I'll break my love. In a place where people were owned.

Yeah. And abused. Fold and yes, even children. Yeah.

That's disgusting. No, like, no, hard work. Exactly. I mean, I listen, let's go to the Taco Bell.

Yeah. Like, that's preferable. Right. Let's go to the Taco Bell.

No, I don't. I will say. Listen, if it's a choice of we can have it at this plantation or we can have it in the parking lot of the time. I'm going to pick the parking lot of the Taco Bell.

I'm going to pick the parking lot. And afterward, we can split a Gordita because they have gone up in price. They have. They do have a fun little like a box now that you can get.

It's like a deal box. Yeah. You get like three things for like and a drink. Yeah, for like $5.99.

Yeah. It is a good deal. It's wild. But sometimes they're like, I'm sorry, we're out of the boxes.

Yeah. Like, of course you are because everybody's buying the boxes because everything else is hell expensive. Yeah. I don't actually feed myself and my room, my room for the problem.

Here's the problem. If they're out of boxes, we can't have the wedding in the parking lot. So we're going to have to go somewhere else. Yeah.

Maybe the gas station across the way. You know, sometimes gas stations have really good hot dogs. So yeah, it's and that's like, that's like a gamble in itself. I mean, bad poor cool, such a bad right.

It really will make you the best thing or the worst thing you've had all day. It is true. You know, there was a gas station when I was growing up when we were, I was kid and we went, I remember we went through a period of like some money trouble and my parents used to eat Blimpy subs. We would go there and they had gas station credit card and it worked at the like Blimpy sub place.

And so I remember we ate those all the time and I remember I was like, you know, I need to let me know again. And then I remember eating fried chicken from a gas station. So we have a running Dokaner family about, well, we could eat up gas station. I had gas station pizza the other day.

Was it good? Excellent. So yeah, some of these like, you know, the bookies and brothers show. Yeah, show.

Yeah. Yeah. They have some really good food. So it's pretty amazing.

Yeah. Yeah. Big fan. Okay.

We're going to gas station. We'll be there. Plan. So we've moved this house into the Sore District.

Right. So Pupur Hill's new location. It was a few yards away from the site where six regulators were hanged in 1771 after being condemned by Richard Henderson. Pupur Hill then became a rhythm property.

Yep. Oh gosh. Okay. So let's talk about terrible insights.

Yeah. All around is a bad history. Even where it moves to. Yeah.

That's fine. Yep. You can't get rid of it. So we're going to talk a little bit about the haunting because obviously a place like this has to be haunted.

What has to be? I mean, like you just, there's no way holding a lot of negative energy. Exactly. So me.

The one of the renters Thomas Maxwell, who's apparently a singer and songwriter, never heard of him, but apparently he's a singer is hard. Okay. So he lived there with his wife and reports a lot of the the happenings. So from Thomas Maxwell himself, I heard a car pull up.

I heard wheels in the gravel driveway and I heard the door open, this week he muddered door. So I knew Brooke, who was his wife was home. So I went downstairs to greet her and no one was there. The car wasn't there and the door was closed and locked.

So he's hearing this weird. Hi, honey. I'm home. Yeah.

She's not. She's not there or she's grown with him. Right. I would say his wife Brooke said figures would come from the chimney.

Like Santa? I guess. Oh, oh, spooky. She said I would see this figure come out of the chimney, the firebox and crawl across the floor and appear next to me in bed.

Santa's kinky. Can you imagine something just crawl out of your chimney right now? I'm like, sexily crawl towards you and like God in your bed. I mean, as long as I'm in the mood, sure.

Okay. I mean, they could have come through the front door, but that sounds better. Like he's now covered in soot. Right from your chimney.

From my chimney. So I feel like maybe clean off first before you get him my white sheets. Right. You have to sexily crawl to the shower for a two to two and then can sexily crawl out of the shower.

Is that even a no red term? No, sure it is. So he yeah, he got a shower first, but then I'm alarmed because then I hear of my shower going. So I mean, all in all, creepy as hell.

But I mean, Santa's got to have some vices and kinks. You know, maybe he visited that home and put some things under the Christmas tree and he said, Hey, pretty lady, I'll be back. And then after the holidays, you know, there's a lull in January. Yeah, there's a lull.

I mean, he probably is not making toys yet. So he's got some time. And, you know, one thing leads to another pink bang boom. He's in that bed.

Alrighty. So this is sexy Santa we determined. Well, he's the only figure that would come down the chimney. Right?

Yeah. Yeah, you don't really hear about ghosts and chimneys. Not particularly. That's maybe that's yeah, maybe like a raccoon or something squirrel.

Yeah. rodent rodent and Santa. And he comes with all of his critters where they all pile in. That's a whole other thing.

I mean, oh, yeah, no, we don't want to get into animals. No, that's creepy. But actually the whole thing is creepy. Right.

Even Santa. Yeah, all that's creepy. It's not great. Oh, okay.

Okay. Alright. So here's another story from Tom. Great.

He says, I'm facing the house behind me as a circular driveway that goes around the house and I look over to my right and moving like a spinning top is a cylindrical shadow tapered at both ends. So I don't know what that would be. No idea. But he's just like something is spinning like towards him.

Almost all like UFO like a little bit does. That's weird. Brooke says the bottle went flying off the shelf and it broke all over the floor. We both saw it happen.

It wasn't like it fell down. It actually shot across the room. Shot the room. Like it flew off the shelf.

Yeah. Yeah. There are other people who have said that they also see and feel things when they visit the home, like their relatives. The couple said, you know, it was validating because of the shared experience.

Obviously you can corroborate what's just happened and it makes you feel less crazy. Yeah. The Max will say they didn't really talk about what they were seeing or feeling during their time at the home. And Brooke said with the frequency in which it happened, it would just be annoying at some point to keep saying, did you see that?

Did you see that? Like so things were happening all the time. Oh my gosh. So they just like kind of, you know, got used to it, I guess.

Maybe start talking to them. Yeah. Like hey, we want to go to bed. Like just I'm not in the mood.

Tell Santa to like stay on the chimney. Yeah. I'm not feeling it. However, oh sorry.

So apparently things were getting a little more intense on the company. Apparently they're getting a little out of hand. Oh, first of all. So the landlord let them out of their lease early.

I think I actually, well he knew what was up. So Tom said, you know, when we left the house, it was shut the door and literally never go back. Yeah, like it was that kind of thing. Yeah.

Um, Brooks said we didn't know any of the history of the house when we lived there. So now that we know about it, it's easy to go back and try to make that narrative make sense. Yeah. You know, like going into that blind.

Oh my gosh. That's kind of crazy. I mean, you never expect to see cylindrical objects flying, things flying across the room. When you rent a house, you think, Oh, we're, we signed a, you know, we're going to rent a house for a year.

We're going to, you know, live, do our thing and then like move on. Right. Deal. You don't tend to think that there are other people living in your house.

Right. Um, ghosts. You don't think that like, you know, someone wants to come from the chimney and get freaky with you. Right.

That wouldn't be my first time. No, no, it would not be mine either. Like when you rented your place, where you think in, oh, yes, someone wants to get saucy with me. No, I did have the question of ghosts just because it's, you know, it's an older house.

Yeah. So I was like, maybe would that have excited you if it had those or would you have been like, no, no, thanks. Um, I've kind of been here for it. I thought it's so yeah.

Salsy. Yeah. I think I'd have been like, yeah, let's see what happens. That'll be fine.

Not the mood. That's a night. I have a headache. The field standard right now.

Absolutely. I have a headache. So very noting you. Um, so I'm trying to find, and I thought I had saved it earlier, like some of the lyrics to the song.

So he wrote a song about his experiences there. Okay. Tom Maxwell did. And I'm trying to find, I swear, because I read the, um, the lyrics and I just want to see if I can find them again.

If there were any of them still in here. Nope. Okay. Well, do you want to tell us how they can get in contact with us?

That's all I got. That's the funniest thing ever. Sorry. Well, I'll do that.

Maybe I'll find the lyrics. Okay. Sure. I'm still thinking about creepy kinky Santa.

Yeah. Okay. She's judging me. As she showed.

Listen, she's the one who was there for the ghost and she didn't care what the ghost did to her. She has boundaries. It's good. It's good.

It's fine. If you want to email Haley and find out more information about her or me, God bless you. You can reach us at Mount Mysteries. Um, no, that's not it.

Sorry. It's fine. You want to time it? Sure.

Sorry. Was it really paying attention to you? Okay. Just trying to find these.

I just started. Here's freaking out. Me. Sorry.

No, my notes are okay. If you would like to get in touch with us, tell us your ghost story, tell us the thing that happened to you or if you like to get Ricky with Santa. Maybe keep that to yourself. Maybe you can email us by going to Mount Mysteries at.

Mysteries. So, Appalachian at gmail.com. We're going to get it. You got it.

Go for it. mountainmysteries.apple.com. You can find us on Facebook at mountainmysteries. You can find us on Instagram at mountainmysteries.apple.com and find us on Patreon for more of this amazing content.

Patreon.com.com. Did you find the song? I didn't find the song per se, but there is, and I've read through a lot of this. I read through a lot of this already.

So, if you want to see kind of a short story-esque type reading of the story, it's very interesting. Interesting. Look at thebittersudener.com and it's called We Salted Nanny. It's a real life southern ghost story by Tom Maxwell.

We salted Nanny. It almost sounded like we assaulted her. No, we salted. Salted to get rid of her spirit.

Yes. Kind of thing. Okay. Wow.

We salted Nanny. Yeah. Kinky. She probably liked it.

Probably. We wouldn't Nanny. Yeah. So, it's pretty wild, like this little story.

But I definitely recommend it because it's told in such a unique way, like it switches back and forth between the history and their experiences, like the present day experience. So, it'll go from 1865 to 2015 back to 1978. Oh my gosh. And then to 2015.

It just kind of go back and forth through there. But it also gets into a lot of the other things that happened at the house before they lived there, some of the more like, and things that aren't really like well talked about or really well recorded. So, I didn't put them in here just because you know, I don't know how much of this that he wrote is the experience and how much it's fiction and- Well, it's so curious. It's really interesting to read.

You know, have there ever been ghost buzzers that have gone to this house? Probably. I'm sure it's been on several things. I didn't see any reference to it anywhere.

Should we go there? We absolutely should. We could visit our friend in the process. Absolutely.

I'm sure we should go. I do want to say though that the name of the band that the guy was a part of was the squirrel nut zippers. I mean, I feel like we could start a band in a very similar fashion. Yeah, so just you know, there's layers on layers here.

Squirrel nut zippers. Layers on layers on layers of that. My son did ask me recently if squirrels had testicles. Some do?

The boys do? Yeah. He has to see pictures of squirrel testicles. Okay.

We googled it. We were shocked. Now you're gonna be on a list of some of these. You know, it's part of nature.

It is. I mean, look at the squirrel and say, wow, look at those, that nut zest. Yeah, you could. You know, and we were both impressed.

I mean, if you can see that from a distance though, that's a well endowed squirrel. They were pretty impressive. I was like, whoa. It's a lot.

Yeah. I already didn't mean it though, but you can't have it all really. You can't have it all. Well, since Holly told you how to get in touch with us, I'll find us a little education.

So she tried really good. Listen, y'all. It's like quarter to 11. I know it's wild.

Yeah, I gotta go. I gotta go home. Let's see. Let's see.

Let's go. Wow. I love you. I can't pronounce.

Let's go to one that Haley can read. Yeah, that's gonna be two letters. No. Okay.

Let's do St. John's, which is in Newfoundland and Labrador. Oh, nice. Canada.

All right. We will catch you next week. Bye. Bye.