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in her room.
The indecent hotel no longer bears her name. It has been re-
named several times this century and has housed a variety of
tenants, even becoming an all-women s dorm for one of the
local colleges. When the current owners purchased the hotel
several years ago, everything was painted pink. Restoration
continues on the grand Victorian hotel, which still bears traces
of crimson in its carpets, paint, and wallpaper.
Sightings
Bruce Dalrymple, general manager of the Biltmore
Suites, says that although he has never personally
seen Miss Shirley, he has encountered a lot of
strange things, including footsteps, voices, and
music coming from Shirley s room.
Bruce tells about one of his guests who was at the
hotel for a hardware convention:
BILTMORE SUITES HOTEL 69
The man was staying on the fourth floor. A
few hours later, he came running back down to
the lobby, white as a ghost. He could barely talk.
He told us that as he walked up to his room, he
looked up the staircase to the top floor and saw
a lady dressed in white looking back down at
him from the ledge. When he got to the third
floor, he saw her step away from the rail. He
kept coming up the stairs. When he got to the
fourth floor, she vanished into thin air, right in
front of him.
Another young lady, attending a wedding at
the hotel, came down to the desk about 10:30
P.M. and asked me if a woman had ever died vio-
lently at the hotel. Before I told her anything, I
asked her why she asked. She told me that when
she got to the second floor, it was real cold, and
she could feel a disturbed presence, but as soon
as she got down to the first floor, it passed.
Shirley s room was 214.
When I first came to the hotel, I inspected
the rooms after the maids had cleaned them,
and they would be immaculate. When guests
would check in, the rooms would be in a sham-
bles. I know they were made up, because I had
checked them myself. We are a secured hotel, so
there is no way anyone could have gotten in.
Sedonia Taylor, who has worked at the hotel for
many years as a maid, concurs. I cleaned those rooms,
and went home. The next morning, they would tell me
that the room hadn t been made. I started to show
70 GHOSTLY ENCOUNTERS
them every room I made up, so they would see that
they had been done. I would hear her, too. I would
never hear the room door open; the doors inside her
room would go crazy, opening and closing.
Other guests report hearing voices and laughter
coming from Shirley s room.
Best Rooms/Times
Miss Shirley still occupies the same room she has kept
for over a hundred years, Room 214. Keep your eyes
on the upstairs banisters as you ascend the Hitchcock-
style staircase. Most sightings occur in the middle of
the night.
The Hotel
The Biltmore Suites Hotel is a truly grand nineteenth-
century Victorian Hotel, in the heart of the Mount
Vernon district of historic downtown Baltimore, in
walking distance of Antique Row and the Inner
Harbor. Its original architecture has been historically
preserved, as is evident in the main stairway. The
stairs were completely dismantled, cleaned, and re-
assembled on steel beams. The hotel s interior wood-
work, all made of ash, is original. The original thirty
rooms were converted into seventeen rooms and
eight suites, each with opulent Victorian furnishings
and private baths.
Nearly a century ago, an elevator was installed in
the secret stairwell. The elevator is unusual in its tiny
BILTMORE SUITES HOTEL 71
size (just three by four feet) and style, reminiscent of
a typical European elevator.
Dining
Accommodations include a full European breakfast of
breads, pastries, cereals, fresh fruits, and an assortment
of juices, teas, and coffees. Occasionally an evening re-
ception features international wines and lagers, with
complimentary hors d oeuvres, served in the infamous
courtyard where Miss Shirley was bludgeoned to death.
Don t Miss
A visit to the USS Constellation is in order. Just a short
walk from the hotel, this World War II memorial is
haunted by a young gunman who lost his life on the
battleship. He appears on the gun deck, where the
acrid smell of ghostly gunsmoke occasionally perme-
ates the air.
Biltmore Suites Hotel
205 West Madison Street
Baltimore, MD 21201
410-728-6550 or 800-868-5064
e-mail: contact@biltmoresuites.com
www.biltmoresuites.com
Historic Broadway Hotel
and Tavern
Madison, Indiana
Charles, the resident ghost at the Historic Broadway
Hotel, is a feisty spirit who loves to gamble. He is credited
with winnings of over $18,000!
Perky hotel owner Libby Hancock says she wasn t
scared of no ghost, so when the previous owners warned
her that the hotel was haunted, Libby was undaunted. It
wasn t long before she encountered the ghost at first hand.
This ghost likes to play with electrical mechanisms. The
jukebox will play in the middle of the night, lights go on and
off, and phones ring off the hook. When they are answered,
no one is there.
One time, Libby claims, They tried to save my life.
During her first winter, shortly after the central heat was
turned on, everyone working at the hotel became ill, and
even Libby took on a chalky cast and began passing out. At
the same time, the ghostly antics seemed to reach a peak.
HISTORIC BROADWAY HOTEL AND TAVERN 73
One night when she was working on her computer, no
matter what she typed, when she printed it, the computer
only printed the words Historic Broadway Hotel over and
over, in different fonts and angles. On one of these strange
printouts was the phone number of her brother. His phone
number had never been entered into the computer, so there
was no way this was a computer glitch.
That s weird, she thought maybe I need to call him. So
she called, and everything was fine. But Libby was still
feeling spooked, so she ran downstairs to join her sister and
a friend, Tom, in the bar. As soon as she sat down, the phone
started ringing, chairs started scooting around the room, and
the jukebox blared by itself. Okay, I ve had enough,
shrieked Libby s sister. Let s get out of here.
But Libby didn t want to leave her hotel. Determined to
find out who, or what, was trying so hard to communicate
with them, she ran up to get her ouija board. As soon as she
got it out of the box and placed it on the table, the pointer
started racing on its own, jerking from letter to letter. Tom,
a big, strong guy, uttered a garbled whoa.
Libby took charge: Who are you? she demanded.
C-H-A-R-L-E-S M-O-R-G-A-N.
Why are you here at the Broadway Hotel?
T-O H-A-V-E F-U-N, it spelled. That was the last co-
herent answer the group could make out. The pointer spun
furiously, stopping on the same two letters, C and O, over
and over. Not being able to make sense of it, they finally put
the board up and forgot about it until the next day.
The next morning, Libby felt so bad she went to the hos-
pital. When she got back, she smelled gas, so she called a re-
pairman. He found a carbon monoxide leak in the heating
system that could have killed everyone in the hotel, and al-
74 GHOSTLY ENCOUNTERS
most did. They had finally found the cause of everyone s
weird sickness.
That night Libby and Tom were talking about the events
of the night before when Tom yelled, That s it. That s what
the spirit in the ouija board was trying to tell us. He was
trying to warn us. The symbol for carbon monoxide is
CO!
Libby is very grateful to Charles for trying to save her
life. She finds herself walking around talking to him, al-
though now he gets the blame for most everything that hap-
pens. Charles is also credited with a lucky gambling streak.
Sightings
After all her hard work, Libby needed a much-earned
vacation, so she booked a flight to the Bahamas. She
wondered why the plane was so empty, and why there
were no other guests at the hotel. Then she learned
that hurricane Erin was about to hit. Even the em-
ployees of the hotel vacated, rushing home to save
their possessions. They left Libby alone in the hotel
with just one large candle, no electricity, no food, and
no water. The hurricane was raging outside, wreaking
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