Everyone entitled to enjoy one good scare on The Murfreesboro Post

Sidebar Ads

Everyone entitled to enjoy one good scare

Related Articles

Weekend Planner: Halloween tricks and treats

WOODY: If the Scottish fish would not bite, neither will I

Theater notches up scare factor

A truly frightful month at Oaklands, Sam Davis

Lucky Ladd Farm is 'a-MAZE-ing'

Hungry for horror?

Dead Land doubles the scare factor

Halloween scary for children and parents

Help children become their dreams

Don't drink, drive on Halloweeen: CADCOR

View All

By: APRIL CAMP, editor@murfreesboropost.com

Posted: Sunday, October 23, 2011 7:16 am

Everyone entitled to enjoy one good scare | Halloween, Storytellers

The BoroTellers impart bewitching tales on the Square during the Halloween season, like that of the “Sisters in Black.” (Photo submitted)

“I think they are still there,” she said slowly and eerily, causing a rushing chill to make its way through my spine just before she began to giggle, breaking the intense focus and slow swallow that accompanies a good fright story.

Diana Hague of The BoroTellers, a group of storytellers that guide walking tours of the Square, spoke with ease as she recalled a piece of Murfreesboro history that is chilling by its title alone, “The Three Sisters in Black.”

A tale is unknown to most except a few diehard historians who know all too well the eccentric Wardlaw sisters and the horror they brought to Murfreesboro in the late 1800s.

A law firm now stands on the historic Square where Soule College, a college for women was once run by the sisters who were nothing short of bizarre, Hague tells.

Always dressed in black, the sisters would visit graveyards in the dark, wee hours of the night, lighting candles and chanting.

Mysteriously, members of the Wardlaw family began turning up dead, nearly all were ruled suicide, but the discovery of a safety deposit box belonging to the sisters would bring one family member to tell a Murfreesboro newspaper the true story of the mysterious suicides.

If it sounds like a fictional story that goes well alongside the numerous haunted houses, which find their way into town every year as Halloween approaches, it is not.

“This is documented stuff,” Hague said with friendly exclamation, as if my nervous laughter seemed a bit doubtful.

“We like to tell bizarre things that happened,” Hague said.

The BoroTellers seem to have a wealth of stories to tell. All are certainly strange, though some more than others.

The most frightening tales tend to be those that can not be explained. It is the stories of unseen forces that make the strongest knees go weak in an instant when hearing of the mystery, especially when it turns violent.

Hague told of an old barbershop that once was located on the Square.

Presumably, the classic barber pole with red and blue stripes out front, shelves adorned with clear containers of Talc, and friendly conversations made the barber shop an enjoyable place to be for men at the time.

But, something strange began to happen at the barber shop, and it was far from friendly.

A string of mysterious murders seemed to plague the barber shop.

“Every now and then, somebody would get their throat slit,” Hague said sharply.

It is a gruesome tale likely to result in persistent looks over the shoulder while waiting for something to cut the tension, but not all of the group’s bizarre stories of Murfreesboro will scare.

When thinking of Al Capone, few people think of Murfreesboro, but Capone actually spent quite some time in the ‘Boro.

“Some people used to call Murfreesboro the Chicago of the South because Al Capone would stop here on his way to Florida from Chicago,” Hague said, about the mobster’s trips up and down the Dixie Highway, now U.S. Highway 41.

Discoveries in some businesses on the Square reveal where Capone was likely loading up on moonshine, Hague explained.

With a wide array of rich and sometimes twisted tales, the BoroTellers are ready to make every tour unique this Halloween season.

Hague points out the tours are not scripted and each guide decides what stories they will tell of the history that haunts this small town.

The BoroTellers will offer guided storytelling tours of Murfreesboro’s historic Square from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. Friday and Saturday next to the Bungalow.

Tours will depart every 15 minutes and last for one hour. The cost is $5.

To quote the 1978 film, “Halloween,” “Everyone’s entitled to one good scare.”

Tagged under Halloween, Storytellers

Member Opinions:

By: MRUTHIEJAMES on 10/25/11
How cool Murfreesboro that you have decided to conduct a haunted Halloween tour of creepy historical places that haunt our town! The three black sisters sounds pretty interesting to hear about, I must bring my friends and family to enjoy this ghouly treat. Murfreesboro is home of a ton of old, historical facts that when turned into a sick Halloween story, could be very intriguing. Well I guess for the blood sucking and witch hunting freaks out there. Not that it is a bad thing, because I’m one of those people.
Murfreesboro is actually ranked nationally for being one of the most haunted towns in the United States. With the remains of hundreds and thousands of Civil War soldiers, the odds of some sort of supernatural ‘thing’ happening is very possible. On quite nights people claim to hear gunshots and the footsteps of marching soldiers. Freaky! Personally, I have never heard gunshots, but one Halloween me and some friends adventured to what’s known as the battlefields “slaughter pen”, where Confederate General William Preston sent POW’s to be murdered. The woods felt to be filled with staring eyes; needless to say I have never been back.
This Halloween I plan to attend “Bewitching tales on the Square,” by the BoroTellers, to get a witch craft scope of this town.