Application of the week: Evernote

By Brandon Kroeckel Staff Writer

diana campeggio/staff writer

young bride standing next to the real bride. No film has been able to capture her.

The most memorable stop, Washington Square, is one of the original five squares that William Penn planned when he designed the construction of Philadelphia.

Buried in Washington Square are over five thousand Revolutionary War soldiers, victims of yellow fever and those who died at the Walnut Street Prison, which was once across the street. They are buried in unmarked graves throughout the grounds of the square.

“It’s amazing how many soldiers can be found buried there,” Colleen Daniels, a tour guide with the company since April, said.

During the 1840s, the city of Philadelphia was having a serious problem with grave robbery, in which people would steal fresh corpses and sell them to local medical institutions through the black market.

The Quakers in Philadelphia were upset by this and hired a woman by the name of Lea to watch over the graves each and every night. One night, she vanished and was never heard of again.

According to Terranova, the ghost of Lea has been seen in Washington Square rather frequently in the wee hours of the morning. The sighting that is most famous comes from a rather reliable source, a Philadelphia Police officer.

He approached a figure sitting in the center of Washington Square, dressed all in black and carrying a lantern and a staff.

He got close enough to lift the hood off of the figure when the cloak fell to the ground, along with the lantern and staff. It then disappeared before his eyes.

Even recently, electric and gas companies will sometimes come across new burial plots when they are digging around the perimeter of the square.

“Whenever they do this,” Terranova said, “archeologists will look across the field and they will see someone dressed all in black with a staff and a lantern watching over them to make sure they treat this grave with the utmost respect.”

As the group moved across Washington Square, they couldn’t help but tread lightly.

“There’s something about it that’s creepy,” Neil Nandi, hospitality manager and tour guide, said. “The hooded figure, the grave robbers. The idea of the plotter’s field. It’s just all a creepy situation.” dcc59@cabrini.edu visit www spiritsof76.com to book your tour today

Though the tour was not as terrifying as the brochure claimed, it did showcase a spookier side of Philadelphia that left a chill down people’s spine on the walk back to the train.

Tickets can be purchased on Spirits of ’76 website and tours take place on designated nights from April to November.