Some of our favorite ghost stories as told by residents of Northern California.

From top to bottom: Three unidentified girls dressed in matching jumpers posed in front of the Diamond Match Company playing fields. Diamond Match Company Factory, Chico, Calif. Portrait of the first aid room of the Diamond Match Company

Written by Maddie Rodriguez. Photos courtesy California State University, Chico, Meriam Library Special Collections

The stillness of the moonlight

I was a match girl. My father died when I was young, leaving us—my mother, two sisters, and me—to fend for ourselves. We never had much money, and it was no small thing that we were able to keep our little home in the neighborhood near the match factory when he died. I took on double shifts just to help keep food on the table, while my sisters, who were both very young, helped my mother take in washing.

In 1903, I started on the floor of the packing room, boxing up the matches tipped with white phosphorous before they left Chico by rail for far-away towns I’d never see. By 1905, my jaw had become tender and painful to the touch. I began to have fevers and toothaches. I didn’t want to burden my mother with my problems, but the match factory had a first aid room, so I betook myself there to talk to one of the nurses.

Mrs. Adams was her name, and she was a large, forbidding woman with an iron grip and sensible shoes on her big feet. She was not unkind, though, and asked me what I did for the company.

“I’m a match girl,” I told her.

She peered into my mouth as I sat on an elevated table, awkwardly holding my hands in my lap. After she had finished her examination, she took off her spectacles and sighed.

“I’m afraid it looks like an abcess,” she said. “You’ll need to see a dentist to have your lower molar removed.”

I stared blankly at her. It wasn’t like we had the extra money to go off visiting dentists. What was a little discomfort, really? I could handle it.

I thanked Mrs. Adams and went back to work. Over the next year, the toothaches started to get worse, and by Christmas 1906, I was laid up in bed in an agony of pain, my face swollen, too sick to go to work. My mother, somewhat beyond concern and bordering on hysteria, summoned a doctor. “Well, it’s worse than I thought,” Dr. Stansbury said after he had examined me. “I’m afraid she has what workers are calling phossy jaw. It’s a complication that arises from the vapors of the white phosphorous used to make the matches at the factory.” I could tell that this news upset my mother immensely.

“What are we to do, Dr. Stansbury?” she asked tremulously.

“I’m sorry,” the doctor replied with a sigh. “This is such an advanced case that her organs have already begun to shut down. It will only be a matter of time now.”

He patted my mother’s arm. “I’ll give her some morphine for the pain,” he said.

My mother wept quietly after he left, sitting on the edge of my bed, holding my hand. I felt a peaceful nothingness, drifting as I was in a haze of morphine delirium. I died three days later, but I did not rest.

My soul, like the souls of all the other match girls gone too soon, simply exists between this life and the next, restless and melancholy. We never married, never had children, never got to experience a life outside the walls of the match factory. We trail about the property, weeping and sighing, mourning our lost youth. Over a hundred years has passed since my death, and as time has worn on, I’ve seen the factory disappear slowly, until only one hulking brick shell remains of the whole operation. The town has grown up around the Barber neighborhood and the old homes of the match company workers. Our only visitors are sly and nervous teenagers who sneak through the gates in the middle of the night to hold seances and dance to unrecognizable music on portable phonographs.

We are lost, and likely to remain so, but some say that if you really listen closely, you can still hear the whispers of us match girls, light as a kiss, on still, moonlit nights.

It all started with a bench when I was about four. It was an old coffee bench that my grandpa always used to sit at. After his passing, the bench was passed down and ended up in my family’s possession. It has been a family heirloom for generations and is one of those things that always will stay with the family.

Right around the time the bench was given to us, I started to see an imaginary friend wherever I went and then proceeded to convince myself it was my grandpa trying to comfort me after he passed away. In the beginning, when I saw him, I would ask my family if ‘Grandpa’ could come to lunch or if I could go with Grandpa. It became normal for me to be outside regularly playing with my ‘grandpa.’ At least, that’s what I thought until one day the entity became more aggressive.

Before his death, my grandpa was an avid photographer and took his camera wherever he went. So, one day while playing, my imaginary friend took my picture. I ran inside to tell my mom that grandpa took my picture. My mom, at the time, just thought it was a way of me dealing with loss and grief and found it sweet that her little girl missed her grandpa so much. That was until I told her what he said after. To this day, I get chills when I think about it. He asked if he could, "take me away too" and he "would be so happy if I went with him." This freaked my mom out, and like all protective mothers, my mom didn’t find it cute or amusing anymore. It was terrifying that some unknown entity wanted to take her girl away from her.

My mom proceeded to call one of her friends who was a medium and asked her for advice. The medium suggested looking for anything unusual around the property that could link me to this unknown entity. My mom took a walk around the property, and the bench immediately caught her attention. She figured that had to be it. Considering the bench had gone through many generations, it did make sense that some unknown entity could have attached itself. My mom proceeded to bless the property with sage and kindly asked the entity to leave, stating that it was causing the family more harm than good. From that day forward, nothing has happened. We still have the bench to this day.

The Bench

Cherie Krantz

The Lady and the ranch

Nicole Andreini

My family are cattle ranchers, and we lived on this big ranch. Back when I was 10, my parents decided to remodel the house. It was a tiny 1800s-styled house that was in need of dire remodeling. We took a different approach to the rebuild than most people do—we actually built around the already constructed house and still lived in the previous one simultaneously. It was actually really fun living through the whole remodel process.

Through the process of tearing down walls, we had a few different encounters that we deemed a ghost and paranormal in nature. The most frequent poltergeist was a woman. One encounter happened when my father left for a few days, and it was just my mom and my siblings at the ranch. One night, while I was going to bed, I kept hearing unexplained noises. Then the weirdest thing happened— towards the foot of my bed, I could feel someone or something sit down next to me. I looked up to see nothing. Later that night, I woke up to gravel crunching outside as if a vehicle was coming up the driveway, but there was no car.

Even later in the night, after I finally went to bed, my mom and her sister were hanging out when all of a sudden my aunt's eyes went huge, and her face showed a ghostly white. The next thing my aunt said was, “Turn around, turn around!” My mom did and was met with a strange figure in the hallway following what could only be described as the sound of radio static. Then, the figure suddenly disappeared. At this point, my mom and aunt were screaming, and everyone in the house woke up. My mom flicked on a light to get a better view, and to her horror, the entire room was filled with mosquitos accompanied by the eerie buzzing of the insect. It seemed as quickly as they were there, the mosquitos soon vanished with no explanation.

After the incident, my aunt was so freaked out she ended up seeking a medium to maybe get some answers. Before my aunt could fully step into the room, the medium said, "Don't worry she is a good ghost; she wants to protect you." In my aunt's mind, the reassurance made relaxing at the house a bit easier.

Unexplained things continued to happen around the house. For instance, everyday houseware items were disappearing. We used to keep our house key under the saw outside, then one day we went to unlock the house, and the key was gone. We couldn't find it for weeks. This was all going on while my father was on his hunting trip. Unexplained stuff would seem to happen in my father's absence. Then, one day, my father came home, and we told him about the key that was missing. He proceeded to lift up the saw to find the key laying directly under it. He naturally shot us his ‘are you serious’ look of complete concern and confusion.

Things didn't let up until the new remodel was completely finished. One night, my mom and I went to a 4-H meeting only to come home to the house billowing with smoke. Fearing the worst, my mom burst through the door to find a smoldering log near the rock fireplace. My mom forgot she left the log on the stove which proceeded to catch fire. The strange part about this was there was no way for the log to move off of the stove and land in a spot where it wouldn’t catch the rest of the house on fire. It was physically impossible. This instilled the thought that maybe the ghost wasn’t all that bad. After all, it technically saved the house from complete destruction. To this day, my family is healthy and happy, still living on the same property with no issues.

Disappearing Act

Diana Coronado

In 2015, my father passed away, and for a couple of weeks after his death, there was this constant feeling of him still being in the house. While I was sitting on my bed one day, my dog started barking uncontrollably at my bedroom door. My dog was moving from side to side and barking as if he was trying to keep something out until I yelled out, “Leave me alone!” With those words, it all stopped.

A few weeks later, while hanging with a friend, my dog started up again, this time barking at the corner of the living room. This freaked me and my friend out so much that we ended up running out of the house. The week following the incident was quiet until we ended up talking to a family friend who happens to be our pharmacist. We told her the news about my father's passing, then her face went blank. She went on to say, “That's impossible, I just filled his medications and saw him the other day when he picked up his prescription.” It was clear my father wasn't ready to let go and move on to another existence.

The last incident involved my brother while he was on Snapchat. He was sending photos back and forth to a buddy when one of his friends responded “Who's that behind you? There's a man right behind you.” the friend ended up screenshotting the image but when he looked back the image was black—no photo of any kind. My thoughts are that my father was struggling with leaving us all and didn't know how to work through it. Whether we are on earth or passing through to another existence, there are always trials and tribulations, and I believe my dad was struggling with those things.

Dual Hauntings

Mario Salice

When I was 18, my best friend passed away. For weeks, I was distraught. Then, about a month later, I was getting ready to go to sleep. It was that limbo period between sleep and consciousness when my friend came to me in spirit, saying he was okay, and that he was safe. At the same time, it could have been paranormal or just my mind healing itself. Whatever it was, I'm glad that it happened as it gave way to more positive thoughts and overall recovery from my loss.

My second paranormal experience took place back in my late teens when I was staying at a friend's house and was suddenly woken by what sounded like a child’s voice, only seconds before feeling pressure and seeing someone sitting at the end of the bed. Then, just as the figure appeared it was gone. I blocked it from my memory and pretended I was dreaming until about a month later, when I was at that same friend's house in the living room with his family. They sparked an interesting conversation that instantly made me think back to that creepy night. They were talking about how a little boy had once died in the house and every once in a while they would feel his presence. This just affirmed my encounter, only cementing the legitimacy of the situation. It was something I will never forget.

The Beast

Charles Cornell

I am an episcopal priest and usually exorcisms are reserved for the bishop. The church keeps a tight grip on that sort of thing to ensure the safety and the right treatment is conducted. I never performed an exorcism, but I did visit many homes for a “house blessing” to wash away and drown out any dark entities or spirits that were trapped.

While going about my business, I was asked to come in and do a blessing for a couple. They were in the midst of trying to sell their house and were experiencing a strange phenomenon that seemed to interfere with the selling of the property. The couple believed that a blessing would bring good fortune. Just because it wasn't an exorcism doesn't mean I didn't treat it as such. I walked throughout the house and blessed each room and sprinkled holy water about. Each time I would do a verse, there would be a tingling sensation throughout my body. It was strange. After the blessing, the house sold in two weeks—after having been on the market for nearly a year.

Another weird thing was one of my good friends, who also happens to be a priest, was renting a cabin in Plumas County, and he used to hear walking in the snow outside of his cabin. Normally that wouldn't be cause for concern, but whatever it was circled the cabin counterclockwise and would emit this horrible grunting sound. My friend knew whatever it was it had to be sinister in nature, so he conjured some holy water and walked three times clockwise around the cabin while splashing the water around and reciting “Depart this place in the name of Jesus Christ!” After that, he never had another weird experience again while he lived at the cabin. Years later, he talked to a lady that also lived in the area, and she also recalled weird tramping noises in the snow at strange hours in the night.

Haunting on the ridge

Tori & Everett

Tori and Everett aren't your typical best friends. They share many things in common including their love for working at Tin Roof bakery and creating delightful dishes that are showcased throughout the deli window. Everett is the head chef at Tin Roof and makes some killer deviled eggs. Aside from the culinary love, they also share a long history of the paranormal.

The two both grew up in Paradise, just a few minutes' walk from each other, and would often find themselves in precarious situations involving some unknown force. Around the corner, not too far from the two’s homes, was an eerie roadway, just off of Sawmill and Pearson, called Travis Road. On numerous occasions, unexplained phenomena would occur down this stretch of road. At night, this road is completely pitch black. That wouldn't normally be cause for alarm, but it is almost unnatural how dark this stretch of road is. Even with a flashlight, it seems it wouldn't help in the slightest. While there may be street lamps that would usually illuminate the entire street, on Travis Road that is not the case in the slightest. There seems to be something lurking in the woods that is truly unsettling and otherworldly.

Living so close to this road, Tori and Everett were at constant odds with some unknown force—windows would blow open, things would fly off shelves—you know, typical movie stuff. The only difference was this wasn’t a movie, and you didn't get to just turn it off. Tori’s house features large windows that allow you to look out onto the property, and on a night with a full moon, it seemed everything came alive. There was even a point living on the property where no animals would be seen, this was peculiar since Paradise has a plethora of wild animals and strays. The animals Tori did come across were not living anymore. She would constantly find dead birds on their backs with no explanation of what could have caused their passing. Bones were constantly found on the property such as skulls placed on logs and other remains scattered in bushes. It was like living on Skinwalker Ranch. It seemed that this plot of land was a hot spot for the unexplained.

In one horrifying incident, Everett’s family's goats were attacked by what everyone suspected to be a mountain lion, but the scene told a much different story—one of some bloodthirsty creature that lurked in the woods at night. Tori is a huge animal person, so when the opportunity to help a litter of stray cats literally came knocking on her door, she decided to care for them. There was a space under the porch where the kittens could lay so she took them in. Night came, and everyone went to sleep. In the morning, Tori woke to not one, not two, but all the baby kittens having passed. No marks of foul play, just passed on. What could have caused this when they were perfectly healthy a day before?

Aside from the outside unexplained phenomena, there was plenty going on indoors. On one account, Tori recalls having a sleepover with her girlfriends and seeing a poltergeist. The girls made a huge bed in the living room and were fast asleep when from behind them the computer screen lit up. They all turned their heads to see a figure sitting down in the computer chair. At the time they assumed it was one of the other girls who decided to sneak onto the computer. The situation raised no alarms until the next morning when the girls asked their friend what she was doing on the computer last night? With a confused face, the friend replied, “I wasn't on the computer. I was sleeping right next to all of you.” Pure horror struck the girls' faces as they realized what they all had seen was perhaps not of this world.