Fri, Jan 09 2009
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Published October 19, 2007 03:50 pm - With its rich heritage as one of Oklahoma's oldest settlements, Tahlequah is a prime spot for believers in the paranormal to look for occult phenomena. All the old haunts Tahlequah has no shortage of ghost stories, and area historians took time to scare up a few – just in time for Halloween. By BETTY SMITH Press special writer TAHLEQUAH DAILY PRESS — With its rich heritage as one of Oklahoma's oldest settlements, Tahlequah is a prime spot for believers in the paranormal to look for occult phenomena.
Many believe they have experienced them, whether in old buildings such as Seminary Hall or the Murrell Home, or even outdoors. As the days grow shorter and the leaves fall, thoughts of spirits surge. Halloween is the modern adaptation of Samhain, an ancient holiday during which the fabric between the world of the living and other worlds was thinnest, and it was possible to make contact with the spirit of those who have gone before. Cherokee artist Virginia Stroud said she has experienced such phenomena on more than one occasion, and even photographed orbs that represent spirits while in NSU's Seminary Hall. Stroud used to live on Seminary, across from the old W.W. Hastings Indian Hospital (now the Northeastern State University College of Optometry). "I came out about 6 one morning and there were flatbed wagons out there on the grass, before the apartments were built," she said. There were military tents set up, people coming in and going out." Later she connected the sight to a smallpox epidemic that occurred years ago. "They were burning something. At first I thought it was leaves, but it was sheets," she said. Her house on Seminary produced its share of spooky sounds. "You would hear things knock around in the bathroom upstairs; you would walk into figures," she said. Stroud has been commissioned to do some paintings for the new Cherokee Nation clinic in Muskogee, and she went to Seminary Hall to take photos for research. "I went over during the day. I caught some orbs in the daytime," she said. Intrigued, she returned to Seminary Hall for one of the nighttime ghost tours, armed with her digital camera. "They were around outside the building, standing on the landing, standing close to people," she said. The orbs were visible in some photos and disappeared in others. "The second floor had a lot of them," Stroud said. "It was really pretty scary." 
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