Seattle

Sorry for the delay, folks. I'm still have Google issues with my computer, and they won't be fixed anytime soon. So the updates will come as often as they can, but I make you no promises.

A few weeks ago, my roommate (CK) and her boyfriend took a week long vacation in the Pacific Northwest. They mostly stayed in and around Seattle, but ventured to my old hometown of Portland to see the wonderful things it has to offer! They went on an underground tour, and even bought me a book about Pike Place Market's ghost stories. They came back with so many great stories (including seeing an honest to goodness ghost), that I had to put my new book to good use and do a blog about the great city of Seattle! My blog will focus strictly on the weird and spooky, but if you'd like a traveler's point of view of Seattle, be sure to check out my roommate's blog over at Life From A2. For now, enjoy the ghosts of Seattle!

What goes on here?


Pike Place Market has been around a long, long time. Since 1907 it has been the place to buy and sell in Seattle. You might know it best as the place where they throw the fish. But it's so much more than that. Pike Place Market is the home of unique shops, and even more unique people. One of these people was Princess Angeline.

Princess Angeline (Kikisebloo, her given name), daughter of Chief Seattle, marked a turning point in Seattle history. She lived in a little wooden shack just by Western Ave, and when the time came that the other Native Americans were forced from the city, she refused to leave. She stayed in that little wooden shack until her death. And even then, she was given the kind of burial reserved strictly for men in those days. Her image was used as a symbol of the city right into the 1960's. But she didn't fade away after that. According to Mercedes Yaeger, Angeline is the most seen ghost in all of Pike Place.

She appears anywhere and everywhere, even at a wedding at one end of the Market! She's frequently seen on the ferry to Bainbridge island, but disappears about halfway through the voyage. She's also seen covered in a white blanket on the lower levels of the market. Princess Angeline is just as much a part of Pike Place Market now as she was when she was alive.



The next story takes us to business #415. It was a little bead shop (now a store called Merry Tails) in the Market, with plenty of strange happenings to warrant it a place on the list of hauntings in Seattle. The owners of Bead Zone have related several different stories. Their inventory liked to be moved around a lot. Nina, one of the owners, was on the phone having a heated conversation. All of a sudden a string of beads flew off the wall and at her. Another time, Nina was trying to decide what necklace to wear with her dress for work, when a necklace containing a bead the same blue as her dress flew off the wall and landed at her feet.

The ghost, called Jacob by both Nina and Ram, and the current owner, has made himself known to more than them. Mercedes has taken several different tours through the shop, and twice she has gotten a reaction from the boy. Once, two strings of red beads flew from their place on the wall. The other, a group of Girl Scouts smelled hay and horse manure quite strongly within the shop.

Perhaps the strangest sight came when Ram and Nina discovered a completely closed off room next to their shop. One morning they noticed their shop had six windows from the outside, but three from the inside. They investigated, and found a hollow space in the wall. They knocked through it... only to see some of their inventory (written in their own handwriting) from the week before sitting in neat little piles among other beads and pennies. They were all stuffed behind a completely sealed room! There would be no way for the pieces to have gotten into the room... unless Jacob was up to his tricks.

Now the current owner keeps a spot in the shop devoted to Jacob. It's his own little area to play in.


All of this just brushes the surface! There are dozens more ghosts and strange stories from Pike Place Market. Below is a video that claims to have captured one of the apparitions of the Market. You can decide for yourself whether or not it's a real ghost. In any case, it's a great addition to the stories people have to tell about Seattle.

As always, if you have stories of your own, be sure to email me, or comment below!


My info on all these hauntings came from here:
Legends of America
Haunts of America
Seattle Times
Yaeger, Mercedes. Seattle's Market Ghost Stories. http://www.seattleghost.com

Pictures come from here:
http://www.seattlemet.com/q13-fox/articles/0309-fea-duwamish/
http://www.pikeplacemarket.org/