Former President of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists, Samantha Bennett, is one of several tour guides who will be telling scary ghost stories during walking tours of Pittsburgh this October. Sponsors believe it is a nice way to tell Pittsburgh history and ghost stories at the same time.
After taking a buyout at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Bennett became a copy editor for the American Economic Review and and found her public speaking skills were useful for the art of storytelling.
Many believe spirits from the past still exist and major cities across the United States had walking historic tours to capitalize on historic folklore, but Pittsburgh did not. Several years were spent just collecting the stories before the tours began.
Stories go back to the Gilded Age of robber barons and boastful mansions, Among the spirits mentioned is Kate Soffel, the woman who participated in a famous jailbreak and whose spirit is said to haunt her former home in Mount Washington. Another notorious spirit is steel tycoon Henry Clay Frick, said to be “the most haunted man in America.”
Their stories and others like them will be heard this Halloween season at the Haunted Pittsburgh ghost tours of Mount Washington and Oakland, a delightful mix of Pennsylvania history and eerie supernatural lore.
The Haunted Pittsburgh Walking Tour is held every Saturday night of October. The Haunted Pittsburgh Oakland Walking Tour will be Oct. 17 and 24; for reservations and further information, go to www.hauntedpittsburghtours.com.
