In the antebellum Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, the W. W. Pool Mausoleum is said to be the grave of the Richmond Vampire. A more recent urban legend is now associated with the collapse of the Church Hill Tunnel.
At Richmond's historic Hollywood Cemetery, where Confederate generals, U.S. presidents and thousands of the city's dead lie beneath elaborate monuments and crumbling tombstones, whispers still speak of a vampire lurking among the graves.
This Richmond, Virginia legend dates back to a real, grim disaster in 1925 – and even the older mausoleum is said to harbor something inhuman that still draws people eager to check out the alleged vampire lair.
Pool Mausoleum of WW Legends
Local legend had it that W. W. Pool was no ordinary citizen of Richmond. Some versions of the story claimed that Pool was an 18th-century Englishman exiled for vampirism or a practitioner of shadowy magic who achieved unnatural longevity. His tomb, marked with ominous Masonic symbols and resting in one of Richmond's oldest cemeteries, is said to contain either Pool himself or the historic Tunnel Vampire.
Locals nicknamed the creature the “Richmond Vampire” or “Hollywood Vampire,” and it became a fixture in local ghost tours and urban legends. Initially, the story centered around the grave of this mystical man, on which only his initials were carved. WW, looking almost like fangs. There were also Masonic and Egyptian elements on the grave, which made it unique. People also thought it was strange that the grave of a man who died in 1922 had the inscription 1913 on it.
According to one story, broken glass was found in the closed and sealed mausoleum. The question was: where did the eminent Richmond vampire go?
Who was WW Pool?
But who really was the man in the mausoleum? His real name was William Wortham Pool and he lived at 721 28th St in Woodland Heights and worked as an accountant. He was not actually in exile from England, but was born in Mississippi and led a seemingly normal and peaceful life.
He built a grave for his wife Alicja, who died after an illness in 1913, and as an accountant he decided to apply only his initials because payment was made by letter. William died and joined her in their mausoleum in 1922, when he died of pneumonia at the age of 75.
Perhaps for those who delved a little deeper into the story, it would have ended there, but instead the lore of vampires grew. Because Hollywood Cemetery is adjacent to Virginia Commonwealth University, the story became popular in the 1960s and especially in the 1980s, when an almost cult-like group grew around the mausoleum and, ultimately, another city tragedy merged with history.
Since 2001, the story of the vampire has been told with the collapse of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad's Church Hill Tunnel under the eastern neighborhood called Church Hill, and is rarely told without it.
Church Hill Tunnel Collapse
On October 2, 1925, disaster struck when a work crew tried to reopen the long-abandoned Church Hill Tunnel, a 4,000-foot passage beneath Richmond's Church Hill neighborhood. They have had problems with the tunnels since they were built in 1871. The soul was pliable and slippery, and the buildings above it were tilting or falling. Sometimes it is said that employees have simply disappeared.
While digging, part of the tunnel collapsed, burying several workers alive in a sudden, suffocating wave of rock, soil and debris. The section above the work train collapsed, burying engineer Tom Mason along with about two or three hundred workers.
According to legend, when they were building the tunnel, they awoke something evil that lived there and caused the tunnel to collapse.
In the chaos that followed, rescuers and onlookers reportedly saw something terrifying: a bloody, grotesque figure with jagged teeth and hanging skin emerging from the rubble and crouching as if feeding on victims. The creature – with its exposed body and edged, animalistic features – allegedly escaped from the tunnel, heading towards Hollywood Cemetery.
Witnesses claimed he disappeared into the W. W. Pool Mausoleum, a real tomb within the cemetery dating back to 1913. This bizarre incident quickly fueled rumors that a vampire had woken up in the cave.
When this version merged with existing vampire lore is uncertain, but some say it was like that from the beginning. Historians and folklorists largely attribute the origins of vampire stories to the tragic story of Benjamin F. Mosby, a 28-year-old railroad worker who was caught in a tunnel collapse. He was throwing coal into the firebox of a work train's steam locomotive without a shirt on when the boiler collapsed and ruptured. Mosby, suffering from severe burns and catastrophic injuries, climbed out of the wreckage – his flesh hanging from his bones and blood covering his body – and reportedly died shortly afterwards at Grace Hospital. He was buried in the Hollywood Cemetery.
Day laborers Richard Lewis and “H. Smith”, engine 231 and ten flatcars remain buried in the tunnel of misery.
Witnesses in the panic and darkness of the disaster likely misinterpreted the ghostly appearance of Mosby's mortally wounded body as something supernatural. Over time, as Richmond's storytelling traditions took root, Mosby's tragic death merged with older vampire folklore to give rise to the legend of the Richmond Vampire.
However, despite rational explanations and the lack of primary sources, the myth still persists, with contemporary sources only stating that Mosby died with no other details. If not him, what did they think was lurking in the tunnels? To this day, people report strange sightings at Hollywood Cemetery, eerie noises near the Pool Mausoleum, and ghostly figures wandering the grounds at night.
-
The Vampire of Richmond and his mausoleum in Hollywood Cemetery
In the pre-Civil War Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, the W. W. Pool Mausoleum is said to be the grave of the Richmond Vampire. A more recent urban legend is now associated with the collapse of the Church Hill Tunnel.
-
Headless ghosts haunting Dublin Castle
It is said to be haunted by headless prisoners who tried to take Dublin Castle. Shadows hang in the corners of this two-story building.
-
The most haunted places in Bern, Switzerland
Old cities carry aged ghost stories, and Bern, Switzerland is no exception. From aged buildings filled with history to the depths of the Aare River, these are some of the most haunted places in Bern.
-
The Serbian vampire city of Kisiljevo and the undead of Ruža Vlajna
Centuries after the vampire panic that began with the death of Petar Blagojević, another vampire haunts the Serbian village of Kisiljevo. Who was Ruža Vlajna and what happened to her?
-
The Haunted Fields of Croppie's Acre: A site of restless rebellion in Dublin
Said to be the mass burial site of the dead Irish independence rebels since 1798, Croppie's Acre in Dublin is haunted by their souls.
-
The Lost Valley: Fairies of Val Gerina
Legend has it that it was once a green paradise and fairies protected the inhabitants of the Val Gerina valley in the Swiss Alps. However, driven by his greed to impress the woman, the son intended to continue the tradition and friendship with the fairies, and brought it all down to earth.
-
Trinity College: the ghostly scholars who never left
Said to be haunted by its former fellows, Trinity College Dublin is filled with eerie ghosts and even a bell rings after shadowy when shadows take over the campus.
-
Queen Wildegg Castle and the tomb of Maria Luisa St. Simon-Montleart in the forest
A true story turned into a fairy tale, the life and death of the French countess Marie Louise St. Simon-Montleart became a legend. Buried in the forest near Wildegg Castle in Switzerland, it is said that she haunts the castle and the forest, her sanctuary.
-
A mysterious white woman haunting the Belchen Tunnel in the 1980s
The urban legend of the ghost of a woman in white haunting the Belchen Tunnel while crossing the Jura Mountains in Switzerland is said to have been widely known and reported in the 1980s. The question is, does it still haunt the tunnel?
-
The Ghost of the Marshalsea Barracks: The Prison That Never Sleeped
After falling to his death while escaping from a debtor's prison, the Marshalsea Barracks in Dublin, it is said that the ghost of Pat Doyle haunts the remaining walls of the ruins.
-
Lipa Linna: a living monument to death, hope and haunting whispers
A linden tree planted to commemorate a mass grave of plague victims in the Aargau Valley in Switzerland has become a eminent monument. However, it is said that at night the spirits buried under it crawl out of the ground to scare people as a warning of upcoming tragedies.
-
The Brazen Head: Dublin's oldest pub and its restless rebel
The rebel and Irish freedom fighter is said to haunt his favorite pub, The Brazen Head, in Dublin, where he is said to have planned to fight the English.
William Wortham's Pool – Wikipedia
Church Hill Tunnel – Wikipedia
Image Source: Pixabay.com
