Episode 18. The Boyington Oak.
Today’s story was recommended by @CynClement who shared with me an equally beautiful and tragic hometown story. Beautiful if you believe in our suspect’s innocence, that is.
Spirits can become attached to places, objects or people. The entities that attach themselves are said to be mostly intelligent entities with a strong emotional connection to the object, place or person, though of course with attachment to people, this can be endlessly more complicated. Today’s episode will look at a case of attachment to an object, or landmark.
A spirit attachment doesn’t necessarily mean that a particular ghost is trapped within an object. Rather, it may mean that the residual energy of a spirit has imprinted itself. This usually occurs in situations that involve volatile or highly emotional experiences, as will be seen in this case. Otherwise, the object may act as a conductor for the spirit which may visit the object in a sense, or interact through it.
The most common spirit attachments we tend to hear about are where intelligent beings attach themselves to or use dolls as conductors, such as Annabel or Robert, two infamous objects said to have malevolent spirits or entities attached to them. In this case, however, we are looking into a tree.
The Boyington oak is located in Mobile, Alabama and is said to be haunted by the spirit of Charles R. S. Boyington.
Mobile was experiencing rapid economic growth in the 1830s, when Charles arrived from Conneticut. He was a printer, operating printing presses and providing printing services to others. He was also a gambler. As we saw with Edgar Allan Poe, gambling rarely ends well in the 1800s. Boyington took up residence in a boarding house in the city. It was here in Mobile that he met Nathaniel Frost. There was some alleged tension between the two as Frost was said to owe Boyington money. On the night that the two were seen on a walk together to the Church Street Graveyard, Frost’s body was found near the cemetery. He had been stabbed to death and robbed.
Boyington found himself in a very compromising position. Having been with Frost the night of his death, and with rumours of tension between the two, he was a prime suspect for the murder. He was subsequently convicted of the crim and sentenced to death by hanging, to be carried out on February 20, 1935.
Up until the moment of his death, Boyington protested his innocence. Before hanging, he proclaimed that an oak would grow from his heart in proof of his innocence when his body was buried. Boyington was right. An oak tree did grow from his grave and still stands. The oak tree is located just outside of the cemetery since the brick wall surrounding it was moved back, and can be found on Bayou Street. Visitors claim to have heard voices and sounds of crying around the tree.
Whether this is a true sign of Boyington’s innocence from beyond the grave or a strange coincidence it’s impossible to tell, I guess it depends on what you do or want to believe. Ultimately, the two men’s spirits would reside in the cemetery they visited as friends for eternity.
Good Nightmare 