- Richmond Vampire
The Richmond Vampire is an
urban legend that began soon after a collapse on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad'sChurch Hill Tunnel at Church Hill, a district ofRichmond, Virginia , which buried several workers alive onOctober 2 ,1925 .The story told of a blood covered creature with jagged teeth and skin hanging from its muscular body that emerged from the cave-in and raced toward the James River. Pursued by a group of men, the creature took refuge in
Hollywood Cemetery , where it disappeared in a mausoleum built into a hillside bearing the name W.W. Pool.Gregory Maitland, founder of Night Shift, a Richmond-based group that researched urban legends and
oral tradition s, and the Virginia urban legend andfolklore expert of the Virginia Ghosts & Haunting Research Society (VGHRS), became interested in the Richmond Vampire story. His study of the disaster confirmed that after the tunnel collapsed a living being escaped from the wreckage. It was, however, a big and strong 28-year-old railroad fireman, Benjamin F. Mosby (1896-1925), who had been loading coal into the steam tank of a train with no shirt on when the cave-in occurred and the oven ruptured.Mosby's upper body was horribly scalded and several of his teeth were broken before he made his way through the opening of the tunnel. Witnesses reported he was in shock and layers of his skin were hanging from his body. He died later at Grace Hospital. It was from there that the story took on a life of its own through decades of retelling.
ee also
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List of vampires in folklore and mythology External links
* [http://picasaweb.google.com/gokayak/WWPool#5254502016556344290 Photo of W.W.Pool's grave, Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond, VA]
* [http://mysite.verizon.net/vze75in2/id3.html Richmond, Va. Architecture and History - Terror in the Tunnel: Church Hill Tunnel Collapse]
* [http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GSln=Mosby&GRid=6528409& Benjamin F. Mosby Memorial] atFind A Grave
* [http://www.hollywoodcemetery.org/history.html Hollywood Cemetery History]
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