Train and the Guardian Angel

In the 1980s, the back roads of rural eastern Ohio were the fastest way to get to the best party spots. One night I was the DD. I drove a 1970s Pontiac that got about 2 gallons to the mile. The front seats of old cars were about the size and shape of a living room couch. You could easily squeeze four people into the front seat of my Pontiac and six in the back (eight if you could convince people to sit on the floorboards.) My two friends and I were in the front seat, taking a back road from party #1 heading to party #2. The few farms in the area have long driveways and there was no moon, so it was a very dark night. We were having fun speeding over the hills and the stomach-dropping dips in the road. 

And then someone calmly said “train.” I slammed on the brakes and the car jolted to a stop inches from black train cars at an unmarked RR-crossing. The night was so dark that I didn’t see the train until my car was nearly on top of it. Shocked (and sobered) we sat there for a good 2 minutes after the train passed. When I thanked my friend sitting in the middle for saying “train,” she swore she didn’t say it. She thought our friend in the window seat said it. That friend swore she hadn’t said it either. We all agreed we didn’t see the train until we almost hit it and we all agreed we heard someone say “train.” If I had not heard “train” I would have driven into the side of the rail car at about 60 mph. I’m not sure whose guardian angel spoke that night, but she saved the lives of three teenage girls.

Murder Will Out

The proverb “murder will out” became a reality for one Leesburg woman. She had harbored the secret of her murderous deed for twenty-five years and refused to die until she confessed all her sins. An 1811 edition of The Lady’s Miscellany carried her deathbed confession.

In 1786, the body of nineteen-year old Joseph Hoge was found in the dense forest just outside of Leesburg. In the dark of the night, his throat was slashed from ear-to-ear, his life blood draining quickly and silently into the forest floor. The vicious act was the work of a strong, angry, unstable person and the surrounding community was immediately afraid that a madman was among them.

The case remained unsolved for twenty-five years. Although a jury of inquest was unable to determine the murderer, suspicion fell on the boy’s mother, Betty Hoge, whose physical strength from years of hard labor surpassed that of many men. When Betty ran to a neighbor’s shouting “Joe is bleeding to death,” her short gown was splattered with blood and a bloody handprint stained her left sleeve as if she had attempted to wipe the guilt from the hand that committed the act.

Betty Hoge died in 1811. As was the Scottish custom, three attendants took turns waiting for Mrs. Hoge to draw her last breath. Late into the night, an attendant determined that Mrs. Hoge had finally passed and called in the other two to help lay her out in preparation for burial.

Mrs. Hoge suddenly revived and “said she could not die until she had communicated something that lay heavy on her mind.” She asked that everyone except one attendant leave the room so she could confess her sins before dying. That person was very afraid of Mrs. Hoge and refused to be left in the room alone with her. The other two huddled in the safety of the doorway as the feared woman confessed her sins.

Years earlier Mrs. Hoge suffocated her husband with a feather bed, but it was not this act that weighed heavily on her guilty conscience. It was the murder of her son, her own flesh and blood, that kept the old woman from resting in peace.

As a young child, Joseph Hoge witnessed his father’s murder. The years passed and the son grew into a strong, formidable man. He threatened to tell of his mother’s evil deeds if she did not give in to his every whim and fancy. On the night of his death, Joseph left the cabin for his usual evening activities at the nearby grog. His mother lay in wait a short distance from the cabin in the dense forest lining the path to town. When young Joe passed, she jumped him from behind, slashing his throat from ear-to-ear in a cut so deep it nearly decapitated him.

For many years Betty Hoge lived feared and suspected by the residents of Leesburg. Her guilt festered and grew as she lived out her days isolated in her cabin in the dense forest on the edges of Leesburg, until the day she revived herself from the cold grasps of death to confess her sins. Twenty-four hours after her grisly confession, she finally died. The undertakers took no chances of her once again reviving and quickly buried her.

An Officer Beside My Bed

I am extremely skeptical of all paranormal claims and hope to someday have an undeniable experience that eliminates all skepticism. I jokingly say that I want an apparition to materialize in front of me, proclaim “Do you believe me now?” and then disappear. I have had numerous experiences that I can’t fully explain, but I retain the back-of-the-brain inkling that there is a logical explanation that I have yet to discover. Scratching noises are usually scurrying insects and varmints. Knocking noises can be snakes rubbing against rafters and floor joists to shed their skins. Popping and footsteps are probably temperature fluctuations expanding and contracting wood, grout and caulking. Shadows in the peripheral are tangled eyelashes, while other shadows are legitimate movement outside casting a shadow inside. Being held down in a bed is sleep paralysis. Clothing or hair are naturally tugged or pulled all the time when they tangle, but our senses are heightened in a scary environment. The following experience can be logically attributed to my sleepy state – even though I still believe I was fully awake.

Colonel Burt had been such an integral part of my life while I was researching all things “Burt” that I began speaking of him in the present tense, relaying researched familial anecdotes as if he and I had just shared tea and crumpets on the lanai. My husband half-jokingly referred to him as the other man in my life. During my Burt phase, I was six hours into a seven-hour drive from Ohio to Northern Virginia when I made a pact with Col. Burt that if he wanted to make himself visible to me, I promised to not be frightened. Around midnight, I pulled into my garage and quietly fumbled through the dark house so I wouldn’t wake anyone. Barely taking the time to change clothes and brush the travel grime from my teeth and face before I collapsed in bed, all thoughts of my pact with Col. Burt were immediately forgotten.

A couple of hours later I startled from deep sleep to full awake. Standing next to my bed was a bearded soldier in a Confederate officer’s uniform.

The only problem is he didn’t look like the Col. Burt that existed in my mind’s-eye. At that time, I had not seen a picture of Erasmus Burt, so my image of him was one-hundred percent conjecture, but I envisioned him attractively aging, dark complexion, tall, thin with chiseled features and an approachable yet commanding demeanor. The apparition was in full regalia; a steel grey jacket, possibly woolen, hung crisply to mid-thigh and stretched tight across an ample chest and mid-section. The uniform had a dark belt, brass buttons that ran down the front and a high, stiff color made from a darker material. He carried no weaponry and was bare-headed. His well-groomed beard was a salt and pepper grey and his longish hair was almost completely white with a high forehead and a bit of a curl at the ends. The hair was molded close to his head as if he had just removed a hat or used a gel to hold it in place. He didn’t glow. He wasn’t transparent or translucent. He just looked like an elderly gentleman, respectfully standing beside my bed. He wasn’t looking at me; instead he looked across the bedroom toward the opposite wall. Although I couldn’t see his eyes directly, from the side they appeared to be a light grey or blue.

My reaction was neither fear nor excitement. His appearance was exactly what I had asked for, but when I made my request I didn’t realize that 1.) he would oblige so quickly, and 2.) I would be so completely exhausted from my drive that I wouldn’t be able to appreciate the experience. I roused myself, leaned up on one elbow and said, “Ugh, could you come back later? I’m really tired.” Then I laid back down and went back to sleep, never knowing if he acknowledged me or if he reacted in any way. The entire encounter could not have been more than 15 seconds and the memory of it returned to me the next morning in full detail. I still believe that I was not dreaming because, unlike my dreams, which evaporate as soon as I open my eyes, I remembered it the next morning and the memory is still vivid. I am pretty certain he was disgruntled that I had dismissed him after he put so much time and energy into appearing because I never saw him again.

(sidenote: The day we moved into our Northern Virginia home, I picked up a corroded glob from the flower bed. It turned out to be a Civil War era bullet.)

A Poisoned Mind

In the late 19^th century, a Loudoun County woman gained international infamy in connection with Leesburg, Virginia, murders. The October 30, 1872 issue of the Boston Daily Globe reports that the case of Emily E. Lloyd was about to begin in Leesburg circuit court. Accused of poisoning her youngest daughter, the trial generated more than usual interest because it was suspected that she also murdered her husband, an aunt, her two sons and another daughter.

Emily Sampson was 23-years old when she married Charles B. Lloyd (1860 census), a dashing young Scotsman who had amassed a small fortune through hard labor as a stagecoach driver, handyman, and farmhand. In their first ten years of marriage, they had four children. Maud, the youngest, was born two months after Charles’ death. Charles was not considered the kindest of men, but he was respected in the community.

Charles felt under the weather that December of 1868, but a doctor declared him well enough to work at his restaurant in Leesburg’s old Eagle Hotel on S. King St. Charles returned to his home behind the jail on what is now Edward's Ferry Road, ate a light breakfast and prepared for work. Within an hour of the doctor’s diagnosis, Charles’ condition suddenly worsened and he died. The official cause of death was ruled heart disease.

Emily and her children – George, age nine; Henry, age six; Annie, age three; and soon-to-arrive Maud – were well taken care of in Mr. Lloyd’s will. Widow Emily and her children remained in Leesburg where she was admired as a devout Presbyterian and a doting mother.

In July of 1870, the two boys went berry picking with their live-in nurse. Soon after returning home, the boys became ill. Dr. Mott was called to the home, but it was too late. The boys passed within days of each other. The boys died of poison. A suspicious rash around their mouth and neck led the doctor to conclude that the boys had accidentally ingested poison oak while blackberry hunting. As in life, they remain constant companions, lying side-by-side in a grave near their father’s in Union Cemetery.

Emily’s elderly aunt, Mrs. Hammerly, came from Washington DC in the summer of 1871 to help poor Emily through this difficult time. Within a few days, the aunt also sickened and died. Mrs. Lloyd had all the outward appearances of a loving, caring mother. Each incident was explainable. No one suspected her of being anything more than an ill-fated widow. Emily and her two young daughters sold their home and moved to a one-and-half story stone home on the western end of Loudoun St. (*see The Stone House).

And then in February of 1872, her eldest daughter, Annie, experienced stomach cramps after eating oysters. Within days, she too was dead. Suspicion was aroused and the people of Leesburg began to whisper. Within a month, before anyone took action, four-year old Maud was also dead.

A formal enquiry was ordered and investigators learned that prior to the death of each family member, Mrs. Lloyd purchased arsenic from the local pharmacy. The stomach was removed from little Maud’s body and sent to Baltimore for examination. One and a half grains of arsenic were found within the child’s stomach contents.

Confederate War hero and State Representative candidate, Eppa Hunton, took on Mrs. Lloyd’s case. Hunton practiced law in Fauquier, Loudoun, and Prince William counties after the war where juries frequently included former members of his regiment. The prosecution was no match for the talented and popular Hunton. A Baltimore report claims Mrs. Lloyd was acquitted on a technicality because no one but the coroner – who died mysteriously prior to the trial – could prove that the examined stomach and its contents belonged to Maud Lloyd. However, a New York newspaper reported the jury, comprised of farmers disgruntled over the time lost in the fields and a former sweetheart of Mrs. Lloyd’s, took barely twenty minutes to return a not guilty verdict.

Three ornate tombstones in Leesburg’s Union Cemetery mark the graves of Charles and his four children. Emily held true to her post-trial statement that she would resume her seamstress wok far from the speculations of her guilt. She immediately left Leesburg and was never heard from again. The bodies of the other three children were exhumed, but all tests were inconclusive.

Two weeks after the trial, Eppa Hunt successfully earned his political bid for the House of Representatives, carrying the majority of Loudoun votes.

*10/16/2017 edit: Keelar Hunt, Gale Ischner and I went to the Stone House in 2007. Keelar experienced severe stomach pains and shortness of breath while we were there.