By Bruce Cline, director of the Little Egypt Ghost Society
Many years ago a stately mansion stood on Keebler Road in Collinsville. This mansion had a dark history due to the slave auctions that were held there before the Civil War. Entire families of African Americans were put on the auction block and sold individually to the highest bidder. Many husbands, wives, sons and daughters never saw or heard from their loved ones again after being taken to the farms and business of the wealthy slave holders.
After the Civil War, the mansion stood vacant and dilapidated. The mansion had acquired a reputation of being haunted. Townsfolk would only pass by the mansion on the far side of the road due to their fear of the apparitions that had been reported there. Candles would be seen floating past the broken windows of the mansion and wispy, vaporous forms of slave women were reported walking among the tombstones of the nearby graveyard.
The First Baptist Church in Collinsville is reported to be haunted by the phantom of a hooded figure accompanied by a ghostly black dog. Shadows float across the walls of the church even though there is nothing visible that could cause them.
During World War I, some citizens of Collinsville distrusted Germans so much that one German immigrant was reported to have been killed in the basement of the church. Some people believe that the murdered German is now a ghost that inhabits the church. On occasion, this ghost has been known to hit church members so hard that bruises are left on their bodies.
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Bruce Cline is the Director of the Little Egypt Ghost Society based in Carbondale, IL. He is a Lieutenant Colonel in the U.S. Army as a Corps of Engineers Officer. He is a former municipal, county and state law enforcement officer. Bruce lives in Carbondale, IL with his wife, Lisa and several cats and dogs.
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