When people join me on my night hikes and ghost hunts along the Moonville Rail Trail, I often don’t have the chance to share every spirit’s story as we pass by the places of their tragic ends and where they now wander eternally. Being the only passage of travel in an area with few roads during the coal-mining years, trains and people collided often. As a result, many apparitions emerged and now roam the old train tracks. One of these spirits is a gentle, sweet elderly woman whose legend deserves to be passed on. Here is her story.
Long ago, an old woman lived in a tidy little house not far from the tiny town of Moonville Station. For many years, she trudged alone along the wooden rail ties through the deep pockets of forest, across the trestles over the shallow creeks, and through the dank, dark Moonville tunnel to visit family and friends or to buy groceries. She was spry for her age but not spry enough. One day, while walking along the rail path, she was struck by a train and dragged clear to the Moonville Tunnel before the engineer could get the train stopped. After that, her ghost still trudged alone along the wooden rail ties through the deep pockets of forest, across the trestles over the shallow creeks, and through the dank, dark Moonville tunnel as if she was still heading to visit family and friends or to buy groceries. But her destination was always waylaid. She would vanish on the other side of the tunnel, but not without a forewarning that she was coming.
In the 1800s, people bathed less often than nowadays, once or twice a month. Instead, they applied fragrances to cover up unsavory scents. These fragrances were not usually applied directly to the skin as they are today. Instead, women blotted rose, lemon, or lavender botanicals on kerchiefs, stuffed them beneath their clothing, or sprinkled the scents on their skin and garments. Older folks used these same healing oils as a rubbing salve to remedy aches and pains. Some believe that lavender was the oil the old woman had used as a perfume or massaged on her aching elbows or knees that fateful day before she trudged alone along the wooden rail ties through the deep pockets of forest, across the trestles over the shallow creeks, and through the dank, dark Moonville tunnel to visit family and friends or to buy groceries. After she died, startled bystanders would catch the heavy scent of lavender wafting along the old rails, especially outside the tunnel where her ghost would sometimes appear. And some still do!
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