Boggo Road Gaol

Boggo Road Gaol (jail) in the Queensland city of Brisbane is now a museum that holds relics of Australia’s early penal system. The site was a notorious Australian prison located on Annerley Road in Dutton Park, an inner southern suburb of Brisbane, Queensland, Australia. And the only surviving intact gaol in Queensland that reflects penological principles of the 19th century. For many years it was Queensland's main prison. Inside, visitors see how the prison worked, its cell blocks, its old furnishings, and on some occasions, the ghosts of its former inmates. It was officially known as "Brisbane Jail" but was commonly known as "Boggo Road Jail" because Annerley Road became known as "Boggo Road" due to its poor condition, after originally being named "Bolgo Road". Boggo Road was originally an unofficial and unmaintained short-cut between Ipswich Road and Stanley Street that became very boggy after rain. The Boggo Road Gaol site was designated as a penitentiary reserve in 1880. The first cellblock (The ‘No.1 Division’) opened on 2 July 1883, and over the years many other buildings came and went on the site. It was the scene of 42 hangings, including the hanging of Ernest Austin in 1913—the last execution in Queensland.

The first buildings were built by Robert Porter, contained 57 cells. It is heritage-listed. In 1898, the state government deemed that a new women’s prison was also necessary, and construction of the new facility began in October 1901. The female division, number two division, opened on October 3, 1903—the first women’s prison in Queensland. Number two division operated as a women’s prison until 1921,when the demands for more prison space forced the government to make all of Boggo Road’s facilities for men. Boggo Road was a place where many different criminals did time.

A new prison was built around the perimeter of No.1 prison during the 1960s and No.1 prison was demolished leaving area for a oval and recreational facilities for the newly built prison and this prison had running cold water and toilet facilities in all cells. Under the oval was the facility that became known as the "black hole" where prisoners were subjected to "punishment". The "black hole" continued in use until the late '80s.

John Banks began working as a guard at Boggo Road in 1972. The prison closed in 1989, and most of Boggo Road’s buildings were demolished with the exception of division two. With the help of John Banks and two other former guards, the site became a museum in 1992. More than 20,000 visitors a year pass through the iron gates to see what prison life was like. Boggo Road’s most well-known inmate is also one of its most notorious. The local lore says this notorious criminal is still around—that he made a deal with the devil.

On September 22, 1913, Ernest Austin had the distinction of being the last prisoner hung in all of Queensland before capital punishment was abolished throughout Australia in 1922. Austin was sentenced to death for murdering an 11- year-old girl named Ivy Mitchell, who lived in the Samford section of northern Brisbane. Austin showed no remorse during his trial. When Austin got to the gallows, the official report said he announced his remorse and then was hung without incident. But there’s another version—one that may explain why Austin might still be hanging around.

The historical record actually tells a very different version of events. Far from being proud of his crime, Austin had tried to hang himself in the police watch-house, and had appeared resigned during his trial and imprisonment. His execution took place in front of several reporters and officials, and although there were some minor discrepancies in their reports on the event, they all told a very different story to the one above. His last words, no doubt under the influence of morphine, were reported in the Brisbane Courier as:

"I ask you all to forgive me. I ask the people of Samford to forgive me. I ask my mother to forgive me. May you all live long and die happy. God save the King! God save the King! God be with you all! Send a wire to my mother and tell her I died happy, won’t you. Yes tell her I died happy with no fear. Goodbye all! Goodbye all!"
(Brisbane Courier, 23 September 1913).

A similar account appeared in the Truth newspaper, this one reporting that “God save the King” were his actual last words. Did they lie? It could be claimed that this version of events was just part an official cover-up of the more-disturbing events on the gallows, as the authorities were trying to maintain public support for hanging and did not want the awful truth of what Austin had really said getting out.

However, the Courier and the Truth took opposing stands on capital punishment, so why write the same story? Surely it would have suited the anti-hanging propogandists at the Truth to print a story with Austin laughing at his executioners, showing the failure of the death sentence to impress any sense of repentance upon him. The angle they instead took was to to portray Austin as a 'feeble-minded degenerate', someone with a 'mental deficiency' who was raised in a home for neglected children and lived an institutionalised life that made a monster of him.

The headline proclaimed 'THE STATE SLAYS ITS OWN CREATION'. Blame for the crime was to be shared with the state, his Frankenstinian creators. In later years, Austin was to be re-created again, this time as a supernatural demon.

It is interesting that Austin is now said to haunt No.2 Division. Like all the other prisoners executed at Boggo Road, Austin was actually hanged in the original No.1 Division, which was demolished to make way for a newer No.1 Division in the early 1970s. The newer No.1 Division prison was demolished in the 1990s.

Jack Sim, local Brisbane historian, has been running Brisbane Ghost Tours since 1998. “The papers at the time reported he [Austin] was sorry for what he did,” Sim said. “But old-timers here reckon he laughed and said: ‘She loved it’—referring to his victim—‘she enjoyed it’—referring to the terrible act he perpetrated upon her—and ‘I would do it again if I could.’ “As the executioner released the trapdoors beneath his feet, the murderer began to laugh, all the way to the very end of the 13-foot rope. Even then he tried to force out one last little chuckle from between his lips. It was said that the laughter was often heard in the early mornings in the cellblocks.”

According to Sim, some of the locals believed part of Austin’s agreement with the devil was to gather more souls. This could be part of the reason for many Austin sightings around the prison. Sim said, “Ernest Austin was reported to torment the prisoners and guards for years after his death. The prison has what I would define as a haunted atmosphere. It definitely still has a feeling of human occupation, even though it’s been unused as a prison since 1992.”

One security feature of the prison was the peastone gravel placed all around the divisions. On quiet evenings it’s impossible to walk on the gravel without making a lot of crunching noise. Guards reported seeing darting shadows and other “ghosties” that their sleepy states seemed to induce. There is a long history at Boggo Road of guards avoiding the night shift in all possible ways. “There were some ‘screws,’ who would not do the night shifts,” Sim said. “When they were rostered onto night shifts, they would do anything to swap to a different night. Some of them appear on the rosters of the time, but they maintain that they actually didn’t show up; another officer took their place. One officer told me that a mate of his never once in 15 years as a guard here actually did night shift. On his record it says he did, as it does on his timesheets. But, a packet of tobacco slipped to the right person took care of the details.”

According to Sim, one documented ghost encounter occurred in 1970 when a prison officer saw what he referred to as a “big, white, shapeless mass” on top of the dividing wall of the exercise yard in the old number one division. This was in the early hours of the morning— the officer claimed the white mass slid off the wall and disappeared into the darkness. Sim said, “The spot where he saw the ‘ghost’ was just behind A Wing, where the gallows used to be. The prison officer asked for a transfer to Townsville Jail. Who could blame him? I’d have transferred from here too if I could have.” Although the exact number of prisoners who died at Boggo Road jail during its 106 years of operation is not exactly known, including account for executions, suicides, murders, disease, and natural causes, conservative estimates put the number of deaths in excess of 100.

Conditions were so bad at the prison that there were uprisings. From 1974 until 1985, prisoners insighted several riots. Clothing and furniture would be burned. The foam mattresses would be set ablaze until the foam melted into a boiling hot ooze of chemicals. The rioting inmates would fill tins with the hot substance and throw it at the guards. Banks said, “It’s most probably as bad as what it would be in the front line of a war. It’s a hell of an experience. People yelling and smashing and making noises.” Watching out for the living inmates was not the only thing a Boggo Road guard had to encounter.

The first time Banks heard about the ghosts at Boggo Road Gaol was shortly after he started working there in the 1970s. “We had officers here you’d have to relieve at 2:00 in the morning because they just didn’t want to be here,” Banks said. “They’d turn around and be white as a sheet and say, ‘I’ve seen a ghost.’ So you’d move him away from here and put him somewhere else. We’ve had officers here that have seen ghosts walk around. They’ll see a person walk by and they know quite well they’re the only one here.” The guard killed in 1966 has been spotted in the jail by guards and visitors alike.

Sim has spotted a specter on his ghost tours at Boggo Road. He said, “I’ve seen the ghost of a prison officer walking the grounds of number two division; there’s no doubt.” Some of the prisoners at Boggo Road Gaol appear to have an eternal life sentence. The old buildings, cells, and furniture speak to passersby of a rigid lifestyle where some prisoners were forced into submission, others into madness and suicide, and some were lucky enough to get out and on with their lives.

Sources :
The World’s Most Haunted Places by Jeff Belanger;
http://www.boggoroadgaol.com.au;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/boggo_road_gaol

Pic Source :
http://www.boggoroadjail.net/gatediv2.JPG

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Catacomb Museum of Paris

There is one Paris museum that’s as haunted as it is macabre. You won’t find it on the Champs-Elysees; in fact, you won’t find it above ground at all. To get to the Catacombs, you’ll be traveling more than 20 meters below the city streets in the Montparnasse section of Paris. Opened in the late 18th century, the underground cemetery became a tourist attraction on a small scale from the early 19th century, and has been open to the public on a regular basis from 1867. Following an incident of vandalism, they were closed to the public in September of 2009 and reopened 19 December of the same year. There are human bones stacked in the tunnels under the city—a lot of them. The Catacombs of Paris are a network of tunnels and caves that run for more than 300 kilometers under the city. To build a city, you need materials. The Romans were the first to quarry the limestone in the area in 60 B.C.E.; however, those quarries were the open-air kind—the Romans just dug out the rock that was exposed. As the city grew and covered the landscape, tunneling would be required to get more building materials.

In 1180 C.E., Philippe-Auguste became King. He was a major proponent of tunneling to quarry in order to build ramparts to protect the city, and it was under his rule that this tunnel network was truly born. The quarries grew in size and complexity and produced building materials for centuries to come. Quarrying continued with reckless abandon until problems began to arise. In the 18th century, the city of Paris (and the weight of its buildings) continued to grow as the ground became more hollow underneath. Some buildings began to collapse and fall into the earth that was opening up below them.

On April 4,1777, the Inspection Générale des Carrières was formed to manage, fill in, or close sections of the tunnels deemed dangerous. It was during the 18th century that a second problem arose for Parisians: The graveyards were getting full—very full. The Cimetière des Innocents (Cemetery of the Innocent) alone held more than 30 generations of human remains. The government had been searching for and consolidating long abandoned stone quarries in and around the capital since 1777, and it was the Police Lieutenant General overseeing the renovations, Alexandre Lenoir, who first had the idea to use empty underground tunnels on the outskirts of the capital to this end. His successor, Thiroux de Crosne, chose a place to the south of Paris' "porte d'Enfer" city gate (the place Denfert-Rochereau today), and the exhumation and transfer of all Paris' dead to the underground sepulture began in 1785, when the bones were moved to the underground network en masse, the quarries became the Catacombs.

Disturbing the dead is a bit of a universal taboo. It’s understood across many cultures that one should leave the dead alone, and many go through great care to perform rituals and ceremonies to see off their departed loved ones to the afterlife. However, the living will usually take precedence over the bodies of their kin who have passed on.

Located off the Denfert-Rochereau Metro stop, the Catacomb Museum exists to oversee the tunnels and bones, to teach the history of why the bones are there, and to provide the only means to visit the mortal remains of more than 1,000 years of Parisians. For €5 (euros), visitors can descend into the Catacombs. A spiral cement staircase leads visitors down 130 steps, to 20 meters below the surface. At the bottom of the stairs, there are two rooms full of photographs of ancient graffiti from within the Catacombs as well as some of the below-ground structures. After passing through the two small rooms, you’ll enter the actual Catacombs.

The ceiling of the tunnel is as low as 6 feet and as high as about 12 feet on average, though some sections have an almost cathedral-looking structure high above your head. The lighting is very low, but your eyes adjust. The limestone walls are tan in color and cool to the touch. The fine gravel under your feet crunches with each step, and the only other sound is an occasional drip-drip from somewhere in the tunnels. Parts of the ceiling collect water in an upside-down puddle, and when the water gets too heavy, it drips on an unsuspecting passerby or to the ground.

Along the walls there are dated carvings and graffiti spray-painted in French. The tunnel makes 90-degree right and left turns, and in this part of the Catacombs, the environment feels like a tunnel in the rock—nothing more. After a few more long tunnels, rights, and lefts, visitors will approach some painted pillars surrounding a narrow doorway. The sign on top reads: “Arrete! C’est ici L’Empire de la Mort”—”Stop! Here is the Empire of the Dead.”

Due to the difference in darkness between the two rooms, you can’t see what is in the tunnel beyond until you walk through. It’s a good idea to pause here for a moment before passing into the Ossuary of Denfert-Rochereaux, what lies on the other side is overwhelming. In a passage no more than 6 to 8 feet in width are stacks of human bones and skulls. At the doorway they are stacked about four feet high. The skulls greet those who enter with empty but powerful stares. All around you there is nothing but the ornate patterns of bones and skulls as far down the tunnel as light will allow you to see. Within the entire Catacombs, there are more than 6 million bodies stored— only bones now. Though some bones can be found in the Catacombs in other parts of Paris, most of the bones are housed in the 1.7-kilometer stretch that the Catacomb Museum manages.

In different sections, the skulls form patterns within the stacks of arm and leg bones. There are skull crosses, hearts, arcs, and other groupings. The stacking of bones is intricate, symmetrical, and very macabre. Dumping millions of human remains down a 20-meter hole is not very respectful of the dead. Perhaps the meticulous care in the arrangement of the remains was the workers’ way of trying to give some dignity and beauty to the deceased. In different lengths of tunnel, there are signs marking which cemetery the particular bones came from, along with the date they were placed. The process started in 1785, and the oldest year marked in the museum is 1859.

Though the movement of bones to the Catacombs wasn’t a nonstop process, for at least seven decades bones were being transferred below ground. The lights are very dim in the tunnels, and as your body blocks the sparse lighting, shadows dance around the bones. Water drips and echoes in the distance, and sounds carry as they bounce around the limestone walls. The skulls certainly add to the very supernatural mood.

In a cavern just before the exit stairway leading to a building on the rue Dareau (former 'rue des Catacombes') above, one could see an example of the Quarry Inspection's work in the rest of Paris' underground caverns: its roof is two 11-metre high domes of naturally degraded, but reinforced, rock; the dates painted into the highest point of each bear witness to what year the work to the collapsing cavern ceiling was done, and whether it has degraded since. These "fontis" were the reason for a general panic in late-18th-century Paris, after several houses and roadways collapsed into previously unknown caverns below.

Near the end of your Catacomb tour, it’s worth reminding yourself that these people all had names. Every one of them was a person. Those 6 million people sacrificed their eternal resting ground so the city of Paris could grow and thrive. Noblemen’s bones are intertwined with peasants, families’ skeletal remains may be crushed with their ancestors’ bones, and visitors walk through all of it. There are 30 generations speaking to each passerby, forced into a single collective voice. If you listen closely, you may just hear some of those voices.

Sources :
The World’s Most haunted Places by Jeff Belanger;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catacombs_of_Paris

Pic Source :
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Catacombes_de_Paris.JPG

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