The Richmond Vampire
When you think of vampires, we’re sure that images of transylvania, gloomy dark castles, and maybe New Orleans cross your mind. We are betting Richmond, Virginia, just a few hours outside of Washington, DC, does not. But maybe it should…because the Richmond Vampire is a legend that lives on (and even crosses over with one of our very first episodes: Celebrity Cemetery).
You’ve heard of the Hollywood Forever Cemetery, but did you know Richmond had its very own Hollywood Cemetery (no relation). In this cemetery lies a century-old mausoleum that is said to hold the remains of a vampire. The mausoleum belongs to W.W. Pool. It’s no surprise why this mausoleum garnered so much attention. In addition to being large, it is also riddled with symbolic design. Egyptian and masonic designs litter the design, and some claim that symbols with unknown origin represent the fangs of a vampire.
But who was W.W. Pool? We don’t know much about him. Despite the building being sealed, there is no birth date or death date inscribed anywhere visible on the monument. There is the year his wife died, 1913, but that is it.
Near the graveyard, and Pool’s potential final resting place, is the cursed Church Hill Tunnel which has witnessed tragedies since the 1800s. Its soft soil was known for causing cave-ins and flooding and other work-related disasters. But, if you believe any of this at all, it was also Pool’s preferred hunting ground.
On October 2nd, 1925 there was an enormous disaster. Tons and tons of rock and soil crashed down on a work train, trapping and injuring laborers. Just after the accident, as good folk were running toward the accident to help, there was...something else running. Eyewitnesses claim to see a creature running out of the ruined tunnel. A human-like, tall being with fangs and rolls of decomposing flesh loosening from it's body. Before anyone could grab it, it disappeared in Pool's mausoleum.
But no one can quite agree on what happened next. Here are some of the tales:
People gave chase and froze in front of the mausoleum because an inhuman shrieking came from within.
Some say men tried to follow the creature in but the tomb was impossibly sealed.
Another tale alleges that the men got into the tomb just in time to see a coffin seal itself shut. They could (presumably) not break into the coffin.
No one pursued the creature and were more focused on helping the injured.
But why cause a disaster? Well some believe that the tunnels, which were previously abandoned in the early 20th century, had been his favorite hunting grounds and he was mad at it being in active use again.
While legend claims that W.W. Pool was an alias and the true vampire, who claimed the identity had been run out of England, was masquerading as a normal person. However, research does take that more fun story away from it. His full name was William Wortham Pool and he was born in Mississippi in 1847. He moved to Virginia to work as a clerk in a tobacco factory, and took on other office jobs as a secretary and bookkeeper. Eventually, he became a trusted, well-admired accountant. He married his wife in 1866, Alice, and they would go on to have four children. Despite no markings on the mausoleum, we do know when he died: 1922, of pneumonia.
However, he did have an outrageously elaborate funeral and, obviously, his mausoleum unique to say the least.
The legend would be murmured for decades, but really found its legs in the 1960s and 1970s with rumors that satanic cults would hold rituals in the mausoleum. However, like many of those rumors no actual proof of that was ever discovered.
You can still visit his mausoleum today, but the train tunnel has been closed up since 1926 so dice on meeting Pool again on his alleged hunting grounds.
Thanks to Mark from Toano for this blogstonishing suggestion!
The above image depicts William Wortham Pool's grave in Hollywood Cemetery. Taken by RVA all day. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license.
