The Richmond Vampire (also called locally the Hollywood Vampire) is a recent urban legend from Richmond, Virginia.
Local residents claim that the mausoleum of W. W. Pool (Dated 1913) in Hollywood Cemetery holds the remains of a vampire. Supposedly Pool was run out of England in the 19th century for being a vampire. Oral legends to this effect were circulating by the 1960s. They may be influenced by the architecture of the tomb, which has both Masonic and ancient Egyptian elements, and double Ws looking like fangs. Because this cemetery is adjacent to Virginia Commonwealth University, the story became popular among students, especially from the 1980s onward. [1] It was first mentioned in print in the student newspaper Commonwealth Times in 1976. [2]
Since 2001, the vampire story has been combined with the collapse of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad's Church Hill Tunnel under Church Hill, a neighborhood of eastern Richmond, Virginia, which buried several workers on Friday, October 2, 1925. This part of the story showed up online in 2001 and was first reported in print in 2007 in Haunted Richmond: The Shadows of Shockoe. [3]
According to this newer story, the tunneling awakened an ancient evil that lived under Church Hill and brought the tunnel crashing down on the workers. Rescue teams found an unearthly blood-covered creature with jagged teeth and skin hanging from its muscular body crouching over one of the victims. The creature escaped from the cave-in and raced toward the James River. Pursued by a group of men, the creature took refuge in Hollywood Cemetery (2.2 miles away), where it disappeared in a mausoleum built into a hillside bearing the name W. W. Pool.
According to Gregory Maitland, an urban legend and folklore researcher with the paranormal research groups Night Shift and the Virginia Ghosts & Haunting Research Society, the "creature" that escaped the tunnel collapse was actually the 28-year-old railroad fireman, Benjamin F. Mosby (1896-1925), who had been shoveling coal into the firebox of a steam locomotive of a work train with no shirt on when the cave-in occurred and the boiler ruptured. Mosby's upper body was horribly scalded and several of his teeth were broken before he made his way through the opening of the tunnel. Witnesses reported he was in shock and layers of his skin were hanging from his body. He died later at Grace Hospital and was buried at Hollywood Cemetery. [4] [5] [6]
Contemporary written records do not include any of these alleged details. Mosby's obituary simply says that he "was fatally scalded when the C. & O. tunnel under Jefferson Park caved in" and died "Friday night at 11:40 o'clock at Grace Hospital".
Hollywood Cemetery is a historic rural cemetery located at 412 South Cherry Street in the Oregon Hill neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. It was established in 1847 and designed by the landscape architect John Notman. It is 135-acres in size and overlooks the James River. It is one of three places in the United States that contains the burials of two U.S. Presidents, the others being Arlington National Cemetery and United First Parish Church.
Oregon Hill is a historic working-class neighborhood in Richmond, Virginia. Oregon Hill overlooks the James River and Belle Isle, and provides access to Hollywood Cemetery. Due to the neighborhood's proximity to the Monroe Park Campus of Virginia Commonwealth University, the neighborhood is sometimes referred to as a student quarter because of its high college student population.
The Greater Richmond, Virginia area has many neighborhoods and districts.
Alden Peterson Aaroe was a broadcast journalist and announcer for WRVA, a radio station in Richmond, Virginia.
Shockoe Hill is one of several hills on which much of the oldest portion of the City of Richmond, Virginia, U.S., was built. It extends from the downtown area, including where the Virginia State Capitol complex sits, north almost a mile to a point where the hill falls off sharply to the winding path of Shockoe Creek. Interstate 95 now bisects the hill, separating the highly urbanized downtown portion from the more residential northern portion.
Richmond National Cemetery is a United States National Cemetery three miles (4.8 km) east of Richmond in Henrico County, Virginia. Administered by the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, it encompasses 9.7 acres (3.9 ha), and as of 2021 had more than 11,000 interments. It is closed to new interments. Richmond National Cemetery was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.
Church Hill Tunnel is an old Chesapeake and Ohio Railway (C&O) tunnel, built in the early 1870s, which extends approximately 4,000 feet under the Church Hill district of Richmond, Virginia, United States. On October 2, 1925, the tunnel collapsed on a work train, killing four men and trapping a steam locomotive and ten flat cars. Rescue efforts only resulted in further collapse, and the tunnel was eventually sealed for safety reasons.
Shockoe Bottom historically known as Shockoe Valley, is an area in Richmond, Virginia, just east of downtown, along the James River. Located between Shockoe Hill and Church Hill, Shockoe Bottom contains much of the land included in Colonel William Mayo's 1737 plan of Richmond, making it one of the city's oldest neighborhoods.
Richmond, Virginia, served as the capital of the Confederate States of America during the American Civil War from May 8, 1861, before that date the capital had been Montgomery, Alabama. Besides its political status, it was a vital source of weapons and supplies for the war effort, as well as the terminus of five railroads, and as such would have been defended by the Confederate States Army at all costs.
Oakwood Cemetery is a large, city-owned burial ground in the East End of Richmond, Virginia. It holds over 48,000 graves, including many soldiers from the Civil War.
William Wortham Pool was an American bookkeeper. His name and burial site are associated with the Richmond Vampire.
The Shockoe Hill Cemetery is a historic cemetery located on Shockoe Hill in Richmond, Virginia.
The Chestnut Hill–Plateau Historic District is a historic area in the Highland Park neighborhood of Richmond, Virginia. It is also known as 'Highland Park Southern Tip' on city neighborhood maps.
The Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground was established by the city of Richmond, Virginia, for the interment of free people of color, and the enslaved. The heart of this now invisible burying ground is located at 1305 N 5th St.
The Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground, or known historically as the "Burial Ground for Negroes" and the "old Powder Magazine ground", is the older of two municipal burial grounds established for the interment of free people of color and the enslaved in the city of Richmond, Virginia. It is located at 1554 E Broad St., across from the site of Lumpkin's Jail, in Shockoe Bottom. The area now known as Shockoe Bottom, was historically known as Shockoe Valley. Richmond's second African Burial Ground, called the Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground is the larger of the two burial grounds, and is located a mile and a half away at 1305 N 5th St, on Shockoe Hill.
The Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District, located in the city of Richmond, Virginia, is a significant example of a municipal almshouse-public hospital-cemetery complex of the sort that arose in the period of the New Republic following disestablishment of the Anglican Church. The District illustrates changing social and racial relationships in Richmond through the New Republic, Antebellum, Civil War, Reconstruction, and Jim Crow/Lost Cause eras of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. The Shockoe Hill Burying Ground Historic District occupies 43 acres (17 ha) of land bounded to the south by E. Bates Street, to the north by the northern limit of the Virginia Passenger Rail Authority right-of-way at the southern margin of the Bacon's Quarter Branch valley, to the west by 2nd Street, and to the east by the historic edge of the City property at the former location of Shockoe Creek. The District encompasses most of a 28.5-acre (11.5 ha) tract acquired by the city of Richmond in 1799 to fulfill several municipal functions, along with later additions to this original tract.
The city of Richmond, Virginia has two African Burial Grounds, the "Shockoe Bottom African Burial Ground", and the "Shockoe Hill African Burying Ground". Additionally the city is home to several other important and historic African American cemeteries.