(
I II I 1
V 1 : .-.-.vs.
Yv v -IK
111 !svAS:r ""fT- ; I III
111 kf 'V 1 111-
Ill rr- i,- 1 1'.. " l 1 x " 111 ANt-
ill y
I III I - - 111. Mmt. .Ul 'U
By Earl C. Brownlee .
'A "WFUXi silences, punctuated only
by measured footbeats of ghostly
occupants -who play , upon creaking- '
stairways; dark corners and queer
rooms lighted only - by the meagrer
sunshine that filters through cracks
In boards at broken wlndows;plaster,
and brick crumbled away, to ex
pose the" frail skeleton of construe-
Hon; a gTim old tower standine sen- -tinel
In the . winds ; like a. for-
bidding 'fortress on 'the ' terraced '
banks of 'the ajred Rhine this la
Mount Gleall castle, - Portland's
specter house.
. In the nearly 30 - years It has
been . surveying- -the " broad valley
from ita eminence several hundred
feet above the level of the city,1 the
-haunted" castle ' has been the
shrine of false hope and. the scene
and . setting , of an - Imaginative
drama that, would outdo the most",
weird of - Poe's fantasies. - : And !.
about It all a dizzy . whirl of hu
man affairs- has - woven a mantle
of romance , and a,3 shroud of pa
thos. " -
From which is derived the ques
tion, logical in these days of wide
spread belief in-the supernatural: .
"Do spirit con tro Is of, the
builder of Mount Gleall castle, en
. vioua of those who encroach upon
his domain, , Inhabit , the specter .
house to haunt his successors to' the :
privacies thereof?
. ; ' 1 l
The history of Mount Gleall cas
tle dates from the happy day of its '
conception, back in 1892,' in i the
mind of its idealistic dreaming,
philosophizing ppet- builder. C, H.
Piggott. Through the human storms -and
stresses oti 30 years the gaunt
old castle - has - been one of ? the
quaintest objects to which Portland
has directed the sightseer. I .
"That,' Portland folk always say, ,
"Is the haunted castle." Such is
thum.of their knowledge about
THE
-
the odd - structure that -overlooks
the city from a commanding place
above the 'southern terminus of
Broadway. ;" But why "haunted" ?
.Is it the fact . that ' stories of the
resounding footsteps '.upon its stairs
have reached the ears of the army
that delights in ghost stories? . Is
it t the fact that its .doors, mysteri
ously ' slammed to interrupt the '
slumbers of innocent' occupants,',
have echoed their weird noises over
the city?; ; ' - ; .
Amid, the appalling silences . of ,
that hillside site ; have ' been . many
sounds of mystery and more than
one inexplicable phenomenon.
-,- -. ,. -.
" " It is reported by Mr. Piggottthat
a picture taken of the castle and
' its. surroundings ? years- ago .'re- ;
vealed within . the forested . slopes '
about the; structure,- perfect ; like
nesses of Queen Victoria; an Indian
brave and another strange charac
ter. " Surely the queen was not on '
hand for the occasion, yet' Aer pres
ence there, a, photographic falsifi
cation, - has enhanced the "strange -history
of Mount GlealL ' i
" : The castle, :: product of dreams,
was built by Mr. Piggott in 1892 :
to satisfy his desire for' something
"entirely Vdifferent" on a view site
second to none in the city.- He per
sonally designed the structure, after
ideas gained in reading history,
- and worked always with a thought ".
to. his . "view' .and the complete.
t elimination of long stretches, .of
; unbroken wall space. The-, result
is a highly peculiar arrangement of
rooms and windows and many un
shapely jogs. and angles.-
The castle is not accessible. That .
fact brought about its desertion, by
the builder, who had hoped for a
cable line on the terraces about it.
Then cam the panic of 1893. and
the Plggott fortune of approxi
mately $100,000 was swept Into the
vortex ' of - disaster. . The castle,
which . cost -its builder $12,000,' in
OREGON SUNDAY. - JOURNAL, PORTLAND, SUNDAY
5
. spite of the ' fact that The? supplied ;
, its bricks from a yard" he' owned,
went with the rest of it.
''i "That is merely a detail. : Plggott :
built -according - to -ills "heart's de
sire. .He had . view, comfort, room . ,
and quiet -as he desired.'The three
little folk v in the family Gladys, ,
Earl - and Lloyd had 1 their v own -:
certain parts in the, house - over
which v the poetic'' lawyer -and v his
wife presided. . From' the names of
his three 'children; Piggott derived -a
name for his "castle, taking the
first, two letters from vthename of
each child to;form "Gleall.-
' But there ' was ' one spot f rom
which the world-was barred. It
was 'Jthp tower v of silence," . that
little round room atop the castle, -.with
s quaint - windows to overlook '
- mile upon mile i of - valley, - north,
south and east.
' 7 "The tower ;of silence,", Plggott
explains, ' ,"was - my sanctum ' sanc
torum. - and- until il was - forced to
forego the delight of living in j the
castle, no .woman's foot ever trod .
the floor of that .room- and no ;,
woman's eye glimpsed the beau- -ties
that .might be : seen from ..its
little windows. . There I dreamed
my dreams alone, away from
everyone - and ' everything. - There .
ray- verses were - fashioned- until ,
. literature . proved, poor; stuff to fill .
the larder with and there I found
. the true philosophy of a careless, ,
free and .happy life." .
' . " ' i i' m ' , -
,;: - -
But Mr. Piggott .has not told all .
(he story, perhaps.. His "sanctum
sanctorum" was - in the thirteenth
room in the castle a spark to in
; spire the imagination of believers
in."- the' supernatural, who ; insist "
upon the presence -of ghosts. . -
. - Through those 13 rooms word-of-mouth
- fiction- has it, echoed the ;
tread of mysterious footsteps in the
silent hours of the night. Into the
shadowed - corners - - of - those - 13
ISii : 11 o i
SWT 1 V ; ,: 1 .' ,-: t. . IS. ST V VVi'4
9 .f
i
,
rooms came din of doors slammed -when
every ' human hand in the
habitation was. stilled - by sleep. ,
Into the 13 rooms came the clatter -of
rattled window glass when the
night air was as still as the breath
ing of a slumbering babe. -
, ' "While : I lived In the house,"
Piggojt declares, "there- was never
a ' hint of a spirit. Z am sure of
that.' -
- - "But I am not so sure of what
came afterward," says this inter
esting man, now denied the com-.
forts, of his once luxurious home.
"My long study of the psychic
-and - the phenomena of spiritism
convinces me that my own . spirit
, controls , inhabit the castle I
dreamed into being, so those who
are reaping the benefits, ' In spite
of .the fact that they have my own :
sincere good will, shall be discom
forted. I believe my spirit gnard-
' ians - are making the house - their
own." - , -
, ' : - . . -But
most folk will accept as en-
v tertaining the grim and ghostly
yarns woven about the "haunted"
. castle and -will ' pass them lightly -,
on as the stuff fiction is made of. '
The game of , ghost hunting- will '
not be taken seriously by the mass
es and, -perforce, is more or less a .
light subject in its connection with
Mount Gleall . castle. - The present
' owner, C. "W." Embody,; a Portland
lumber man, and present' and past
occupants of the castle, will not at
test to the presence of "spirits
ghosts are in the imagination - of
timorous folk.
- Several years ago an artist with
ambition - and a rare nerve essayed
an analysis of ' the weird sounds
that, invaded the nooks and corners
. of - the castle. He established his
- studio "there and worked -diligently
for many months between his art
and a casual study of his ghostly
companions. .
- This man found the ' source , of
those-,' mysterious, pattering steps
upon the narrow stairway of the
castle. , He traced the mystery to
its source and discovered- the
echoed puff-puff of switch engines
In the Alblna railroad yards miles
across the . city, but, nevertheless,
uninterruptedly wafted to this lofty
dream castle. When - the -engines
stopped their puffing the footsteps
on the stairs stopped their pattering-.
, ' -
Doors slammed their merciless
fright into the hearts of timid via.
MORNING, JUNE 27,
Z? Mount Gleatt specter house,
relic of vanished hope,
: dominated by the ghostly
h fms.
V- l ,".iTv.-,'
itors doors that . were but .play
things in the hands of the winds
- that . swept the mountain forests
where the castle clings perilously.
Floors creaked . their . thrilling,
chilling refrain upon the midnight
air floors that - creak the livelong
day -unnoticed and at night, when
the stillness is appalling, sound like
thunderbolts. ? Floors always creak,
of course.
Mild, cooling- summer breezes
. touched lightly on the hillside and
bounded back from that Impreg
nable - barrier to the windows of
Gleall castle and the glass rattled
gently as the breezes struck- it
though the air outside might hard
ly wave a twig upon the towering
firs. .
- The "spirit" bubble bursts under
the ' light of the artist's study.
There's no 'ghost story after all. '
But . what a thrilling yarn Poe
might have made from' the mere
supposition of spirits! What thrill
ing scenes might have been enacted
in the "tower of silence"; what a
house of Usher he could have made
of Mount Gleall castle, that , he
might undo his work again in an
other tale like "The Fall of r the
'House of. Usher"! ,
-
: Castles come 'and 50 in fiction
and in . fact; fortunes are easy to
gain and easier to lose; ghosts ap
pear on the wings of midnight and
vanish with the dawn, but the
dreamer who built the "haunted',
castle, inspiration for many a Portland-told
ghost -story, sums it all
up in his quaintly philosophic way
by saying:
"Life is just one darn thing after
another, multiplied by five," where
in . he amends the older form - of
the expression by his multiple. -,
Mount Gleall castle, as far as its
; builder was concerned, was-. the
' "house of disappointment" in many
ways, though he still firmly believes
that his dream house qn 'the hill
was his master conception, a poem
in architecture and comfort, a cre
ation " that - would : bave been his
greatest satisfaction If affairs be
yond his control had not twisted
and- warped in; the scheme' of
' things.
"If" is the 'word. "IV the, car
line had been built. ' "If" Plggott
had not been-swept into the mael
strom of the great panic. ."If" the
grocer had not been mercenary and
demanded tribute for delivery over
unusually J trying grades from the
streets of : the city to : the : hillside
castle, " "If" the hand of fate hadn't
taken the . lyre from the hands of
the poet-builder and put him at a
littered legal desk to seek his live
lihood in that more profitable pur
suit. - The castle is a monument' to
"if." -.
There are no ghosts at Gleall
castle. Yet there is greater wonder
in the - appeal the place has for
1920.
guardians of its
those who can find the time and
the energy to live so high and so
aggravatingly distant from the cor
ner store. - There is a view from the
front rooms of the quaint old cas
tle that is said, to be unequaled a
view that : encompasses the entire
area of Portland, with three great
snow-capped peaks in the back
ground; with the bustling city a
playground of little people at its -feet.
After Piggott had deserted his
dream castle, where he fashioned
poems of sometimes more than
passing merit, ; to labor upon a
more Jowly level as a lawyer, the
castle was rented to Judge Nat
Bloomfield. The - judge found no
ghosts.
During only brief periods has the
castle been uninhabited, . despite
public opinion to the .contrary, and
even now, although its upper rooms
are empty and their - windows
boarded up, the lower, floor is the
happy home of a .frugal ' family.
The castle's tattered walls bear ''
lasting evidence of the old struc- '
ture'a place' as a land mark and as -
'an object of the interest of. sight
leers who have written ' upon al
most every available inch of its un
protected interior their names and
addresses and the dates of their
visits. . . '
- Children, ' never really welcome
as. intruders in such a-place, -have
defiled the walls and woodwork
' with their pencils, nails and knives
and from the tin roof of the tower
to the door casings travelers have
added their marks. . The centers of
the earth and the corners thereof
- have ; sent their residents to ' see
Portland's castle and to leave their,
marks upon its walls, i ; . - , ,
All of this has. been done during
those brief periods when the house -.
has been .vacant and at the 'mercy r
of intruders. Nowadays one must ,
pass a suspecting little woman who
keeps her family together there in. ;
order to - see the ' interior ; of the
castle. If she doesn't exact a fee of :
10 cents or a quarter, it is" only; be
cause her visitors are' better talk
ers than she is.
- The old castle hangs upon a pre
cipitous ' slope ' from which ' one
;" might, almost in one leap, alight in
the center of " Broadway at - its
southern end. - It can be reached
by the pedestrian only when he is
willing" to ascend Portland heights
and approach the place from the
rear- or 1 wind up a narrow, ' steep
trail- leading off from Terwilllger
boulevard or climb the - long flight
of stairs, from Broadway up the
- trying grade to the hillside home.
" .Once in Its .tower of silence, how
ever, the climber is bountifully re
paid by the view he may obtain of
the city and Its great valley. There
is no end to the novelty of the per
spective, and when that fact is
mixed with the contemplation ofL
the castle's history and the fiction
- - ' ft
- ril
1 r-
r
:.
If:
tr -
V r -
. that has been built up between the
lines of that history, there. Is inter-
est enough in the place for anyone.
. - Armed with a camera,, there are
many subjects for the amateur
about the old castle, but a direct
front view of the structure, show
ing Its most Interesting angles, is,
not obtainable from any available
vantage point short of an airplane
soaring In front of the place. ,
, . The castle is marred and scarred
by time,"" but it is all there the
romantic old-world gallery over its
front entrance is Just as great a
novelty in this ultra-modern age
as if it had been transported direct
from the Rhine.- ,
- . r