Night Time Carriage Ride

TGIF my friends!

While we were in Marshall, MI for

our 10th wedding anniversary,

we decided to go on a horse drawn carriage ride.

Our driver picked us up from the restaurant

and once the tour was done brought us back

to the inn we stayed at.

The evening was a nice one!

I forgot to take a picture of said horse and driver.

What was I thinking????

It was a 2 1/2 hour ride.

He took us around the old section of town.

This house reminded me of the Addams Family house.

This magnificent home once housed

 the town jail in the basement.

Was told the current owner just replaced the pillars.

Each costing $25,000.00.

YIKES! 

The jail cells are still in the basement too.

I do not remember the history of this one.

So sorry.

This one the original owners practiced

black magic and killed their groundskeeper.

They say his ghost still is seen on the grounds

on certain evenings.  

Our first capital building was in Detroit 

when Michigan was admitted to the US.

After one of the wars with the French,

they decided to move the capital more inland.

Marshall, Michigan and Lansing, Michigan

were the two contenders for the spot.

A local congressman who lived in Marshall

had this home built for the future governor,

as he was sure the capital would be moved

to his town.

As luck would have it, the voters chose Lansing,

because the land was more cheaper than Marshall.

So here sits a governor's mansion which was never used.

It is currently just used for tours now.

Our tour took us into the local cemetery

just before dark.

We were told these monuments were those

men who belonged to the Mason's.

{the tall one in the middle}

We saw them everywhere in this cemetery.

Even at home now 

I see these monuments in our local cemetery.

Now this is a sad story.

Sometime in the 1800's a witch was hung in this

cemetery plot.

Before they hung her though,

they built the entire exterior 

of this burial plot out of stone 

to look like wood logs.

They even built a tree trunk

 out of stone in the middle.

A stone chair was also built in the back.

A real tree was in the middle of this plot,

and once they hung the woman,

the townsfolk cut the tree down,

 buried her and placed the stone tree trunk

on top of her grave.

At the time they felt if she was amongst wood,

 she would be able to escape.

So sad.

I thought the carving on this headstone

was amazing, so I took this pic.

Finally we came to this site.

The fireflies were just starting to come out

and it was a bit magical.

Bob asked if this area was for more graves

in the future.

Our tour guide said it was Potter's Field,

and it was full of graves.

Marshall was both a stagecoach stop as

well as a railroad stop.

Sometimes folks passed away on a trip.

If they did not know who they were,

they were buried here in their Potter's Field.

Lots of history in this town

and we loved our visit!

Again so sorry for not taking pics

of our horse, carriage and tour guide.

It was an open carriage.

This was a ghost tour carriage ride.

It was interesting hearing the ghost stories....

and we saw no ghosts.

They do carriage Christmas rides

that visit all of the mansions 

all decked out for Christmas too!

Carriage Ride Blessings To All!