Our Texas Tramp Continued...


After our drive through hot and dry Toyah, Texas...we headed to the Texas coast...Galveston!

Road recliner

Way too many hours later we made it to Galveston Island.

First, a walk on the beach!

On with the tramping!

Well, sort of.  We had to cut our trip short due to an emergency, but we will return to FULLY investigate the many locations on the island.  We hope to bring new equipment for this hunt and will keep you updated as soon as it happens.  For now, a bit of history about the area and the one location we managed to visit.

Being a native of the Galveston area and a descendant of German immigrants who settled on the island, I wanted to include a bit of history about the island itself.  Galveston is a haunted place with a rich and sometimes rather dark, painful history.

This is Stewart Mansion, our only tramp site on this visit.  It was built after the famous 1900 Storm hit Galveston.

The 1900 storm was a massive hurricane that wiped out most of the island and killed up to 10,000 people.  One of which was a distant family member.

More on the 1900 storm in a later blog.

We feel it is important to share the lands history, as we believe that often times the land is loaded with energy from past events creating haunted land.  When homes or structures are built on haunted land, those homes and structures can potentially contain and hold those energies; creating a haunted location.  People need not die "inside a home" to haunt a location.  Many died here prior to the home being built.  There were battles with the Karankawa Indians between the Spanish, French and English, as well as violence between  settlers, pirates and military.  on this tr. Much blood was spilled on this lush, Tropical land.  Bodies are buried on the land in unmarked graves.

Add to this haunted mix a massive hurricane in 1900 with 10,000 suddenly dead, well...one can imagine. It is also important to mention that the 1900 storm killed so many that there was no "land" to bury the dead.  The island was cut off from the mainland and they had no rescue or help.  The towns people and family members had to stack bodies on rafts, which were set on fire and pushed out into the gulf, burning in a tragic blaze of release.  All of those remains sank to the bottom of the gulf.  This island is so charged with spirit energy, some nights when a fog rolls in you can actually feel and hear their echos.  This land was and remains an active paranormal location.

Native American History

Prior to settlers descending on the island this was Native American land, home to the Karankawa and Akokisa bands.  There are reports of the Karankawa Indians being cannibals, however historians believe they were mistaken for another coastal tribe who did eat their enemies.  Reports on record disclose that explorers never experienced or witnessed cannibalism by the Karankawas.  When the first European explorers arrived in 1528 they met the local tribes.  Then Spanish explorer Cabeza de Vaca was shipwrecked on the Island and lived with the Karankawas as a medicine man and a slave.  He noted the natives to be tall (over 6 feet tall), tattooed, pierced and painted.  The Karankawas were good fighters when they had to be, overall friendly, living off of the sea.  It is unfortunate that they were forced to fight, as all Native American tribes, in order to keep their home land.  It is sad that they were murdered and mistreated by Spanish, French and English groups ultimately forced off of their land.  Explorers also brought infectious diseases that killed and weakened the natives.  By the 1860's the Karankawa's lost their precious land and little is known of them.  Some bands still exist along the gulf coast, but they are far and few between

Meeting the Spanish

In the late 1600's, French explorer Robert Cavelier La Salle claimed the area (now Galveston) for King Louis and named it St. Louis.  In the 1780's a Spanish Colonial Governor and general by the name of Bernardo d Galvez, sent Jose de Evia to chart the Gulf of Mexico. On July 23, 1786 de Evia charted the bays of the area and named the water way Galveston Bay (after the Governor) and soon the island and city took the name.  Galvez died that same year and never saw the Island named after him.  Even though the island had a new name, many Spanish explorers called Galveston "snake island."

Bernardo d Galvez,

Galveston was more of a coastal prairie in the 1800's.  Supposedly, the first house built on the Island was built by J. A. Settle in 1846 near the vicinity of the Stewart Mansion location.  Yards away lived famed pirate Jean Lafitte at what he called his "kingdom" named Campeche.

Pirate Jean Lafitte

Lafitte's camp site.

Lafitte's treasure is buried somewhere on the west end of the island but has never been found.

On the piece of land where the old mansion now stands was also the site of the first home built on the island in 1846 by  J. A. Settle.  The home was bought by Colonel Warren D.C. Hall in 1851.  Jean Lafitte was on the island and his camp was a short boat ride to Hall's home.  There are unsubstantiated stories that say Lafitte would take a boat and come down the bayou to visit with Hall....hmmm tea with a pirate? 

For a short while I lived a block away from the Stewart Mansion and Jean Lafitte's old camp site.  I would take walks and pass by the locations, feeling the energies and seeing glimpses into the past, all the while wondering "Where in the hell is that treasure buried?"

Back to the mansion....

The land and home have gone through several owners prior to the Stewart's.  The mansion was built in 1926 as a West End retreat for the family of George Sealy Jr., a famous industrialist and infamous union-buster. He commissioned the Spanish Colonial Revival style mansion which overlooks Lake Como.  In 1944, Maco Stewart, founder of Stewart Title Co., a man who made his fortune in insurance, banking and war bought the 8,200 square-foot Spanish Colonial mansion as his resort home.

The mansion changed hands again in 1944 when Stewart’s widow, Louise Bisbey Stewart and her son Maco Stewart Jr. donated the residence to the University of Texas Medical Branch where it was used for a number of years as a convalescent home for crippled children. In 1968 George Mitchell and Norman Dobbins purchased the house and 15 acres with the intention of developing the property into a resort complete with lodge, swimming, tennis and golf, but nothing happened. The mansion property is now owned by Stonehenge Real Estate Investment Company in Houston. I recently read the Mansion is going to be renovated, which is a relief as first news was that it was going to be destroyed and turned into condos.

When we pulled up at the mansion we were met with this "posted" sign.  In Texas we take no trespassing signs seriously, as you may be met with the barrel of a shotgun...which this sign made very clear....lol.

As much as we wanted to go in, we did not.  I had to search the internet for a few photos of the interior...which is amazing.  The mansion's walls are covered with murals of pirates and hand painted ceramic tiles tell the story of the Spanish Conquest, as Galveston was under the control of Spain.

A creepy cool place with tons of history!

We give the Stewart Mansion and Pirate Jean Lafitte's old camp site a ghost rating!

In the same area as the mansion and pirate camp, off the main road is a strange house I grew up seeing called the "Kettle House."  This odd, steel home was built in the 1950's by a man who used to build 

storage tanks for oil companies.  No one has ever lived in the house.  When I lived in the area I heard the builder had intended living in it, but could never meet the code requirements due to the structure not being on stilts or elevated due to the hurricanes and floods.  However, this odd little metal home has been standing and will hopefully remain standing.  Improvements have been made over the years to prevent it from being town down, but other than that it is empty.  Now, it is an icon on the island.

This is a small taste of Galveston.  Like we said....more to come!