The Richmond Vampire (also called locally the Hollywood Vampire) is a recent urban legend from Richmond, Virginia .
8-490: 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
16-532: Is adjacent to Virginia Commonwealth University , the story became popular among students, especially from the 1980s onward. It was first mentioned in print in the student newspaper Commonwealth Times in 1976. 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
24-399: 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
32-481: The story showed up online in 2001 and was first reported in print in 2007 in Haunted Richmond: The Shadows of Shockoe . 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
40-513: 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. 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". William Wortham Pool William Wortham Pool (April 1842 – February 1922)
48-619: 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,
56-660: Was a clerk in a tobacco factory in Manchester , in 1870. In 1880 and 1900, he was a bookkeeper. He was working as a private secretary in 1910; then as a bookkeeper again in 1920 in Richmond. In c. 1866, he and Alice Purdue (December 1842–Feb. 6, 1913) were married. They had four children, Lawrence P. Pool (c. 1867–?); Annie W. Pool (October 1872–?); Samuel Pool (March 1875–?); and Mary L. Pool (July 1881–?). His wife and children were all born in Virginia. William W. Pool died at age 80. He
64-594: Was an American bookkeeper . His name and burial site are associated with the Richmond Vampire . He was born in Mississippi , the son of Samuel Pool (1806–1872) and Nancy Rose Wortham (1819–1873). His siblings were John R. Pool (1840–?); Thomas Pool (1844–?); Albert Pool (1847–?); and Dirdus Pool (1850–?). His father was a merchant and, in 1860, William was a clerk in Jackson . In the 1860s, Pool moved to Virginia . He
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