Arrow Rock

Arrow Rock is another place so rich in history one doesn’t know where to begin. With settlement beginning in 1815, it became a flourishing commercial port with a stable population of 1,000 , augmented each year by thousands of travelers and river workers. Famous residents have included the painter George Caleb Bingham and Dr. John Sappington, whose research was vital in conquering malaria. Arrow Rock also raised Missouri three state governors.

The town has now shrunk to include only about 70 residents, but its charm still attracts thousands of visitors each year. The Lyceum Theater, its repertory theater, is active every summer and the town teems with craft shows, festivals and historical tours. With antique shops, excellent restaurants and several bed and breakfasts, Arrow Rock is always in the process of doing more restoration. Naturally, this is a place ghosts cannot resist.

A favorite spot apparently is The Old Tavern, built in the early 1830s by slaves working for a Virginian named John Huston. The tavern still operates as a fine restaurant. The Old Tavern’s present manager, Bunny Thomas, has lived there for four years and says, "I love it, and have never been afraid, but some people won’t go upstairs." Her daughter, she says, would never stay in the building alone at night and a teenager who mopped the floors for them quit, saying that when every other room was empty and he was in the kitchen, he could hear eating and talking in the dining room. He even heard his own named called out.

Bunny has heard her name called out too, from the front when she’s in the kitchen and vice versa. Once, she says, she was greeted as she came through the swinging door into an empty dining room, by a male voice saying in flirtatious tones, "Well, hello there!"

Her most memorable experiences, though, came in 1981, when she worked as floor manager and was given an upstairs apartment to live in. The very first night she saw smoke in her bedroom and went downstairs in panic, only to find no sign or smell of fire anywhere. Creakings and other sounds were so constant that Bunny kept the radio on to drown them out.

One odd and interesting event starred an old dog whose owner had died. Though nobody officially adopted this animal, he was not a stray. He was the town dog-he ate at several places and was petted by everyone. His habit was to visit the tavern’s back door every night for whatever he might find there, and he would hang out for awhile with Bunny, then go on his way or perhaps sleep near the building. Bunny never brought him inside and he never seemed to have any desire to come in.

One night they had finished their usual routine and Bunny had gone up to bed. At some point she was wakened by a scratching on her door, but supposing it was just one of the ghosts, she turned the radio up louder and went back to sleep. The next morning, when she opened her apartment door, the town dog uncurled himself from the hall carpet and greeted her.

"I always try to figure out how things could have happened," she said, "but I never could see any way he could have got in. If he had his own entrance, why did he use it only that once?" And she adds that her employers, Clay March and Chet Breitwieser, who are something of pranksters, promised her solemnly that they would never do anything to frighten her. "I believe them," she said. "I’ve never had any reason not to."

Another odd occurrence involved an element of The Old Tavern’s decor, a display of historic documents. One time a visitor whose ancestors had lived in Arrow Rock found something pertaining to his family and wanted to photograph it. Light inside being inadequate for his Polaroid camera, Bunny went into the lobby with him to hold the paper where proper exposure would be possible. When the picture was developed, it showed not the printed material, but a picture of a log cabin. There was no such structure within the camera’s range.

Ghosts also seem to dwell also in some of Arrow Rock’s private homes. One of these, among the town’s oldest, has a small upstairs room the present tenant used for sewing and as a guest room. Some of her guests decline to sleep in it. One is her daughter-a tax accountant-who refuses to even enter the room alone. Another is a black Labrador dog belonging to the householder’s son. Though the man has slept there without incident, the dog, who shares his room everywhere else, resolutely stays in the hall.

The owner never saw or felt anything in the room, but her daughter once reported a crowing presence against her in the doorway, as if someone was rudely pushing past.