If You Like Ghosts, Detroit Has Plenty

Detroit Free Press, June 2, 1940 (enlarge)

Hamilton the Hair Buyer, Le Nain Rouge, Sans Souci, Le Loup Garou and the Devil's Mill at Presque Isle all lumped into the mystical history of the Marxist enclave known as Detroit.

Ghost Story #23: A Substantial Ghost

Detroit Free Press, June 18, 1875

For every bump-in-the-night, unexplainable at first groaning moonshine still in the basement ghost in the annals of Detroit history there was also one of these stories where the shade was easily traced to intelligible figures of flesh without need of scientific experimentation or seance. It was simply a man keeping watch over a vacant house on Vinewood Street in Springwells in the summer of 1875 when a nosy woman peeped into the darkened window at the inopportune time that he had finished with his bath. Out of modesty he threw a sheet upon himself while she shrieked in terror. In response to the first peeping and the subsequent neighbor's stirring about interfering upon his intended sleep he cast the figure of a phantom upon their psyches and all was well with the reasonable cast who wished to speak no more on the matter of apparitions.

Ghost Story #22: The Red-Haired, Moon-Faced Monster Man of Shelby Street

Detroit Free Press, May 26, 1866

Euphemisms are a beautiful thing because they allow even a respectable outlet such as the Detroit Free Press (Haha! As if! Foisted upon respectability anyhow.) to call somebody a whore with possibly the most ambiguous word relating to the oldest profession. The old Cyprian! Surely one could also mean a specie of bee, the worship of Aphrodite, an inhabitant of Cyprus or even the Carthaginian bishop-martyr known by that very name. Capitalized, of course. Always capitalized except when referring to a trollop. 

Anyway, some prostitutes were getting drunk with some Johns on Shelby Street and after the gin and beer had flowed all morning, Lizzie and Hattie went to "Europe" or out to get the former her sea legs back from the rollicking within and soon enough she passed out under a maple tree holding the latter woman's gold watch for safe-keeping while the latter slept in a nearby bush. 

Lo! When Lizzie awakened a red-haired, copper-faced monster man with a head the size of the moon was upon her! Was it the Nain Rouge? Le Loup Garou? Rocky Dennis? It was only a visage. A shade. A spirit of the spirits. A thief in the night. 

Whatever it was it took Hattie's watch and the owner, being the shrewd business woman that she was, took Lizzie to court. Said court cited a lack of evidence and intent to convict. The annals of time confer a similar conclusion on all accounts. Therewith resides that thing referred to as folklore. Another euphemism contained within itself where humbug formerly resided.

The First Psychic Spiritualist Church of Brightmoor

Detroit Free Press, July 24, 1929

The earliest mention that I have seen of the First Psychic Spiritualist Church of Brightmoor at 21729 Fenkell Avenue in Detroit was in an article from 1939 involving a witch hex and a ghost attack on the family of Roy and Della Tomlin, then recent transplants to the city from the nearby suburb of Livonia.

The story made the front page of one of the city's daily newspapers and Mrs. Tomlin was later found to be insane, Mr. Tomlin unfit, the children were sent into foster care and the spiritualist sect mentioned therewith and led by Rev. E. Armitage, female pastor, persisted into at least the early 2000s.

Detroit Free Press, October 25, 1931

Rev. E. was at the head of the congregation for at least a decade, and likely longer since they didn't feel a need to advertise much at all.

The October, 1931 advert announces that Rev. Amanda Flowers of Grand Rapids would give a service and a circle, presumably a psychic reading of some sort within their Spiritualist sect.

The Plymouth Mail, December 1, 1939

Parishoners seemingly came from as far as the remote western suburbs as this 1939 advert in the Plymouth Mail attests to.

There was a mid-week message service on Thursdays at 8:00 p.m. and a Sunday song service at 7:00 p.m. with a lecture at 7:30. The public was welcome. Additionally, that December there was a Ladies' Aid bazaar at the church on December 2nd at 1:30 p.m.

Chimes, November 1, 1961

After a mention or two in the psychic monthly Chimes around the early 1960s it seemed to disappear. By then it was led by the Rev. Carroll Ware, quite the ambiguous Christian name when determining gender (if that's allowed), and the Pastor, Rev. Katherine K. Cation. A developing class was offered on Tuesdays evenings at 8 p.m. and a Sunday service at 7:30 p.m.

Detroit Free Press, June 5, 1973 (enlarge 1, 2)

The church "was holding its own" by 1973, after seemingly falling off the newsworthy map, with Rev. Glenn V. Mickle at the helm. he felt that the Spiritualist message of contacting the dead had become a lukewarm concept which now had to complete with the far flashier mediums of radio and television over the preached written word.

Detroit Free Press, June 14, 1981 (enlarge)

By the 1980s it was reduced to a bit player in the punchline to a long shirking off of the subject as a marginal trifling. 

Nonetheless, The Rev. Lynn Tucker and John Wilson, presumably both of the First Psychic Spiritualist Church of Brightmoor but definitely the latter, were in charge at the house of worship.

It's demise in the following decades might have been more by attrition than due to squalor than a lack of wanting for spiritual guidance.

In the 1990 book Profits of Deceit: Dispatches from the Front Lines of Fraud by Patricia Franklin it is mentioned that the area had two motorcycle gangs, the Scorpions and Forbidden Wheels, whose virile engines provided "deafening tributes to horsepower" for the parishioners of a neighborhood riddled with fire bombs, gunshots, vacant flats and crack houses.

The next mentions are between 2001 and 2005 when a combination of the Glory of God Ministry International and the Zion Tabernacle Church are seemingly interwined, with the latter's name only appearing in print in 2003, though I haven't searched the name further.

Popular Delusions Scientifically Explained!!

Detroit Free Press, April 1, 1855

POPULAR DELUSIONS 

Scientifically Explained!!

A LECTURE WILL BE DELIVERED IN THE

YOUNG MEN'S HALL,

On Monday next, April 2d,

On the phenomena of

Ghosts and Vampires,

     In which some of the causes of Modern Spiritualism will be explained, and cautions given with regard to premature interments by 

HENRY GOADBY, M. D.,

Fellow of the Linneaus Society, of London. Admittance 25 cents. Doors open at 71/2 o'clock; Lecture will commence at 8.