James T. Staples Riverboat – Bladon Springs, AL
Some people believe this riverboat was destroyed by the ghost of its captain. Captain Norman Staples designed and built the most elegant riverboat on Alabama rivers and named the boat after his father, James T. Staples.
The riverboat took its maiden voyage in 1908, but by 1912 the captain had lost his riverboat due to unfair practices by by a large steamboat company that wanted to run all the boats on the river. On January 2, 1913, Captain Stapes held a shotgun to his chest and committed suicide.
Three days after he was buried, crew members reported seeing his ghost in the hold of the ship. Shortly thereafter, the whole crew quit and was replaced by a crew who had never been told of the ghost. Oddly enough, at that point, history says that all of the rats on board the ship abandoned it and headed for shore. Captain Staples’ ghost was also seen roaming around the boiler room and below deck.
Exactly one year to the day of Captain Staples’s death and almost to the hour, the boiler of the riverboat blew up, killing the new captain and twenty-five others. Everyone else was able to get off the ship before it drifted downstream.
The riverboat finally sank right in fromt of Bladon Springs Cemetery, where Captain Staples is buried. Local residents say Captain Staples’s ghost can be seen standing guard over the graves of his four children in Bladon Springs Cemetery.
