San Mateo County has its share of the supernatural: Urban legends and ghosts stories haunt historic sites

Buried alive

Much of the history behind the Purissima Cemetery that served the small coastal town south of Half Moon Bay during the late 1800s remains a mystery.

No one has been able to identify who currently retains rights over the burial site now overgrown with poison oak and difficult to locate off of Verde Road.

But one eerie tale that has lasted through the generations is the legend of a young Purissima boy whose premature death and exhumation confirmed his parents’ worst nightmare.

The story begins sometime in the 1860s or ’70s when a deadly disease arrived at the small town that served as a stop for those traveling from Santa Cruz to San Francisco, said Mitch Postel, executive director of the San Mateo County Historical Association.

A young boy caught the disease and became extremely ill before being laid to rest at the Purissima Cemetery. But as the disease continued to spread and events unfolded, the young boy’s parents were soon overcome with fear they acted prematurely.

“Some time passed and an adult caught the disease and he went into a coma. But then he revived. And the parents of the little boy were horrified that they had a funeral too soon,” Postel said. “So they re-exhumed the casket and in fact. … the body had turned over in the casket.”

Man’s best friend

The Woodside Store dates back to 1854 where Dr. Robert O. Tripp, who first flocked to the area in search of gold, built a store that offered supplies to settlers in the area.

Until his death in 1909, the legendary owner of the historic shop was known to always have a large dog accompanying him, Postel said.

Now a museum, the store’s haunting stems from the more recent experiences of a historical association employee.

“One stormy afternoon, it was a Sunday around 4 o’clock, I got a telephone call from our site manager at the Woodside Store and she said she was quitting,” Postel said. “She said, ‘I’ll tell you what happened, but you’re never going to see me again.’”

The employee was casually walking through the store and entered the emporium, which is set up as though it were still a part of the 1800s, Postel said. It wasn’t unusual for neighborhood dogs to sometimes enter the old building so Postel said he wasn’t initially surprised when the woman told him she suddenly came across a large canine.

“She said that it disappeared before her eyes, right in front of her, it just dissolved. Then, she walked into the theater area where we have photos of the founder Dr. Tripp and she was looking at one of the photos of Dr. Tripp,” Postel said. “And in the picture, she saw Tripp’s dog. … and it was the same dog she saw [vanish.]”

Draped in blue

The Moss Beach Distillery thrills with its well-documented haunting that has attracted the TV show Unsolved Mysteries, psychics and curious customers.

The legend of the Blue Lady courses so strong even current employees of the coastside restaurant say they experience the supernatural powers of the 1930s murder victim.

Always dressed in blue, a young woman is said to have fallen in love with a handsome and dangerous piano player at the speakeasy formed in 1926.

The love-struck woman was already married, nonetheless, she would arrive at the restaurant night after night dressed in blue to meet her lover.

One evening, the illicit couple went for a walk on the beach and when the sun rose, she was found stabbed to death in her blue dress. Her lover, slightly bruised, survived and the husband was never heard from.

The Blue Lady ghost is said to now peacefully haunt the distillery in search of her lover.

Levitating checkbooks and chairs, loud footsteps roaming empty halls, strangely moved liquor bottles, taps on the shoulder and boxes stacked behind doors of an empty room are said to be proof of the Blue Lady’s presence, according to the General Manager Beverly Anolin, who has worked at the distillery for 20 years.

Documented since at least the 1970s, recent supernatural events at the distillery are perhaps the most alarming.

“There was a couple, a family, maybe a month or two ago and they were taking pictures in one of the dining rooms. And one of the pictures is of a couple, so he had his arm around her shoulder,” Anolin said. “But when you looked at the picture, there was no woman there. … He was just standing there with his arm around nothing.”

The customers immediately showed it to one of the servers, so there was no time for them to Photoshop the eerie picture, Anolin said.

Although the Blue Lady attracts customers and has always been friendly, Anolin said she learned the ghost doesn’t take kindly to being brushed aside.

“We had a strange fire back in 2010. We have an image of the Blue Lady’s face that was hanging in the bar area that was replaced by a TV. So we had to move it … and as the person put it in storage, there was a freak fire in front of my desk,” Anolin said. “Being that I was the one to decide to put her in storage, I decided not to do that. So she hangs in our reception area instead.”

Anolin said thankfully no one was injured and although the fire likely stemmed from a florescent light bulb in her office, the timing of the incident and it being right before Valentine’s Day makes it her favorite haunting.

While trick or treating and Halloween costume parties only span a night or two, Anolin said the Blue Lady’s year-round hauntings are a rich part of the property.

“She’s definitely something that’s attached to the building and with prohibition and it being a speakeasy back in the day, it’s just some great history,” Anolin said. “Whatever is with us, is definitely something that doesn’t mean to cause harm or fear. It’s just part of our experience, part of who we are here.”

samantha@smdailyjournal.com

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