ST. CHARLES, MO (KTVI) – For those willing to walk the cobblestone streets of historic Main Street St. Charles after dark, there’s a man with a few great ghost stories to share that might just scare the daylights out of you. Things that go bump in the night are big business in the month of October for Dr. Michael Henry.
“I’ve been in some of the most interesting places in the world,” says Henry, ghost storyteller. “I’ve been in the family crypts, the crusader graves in the tower of London. I’ve been in the real exorcist house.”
Friday afternoon we’re walking the brick and cobblestone streets of historic St. Charles. For the past ten years, Henry has been showcasing the haunted locations of this city’s past.
“This is essentially the middle of the original Borromeo Cemetery,” says Henry. “From 1750 to 1853 this was the primary burying ground for the city of St. Charles.”
Mixing history, some good old-fashioned Halloween tales and the occasional magic trick, Henry takes brave souls on a stroll through St. Charles past, like this former site of a tombstone maker’s shop.
“The floor inside is slanted by almost ten degrees,” says Henry. “His workshop was in the back. He’d prepare it and get it ready to go and then slide it down the incline in front for presentation and sale.”
He knows a thing or two about a good ghost story, in fact he wrote the book about it. As we meandered along Main Street, Henry took us down a back alley to see part of a tombstone once used as building material.
“You know ghost stories are always stories,” says Henry. “But then when you can tell the dates, times, histories to support those stories, that’s impossible to explain away. The people that seem to enjoy it the most are the ones into history. Again we tell the real history which is not necessarily squeaky clean as it were.”
Dr. Michael Henry estimates he’s given ghost walking tours to 15,000 brave souls. He is a busy guy right now, giving ghost tours of St. Charles every weekend. You might also find him at the Fabulous Fox Theatre on Monday evenings holding séances; if you dare, that is.
