 How did I not know about this? I spent most of my childhood in Rome, Georgia. How the hell did I not know about this? Maybe this is what happens when you live your life with one foot in a town and the other foot out of the town, which is pretty much how I spent my childhood was like halfway in Rome and halfway not in Rome. So, you know, maybe that was it? I don't know. Anyway, welcome to S.O. Derek, Atlanta. My name is Bryce. Today we're gonna be talking about two of the hills of Rome, Georgia, Myrtle Hill and Jackson Hill. This YouTube is going to make me mention this because YouTube is a very strange place to be. Yes, I do have the same shirt on from the last video. I don't know why YouTube is funny about that, but here's the thing. I am filming this video on the same day as the last video, even though they're being released on different days. So, yes, I have the same shirt on because in reality, it is the same day, even though you're seeing these videos onto different days because that's the power of technology, YouTube. So I started off wanting to do a video only on Myrtle Hill, which is this beautiful old cemetery in Rome, Georgia. Both my mom's parents are buried on Myrtle Hill as well as my uncle. And we have spent some time on Myrtle Hill just walking around looking at graves. My boyfriend really, really likes to look at old graves. He's a photographer on top of his other job and he wanted to go take some pictures and he is really into like myself. He is really into studying secret societies and so he was so fascinated with Myrtle Hill because there was so much symbolism on a lot of the graves of like the Freemasons and other types of symbols that he was familiar with. He is very fascinated himself by Rome because he sees a lot of these symbols in Rome. And so I had this idea that I was gonna do a video just on Myrtle Hill and I was gonna talk about some of the esoteric elements to Myrtle Hill and maybe some of the hauntings. I know that there are some hauntings on Myrtle Hill, kind of like our Oakland Cemetery. However, my research led me in a bit of a different direction. My research pushed me into Jackson Hill in response to Myrtle Hill. And Myrtle Hill, like Clock Tower Hill, as we said in that episode, there are seven hills in Rome. Georgia, that's where the name Rome came from because of the seven hills of Rome, Italy. And we know that Clock Tower Hill is one of them while Myrtle Hill is another one and Jackson Hill is also another. So it's three of the hills in Rome. And I had no freaking clue about Jackson Hill. In fact, while I was researching, I'm really one of my talents in life is directions. I'm really good at directions. I can always find my way back. I know where things are. I'm just really good at that. It's one of the one things that I'm good at. So I'll take it. And when I was reading about Jackson Hill, I was like, where the hell is this? And I was looking at the map. I think I know where it is now. But legitimately, Mine Blown had no idea that what was at Jackson Hill is at Jackson Hill. And I don't even know if some of the trails on Jackson Hill were there when I was a kid because if they were, I mean, I would have loved that as a kid, but I just, Mine Blown, like seriously, Mine is blown over Jackson Hill. But here's what got me on putting the two of these Myrtle Hill and Jackson Hill together. Both of these hills were used in the Civil War heavily. I'm not gonna focus too, too much. I'm gonna talk about it a little bit. But honestly, we've talked about the Civil War so much in a lot of our other videos. And I'm, I love history. History is one of my favorite subjects. However, I'm not really someone that enjoys studying battles. And my mind kind of, it's like the peanuts that whenever I have to read about battles, I lose focus and anyway. But the quote that got me was, I read it said, Myrtle Hill makes you respect the dead while Jackson Hill makes you fear it. I was like, hook, line and sinker, I'm sold. So starting off with Myrtle Hill, Myrtle Hill is, as I said, a cemetery. Again, my grandparents are buried on Myrtle Hill as well as my uncle. Now Myrtle Hill is also right across our caddy cornered from the Kusa Country Club, which is the country club. I grew up going to as a child. And funny story, I just heard this, this past Christmas, my grandparents are buried right in front of the entrance of the Kusa Country Club. And apparently they picked that plot so that they from death would be able to see the comings and goings of the country club. So I guess that tells you how fun my grandparents were. And I'm serious, apparently they threw some pretty fun parties. I was a child when they died. But anyway, Myrtle Hill is located at where the Edoa and the Ustunala River meet. And it's on South of Broad Street. Again, Broad Street is the historic part of Rome. And this is a beautiful part of the city, especially if you go to the top of Myrtle Hill, like our clock tower, you can kind of see out over the skyscraper, the city line. There's really no skyscrapers in Rome, but you can see the town city line. It's 32 acres and it consists of six different terraces. And it was described almost like a wedding cake. They've kind of built it so there's different, it's like compartmentalized. It is a natural hill, but they've made the architect so there are layers to it. Nowadays, you can pull your car in and drive around all the way to the top, although I would suggest taking a hike and the hill is actually a lot bigger than you think it is when you first see Myrtle Hill. But yeah, I would definitely suggest instead of driving up the hill, unless you're elderly or have some health issues, I would definitely suggest walking it. Now both Myrtle Hill and Jackson Hill played major parts in the Civil War. They were both forts in the Civil War. And they are listed on the National Registry of Historic Places. Now Myrtle Hill was a battle site long before the Civil War when there was Western, our white man coming in and looking for gold. There was a huge gold rush into Northwest Georgia. And so there were some battles between the Cherokee Nation and the Creek Nation that lived in this area when the settlers started to approach. Now the Myrtle Hill became a cemetery in 1850, so not long after the city of Rome was established as a city. And it was picked, the name Myrtle was picked because of all the Myrtle flowers that grew wild on the hill. Now, funnily enough, Myrtle means flower of death. So there you go. The first grave was a man named John Billups and he died in 1857 in funny during the Civil War. So again, Myrtle Hill was used as a fort during the Civil War. And his headstone apparently was blown off by a musket ball during the war because as we talked about in our clock tower video, Rome did fall to the Union soldiers during the Civil War. And Myrtle Hill and Jackson Hill are both kind of on two opposite ends of all these rivers. And again, the rivers were really, really, really important to commerce and to travel during this time in our history. Now, a lot like our Oakland cemetery here in Atlanta, Myrtle Hill acts as like a who's who of Rome, Georgia for dead people nowadays. And so a lot of the tours that they give, and you can go on Rome's official website to look at these tours. They'll go around and show you who a lot of these people were and their participation in their part in building up the city of Rome. Now, at the very top of the Myrtle Hill is the Confederate monument. He hits the long name. It's the monument of the Confederate dead of Rome in Floyd County in the Civil War. This is the crown point, the total top of the hill. I've been up there a couple of times myself and it is a beautiful view. And you can see this monument that was built in honor of everybody from the area who lost their lives during the American Civil War. There is also a Confederate cemetery down at the base of Myrtle Hill. And they have 368 Confederate and Union soldiers buried there. 75 are unknown Confederate soldiers while they have three unknown Union soldiers. There's also a Veterans Plaza. It's a brick site location on South of Broad Street. And this is where we have America's known soldier. And this is a pretty big deal for Rome. I remember learning about this as a kid. It's a man named Charles Graves and he died in World War I. And for some reason they picked to bury him in Rome and it's a huge monument to the America's known soldier. Because believe it or not, boys and girls, there was a time in our history where the military were respected. I respect the military. My boyfriend comes from a military family. Our military, they give a lot for us to be able to remain free. And especially with what's going on right now, we've had many conversations about what would happen if the government were to force the military to try to control us. And the beautiful thing about the United States military is that we are still a very young country and a lot of our men and women who joined the military are extremely patriotic. And I, both of my boyfriend and I agreed that I don't think the military here would be able to ever, ever attack the citizens that they have vowed to protect. And I do like the fact that we have, that there are these monuments dedicated to militaries past and present because that's super important. We do need to respect our military. We wouldn't be here without our military. So that's in a very, that's a very cliff notes version of Myrtle Hill, the who's who of Rome, Georgia. So now let's get to the good stuff. Let's get to Jackson Hill. And Jackson Hill is feared because it's super haunted. And I'm gonna focus on one of the ghosts. And that's the ghost of a young woman named Nancy. Now I talked about Chieftain's Museum in our clock tower video. And I said, maybe one day we'd get to it. Well, lo and behold, ask and you shall receive, seek and you shall find, knock and the door shall be open unto you. Here we go, Chieftain's Museum, or the house that is now Chieftain's Museum plays a huge part in Nancy, our ghost of Jackson Hill. Now, even though we are only gonna talk about Nancy's day and her being and why she haunts Jackson Hill, I do have to note that according to the powers that be, this is legitimately the most haunted place in Rome. And Rome has got some pretty haunted places, so that says a lot. But let's back up again and let's connect the dots. If you remember back from my clock tower episode where I talked about the clock tower of Rome, Georgia, we talked about its origins. It was a water tank after the Civil War to help replenish water to the citizens of Rome. And then after a while, it ceased to be the water tank because they built a reservoir on top of Jackson Hill. So this is the same Jackson Hill. Ah, dots are connecting. It's all connected. So here we go. Now we're gonna talk about Jackson Hill. So for today, present day, Jackson Hill is at 402 Civic Center Drive in Rome, Georgia. And if you're visiting Jackson Hill today, you've got this labrith of Rome. And for those who don't know what a labrith is, it's like this maze that you walk. And it was created by a man named Ed Baker and he made it for meditation. Walking a labrith for meditation is a lot like the method of meditation that I do with my yoga practice. So a lot of people think that yoga is the postures of the asanas you see all over the world today and that's only a small part of what yoga is. Yoga is basically to find focus and to kind of center the mind, that's the form of meditation. And when you're walking a labrith, you're able to give your mind something to do to find that focus. Same with an asana practice, you're using a tristana method, the way to get your mind to kind of find a one-pointed focus. So I really respect the fact that this man created this labrith for the people of Rome to partake in some active meditation. Now, when you get into the parking lot of Jackson Hill, there is a gift shop. So if anything, buddy is visiting for the day and you want a memory bachachi or a t-shirt or something from Rome, then this obviously is a really good place to go to get that. And the gift shop is the start of several trails that lead up to the reservoir. And the pictures of these trails look beautiful. Apparently it's a 1.3 mile loop. So it doesn't seem to be that challenging. And it's 50 acres and it goes all the way around reservoir street and dogwood drive. Now on this trail, especially for you guys who are like me and you are history lovers, you're gonna pass Boswell Cabin, which is right at the trailhead and they have a cotton gym. There's some Civil War cannons. And all over the trail, they're gonna have markers that are gonna tell you the story of the Civil War. So again, we're not gonna go into too much detail about the battles. If that's something, if you live in the area and that's something that you're really interested in, you can go ahead and take the trails and read all the markers. Or if you can't leave your house because you're quarantined like we are, then you can look online and they have all the markers up where you can read about the different battles and what Jackson Hill was used for. So Nancy, the ghost or one of the ghosts that haunts Jackson Hill is the spirit of a young woman who is said to be running around Jackson Hill looking for her baby. Let's look and see who Nancy was. Now in order to understand who Nancy was in life, we have to go back and look at her father because her father played a major role in Rome, Georgia's history. Now Nancy was Native American. She was Cherokee. Her father was a man by the name of Major Ridge and he got the name Major because he was a war hero from the War of 1812. Now Major Ridge was born in 1771 in what would today be Tennessee. But he made his way down to Georgia where he married his wife, another woman of Cherokee descent who lived in the Calhoun area and Calhoun is outside of Rome. Now before the trail of tears before our late president Andrew Jackson started to remove all the different Native Americans from this area of the States, something very interesting was happening with the Cherokee nations. They were starting to kind of develop these like deals with the settlers and I don't know the full details. Again, we are gonna be speaking to in the future to a follow up of our Gone with the Wind video to someone who was a friend of mine actually who was a descendant of the Cherokee nation and she can go into more about that. I would rather her explain that from her understanding of her people's history versus me try to unravel it as a person of European descent. But Major Ridge, he was highly respected and he was picked to be the representative for the Cherokee Council. Now something that is very interesting to note too is at this point a lot of the Native Americans started to adapt Western practices. They started to dress like Westerners. They started to do business like Westerners and they started to educate their children in Western style classrooms. Now because Major Ridge was picked to be a representative of the Cherokee Council, this ended up kind of biting him in the butt later on in our story. Major Ridge was very respected by the European settlers in the area and so he was definitely someone that kind of lived in both worlds. I definitely think he got the raw end of the deal at the end of the story. I honestly like I feel really bad for this guy. I think that he just some bad luck and he was put in an impossible situation but we'll get there. In 1819, Ridge moved his family to a two-story house along the Ustunala River. Again, that's one of the rivers in Rome. A bit like Martha Berry where she and her family bought a house in 1871 on the Ustunala River. This was 1819 and so this house was painted white. It's this beautiful home. They were running a trading post. They had access to the river for the steam boats. They were working a farm. I mean, this family was a very prominent family for the Cherokees and for the settlers. A lot of, at this point, seemed to be a lot of respect from both sides. Now the year before Major Ridge bought his house on the Ustunala River, his daughter Nancy passed away. Now Nancy was born in 1801. She was considered a Cherokee princess and Nancy married at the age of 16. She married a man named William Ritchie and William Ritchie was a missionary, a Christian missionary from South Carolina that had come into the area to mission to the Native Americans. And unfortunately, Nancy did die during childbirth. Now her daughter, a little girl named Hester, was born in September of 1818. And unfortunately, Hester too passed away in May of 1819. So if we look at the timeline of Major Ridge, Nancy, who again is our ghost, who runs all over Jackson Hill looking for her child, died right before Major Ridge bought this house, this beautiful house on the Ustunala River. Major Ridge used this house to work the farm, work the trading post until things got a little tricky. And in 1832, there was some pressure from the United States government for the Cherokee to give up their land. And this is where things get icky for Major Ridge. Again, he was very much respected by the European settlers as well as his Cherokee comrades. Now Major Ridge ended up, I feel like he was probably pressured to, maybe he saw the writing in the wall, there was gonna be an all out bloodbath if he didn't. But he ended up signing a treaty with the United States government to sell over his land and all the Cherokee land over to the United States government. And in 1832, they did a lottery over all this land that had been taken by the Cherokee nation. And a woman named Rachel Ferguson from Richmond County, Georgia, one, Major Ridge's house and property on the Oostanella River in this flattery. Now she never lived on the property, she never went there. She ended up selling it to another man from Richmond County later on. In 1835, so three years after the property was technically sold and given to this other person, Major Ridge had to move to Oklahoma, had to go on the Trail of Tears. That we know so much about today. And in June of 1839, because Major Ridge had signed this treaty giving away his people's land to the settlers, he and his son and his nephew were all murdered for this act of what I guess the Cherokee nation would have classified as treason. Now over time, the house that Major Ridge owned on the Oostanella River where the trading post was that was sold in the lottery and won by Rachel Ferguson, ended up becoming Chieftain's Museum. The museum I spoke about in our clock tower video where I learned the lyrics to Baby Got Back in the third grade. So that is his house, that is Chieftain's Museum. Now here's the interesting thing. Chieftain's Museum is relatively close to Jackson Hill. If I think I know where Jackson Hill is, it's pretty close in location. Now what's interesting to me is that Nancy haunts Jackson Hill looking for her child. However, the Ridge family did not buy this property and build this house until after Nancy had passed away. So that's peculiar. However, Nancy's daughter Hester passed away in May of 1819. So there is a possibility that Nancy's husband William, her European husband took Hester to the house with her family and maybe that's why she's looking for her child there. Perhaps they're buried or the baby is buried near there. I find that very fascinating though, that the house in the land are in close proximity. So when I was studying, I was like, okay, well that makes sense. Her house is in close proximity to this hill. That's probably why she haunts it. But then when I was looking at the dates, I was like, well, she never technically lived at the house, that he didn't buy the house until she had passed away in 1818. Now her husband William did go on, he did remarried and he lived a long life. He died in 1879. He had multiple children with his second wife. But that's the story of Nancy, one of Jackson Hill's most famous ghosts. She was 17 years old when she died, again born in 1801 and died in 1818 during childbirth. I mean, how sad is that? I would hope that somebody could move her on and help her understand that she is no longer living and that if she goes into the light then maybe she'll find her child. I just, how sad just to see a spirit caught in this constant cycle of searching for her baby. Now there's other stories of other Native Americans haunting the location, a story of lost lovers from the different Cherokee and Creek nations. So it's a very potent place, which I, the fact that there's a labyrinth there now is interesting to me as somebody who studies symbolism and energy, I just, I wonder if Ed Baker kind of knew that this was a very potent area for spirits. I don't know, or maybe he just thought, oh, man, let's elaborate here, this sounds cool. I don't know. I definitely will, when quarantine is lifted, I definitely want to go up to Rome and check out Jackson Hill. I did find that, I guess in Rome, Rome sounds a whole lot cooler now than when I was a kid because I guess they are starting to do ghost stories and ghost meetups. And I found this group called the Seven Hills Tellers. I couldn't find their website, but they sound like a cool group of girls. It sounds like, and there might have been men there, but it sounds like it's all girls that go around and tell these stories at night, a bit like what happens at Oakland Cemetery here during Halloween. And I did read a lot of stories about people who work at the gift shop or work at Jackson Hill, hearing things, hearing doors shut. I know there's a story of a ghost of a man that's there, that walks around the property. It's all so, so fascinating. And I, like I said, I wish I had known about this growing up there as a kid. I just didn't, though. So, you know, here it is now. So if you live in Rome and you don't know about Jackson Hill, I would tell you to go check it out and tell me, have you seen Nancy? I would imagine that people say you fear death there because I think when spirits are so stressed out, like the way Nancy seems to be, it does bring a certain level of energy that's maybe more toxic than like our green lady from Berry College who seems to be happy. Anyway, just my opinion though. So there you have it. Myrtle Hill makes you respect the dead and Jackson Hill makes you fear it. Hope you guys enjoyed that video. I'm really excited about the next video I'm gonna do. I still have some research to do, but I'm really excited about telling that story. So stay tuned for our next video. Again, it will be in Rome, Georgia because I'm doing a week of Rome. Thanks again to Josh McKay for doing our music and for Todd Roderick for helping me edit. I hope you guys are all doing very, very well under your quarantine. I hope you are taking care of your mind during this time. And again, I ask you during this time as well to practice critical thinking skills. You have sovereignty over your own body. You have sovereignty over your own mind. Your being is between you and your creator and that's it. So anyway, I love you guys. Hope you enjoyed that and I will see you soon. Bye.