Walkabout: The History and Legend of Melrose Park, Part 2

Read Part 1, Part 3, and Part 4 of this story.

Melrose Hall was a Colonial-era estate in what is now Prospect Lefferts Gardens. It was built by an Englishman named Lane with a penchant for English gentry style country houses and secret passageways and rooms.

The manor was riddled with them. Near his death, he sold the house to another Englishman, the ne’er-do-well second son of a lord named William Axtell. Both Lane and Axtell had reputations as rakes and degenerate partiers, reputations they did their best to uphold, here in the Colonies. For more on their backgrounds, and a look at Melrose Hall, please read Chapter One of our story.

The onset of the Revolutionary War put many of the American colonists of British ancestry or predilection in a precarious place: They had to choose sides between their now American neighbors, or side with the home country.

The stakes were high if you had money and land. If the Americans gained their independence, and you’ve sided with them, then all would be well. If they lost, and frankly, to most people, that seemed likely, especially after the Battle of Brooklyn in 1776, well, then you could lose your land, your money, and perhaps even your life. It was a time to choose wisely.

William Axtell wasn’t going to take any chances. He was married into the De Peyster and Van Cortlandt families, two extremely Loyalist clans, both with plenty of money, land and influence.

He sided with his homeland, and was awarded with a commission in the Loyalist Militia, with the rank of colonel, and a mandate to gather together 500 Loyalist troops to fight in the war. Unfortunately, Axtell was only able to muster up about 30 men, in a regiment called the Nassau Blues.

War between England and the upstart Colonies did not happen overnight, and while the Americans were talking about liberty and freedom from England, the English gentry and their friends were busy living it up as if nothing would ever change.

The Axtell’s liked to throw parties at Melrose Hall, which was their summer home in the countryside. They lived mostly in Manhattan, on Broadway, in a fine house where they were raising a niece named Eliza Shipton, whom they had adopted as a child. Eliza was now a pretty young woman of marriageable age.

At one of these parties, a handsome young man named Aquila Giles found himself at the door, and upon entering Melrose Hall, he saw Eliza, and was instantly smitten. The feeling was mutual, and the couple spent the evening dancing and talking, and taking walks in the formal gardens around the house.

By the end of the party, Aquila approached William Axtell, and announced his love for her, and his desire for them to marry. Unfortunately, in the conversation, he also expressed his support for the Revolutionary Cause, and his desire for independence from English rule.

Axtell was not going to have an American revolutionary courting his adopted daughter, and he kicked Aquila out, and told him never to come back, and to never see Eliza again. Aquila did so, but that’s not the end to that story.

Soon afterwards, the Battle of Brooklyn took place in Greenwood Heights and Gowanus, George Washington was chased across the river to New Jersey, and war was on, culminating in the long occupation of British troops and Hessian mercenaries in Brooklyn.

The Nassau Blues and other Loyalist militias were put into duty watching over their neighbors for the occupying army. Perhaps in their zeal to please the British commanders, or perhaps because they enjoyed it, Axtell’s militia soon became known for their cruelty and sadism towards their American prisoners, men and women they allegedly held and tortured down in the dungeons and secret rooms of Melrose Hall. The Nassau Blues became known as the “Nasty Blues.”

There were tales of cries of agony coming from below the Hall, and of prisoners disappearing, never to be seen again. Melrose Hall, like many Brooklyn working farmsteads, was staffed by slave labor, and rumors and whispers about the dungeons built below the hall ran through the slave and free community of Flatbush.

It was said that while elegantly dressed men and women danced in the ballroom and ate and drank in the great hall of the estate, deep below them, things that no one wanted to even contemplate were taking place to the poor wretches confined below.

All of which leads to the ghost story that made Melrose Hall one of the most haunted places in New York. There are several versions of the story, but none of them work out well for the woman at the center of it. The basic story is this:

It was said that William Axtell, in addition to his other sins, had a mistress named Isabella. One day, she showed up at Melrose; a tall, dark, mysteriously beautiful woman who was quickly whisked upstairs to a hidden room above the ballroom that was only accessible through one of the many secret passages in the house.

Only a few of the household slaves saw her arrive, but she was soon forgotten, as she was never seen again. The only person, besides Axtell, who knew of her presence was an old slave woman named Miranda, who was charged with taking care of the mysterious lady. Miranda brought Isabella food, and tended to her needs in secret, charged by Axtell to never tell anyone else about her.

The woman had been at Melrose for some time when Axtell was ordered out on a military campaign, one that could take him away from the house for several months, or even a year. Legend has it that on the night before his campaign, he was sitting in his study by the fire, and a secret door opened, and Isabella, accompanied by Miranda, entered the room. Miranda disappeared into a corner and fell asleep, but Isabella went to her lover, and sat at his feet.

Axtell told her that he would be gone, and he didn’t know for how long, and that she should leave, or at least reveal herself to his servants, in case something happened. He offered her gold, and said that he was afraid that Miranda could die, or prove false, and since no one else knew about her, Isabella could starve to death in the locked room, from which there was no escape.

According to one version of the legend, she angrily spurned his offer of money, and in a lot of flowery language accused him of treating her like a common trollop, instead of as a woman who loved him, and followed him across the ocean to be with him, a woman who would risk everything to be with him, no matter the cost.

He then professed his love, in spite of the fact that he was sinning against his wife, and was damned, but he couldn’t help it, his love for her was so strong, etc, etc. He charged Miranda with keeping their secret, no matter what, and she promised to take care of Isabella as if she was her own. Axtell left the next day.

Well, you can guess what happened. Everything was fine until elderly Miranda suddenly got sick and died, practically overnight.

On her deathbed she tried to tell the other slaves about Isabella and the secret room, but they thought she was delirious in her illness, and since they had never seen or heard about Isabella, or a secret room above the ballroom, they dismissed her frantic tale of the lady trapped in the room as nonsense. Miranda fell dead, and with her died the existence of the lady Isabella.

Isabella waited in vain for Miranda, and when she didn’t appear after a few days, she knew she was going to die in the room. She starved to death, with help only a hallway away. One legend says she silently suffered, unwilling to pound on the doors or floor, as she didn’t want to betray her lover with her presence. So she suffered starvation in silence and love, and then died.

Months later, Colonel Axtell came back, welcomed into Melrose Hall by his wife, friends and servants, with a huge party. The estate was lit with hundreds of candles, and around midnight, Axtell’s carriage pulled up, and he was greeted by friends and family.

Those around him thought him bothered by something and uneasy; he fidgeted at the table, and kept getting up and looking around. Towards the end of the evening, he ran out of the hall and went back to the slave quarters behind the house.

The slaves were puzzled to see him, and even more puzzled when he asked why he hadn’t seen Miranda about. They told her that the old woman had died several months before. Axtell turned white as a sheet, and staggered back into the ballroom.

He knew what that meant. Just then, all of the candles blew out, and the light in the room turned a sickly pale color, and everything glowed.

The wind blew the doors open, and a keening sigh was heard emanating from everywhere, low and deep, as if coming from below the house. Then the sound stopped, and the only thing that could be heard was the wind blowing through the trees.

Suddenly, the door to the secret passage burst open, and the spectral figure of Isabella rushed into the room. She was emaciated, with every bone in her body showing starkly beneath her pale skin.

Her veins stood out against her wasted flesh, and her long, stringy black hair hung from her shoulders down to the floor, enveloping her in a gossamer veil. Her hands clenched each other as she embraced herself in woe, and she floated towards the petrified Axtell, her sightless eyes finding him alone in the center of the room, far from his guests, who pressed against the walls in horror.

Isabella found Mrs. Axtell in the crowd, and smiled sorrowfully at her, while pointing to her with a long, bony finger. She then floated over to the secret door and wrote on the door “Betrayer.” And then she vanished. The spectral light went out, leaving the hall in darkness.

As the guests recovered from the shock, an awful cry was heard, and the sound of a body falling to the floor. The wind blew the doors open again, and for a minute the spectral light came back, illuminating the figure of Isabella kneeling next to the body of Colonel Axtell.

She had a pitiless smile on her face, and she pointed to the bleeding wound near his heart, as the maddened lover had tried to kill himself with his sword. The clock struck midnight, and she then vanished again, as the dogs on the estate howled.

Axtell was said to have lived only a few hours after that, and told those around him that it was his wish that the house be sold, and the family return to England. According to the legend, they had no problem with that.

Upon investigating the secret passage, they found the emaciated body of Isabella, who had foolishly allowed the situation to happen, all in the name of a forbidden love. All of them were now dead; the faithless husband, the loving mistress, and the loyal servant. These are the things upon which a great ghost story thrives.

Historic records show that William Axtell did not die that night, or any night in the United States. He went back to England and died there in 1795.

There is another version of the legend where the mysterious lover was Margaret’s sister, Alva, who came to the United States from England, disguised as a man, and lived in the room over the ballroom in comfort and splendor for three years. Axtell was said to have fallen in love with her when he was courting his wife. The results of the affair were the same.

In this version, Axtell was only gone for a month, and the male servant who was charged with taking care of her died a few days after he left. Accordingly, Axtell came back to find servant and mistress dead, and he secretly carried her emaciated remains to a tree in the garden, and buried her at midnight, their “special time” together. Her mournful cries and footsteps were said to be heard in the ballroom of the house.

Next time: The Axtells did leave Melrose Hall, in fact, no matter what the legend. Who got the old place then, and what happened to it? The answer to the first question may please you, as the history of Melrose Hall, and the development of Melrose Park continues.

(Above image from zombiesateyourbrains.blogspot)