The Cahill Mansion was located at 10 Kimball Drive in Gulfport about a block and a half east of Courthouse Rd., adjacent to Kahler on the north and situated on a bluff overlooking Bayou Bernard. The former site of the wooden 3-story house is now Goldin Drive. The house was built in about 1915 as a wedding gift from Joseph T. Jones (financier and co-founder of Gulfport with William Hardy) to his son and daughter-in-law Grace Stewart. I believe the Stewart family owned the Great Southern Hotel in Gulfport and the Great Southern Country Club in Mississippi City. The house was abandoned at the time it was destroyed by 2 consecutive fires in the summer of 1971.I'm not sure of all its history, but it was used as an NCO club during WWII for the nearby Gulfport Field (now Gulfport- Biloxi International Airport and the Bayou View neighborhood). Some time shortly after WW-II, a Chiropractor, R.N. Cahill, bought the property. He and his wife had a daughter (Mae Jean) and son (Richard or "Richie"). On March 15, 1953, at about 2PM, a tractor accident resulted in the death of Richie. According to a first-hand account told to me by his best friend (anonymous) and fellow Gulfport High School 9th-grade classmate, Richie 14, on the day before the accident, was showing off how he could "do wheelies" on a tractor that was being used to pull up stumps in the back yard. His pal warned him of the danger. The next day Richie rolled the tractor over onto himself. A part of this sequence of the event was told to me by Kendall Gregory (deceased), my friend who occupied the house from 1956 to 1969....When the tractor was lifted from Richie, he was taken inside the house and apparently didn’t appear seriously hurt. His Mom noticed that he was becoming pale and insisted on calling an ambulance. The boy died on the way to the hospital likely as a result of internal bleeding. His shocked classmates (GHS class of '56) attended the funeral at First United Methodist Church of Gulfport and burial at Evergreen Cemetery on St. Patrick's Day.Many sightings and strange occurrences were reported by the Gregory/Bridges family and many others. Some of the stories told to me by Kendall, “Sister” Gregory and Mrs. Gregory were: the light ball that hovered out of the bedroom closet and repeatedly opened and shut the closet doors; a teenage boy that bent over the beds while the children were sleeping, awakening them, running from the room and then disappearing; loud screams followed by the sound of a heavy object being dragged across the living room floor ( supposedly reported by the Cahill family when they occupied the house in the early 1950’s ??); the ghosts of pets, etc. Once, a visiting woman witnessed (about 1965) a teenage boy who was eavesdropping on a phone in the kitchen. As she rebuked him, he stared blankly at her, walked out the back door and vanished! When Mrs. Gregory showed a school picture of a boy to the woman, she verified that it was the eavesdropper without knowing it was a photo of Ritchie! The terrified woman filed a sworn affidavit attesting to the event.
I was too afraid to spend the night when Kendall invited me. Few people would ever appraoch the house at Halloween according to Virginia "Sister" Gregory; the kids and adults only stared timidly from the street! In a book titled Ghosts Around the House, by Suzy Smith, a chapter titled, "The Doctor's Dilemma" was dedicated to this haunted property. ____ Submitted by "Handsboro"
A friend passed to me this link about this house.
http://www.facebook.com/l.php?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.mitchellspublications.com%2Farticles%2Fhhm%2F0001%2F&h=VAQBYqWZy
