BINGHAMTON, NY – This week, Haunted Binghamton and Beyond explores the local lore and legends that have been passed down from generation to generation with campfire-esque stories.

Are they real or pure lore? That’s up to you.

Broome County Historian Gerry Smith provides 3 eerie tales.

The Decapitated Workman

The first takes us back to a worker on the old Press Building, now the Printing House.

One day, the man fell off the building, plunging 12 stories to his death.

His head, however, never hit the ground.

He was decapitated, and, thanks to the high electric wires and powerlines, his head bounced off them like a springboard and landed back on top of the building.

Gravestones

Another downtown chilling story happened in the old Binghamton Republican Building, now Burger Mondays.

During a basement clean-out, a stone was found.

Thinking they’d turn it into a table, the stone was turned over and was found to be a headstone for a Lucy Harper.

Those in the building were afraid there might be bones nearby, but it turns out the headstone was from the graveyard across the street.

Lucy and her husband, John Warren, were being relocated to a different cemetery and had new headstones made.

This was not the first headstone found in a local home.

There was a reported Chenango Forks home that found one for a church minister who passed in the 1930s.

The owners of that home reported strange things occurring.

Court Street Haunting

Smith also recalls a time when a woman and her family demanded to know the history of their Court Street home.

Apparently, the woman’s small child was reporting seeing a ghost in his bedroom, and had mysterious scratches on his back.

While the Historical Society was unable to help in terms of not knowing the prior circumstances and happenings in the home, the woman refused to go back.