The 13th Mile, Episode 1: Fell’s Point, Baltimore

Hello, Admiral Fell Inn, this is Jack.

Hi Jack, I’m James. I just booked for Monday, December 13th on hotels dot com?

Yes, I see you here! Will you be needing anything for your stay?

Well, I wanted to know if I could request a specific room.

Well sure! Which room would you like?

I’m going to need Room 413.

(a pause)

Why would you want to book that room?

There’s a lot of creepy history in Baltimore, Dear Reader.

This is the town where Edgar Allan Poe died. It’s often misattributed as his hometown, or the town in which he spent most of his life. Both of these legends are misnomers; Poe was born in Boston and lived up and down New England and the mid-Atlantic region. I myself have lived this nomadic lifestyle, and in many states I’ve been in, including my birth-state of Delaware, there is a house that Poe lived in or a bar that he drank at that is now on the historic register.

I once heard a tour guide remark, This is an old town, and an old town has a lot of old ghosts. I think that’s an apt way to describe Fells Point in Baltimore, Maryland. Named after William Fell, the town was incorporated and and founded in the early 18th century as a seafaring town. Stories of pirates, brothels, and mass graves are woven into the history of the neighborhood as much as Poe, the Revolutionary War, and the Star Spangled Banner.

And also: crabs, National Bohemian Beer, and John Waters.

Wouldn’t you know it, Dear Reader? On Monday, December 13th, 2021, I had a date with a hotel room. And not just any hotel and not just any room in the hotel, but I had booked a stay at the Admiral Fell Inn, and locked in the legendary room 413.

I was going to spend the night in the most haunted hotel room in Baltimore, Maryland.

So what’s the legend of the infamous Room 413?

It depends on who you ask, Dear Reader. However Fells Point, and especially the Admiral Fell Inn, have their own stories to tell. The entire neighborhood was once nothing more than a seedy port town. Filled with bars, boarding houses, and brothels, there wasn’t much to do in Fells Point that wasn’t a mortal sin. With the debauchery comes the spiritual energy from it.

But more on the neighborhood when I tour it later this evening.

The center stage of all the fun and excitement would be the Admiral Fell Inn.

In the early 1900s the Inn was built as a Christian boarding house. This is at a time when Fells Point was at its peak Las Vegas energy. The nuns that ran the inn took care of sailors who were sick from both being at sea and the style of living in the town at the time. Later, the YMCA took over in earnest, hosting and boarding 50,000 sailors over a calendar year in just 105 rooms.

In the 50’s it opened as a vinegar factory and stayed that way for over 20 years before it closed. In the 1980s the Admiral Fell Inn opened, and it stands that way today.

Here’s the first note for when you arrive in town, Dear Reader. I recommend parking on a side street, which is easiest to do between the hours of 3 p.m. and 5 p.m. If you’ve ever lived in a city the block fills up when everyone commutes home from their day jobs.

The hotel sits at the end of Broadway Street across from a park. As I walked up to get my bearings I had a look around.

I know it’s Monday night, but this town is pretty dead even for a Monday night; pun not intended.

I walked into the lobby with my bags and was greeted by the man himself, Jack. He was behind the check-in desk and figured me out right away. I’ve theorized this but any male who ghost hunts pretty much all dresses the same. To varying degrees, we all look like Zak Bagans in one form or another. I myself was decked out in black. I had on a black jacket, black knit cap, grey chinos and black canvas shoes. To compliment everything, I wear a cheap rope necklace with a silver, evil eye-charm at the center of it. The purpose of this necklace is to ward off spirits.

“And you’re the guy I spoke to on the phone,” Jack said with a smile on his face. “You have all your ghost hunting gear?”

“Hey Jack,” I replied. “Thanks for holding the room for me. Is it really as bad as they say?”

He shrugged.

“I mean, stuff happens all over the hotel,” he began. “You’re on the fourth floor and the elevator is behind you. When you get out, turn right and 413 is right there. Go up to your room and get settled. When you come back down I’ll tell you some stories.”

So, I followed my instructions and boarded the elevator.

What do people reportedly experience at the most haunted hotel in Baltimore? Sailors, and lots of them. Ghost sailors can sometimes be found wandering the hall, half drunk and out of it, other sailors can be heard dying on any floor.

There’s a ghost dog on a floor that wanders the hall. Alarm clocks go off at all weird hours of the night. In the middle of the night, people complain of ghost butlers knocking on their doors.

And then, there’s room 413.

In the short story 1408, which began as a writing exercise but was turned into a story by the author Stephen King and subsequently included in Everything’s Eventual and then made into a feature film, Mike Enslin deals with the supernatural before he even steps foot into the eponymous hotel room. The door appears crooked the first time he looks at it. I’d end up having a similar experience with room 413, except that the entire room is crooked. In the daytime I had to check and double-check and I don’t have a level with me, but I swear the whole room leans off to the right upon entry. This is exacerbated by a television cabinet that also, somehow, leans to the right.

Upon entry to 413, I was overcome with a severe migraine, especially as I stood by the mirror. The mirror that of course overlooks the bed. I had a bad bout of vertigo as I set my stuff on the floor. When I put my hand on the bed, I felt a wave of almost electricity surge through my arm.

I set up some of my equipment to record my experiences, and I haven’t looked at most of the footage from that night, even now. But I’ve only ever been overwhelmed with this… “vertigo” two other times, otherwise I have no experience with vertigo. I say this as a guy having had a CAT scan come back negative in July.

Those two times were at a haunted object museum in Gettysburg, and at Dudleytown, Connecticut.

I’ll write about Gettysburg in another article. As for Dudleytown, ask Dan Aykroyd about it.

But back to Room 413 and the reaction I had. What could’ve caused that vertigo?

It depends on who we ask.

On one side, we have stories, rumors, and innuendo regarding Baltimore and prohibition. We also have to go back to the first iteration of the Admiral Fell Inn, when it was a boarding house run by nuns in the 1920s. A story goes that mobsters regularly stabbed, beat, and shot men right outside on Broadway. And subsequently, these men stumbled inside and they were too late for the nuns to help.

One such man was supposedly taken to room 413, where he bled to death in the bed.

This would make sense as to the bed having a negative charge, if we believe that sort of thing, Dear Reader.

The other story is a bit more recent and substantiated, and is also tragic in of itself.

Christopher Jones had it all in 1999. A pharmaceutical sales rep from New Jersey, he was in town for a convention. Looking for a little company one evening, The 25-year-old Jones brought Gary Mick, a town resident, back to his room at the Admiral Fell Inn.

Supposedly his room that night was the one in which I’m spending the night here in 2021.

All Jones wanted was a quick fling. All Mick wanted was Jones’ credit cards and car.

A claw hammer decided on the latter.

Jones was bludgeoned in the head with the claw part of the hammer, and Mick stole everything, including Jones’ brand new car. Mick would be caught later, when he tried to seduce a local doctor and attacked him as well, only for the doctor to get away and give police a description.

Though it’s confirmed that Jones was murdered in the Admiral that night, I can’t confirm that it was in room 413.

Maybe I’d get my answers during my stay.

I booked a ghost tour of Fells Point with Baltimore Ghosts, a local tour company to the area that including the Admiral on the route. I had about an hour to kill so I figured I would see as much of Fells Point as I could, even if the neighborhood was closed because it hates Mondays.

I stopped in E.C. Pops for a few knickknacks. What a fun store, and so affordable! I ended up with a Natty Boh face mask and a couple of fun buttons for my laptop bag. I’d definitely recommend it as the owner is very personable and that’s refreshing. I continued around town, including a pop-in at legendary Baltimore music store Soundgarden, while I tried to pick a spot to eat.

Lucky for me I found one at The Horse You Came In On saloon.

This saloon is a quaint and dark little bar on a street that prides itself on being filled with quaint and dark little bars. Only the fryer was working, but the bartender was awesome, the mozzarella sticks were very good, and the beer was cheap. Turns out that this little bar is famous for a lot more than being quaint, cheap, dark, and open on Mondays.

But I’ll get into that as I recap my tour.

I met John across from Max’s Tap Room on Broadway. John is a heck of a tour guide. Dressed in a commodore’s hat and a cape, he took me through the entirety of Fells Point, starting at Max’s and continuing through Bertha’s Mussels, and finally all the way back to the Blue Moon Cafe. I learned about all the brothels that were on Broadway street, and the ghosts of the harlots (hey, that was the term) or ladies of the night that beckon from the windows of Max’s and Bertha’s. I learned about the Fells Point reclamation project in the 60s, to save the neighborhood from becoming part of a coast-to-coast highway.

What’s more, I learned that the very bar I ate mozzarella sticks in was haunted by Edgar Allan Poe himself! The Horse holds the claim that Poe took his last ever drink in that very bar.

I also learned more about Christopher Jones and the other ghosts of the Admiral Fell, mainly the sailors who like to stick around and party it up on the second floor, even during a hurricane.

As such John gave me an incredible tour, one that kept my mind off the night in the haunted inn and how I had to sleep in it.

And then we departed. I entered 413 for the last time Monday night and laid out all of my equipment. I recorded a word scanner in front of the mirror, I set up a video camera to record while I was gone and then while I was sleeping, and I set up multiple audio recorders. I can no longer sleep in silence, so I brushed my teeth and put on a Shark Tank marathon, and ended up passing out at 10 p.m.

I woke up twice in the night. Once at 1 a.m. and again at 3:15 a.m. I was frightened of that mirror at the foot of my bed, but other than a few shadows and the lamp by the bed flickering, and I didn’t notice anything further beyond my initial vertigo. I slept all the way to 7:50 a.m., catching a whole 10ish hours of sleep.

In the morning I threw my sweats on to head to the lobby and pick up my grab-n-go breakfast. After a muffin and some orange juice I grabbed a shower and brushed my teeth. The water was clean and hot, two things I love to bathe in, and I toweled and dressed. I finished as I set my laptop up on the writing desk and began this article.

Nothing eventful happened right up until I went back to the elevator after I grabbed my breakfast. The doors opened as I walked up to it.

As I checked out I met someone else behind the desk. When she asked which room I was checking out of, and I of course mentioned 413, she gave me a look, took my key cards, and wished me on my way.

I threw my gear in the car and took one last walk around the neighborhood, stopping at the grave of the Fell family which rests behind The Horse You Came In On. I checked out Zelda Zen around the corner, which is a nifty, New Age shop with some fun custom art pieces, and I got in my car and drove home.

Ultimately I rate the experience 4/5. The Admiral Fell was incredible, as was Baltimore Ghosts, The Horse You Came In On, E.C. Pops, and the neighborhood in general. My only issue is how dead the town is on a Monday.

I would recommend you venture to Fells Point some day, Dear Reader. And when you go, I hope you find what you’re looking for.

As I reflected on the drive up 95 North, while listening to my audio recordings from the night before while I slept, I think I found what I was looking for.

That included a blood-curdling scream on the recording. One that I can’t pinpoint.

Until again, Dear Reader.

VSJ.

Update: Upon checking photos, videos, and sound recordings, I found no hard evidence of any activity in my room the night I stayed in 413. During some video with a light on, there were a couple of bumping noises as well as the lamps on the nightstands flickering and then glowing weirdly on occasion. Furthermore, in 9 hours of audio, I have yet to discover any EVP.

So, outside of any personal negative feelings, readings on the EMF detector, or the occasional bump in my room, I have nothing to show for my efforts. My quest continues.

Until again,

VSJ