Located at Girard and Elder streets stands the old Jefferson Davis Hospital. A very haunted building. Spirits of nurses, doctors and patients still roam the halls of this hospital. Not to mention all the souls that are angry or lost from the covering over of their burial grounds. Feelings of being watched or hearing sounds within its halls is very common. Others have gotten photos of ghostly orbs inside and around the building. I have been in this building several times to take pictures. One experience I had in 2000 was on the second floor near the main entrance. I could hear something moving down the hall towards me. A moaning sound with sliding feet like you would make with hospital shoes shuffling across the floor. Whatever was coming towards me in the dark I could not say. I didn't stay to find out. There is such a depressing sadness you can feel when you enter this building. There had been a previous hospital on the site during the Civil War where Confederate soldiers were treated and many died. Jefferson Davis Hospital has now been restored and used for apartments or lofts. You could not pay me to live or even sleep there over night.
By 1840, Founders Cemetery became full. A new cemetery was created on a 5 acre tract near White Oak Bayou.There were four sections. Potters field, black field, the rich, and all others.Victims of yellow fellow were burial here. By the 1870's the cemetery was almost full. The last burials occured around 1904. In the 1920's the City of Houston and Harris County constructed the county hospital named later as JEFFERSON DAVIS HOSPITAL. Theoma Smith,73, who was a construction worker stated "They are out there digging up peoples graves and just throwing the bones out!'' Joseph M., 80, remembers when they were building the hospital, there were putting bones in nail kegs or crates. Were they reburied?, no one knows for sure.In 1968, bones were discovered when the Fire Department maintenance facilities was built.These bones were reburied in the MAGNOLIA CEMETERY in Houston. On Sept. 6,1986 the City of Houston dug a 20 foot trench near Girard St. and uncovered 20 more graves from the 1840 City Cemetery. Bones were taken from graves by workers to be burried in other locations.
