Souls and spirits, family at Fell's Pt.

Forget the horror movies and haunted houses that pop up every year around Halloween. Charm City has a few lingering ghosts and ghouls that have been around far longer than the latest box-office hit. And they'll send chills up and down your spine all year round.

Fell's Point isn't only a hot spot for tourists and Baltimore natives -- it's a haven for extraterrestrials that date back as far as the 1700s. Spirits linger from the original pirating days of the 1730s, when William Fell saw potential in the area as a prosperous shipping port. With ships came pirates, and with a healthy enclave of pirates, Fell's Point built its clientele on the three Bs -- bars, brothels, and boarding houses. Fell's became known as "That Pirate's Den," and murder and mystery hovered around every corner.

Almost every pub on the main streets, and some eerie houses in the alleys, have a story to tell, but those who aren't faint of heart don't have to travel to the library to research Baltimore's best Boos. Amy Lynwander and Melissa Garland, cofounders, of the Fell's Point Walking Ghost Tours, have already done that. From the books, they went to the primary source: the natives. Knocking door to door, chatting with bar owners and managers, Lynwander and Garland amassed true tales that would shame the best collection of ghost stories. And since their conception of the Ghost Tours, tour-guides and tour-walkers alike have experienced enough coincidences to confirm that these legendary spirits are alive and well.

As Kathy Sewell, one of the tour guides, put it, "Some of these people liked it so much, they never left."

As the 7 p.m. Saturday-night tour begins, 35 people crowd around the "haunted fire hydrant" before embarking on the 12-stop walk. Tourists snicker as Sewell flashes her black satin hooded cape and warns, "Hopefully when we're done, all of you will still be here."

The first stop is Duda's Tavern on the corner of Thames and S. Bond Sts. In 1949, a gentleman referred to as "Doc" began inhabiting the tavern nightly, always playing his favorite polka on the jukebox. Doc mingled with the cannery workers who stopped by for drinks after work, and remained a staple of the bar until 1980, when he passed away. Despite numerous upgrades to the song selection on the jukebox, the owner wouldn't take off the polka, which everyone else hated, until Doc passed away. But that wasn't the end of it.

Legend has it that, one night, after the jukebox had been turned off, it turned itself on again and started playing random selections. It spit out a few tunes before settling on Doc's polka. The piece, which had been removed from the machine, wafted through the tavern until it was finished, and then the jukebox shut itself off, and all was silent.

Disbelievers on the tour looked at Sewell with skepticism, certain it was just an elaborate story. One even joked that nothing like that would ever happen, and even though he paid $12 each for the narrated tour, he wouldn't be lucky enough to see anything that night. Sewell, the guide for the hour-long journey, smiled.

"I'm a good Christian, but some things have happened on a tour," she said.

With renewed faith, the group continued on, stopping at the Fell family plot on Shakespeare St., and listening to Sewell's recounting of the male ghost in 1800s attire, believed to be William Fell, that has been seen to wander up and down the street at night. Another stop is made at Bertha's Mussels on S. Broadway St., a brothel until the 1960s, where no one will go to the upstairs storage room alone.

A few years back, one employee didn't listen to the advice of the others, and was met with a young blonde girl in Victorian costume, jumping rope and humming with her pigtails bouncing back and forth. According to Sewell, most surmise her to be a yellow fever victim. Two men also have been "seen" after hours through the monitors, or rather, "illuminated"; one always sits on a bar stool with his legs propped up, while the other goes to the door and seems to look for other spirits coming to join them.

Friend's Tavern at 1634 Aliceanna St. lends an interesting story about a madam who's been at work since the time the tavern moonlighted as a brothel.

"In the 1930s, this was a pretty tough joint," Sewell explains.

The story goes that one bartender took the apartment upstairs, and one night, though alone in the room, he was awakened by a woman in the throws of passion. Another person who rented the apartment recalls his bed being violently shaken in the middle of the night. Ever since, anyone who visits Friend's might question a drink that sits unattended at the end of the bar. The drink is left there for the hardest working madam in all of Baltimore, and perhaps beyond.

For some on the tour, the stories imparted in Sewell's mix of an English accent and southern drawl are taken with a grain of salt. Instead of pondering the reality behind the tales, they just wanted to have some fun.

"It's getting near Halloween. We wanted some entertainment," said Rod Thurman, who was in town for the month and thought the tour could pass some enjoyable time for him and his girlfriend.

For others, the stories, although told a little "tongue and cheek," hit closer to home. A little too close.

Leadbetter's, one of the stops on Thames Street, houses a ghost of a more recent generation. Even though the tavern has its fair share of sailor spirits, a murder during the 1960s haunts the premises. A family of husband, wife, and numerous children lived in the apartment above the tavern, and the husband was an alcoholic. After beating his wife and children, one of his sons decided he'd had enough. He came home one night, found his father passed out upstairs, and calmly blew his head off. The son was sent to a mental hospital, but the angered spirit of the father stayed right where it was left: in that upstairs apartment.

Don't believe the story? Just ask the current manager, William Fonshell, who lives in the apartment.

"I swear I've seen him and felt him walking around up there," Fonshell said. "The sucker knocks on my door three or four times a week, at 4 a.m."

Fonshell can also recount the story of the murder -- he heard it firsthand a few years ago, when the son came back.

"The one who caused the ghost came in and wanted to talk to him," he said.

According to Fonshell, the son, alone in the apartment, talked to his father for more than 45 minutes.

After an hour of ghostly tales, the tour group arrives back at the starting point. Spirits weren't spotted, but shadows appear a tad more daunting, and a light breeze conjures unnecessary chills.

All of the taverns on the tour are open to tour-goers, visitors, and Point natives alike, and the managers all have stories of their own to tell, or at least, a more in-depth version of the legend. The voice reverberating from Sewell's "Pignose Lil' PA" portable microphone may sound somewhat cheesy, but the stories are real, and Lynwander and Garland, who researched the area, and the residents and workers, know to take them seriously.

At the end of the night, Sewell warns her group, "Please, go gently into this night." In Fell's Point, you never know who's watching.