Richmond Church Hill vampire legend linked to 1925 tunnel collapse

Every October brings out ghost stories, but Richmond’s local legend traces its roots back to a catastrophic industrial disaster rather than Victorian fiction.

The tale of a Richmond vampire is tied to the 1925 collapse of a Chesapeake and Ohio Railway train tunnel beneath the historic Church Hill neighborhood. While the folklore grew across decades, the underlying tragedy remains a piece of local history that researchers are working to document.

The 1925 Tunnel Collapse and Its Victims

The disaster unfolded on 18th Street just below Jefferson Park at the western end of the Church Hill Tunnel, filmmaker Ryan Pace said while researching for a documentary. Surrounding soil made up of mud and clay proved ill-suited for tunneling, leading to a structural failure.

Richmond fire investigators have confirmed the fire that destroyed the former Good Shepherd Baptist Church in Church Hill on Sunday was caused by a lightning strike. https://t.co/HYgWGTGIID

— https://x.com/CBS6/status/2077945146562244697

The collapse trapped a work train and steam locomotive carrying workers underground. At least four people died in the accident, including the locomotive’s engineer and fireman, alongside at least one Black day laborer whose body was never recovered.

Pace noted that the fireman, Ben Mosby, suffered heavy scalding when debris and bricks fell onto the locomotive and the boiler exploded. Mosby managed to crawl out under the flat cars nearly a mile to the opposite end of the tunnel, emerging burned and bruised before later passing away.

To this day, the site functions as a grave. A train remains buried beneath Church Hill, along with the bodies of the workers who perished inside.

How a Real Tragedy Became a Vampire Legend

Decades after the collapse, the narrative surrounding the aftermath morphed into supernatural folklore. Beth Houlihan, Haunts of Richmond president, shares the traditional ghost story during seasonal tours.

According to the local myth, witnesses who ran toward the tunnel after hearing the collapse reported finding two men outside. One lay on the ground appearing filthy, while another well-dressed gentleman bent over him to provide medical attention.

As the story goes, the well-dressed man stood up, turned toward the group, and revealed pointy teeth with blood at the corner of his mouth. Witnesses shouted “vampire,” prompting the man to flee across town toward Hollywood Cemetery in Oregon Hill, where he supposedly vanished into a mausoleum.

That tomb belonged to William Waltham Pool, a man who had passed away a decade prior. Fearing the prospect of being buried alive, Pool had commissioned a tomb equipped with a trick door that only opened from the inside. The initials W.W. above the door feature a shape resembling fangs, adding fuel to the urban legend.

The Student Press and the 1970s Mythos

The leap from local folklore to a Richmond tradition gained momentum in the 1970s, as a growing population of Virginia Commonwealth University students settled into the Fan and Oregon Hill neighborhoods near Hollywood Cemetery. VCU’s modern iteration was formally established in 1968, setting the stage for a new wave of student culture.

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“By April of 1976, The Commonwealth Times is actively exploring… otherworldly things,” Christina Vida, curator at The Valentine, said. Student reporter Garry Curtis published an article that year linking Richmond’s supposed vampire directly to Poole’s grave, noting rumors of Medical College of Virginia students visiting the site to steal remains.

While the exact origins of how the 1925 tunnel collapse became linked to the Hollywood Cemetery vampire story remain murky, the blend of real industrial tragedy and decades of campus folklore has cemented the tale into Richmond’s cultural history.