The Cursed Coastline

By M.P. Pellicer | Stranger Than Fiction Stories
The Devil's Slide is an infamous section of Highway 1 which is two miles south of Pacifica and it's been eroding since it was opened in 1936.

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Devil's Slide, California

​The Devil's Slide is a steep 900 foot cliff consisting of shale and sandstone with a soft sedimentary layer. This makes the rock very prone to erosion. It's a scenic but dangerous spot, and events of high strangeness are called to it like a moth to flame.

In 1973, serial killer Edmund Kemper threw the heads of two of his victims in the ocean from that spot. Seven years later a large chunk dropped 300 feet into the Pacific Ocean. The roadway had to be closed for several weeks to allow for repairs. In 1986, James Lund, 36, decided to take his life by driving his pickup over the side.

Stories like these were common every year, in addition to unusual accidents that occurred in this stretch of the California coastline.

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Harry Bates takes a fall from the Devil's Slide and dies c.1950

In September, 1950 Harry E. Bates, 46, from Oakland, a mechanic was driving along the highway with his wife and a friend. He stopped at the Devil's Slide to admire the view. He started to climb to a spot below the highway when he lost his footing, fell and died. Unfortunately this was not an uncommon occurrence.

​In the late 1980s, Dan Moss was driving north along the road when a deer bolted in front of his vehicle. A twist of the the steering wheel plunged the car over the edge. Luckily he dropped to only 50 feet of a 200-foot cliff. Below churned the ocean waves. He climbed up the rock face, his vehicle was beyond any help though. He had two broken ribs and a gash on his head.

In 2017, his twenty-two year old son Richard drove through the same stretch. A traffic camera inside a nearby tunnel captured his Hyundai going through the tunnel, but that was the last seen of him. The mystery of his disappearance was solved a year later when a cervical vertebra was found at the Montara State Beach. It belonged to Richard Moss. Parts of his car were in the ocean near the area where he had last been driving. A DNA match confirmed his identity. 

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Gull House, Half Moon Bay c.1989

But's there more than tragedies at the Devil's Slide that have produced strange stories.

In 1979, Pat Hart bought an old, two-story house that had once belonged to George E. Dunn, known as a coast side pioneer. She moved it from 785 Main Street to 408 Grove Street, Half Moon Bay. She had bought an old cottage already on the property about 8 years before. It measured only 14 feet x 20 feet and was supposedly built around 1880, on a stand of cypress trees. It had no running water or electricity.

It's unknown if she named the small structure Gull House, or if that was it's name already.  She moved it to the rear of the lot to make space for the Dunn house, where she planned to live.

Throughout the years, she  had noticed strange manifestations around the cottage during harvest time. While gardening outside she would hear footsteps or knocking inside when there was no one there. Items would disappear and then turn up. The door would slam shut and open by itself, even on windless days, as well as locking and unlocking mysteriously. Occasionally a misty face would materialize in a corner and then dissolve. Hart also described an incident of automatic writing where her pen was taken over by an unseen hand.

Prior to moving the Dunn house to the site, she tried to sell the cottage once she realized the cost of renovating it. She allowed a buyer to tour the house, which is when the ghost made its presence known outside of its regular timeline. The potential buyer made the casual remark that he'd "probably tear it down" referring to a 6-foot long redwood shelf. The words had just left his mouth, when the shelf dislodged, sailed though space and hit him on the head. That marked the end of the tour.

Patricia Hart said that after owning it for 3 years and older woman confronter her and said, "You know, I was the one who found the body when I was a child back around 1910!" She went onto describe that one day she was sent on an errand to buy eggs from the recluse named Peter Troundson. She was the one who found his decomposing body, which had been there about two weeks. The old lady told her that Troundson's body had been found in the corner where the shelf had fallen, and where the footsteps were heard most frequently.

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Gull House c.2025

Then in the fall of 1980, the feeling inside the cottage became hostile. An icy chill was accompanied by the smell  of leather. She asked Lynn Davis a trance-medium to come to the cottage and find out why the haunting had changed. Davis claimed to make contact with the "departed soul" through her spirit guide, "Ana". 

The supposed spirit of Peter Troundson communicated to the psychic that he manifested during the autumn, because of the energy coming from children during the pumpkin festival. He gave advice on decorating the house, and assured Pat he would never harm her.

​By 1982, the house had changed hands, and the new owners lived there and established a therapy office on the premises. They used the little house as a storage space. It remained tucked away behind the garage of the old Dunn House that shares the same lot.

One has to wonder how much truth there was in Pat Hart's story. There is no reference dead or alive of Peter Troundson at Half Moon Bay or close by—not even in the cemetery. Also the story of a man being found dead in his cottage, even a recluse would have made the newspapers, and there is no mention of this event. The description of Peter's ghost becoming active only during harvest time due to children being around, is pretty far-fetched for what was described as a foreign born man who didn't mix with his neighbors, and only sold milk and eggs produced by his animals. One cannot imagine a crusty, bachelor coming back and given hints on decorating  his one-time home either.

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Peter Trounson visits Grass City from Half Moon Bay c.1924

However... research finds that Peter Trounson did exist, but during those years he lived in Grass City, California, and around 1903, he worked for the Union Blue Gravel Mine in Bloomfield.

He was kind of an unusual character, and that same year he was arrested for a complaint of disturbing the peace. The incident occurred when he went to the stage office for his baggage, which had been unloaded from the Bloomfield stage. He was in a hurry to catch the car going to Grass City, and asked to have his bags brought out. Mr. Crawford who worked at the station asked him for a hand with a heavy piece. Trounson helped him, then they fought about the fee of $1.50 being charged for the luggage. Trounson said he would only pay $1.00 since he had helped taking his own luggage down, for which he charged $ .50. Crawford threatened to keep his luggage. Trunson then cocked the hammer of a shotgun he was holding in his hands, "commanding Crawford not to touch the articles." A bystander stepped in and further trouble was avoided.

Crawford summoned the marshal who arrested Trounson. When the sheriff examined the shotgun, it was not loaded, which is why he was only charged with disturbing the peace. The charge was dismissed.

In 1909, Peter Trounson's small cottage that was located several miles below Grass City burned down. He had friends living there. A couple of months later, he took a 30 foot fall from a pine tree while gathering sugar pine cones on Banner Mountain. He was taken to Jones Memorial Hospital, where it was found he had a badly wrenched back, but no broken bones.

It wasn't until 1924, that Trounson was heard from again. He was referred to as a ranch owner who had moved to Half Moon Bay. He lived in the area of 119 Arleta Park. He was planning to visit England and New Zealand during that year. Peter Trounson was born December, 1854, in England. He immigrated to the United States, in 1880, and he died December 19, 1936 in San Mateo, California. He was about 81 years old. There is no mention of suicide connected to his death, and this was years after the anonymous old lady said she found a dead body. So who was haunting Gull Cottage, and Patricia Hart?

That being said, it doesn't mean the place was not haunted. It had been occupied for many years before Pat Hart moved in, even though a neighbor described where the little house had stood empty for many years before being bought. That a lonely soul stayed behind, someone who once had this windswept cottage to keep out inclement weather, or where they dwelt as the years went by is very possible. The cottage still stands, and keeps its secrets.

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Hugh Vail, age 20, c.1924

Not far from Devil's Slide there was another place, owned by the Neal family which had settled in the area since the 1870s. Built amid a 200-acre spread, it was known as the Neal House, the last family member Mary Maud Neal died in 1954.

The pilot episode for the series The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1968-1970) was filmed at the Neal House. Its tie to the title of "Gull Cottage" was only the name used in R.A. Dick's original story The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. The property is located in Santa Barbara, inland about 1/4 mile. The on-screen illusion of it being a coastal property in Maine was created with clever camera work. By 1988, the Neal House was being sold and described as needing a facelift. Since then it was renovated and went on the market for several million dollars.

The real Sea Gull Cottage was originally built in 1906 on a headland overlooking the sea, in an area known as Portuguese Bend by a family of shipwrights. Later it was owned by the Vail family who were wealthy bankers. It was close to the ocean on Channel Drive. Different members of the family lived there seasonally but it was owned by Hugh Vail. He married Clara Beale in 1902 and they divorced in 1918. They had three children who were adults when in 1924, he was found seated in a chair in front of the stove, dead after inhaling gas. 

Hugh Vail's parents were related and sprang from the Vail family, which were Quakers originating in New Jersey.

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House owned by Hugh Vail Sr. in Santa Barbara. Top photo c.1888, below c.1971

Some newspapers inferred he committed suicide due to a problem with alcohol, and financial failure. They claimed he left letters addressed to relatives, friends and business acquaintances, however none contained any statement why he wished to end his life. This was not entirely accurate since he did leave a note that read: "My friend was all in all to me. Since death robbed me of my friends I have simply existed, and cannot hope the 'comeback' so what's the use. No one cares now and I'm no good to anyone." The mystery was that none of his family or his intimates knew who this mystery friend was that he mourned so profoundly, and had supposedly died a few months before Hugh Vail took his life.

The only person who had recently died was a maternal uncle, Benjamin Vail. Hugh had taken a leave at the Fugazi Bank where he worked to travel to New Jersey, and attend the funeral. He never returned to his job. His uncle had served as a judge in Elizabeth, New Jersey and had never married or had children.

By the time of Hugh's death his younger brother Edward F.R. Vail left with his family to Italy, and did not return to Santa Barbara until 1941.​

Hugh Vail was said to haunt the property. 

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Frank's Place later to become The Moss Distillery c.1920s

Not far from The Devil's Slide is another site said to be haunted. The place is the Moss Beach Distillery, 20 miles south of San Francisco. The phantom is the Blue Lady, named thus for the blue dress she's always seen wearing. She is like a banshee; her appearance comes as a warning of injury, tragedy or accident.

​The restaurant, Frank's Place was built in 1928, by Frank Torres a Peruvian immigrant. Next door he built the Marine View Hotel which burned down in 1953. Up to then he had run the Marine View Tavern, a speakeasy located close by. There were rumors that a bordello operated from a building next door, and businessmen would take their mistresses over to the hotel after eating dinner in the secluded restaurant.

The coastline next to the restaurant was a favorite spot for bootleggers during the 1930s. The liquor came from Canada to be transported over the Devil's Slide to San Francisco. Under the cover of fog, the Canadian rumrunners unloaded ships and hauled their cargo up the cliffs.

No doubt this is why it became a favorite speakeasy for silent film stars, politicians and even Dashiell Hammett who visited and used it as a setting for one of his stories. Murders and shootouts came with the business of rum-running near Devil's Slide.

It was during those years that the Blue Lady was said to have been killed on the beach below the Distillery. No one knows her name, and there were no police records about her murder. It was said she was the wife of a jealous bartender, who caught her being unfaithful with a piano player named Charlie. He found the pair walking on the beach, which is when he killed his wife, and left his rival injured. There's another version of the tragic episode. In this one the Blue Lady dies in a car accident. Another story is where the piano player had another lover, and the Blue Lady committed suicide by jumping from the cliffs into the ocean.

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The view from the Moss Beach Distillery c.2006

​Prohibition ended in 1933, and so did the illegal activity, but the Blue Lady stayed behind. Frank Torres continued to run the business as a restaurant, which later became known as the Moss Beach Distillery. His son Vic continued as owner until 1964, when he died of a heart attack.

Mike Murphy bought it and changed the name to the Galloway Bay Inn. The next owners were Dave and Patricia Andrews, who changed the name to the Moss Beach Distillery. They kept it for 8 years. Dave claimed to hear chairs moving upstairs when the restaurant was empty. Faucets would turn on by themselves, and he said the Blue Lady had even locked him out of his office on more than one occasion.

​In 1981, Mike and Shirley Sarno the new owners told the story of the Blue Lady to a reporter from the San Francisco Examiner, and the ghost story took wings. Waitresses claimed they would hear the ghost call their name in a monotone voice. However there would never be anyone there.

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Mary Ellen "Maizie" Morley d.1919

In 1992, Sylvia Browne the TV psychic visited the restaurant. She gave the ghostly lady a name; it was Mary Morley. In April, she held a séance. Three ghosts were identified. One was the unfortunate Mary Morley, a married woman, her lover John Contina, and Anna who was a second woman Contina was involved with. According to Browne, Anna threw herself from the cliff, and Mary died from injuries received to her head and upper body. Even though Contina died when he was older, they all returned after death to haunt the place they would meet at during their life.

Research found that Mary Morley did exist, and died in a car accident in November, 1919. However the crash happened on the San Bruno Road after she drove off the road when she encountered a fog bank. Her husband Fred was traveling with her. He was hurt, but survived. This place is not close to the Moss Distillery, and this predated the existence of the speakeasy.

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Mary Morley drives off road due to a fog c.1919

Census records do not find a John Contina or Anna Philbrook living in this area during the years that would correspond to Browne's story.

​A fourth ghost that Browne encountered was Hannah Elder a lady from the late 19th century with an unknown tie to the area.

​Some believe that Sylvia Browne, who had known of her visit to the Distillery a year before, had a staffer do a little research. They came across the story of Mary Morley's death on a San Mateo County highway, and assumed it was close to the restaurant. With this information in hand they tied her to the mysterious Blue Lady.

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Dashiell Hammett's story The Girl with the Silver Eyes published in the newspapers c.1937

In 2008, the show Ghost Hunters investigated the Moss Beach Distillery and found several pranks implemented throughout the building, including a mirror with a ghostly reflection, and a sensor-triggered speaker that laughed.

Daryn Coleman, a former Disney employee, in a 2018 interview with the Fresno Bee, said he installed a hydraulic lever that caused the chandeliers to sway, and a phone to ring by itself. You would think this would cast some doubt about the Blue Lady except there's a tantalizing clue that appeared in Dashiell Hammett's story, The Girl with the Silver Eyes released in 1937. The setting is a roadhouse south of San Francisco at Half Moon Bay during Prohibition, where his private eye hero finds trouble, and a beautiful femme fatale named Elvira; the silver-eyed girl referenced in the title. Her real name is Jeanne Delano, a gangster moll which is ultimately turned over to the law. One has to wonder if the description of his lady villain, like the setting of the story, is based on a real woman.

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I had seen the girl before. She was a slender girl in a glistening blue gown that exhibited a generous spread of front, back and arms that were worth showing. She had a mass of dark brown hair above an oval face of the color that pink ought to be. Her eyes were wide-set and of a grey shade that wasn’t altogether unlike the shadows on polished silver that the poet had compared them to.

Nye's on the Beach (Moss Beach) a cafe and dance hall was built on the sandy beach by Charlie Nye. Charlie would tell stories about famous writers like Jack London renting his rowboats. c.1915

In November, 1928, residents of Moss Beach were questioned concerning what was suspected to be a murder ring that was responsible for the death of at least 3 persons during four years. All were found at Pillar Point.

The last body belonged to Harold L. "Harry" Peterson, 39, a San Francisco waiter who was killed by blows on the back of the head, according to the Half Moon Bay coroner. He was found at the bottom of a dry reservoir, his personal effects scattered around him. 
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After the removal of Peterson's body a 3-foot length of heavy bloodstained rope was found near the reservoir. Strangely the rope was not there when the body was found or on the following day. 

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Advertisement for Frank's Marine View Hotel and Grill c.1931

Four men living in a house at Moss Beach where Peterson was last seen alive on September 23, were questioned. They told authorities they had been making beer. Fred Brarens and Jack Casais, said Peterson was in poor health, physically and mentally, and had been drinking heavily. Up to 3 weeks before his death, he had worked at 2251 Market Street in San Francisco, which was a business owned by Brarens.

Mr. Brarens would follow his friend to the grave two years later in 1930, when he was 37 years old. The cause of death was not specified in his obit. Within the next few years, the body of a cook and blacksmith, both former residents of Moss Beach were found near where Peterson's body was dumped. Both men were killed by skull fractures identical to what caused Peterson's death.

Despite promises from the local sheriff that clues were being followed to bring the culprits to justice, none of the murders were ever solved. No doubt that stretch of coastline holds many secrets, including a long forgotten story of an unlucky lady that wore a blue dress when she met her end.

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