We had heard about this Old Stone structure ( Witches Castle ) in the City Park in Portland. We ventured off over a week ago to see this site for ourselves.
The story goes in the mid-1800s, a man named Mr. D Balch bought a large portion of land around the area while Portland was still in the process of being developed. It was a big enough region, that he had to hire help to clear the area, so he hired a man named Mortimer Stump, who lived in the cabin on the property.
As time went on, Stump and Balch’s daughter Anna, fell in love, and eventually, Stump asked Balch for his Anna’s hand in marriage. Balch refused, resulting in Stump and Anna threatening to elope. Balch became enraged and told Stump that he would murder him if they married. But the couple didn’t listen to the warning and decided to elope in November of 1858.
A few weeks after, Stump and Anna came back to the cabin, and in a fury, Balch shot Stump in the head and killed him. Balch was arrested and he was executed in mid-October of 1859, which became the first legal execution in Oregon.
The Log Cabin was abandoned and the 1950’s Park Service built the stone structure in its place for Ranger offices and visitor restrooms. In the ’60s, it was abandoned by the park service and after that, it has been used as a gathering place (partying and drinking) for teens from around the area and they gave it its name “Witches Castle”.
Rainbow being an empath, did pick up some interesting energy there. Note she declined to walk in or on the upper levels of the structure. making me a little nervous because I highly respect her psychic abilities. As I was climbing all over the structure taking pictures, I did catch an entity hanging out in the lower level of the stone structure. I didn’t feel threatened at the time.
Rainbow felt that there were Dark and Light ceremonies performed there over the years and maybe some type of sacrifices, probably small animal types. The Light Ceremonies were in Pagan nature, honoring Mother Earth. She also felt that portals were opened during certain ceremonies, and closed. This would keep other entities from using the portal to enter this realm and cause havoc.
If you decide to go the Upper Macleay Parking area it’s about a ¾ mile hike from there to the stone house – Witches Castle. If you start from the Pittman Mansion parking lot and go down to it, it’s quite a hard hike back up, as we found out first hand.
Sleep Tight – and let your dreams carry you to happy places
MWiz