The Blue Soldier: Supernatural Encounters in Fort Douglas
By: Wynne Parry
Issue date: 1/11/02 Section: Feature

The Utah Daily Chronicle

Media Credit: Matt Hatfield
Fort Douglas Cemetery

In his stint as curator at the Fort Douglas Military Museum, Jess McCall saw some strange things.
Sometimes, visitors wandered in and asked to have pictures taken with the soldier dressed in a blue post-Civil War uniform.
"Who is he? Of course it's Clem," McCall, an ardent military historian, explains over early morning coffee at Dee's.
McCall speaks of the soldier dressed in period costume as a mischievous old friend.
Clem is also Fort Douglas' ghost in residence—named by Boy Scouts and occasionally seen leaning up against the post in front of the museum, or sitting on the parade grounds' cannon.

In McCall's stories Clem tantalizes tourists, pops up in campus police reports and keeps lonely museum workers company.
He was the unidentified man in blue who once chased female students near South Campus Drive.
The ghost meant no harm."He was just being smart," McCall says.

Once the site of the fort's vegetable gardens, the area around the annex and Huntsman Center is probably comfortable territory for the ghost, McCall says.
He explains Clem's presence with an old military saying: "Even though you're out of the military, you want to stay near the flagpole."
However, the flagpole in Stilwell Field doesn't represent the armed forces so much any more.
Even within the military's buildings, McCall speculates strange inhabitants and renovations have kept the ghost from certain buildings.
Built in 1875 and nearly identical, Building 631 and 632 served as barracks initially. But the addition of carpet, insulation, light plugs and phone jacks converted 631 into an office for a military contractor.

On the other hand, 632 remained relatively intact. It now houses the museum and, frequently, Clem.
"It still feels like home. He can relate," McCall says.
His own encounters with Clem have been tied to the museum's library—probably where the ghost feels most comfortable.
Often a prankster, Clem once opened all eight of McCall's cabinet drawers. Another time, Clem began flipping the covering on the table where McCall was working.
"It was disturbing, and I had a few words with him to tell him I didn't have the time to fool around with him now. Mind you, this is after I'd had five years of experience with him so he was becoming a good, old friend," McCall says.
Others' stories corroborated his own.

The historian in McCall burns to ask Clem about a soldier's life prior to the turn of the century. But Clem is a mute presence at the fort.
"The one tragedy is that he can't talk," McCall says. But he has studied Clem's physical manifestations, however silent.
One day, as McCall read with his feet propped up on a chair, McCall noticed something from the corner of his eye. Clem was peaking at him from around a corner.

According to McCall, the best thing to do if you want to observe a ghost is ignore him. McCall followed his own advice and sunk down, deeper into the chair, as though absorbed by the book, all the while focusing his peripheral vision on Clem.
Feeling safe, the ghost stepped into full view, "probably 15 or 18 feet in front of me, legs apart, hands on his hips, looking at me. And then with a slight movement of his head from side to side, studying what I was doing. This guy is very curious."
McCall studied Clem's face, remarking it was round and his hair very dark brown with a part on the left side. He had a beard much like Gen. Ulysses S. Grant's, and stood about 5 feet 7 inches tall. He was stocky, weighing about 160 pounds. His uniform bore no rank.
"I then dropped the book, and his eyes got as big as saucers you might say. He darted to his left into the hallway," McCall said.
But before the ghost escaped, McCall noticed Clem wore a five-button blue jacket, the sort issued to soldiers after the Civil War up until the 1900s.
Shortly after the establishment of Fort Douglas, this period was not a good one for soldiers.
Pay was low, rations small, living conditions poor and suicide rates high. Then, in the 1870s, the Army decide to improve housing. Barracks, like Building 631 and 632, appeared. The enlisted may as well have been moving from a Motel 6 to a Marriott, according to McCall.
Rations and medical care also improved.

Judging by his fondness for the museum, Clem was probably one of those residing in the barracks. Clem could have been one of 40 men who slept there at any one time over a 30-year span, McCall says. So his true identity will likely remain a mystery.
Professional places, like opera houses, stadiums and military installations, lend themselves to hauntings, according to McCall.
In these places, the dead may feel an obligation to stick around, through a sense of duty, a need to protect or to take care of unfinished business. Suicide victims often cling to their homes, as do those searching for vengeance.
Stories McCall collected while serving as curator from 1989 to 2001 indicate Clem may not be the fort's only supernatural presence.
Three bartenders who worked in the former officer's club, each told McCall identical ghost stories.
After locking up for the night, the bartender would see light in the closed building and hear voices and jubilation.
"All three stories are identical, they parallel one another. Of these guys, none knew one another," McCall says.
The cemetery has stories too.

McCall received an inquiry from a man who had taken a photo of his young boy kneeling before a grave. According to the man, a figure appeared behind the boy. The man sent McCall a sketch, unwilling to part with the photo.
Such things are not so surprising from a cemetery and the fort's graveyard has no shortage of history.
During World War II, POW camps proliferated in the United States. Fort Douglas housed first Italians and later Germans.
The cemetery, now buried between high-tech companies in Research Park, holds some of their graves.
Many POWs went to work farming around the state. In Salinas, a guard opened fire on POWs. He killed nine Germans, now buried in the fort's cemetery. The guard was declared insane, according to Charles "Chuck" Hibbard, the museum's historian.
The scenery around the cemetery has changed with the arrival of neighbors like bio-tech company Myriad Genetics. And so have Clem's stomping grounds, which are shriveling alongside the military presence atop the foothills.
Only a small southern portion of the original fort remains, perhaps one day to be gone entirely, taking its ghosts with it. The future site of the Olympic Village may not be the proper home for a soldier's ghost.
"I have a feeling Clem may be leaving Fort Douglas," McCall states matter of factly.