Fresh Seafood Company Haunted by an Apparition in Plaid

Fresh Seafood Company. Photo by Theresa

I cannot tell you how excited I get whenever I hear about a new-to-me haunted location, especially one so close!  Awhile back, one of my Theresa's Haunted History Facebook page members shared a newspaper article from September 2016 about a haunted seafood restaurant in Jefferson, WV...a location only about a 15 minute drive from me!  I was intrigued, but as I was bogged down with other things at the time, I just sort of put in on the back burner.  Until now...

The restaurant is The Fresh Seafood Company Restaurant and Market, owned by Tim Cerullo.  It is located in the St. Albans/Jefferson area at 6230 MacCorkle Avenue, beside the Venture Lanes bowling alley, sort of tucked behind it to the side, by the Kanawha River.  I don't come through Jefferson too often...and my family (besides me) really doesn't eat a lot of seafood, so I never really paid much attention to this location.  I had seen the sign, but it never really registered that there was such a quaint little HAUNTED restaurant back there.

According to an article by Ben Calwell in the Kanawha Metro, the ghost haunting the Fresh Seafood Company Restaurant and Market is a friendly one. Employees have reported seeing a gentleman in plaid pants and glasses who simply vanishes into thin air.  Cerullo himself experienced the spooky manifestations when he saw a seashell move on its own, actually flipping over a desk.

Photo by Theresa

The restaurant area is located in an old house, and Cerullo believes that the home's former occupants are still around.  The ghost (or ghosts) seems quite pleasant, and I definitely wanted to know more!  Since the worldwide unpleasantness won't let me get out to actually access documents at the library and courthouse, or to even go EAT at The Fresh Seafood Market's beautiful dining area, my research was limited...so expect a follow-up one of these days.  Anyway, I did find out a little about the history of the location...

The Beach House, as the restaurant area is known, gives a bit of its history on its own menu.  It simply states that George Washington once owned the land where the restaurant now sits and that the house dates back to before MacCorkle Avenue was built.  It was a lot harder than I thought it would be to figure out just when MacCorkle Avenue was built!  MacCorkle Avenue is named for William MacCorkle, former Governor of West Virginia and a state Senator.  He passed away in 1930, but I found newspaper references from the mid 1920's referring to MacCorkle Avenue addresses in the Kanawha City area.  The area of MacCorkle Avenue that runs through Jefferson is also still considered to be part of Route 60...so from that reason, I'm guessing the house was built possibly around the 1920's or 1930's.  That's PRETTY close to what I found through online property searches.


From what I can gather, Tom Cerullo purchased the property in December of 1996, a sale which can be found in Deed Book 2401, page 976.  There are actually several deeds associated with the property the restaurant is on and surrounding lots, all acquired by Cerullo in December of 1996. And, all the deeds were formerly held by the same family.

Two of the deeds were under the name of Edna Wood Carden, who acquired the property on Christmas Day, 1939. The two other deeds were both under the joint ownership of E.L. and F.E. Hadsell, who acquired the lots on April 18, 1944.  A little digging through the genealogy site, Family Search, provided some clarification.  Edna Wood Carden and Felix E. Hadsell were married on September 5, 1943, in Lawrence County, Ohio.  This was his first marriage, but Edna had been married before to a man by the name of Carden.  With no additional details on the marriage, it appears that Edna owned the property where the house now stands (and possibly the house itself) during or slightly after her first marriage, and then lived there with her new husband, Felix, acquiring adjoining property a year after they were married. Another frustrating thing to note is the property info online doesn't list any information about the house itself.  All those fields are left blank on the summary page, including year built.

Map Card-Kanawha County Assessor

And until I can find more information, this is where speculation REALLY comes into play.  WHO is the man in the plaid pants and glasses?  One guess could be that it is Felix Hadsell, who presumably lived in the home from the early 1940's until close to when the restaurant opened.  Felix was born on August 6, 1909 and passed away on July 22, 1995.  He is buried in South Charleston's Sunset Memorial Park, along with his wife, Edna, who passed away on December 27, 1992.  Could the apparition instead belong to Edna's other husband, Mr. Carden?  I haven't been able to find anything out about him, including whether or not he even LIVED on the property in question.  Or, is the ghost someone else entirely?  I found a newspaper article from 1970 about the winners of a horoscope contest.  One of the winners was Edna Hadsell, of 6230-A MacCorkle Avenue.  With the addition of the A to the address, does that mean that someone else owned or rented and lived in another section of the house/property and are now haunting it?

Questions like these are driving me crazy, and I can't wait until this unpleasantness is all over and I can get out in the real world again!  I'd love to do some additional research, perhaps interview the owner (the 2016 article states that the wholesale market was opened 29 years ago and the restaurant 22 years ago) and some employees, and of course EAT there myself!  I'll be coming for the ghost stories, but definitely staying for the delicious-looking fresh seafood!

Resources:

Something Fishy Going On at Landmark Eatery Near St. Albans. Metro Kanawha article by Ben Calwell.  September 21, 2016

Fresh Seafood Company Facebook

Find-a-Grave Entries for Felix Hadsell and Edna L. Wood Carden Hadsell

Kanawha County Assessor Map Cards

Marriage Certificate for Felix Hadsell and Edna Wood Carden from Family Search