The Judges Bench

My parents, John and Margaret Bozzell came to own or lease, not certain, and ran it as a grocery store as well. I was about 4 when my parents, grandmother Cecelia, and two sisters, Linda and Sue moved to this store, where we resided upstairs in the next 2 stories. I enjoyed it when the firehouse across the street would get calls so I could hear the firehouse siren & see the ambulance and or fire trucks coming out from my 3rd floor bedroom window.

My sisters and I had the 3rd floor above the store as our bedrooms. In the first room there was a little cubby door that went to an attic storage. In there was some old things that had apparently been left by the Bergers. One was an old lamp with a shade that had fringey hanging from it and the other Thang that stuck in my memories was a dress form that someone must have used to make dresses. That became my playroom.

Pretty quickly after hanging out in there, I met Mary. She was a teenaged girl maybe a little older than my oldest sister. She was very pretty and alot of fun to play with and talk to while my sisters were at school and my parents and grandmother ran the store and delivered groceries. My Dad did the deliveries.

We moved after I finished first grade with I believe her name was Miss Wagner. My Uncle Walter Bozzell took over the store soon after we moved and I think he sold carpet and tile if I recall correctly.

I never forgot that time of my childhood and I never forgot Mary. When I was grown, with a couple children of my own, I returned to Ellicott City only to find that it was now a bar/ restaurant called The Judges Bench. I decided to pay a visit there. While there, our waitress came to take our order, and I told her that I had lived there as a child. She asked if I knew Mary. I told her my experience with her. I then asked if I could see the rest of the place. She said yes, but that the second floor was also a bar, but was used for parties and such mostly. She took me up and of course things on the second floor looked alot different then they did back in the early 60's, so much so, I couldn't get the original layout in my mind to our kitchen, livingroom, or parents bedroom. She then let me go to the third floor. Upon reaching the top step, I felt like those years had not even passed by. Here was my room and the cubby! I opened the cubby and low and behold the lamp and the dress form were still there! I went in and immediately felt Mary there. My husband and the waitress were with me, so if she was going to show herself to me again, it wasn't going to be now sadly, but she was definitely there! I have been back one other time since then, with me was my psychic friend and my husband. My friend also knew Mary was there on our visit, and she talked to him but we couldn't hear her. The light in the cubby did flicker while we were there. It was nice to be back, as well as hear the stories of the staffs experiences with Mary.

I'm not sure that I would want to call this a haunt due to my long ago personal encounter with my friend Mary, but she is a spirit there and I will never forget my childhood time with her.

July 2023

Back in the spring/summer of 2001, I went to watch a friend of mine perform at Judge’s Bench. Got there early for the sound check and warm up. She tells me, this place is pretty spooky, wanna explore the upper floors? We meandered through the rooms, pretty sparse, and on the top floor, we pushed aside a curtain to show the attic room with clothes hanging across the center of the room, a floor length mirror and boxes on the other side. It was really warm in there and I told Gina I was ready to go back downstairs. We turned around to go out to the original room and we both looked back and saw the previously still empty hangers, now swinging back and forth, every other hanger. That’s when we ran downstairs to the bar.

May 2020