This week on Road Gang Radio, host Jimmy Mac welcomes Dr. Craig Friend, Professor of History and Public History at North Carolina State University, for a fascinating Halloween-season conversation about early American ghost stories, witches, and the origins of Halloween as we know it.

Dr. Friend explores his lecture “Things That Went Bump in the Night in Early America,” which dives into supernatural encounters in the early American republic — and what these stories reveal about the people and culture of that era. From colonial vampire lore to the first Halloween celebrations between the Revolution and the Civil War, this episode uncovers how the spirits of early America still haunt our imagination today.

Topics include:

How Halloween was celebrated in early America

The origins of trick-or-treating

Ghosts ...