Whaley House Tour

A friend of mine recently visited the Whaley House, Located in San Diego California




The Whaley House has been called the most haunted d house in the United states by the travel channel. The Whaley house was haunted even before the house was built and the family moved in. The first ghost to be reported was the ghost of James “Yankee Jim” Robinson who was hanged in 1852. He was hanged on the property that was used as a gallows before Thomas Whaley purchased the property and built the house. According to the San Diego Union, after the Whaley family moved in, they heard the sound of heavy footsteps moving around the house and concluded that these footsteps were made by “Yankee Jim”. Years later, many visitors to the house said that they saw the ghost of Thomas Whaley
Four family members of the Whaleys died in the house including Anna Whaley. The ghost of Anna Whaley has been seen by visitors in the garden or in the rooms located downstairs. Furthermore, some visitors claimed that they have seen an apparition of a woman in the courtroom.
A spirit of a dog was captured; it is said that the dog was a spotted fox terrier; the apparition of the dog was caught running into the dining room in the house. The Whaley family used to own a terrier named Dolly Varden when they were still alive. The dog died of natural causes and is said to lick the bare legs of women and is mostly seen by children....



While my friend was in the home, she said that the batteries in her camera died, only to have full charge again once she left the house. Also she said that she turned her cell phone to silence while in the home, yet when she entered the chidlrens bedroom, it rang..TWICE and no one was there.
Here is her tour exactly as she gave it to me....


First lets see the courtroom. Originally built as a granary this room was expected to be rat proof because of its brick construction but it wasn't. This room was also used as a school house, a billard hall, a ballroom and a church. From 1869-1871 Mrs Whaley rented this space to the county of San Diego for use as the courthouse.



Next is the general store, Whaley was foremost a business man, and the original design of the house had this in mind. In the earliest found documents he sold buckwheat, macaroni, leaf lard, clear pork, codfish, preserved fruits, oysters, lobsters, pickles, and tomato catchup. His merchandise also included household wares such as wooden wares, tin wares, hardware, and stationary. As well as all manners of clothing such as boots and shoes. Later in the years he also dabbled in liqueur sales such as champagne, ale, porter, hock wine, and schnapps.



As we round the corner we enter the dining room. The chairs are circa 1860 walnut and covered with actual horse hair. The original kitchen was outside and the floor cloth was made of oilcloth and painted with many layers of varnish





Rounding the corner we have two ways to go. Across from us in the rear downstairs bedroom or the guest chamber. General Sedgewick stayed here durning his campaign to attract a transcontinental railroad to locate its pacific coast terminus at San Diego.
Stories passed down from the family say that Lillian Whaley used this room as she got older and her health declined.



Now we move upstairs


From here there are three ways to go. Striaght ahead lies the theater, to the left the master bedroom and on the right the childrens rooms. Lets start at the theater.


Feel free to have a seat, the theater, was leased to Mr Thomas Tanner from Oct 1868 thru Januay 1869. His group was called the Tanner Troupe, and they boasted a diverse repertoire from dramas to comedy. Mr Tanner died shortly after the theater was opened and the troupe was disbanned, so in 1869 this room was rented to the county for meetings of the board of supervisors and the storage of county records




Now lets move onto the Whaley's master bedroom. The orignal bedroom suite is walnut and the hand woven coverlet is circa 1850.



Now lets go to the most haunted room in the whaley house. The children's room is considered cottage style. It is said the dolls will be moved in the dark hours of the night and that the puzzle will be scattered across the floor when employees return for work the next morning.



As we leave the upstairs the last room we visit is the rear bedroom. The furniture in this room is not original to the Whaley family but is from that time period. It is also unkown who would have used this room, employees spectulate that it would have been used for up to four children or visiting family members





As we head back downstairs be aware that there have been stories of Mrs Whaley standing at the head of these stairs in a frock coat and pantaloons.





From here we will visit the Study, and the palor which are attached to each other.
Thomas Whaley was also a city clerk, notary of the public, realtor and real estate investor as well as the railroad secretary. His did much of his paperwork and correpsondce in the study.


This chair rocks by itself

Now to the parlor, it is furnished with items that originally belonged to the Whaley's. The pump organ was Anna's and still works today. She was a musical woman who passed this love onto her children. In fact her son George played professionally at Horton Hall in San Diego's new town.

Mist In The Hall

One of my co-workers Who for the sake of her privacy we will call Betty is a huge fan of ghostly things like myself, and when I arrived at work today she called me aside to tell me what had happened to her sister this week. I forget her sisters name but for the sake of this blog we will call her Linda. Linda's mother in law (Whom she did not get along with) passed away four days ago. Last night Linda was laying in bed and suddenly got very cold. She looked out into the hallway where she saw a mist. Thinking it was smoke she sat up and took a second look. The mist was growing thicker, and the room colder. All at once the mist took on a human shape and started to come into the room. Linda Yelled out, NO I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU...And snapped on the light. As she did the last of the mist disappeared and the room grew warm. Linda said she knows it was the mother in law.
Both the girls (Linda and Betty) grew up in a haunted house and both have had these type of experiences before. Betty said she told Linda to set up a video camera tonight and see what happens. I told her to also make sure she has her regular camera close by...Freaky huh

Note from previous post

I wanted to add a note about my last post. I had described the claw marks found in the river bed/bridge area as fossil like. I probably used the wrong word here. They did not actually find fossils but found claw type marks as if someone had tried to claw there way out of the water. The part about finding finger nails is as I remember the story. I would think any type of marks found in wood or clay after almost 150 years would be hardened, there fore I used the word fossil.
Sorry for any confusion. Also please remmeber this is a story that was told to us and there is no documentation that I am aware of.
Thanks

A story from Gettysburg Ghost Walk

I promised to tell you one of the ghost stories that I heard on the ghost walk in Gettysburg. The one that stood out in my mind that night happened here.

The area you see here may not look like much now, but on July 4, 1863 this area was known as WILLOUGHBY RUN. It was all dirt with a creek running through it. During the combat, the Confederates used the seven foot banks of Willoughby Run both as an entrenchment and a place to get some relief from the blazing sun and the heat of the battle.
It's said that on the last day of the battle as the troops were pulling out that a sudden thunderstorm hit the area and cause a flash flood of Willoughby Creek (there actually was a storm like that on July 4th.) It trapped several troopers and drowned them, and you're supposed to be able to hear their cries to this day. The stream crosses town, and it's been reported that if you get too near a storm grate that ghostly hands will grab at your trouser cuffs in an effort to pull themselves out of the surging waters. We were told that the little stream and a footbridge were still there a few years ago, and that when the city went to close it off (as shown in the photo above) that they found both fossil type claw marks and human finger nails embedded into the sides of the dirt. We were also told that Some of the wounded soldiers were down in the entrenchment and that for several days after the battle that the water ran red with blood.
Now I don't know how true any of this is, but it made for a good ghost story, and I don't mind admitting I hurried across that area and on down the sidewalk.

Ghost walk

My copy of "The Ghost Hunter's Field Guide..Gettysburg and Beyond, by Mark Nesbitt" is well worn and has proven to be a valuble resource when I have visited Gettysburg. One of the statements he makes has stood out in my mind and gives you something to think about.
I am not quoting it exactly the way it reads in the book, but it is something to this effect.
"Five-One thousand men were killed or wounded in the three day battle. Out of this three days they actually fought about 24 hours. When broken down this means that for every hour that they fought 2,125 men were shot. Every minute of that 24 hours 36 men where hit, so every two seconds a man was hit. For twenty-four hours."


When most of us think of this three day battle we tend to think of those men, but what is sometimes forgotten is the people who lived in the town of Gettysburg.
On June 1st of 1863 the town of Gettysburg had a population of 2,400. I was told on a recent tour of one of the homes in the area that when the troops pulled out on July 4th, that approx. 23,000 men were left behind. Almost every home had to take in a wounded solider or help to bury the bodies. A lot of these men died within the weeks that followed. It's little wonder with these statistics that Gettysburg is haunted. And of course being haunted everyone has a story to tell.
Look on any corner and you will find some sort of "Ghost Walk"

Mark Nesbitt "Ghost of Gettysburg" tour has been nominated as the #1 tour in Gettysburg, but for my trip this time we choose a different company to take a walk with. We opted for Sleepy Hollow tours.
Sleepy Hollow of Gettysburg Candlelight Ghost Tours is owned and operated by Cindy Codori-Shultz. Cindy is the 6th generation granddaughter of Nicholas Codori, of the Codori Farm, site of Pickett's Charge. Although Cindy did not give the tour the night we went we did have the opportunity to meet her while there and enjoyed talking with her. She seems like a very nice lady and her tour guides were well informed and interesting.
The night we took our tour we went with Amanda


She was a delight and told us several very interesting stories. Unlike the worst ghost tour I ever took in Richmond VA where we were rushed up and down hills and told stories at such a fast pace that we got very little out of the story I was pleased not only with Amanda's story telling ability, but also with the pace at which she told her stories and the way she lead the tour. She made sure everyone was together before she started talking, gave us time for questions and photos and seemed generally interested in having us as her guest.
I will try and relate some of those stories in my next post

Fire Fly From Hell

I'm back from Gettysburg and actually have a few things to report that we found a bit "unexplainable"


Do you remember in the movie Peter Pan, when Tinker Bell first comes in the window and the little boy sees her and starts yelling Fire fly from hell? Well, this is exactly how my daughter felt while in Gettysburg. Everyone had gone inside the cabin but her and she was just standing outside staring into the woods. She said she was seeing what she thought was a campfire. She could clearly see the light. Now no one was camping near us and the woods were not part of the campground so there is no way a fire should have been in that area. She said she stepped off the porch to take a closer look and the light was still there, as she walked toward it, it disappeared and in its place was a ball of light just hovering around the trees. Just about this time I stepped outside to see what she was doing, and as she turned her attention to the sound of the door opening the light was gone. She was quite exacted as she told me what she had seen. I told her I had heard of this type of thing happening before in Gettysburg. I have read several times on the Internet and in books on the hauntings, of people seeing strange lights.
I didn't think anything else about it and we all went to bed. About four A.M. I heard her get up and go outside. Now it was dark and raining so I could not imagine her going far. We had port-potties but they were up the path a bit, so I knew if she had to pee she was probably on the side of the cabin. I waited until I thought she had time to "do her thing" then I went out to check on her. Once again she was staring into the woods. MOM...It is back she exclaimed. I swear to you I saw this BIG ball of light, just dancing around. She went on to tell me that as she went closer to it that it seemed to come closer to her and then start to chase her as she came back towards the cabin. She said it was at lest 6 inches round and there is NO WAY that it was any kind of bug.
My daughter by the way is almost 25 and was not waking up from a night mare. She was fully awake. So what did she see? It depends on if you believe in spirit orbs. I don't think she was much of a believer in any kind of "ghost" before this trip.
Now she will be the first to tell you that it is haunted.
Also while we were there we both heard cannon fire coming from the battlefield. No re-enactments were going on..
We heard voices in the night, and far off singing. (we were not camping near anyone and were in woods backing up to the battlefield. This happened on two different nights when it was well after the ten pm closing of the battlefield and it's roads.)
One night we heard a loud sound. I can't even describe it. At first I thought it was a horse, since there were horses in the area, but it was a horrible sound. More like something or someone in desperate pain.
What ever it was send us running into the cabin.
Is Gettysburg haunted? Do you believe the tales you hear? All I can tell you is what I believe, and what has happened to me...

To be continued

Blog on Hold Until around June 1st

This blog will not be updated again until around June 1. I am leaving on Saturday for five days in Gettysburg PA

Gettysburg Trip

I have recently been in touch with Allen Gross who is one of the top professional paranormal investigators in the U.S., Mr. Gross has opened his own store and museum in Gettysbug and while I am in the area he has invited us to come by for a visit. I am looking forward to meeting him and taking a look at some of his spirit photography.
To learn more about him please visit
http://www.waynesboroghosts.com/Allen-Gross.html
I will be leaving for Gettysburg a week from Saturday and returning home around the 30th. Hopefully with lots of stories to tell..

count down

Three weeks and counting...Do you feel the spirits stirring?


(photo taken in front of Jenny Wade grave site)

On My List

It’s just a little over a month now until my trip to Gettysburg PA. I am already thinking ahead to make sure I visit all the hot spots for haunted activity which in Gettysburg is just about everywhere.

Did you know that Gettysburg has been listed as one of the most haunted places in the U.S 

On my trip to Gettysburg last year we took several of the ghost tours. One of those was to the Farnsworth House.
One of the most famous ghost in the house is a lady named Mary She often lays down on the bed with the guest. There is also the ghost of a small boy who was hit by a carriage in front of the house while playing. His father rushed him into the house where he died a few minutes later. There are sounds in the attic of footsteps of soldiers. The bullet that shot and killed Jennie Wade was suppose to have come from this window.

Do you see the white mist? I can’t explain how it got there. The window is clear glass and overlooks the street and when looking out the window you see other buildings. There was nothing that should have caused this abnormality on the disk. Notice the heart shape? The photo was taken while sitting in the attic listening to stories about the house and the hauntings. While there the door to the attic opened on its own. There is no way anyone went in or out. I was sitting near the door and it is at the top of the stairs. I would have seen anyone who opened the door if they tried to run down the stairs without being seen.

I’ve put this house on my list to take a closer look at.

Updating

I just wanted to let everyone know this blog is temporarily on hold. I will be updating it from time to time, but honestly don't have anything lined up right now in the way of places to visit that have a reputation for being haunted. I am going to Gettysburg PA in May, and hopefully will post something before then, but if not you can be sure that I will be back with some stories to tell from there.

Dear Anonymous

Anonymous has left a new comment on your post "The Difference Between Ghosts and Spirits":

Jennifer

I think you are watching to much TV.

What you stated is incorrect. Ghost and Spirits are one of the same. There is no difference.

What you need to do is put down the TV remote control and go to the library and do some research.

Before you post anything on the Internet about the paranormal, please know what you are talking about.

Don't mislead the public with what you've learned from TV's Sci-Fi channel.

Next time, please know the facts before the post anything






Dear Anonymous
First of all thank you for the nasty comment, it is always so nice to know people care and that they have nothing better to do with their time than to go around and criticize others. However Next time you plan on leaving a comment nasty or other wise you should be sure and scroll down to the bottom of the blog and read the disclaimer. THIS BLOG IS FOR ENTERTAIMENT ONLY therefore nothing should be taken seriously Most of my post on local folk lore/hauntings are based on information that I have taken from other sources. I can not be held responsible if these sources are incorrect. . Second of all I am NOT Jennifer. If you had read the entire post you would know that that particular article was from someone named Jennifer who runs a paranormal group. I, ME, PATTY do not belong to any said groups. Again if you had taken time to read the blog you would know this. I have repeated several times on this blog that I write this for fun, I ghost hunt for fun and blogging should be for fun, and not for others to run around and leave nasty comments on. So if you will pardon me, I'm going back to my TV now. I think there is a rerun of ghost hunters on.

P.S. I also reserve the right to moderate comments and if you come back by again yours will be deleted and the moderation turned on. And just so you don't miss it. I am posting the disclaimer here again

Please note that this blog is for entertainment only. Most areas of this blog do deal with ghost, hauntings and the paranormal. I understand not everyone believes in ghost or hauntings. If you feel uneasy about these subjects please skip this blog and continue on to somewhere else. Comments are always welcome, but I reserve the right to delete those that are offensive to me or those who do believe in ghost and hauntings. Most of my post on local folk lore/hauntings are based on information that I have taken from other sources. I can not be held responsible if these sources are incorrect. In talking about the Paranormal I will usually let you know if this is a personal experience that has happened to myself or someone I know. Most but not all photos used on this blog have been taken by me personally. I usually try to let you know within the post if I have "borrowed" a photo from somewhere else. Please keep in mind that a blog is just that. A personal diary. Nothing written within these post will be published by me anywhere other than on a blog.I am not an author, or a paranormal investigator. I do not associate with any group publicly that is a licensed group of the Paranormal. Again. These post are for entertainment only

Creepy

I don't often blog about places that I haven't been to myself, but this caught my eye. I was watching "A haunting" tonight on TV and the episode was about Dartford Cemetery in Greenlake, Wisconsin. I have to tell you it really creeped me out. I normally don't mind cemeteries, but after watching this show I don't think I would want to go here even in the day time.
The following is from Unexplained Research and tells you about the show and the cemetery


A Haunting, Featuring the Dartford Cemetery

By Ashley Allgood


11/10/07 - The People’s Media Company

I am a huge fan of the Discovery Channel’s TV show "A Haunting." The show is in the top 10 shows for my TIVO to record. I’ve always loved ghost stories but I make a point not to watch the show too late at night. The show has a spooky host walking you through a real life ghost story. "A Haunting" reminds me of "Unsolved Mysteries" with it’s reenactments plus first hand accounts from the people who experienced the horror. I will honestly admit the show does a great job of creeping me out!
The most recent episode was called "Legend Trippers." Three brave teenagers take it upon themselves to investigate their town’s local legend. A "Legend Tripper" is someone who casually investigates alleged haunted places so they can decide for themselves if it is haunted.

The teens go to "Dartford Cemetery" which is located in Greenlake, Wisconsin. Legend has it that if you sit upon the top of the mausoleum a ghost will push you off. Yeah, sure let’s go there! I think not!

The show starts off with some teens sneaking into the cemetery late one night. They take a peek at an Indian grave first. According to the website featured on the show "Unexplained Research" apparitions of an Indian chief have been known to repeatedly appear. The teens climb upon the mausoleum and then start to tell the story of what happened on Halloween to some teens from their school.

The story: A teen, Nick gets online in search of something fun for him and his friends to do on Halloween night. He comes across the website "Unexplained Research" which has a list of supposed haunted places in Wisconsin. He decides to go to "Dartford Cemetery". This "Legend Trip" has a dare which is something the seeker must do in order to prompt the super natural occurrence. This dare is to sit on top of the mausoleum. So, of course Nick and his friends (John & Christian) decide to take the dare.

The fact simple that these boys are walking through a cemetery at night on Halloween is creepy enough for me. They walk around the cemetery and try to provoke a ghost to come out. But nothing happens except one guy playing a joke on another. They do climb upon the mausoleum and after awhile they see a crack. This scares them since it wasn’t there before. They climb down and before John can get down he is pushed. He yells telling his friends someone just pushed him! The two other guys are shocked since they didn’t even tell their friend about the legend for fear he’d be too scared to join them. Nick heads back to the car with John since he’s a little more than freaked out. The other guy Christian, though wants to check things out a little more. Brave guy, right? I guess they didn’t remember one of the major rules of horror movies. NEVER SPLIT UP!

More and more spooky things keep each happening to each of the boys like names and dates changing on tomb stones & seeing people. The confused and scared boys head home not speaking of what they saw. Only later after Nick has a dream about the cemetery they decide to talk about it. The story passes from one teller to the next.

The show returns to the original teens who were checking out "Dartford Cemetery" and I feel their experience was VERY creepy. Evil seems to follow them outside the cemetery!

I am sure this show will draw a lot of people to be one of the many Legend Trippers. But Nick and his friends will never return! I personally don’t blame them.

The show also showed information on another haunted location called "Witch Road" which is located in Rosendale, Wisconsin. You can find more information on Witch Road at "Unexplained Research."

Want to go check it out for yourself? Hop over to MapQuest and plan your trip. Just please don’t invite me along!


Sources: http://www.unexplainedresearch.com/media/a_haunting_featuring_the_dartford_cemetery.html


Video was found on YouTube.

The Hanging Tree

*Click on photos to enlarge*

We stopped by the Ferry Plantation house yesterday to take some outside photos.

 

You might remember that I was there two weeks ago for the “Spirit tour”. We didn’t think the house was open, but walked around the front to get a few photos and as we did my daughter peeked in the window. We were talking about how we didn’t think the wind was what was making the nose we heard the night we were there. (You might remember we head taps on the glass upstairs) Rebecca shook the shudder a bit and Just as she looked in the window my grandson walked up behind her and his reflection in the glass startled her. She then picked him up to take a peek inside and as she did a face stared back at her. It was the director of the house, who was probably just as frightened. She (the director) came to the door, and we reminded her that we had been on the tour a few weeks ago. We stepped into the hall for a few minutes to chat. I wanted to know more about a couple of things that had been mentioned on the original tour. The first being the hanging tree out back. 

In documents from the house we know that three slaves were hanged from it. The tree was struck by lightning at one point and I couldn’t help but wonder if the top branches that were struck are the ones that the hanging took place on or if it could be some of these that are remaining.

 

I don’t recall being told what year the hangings took place but know it was at lest as far back as the mid 1800’s. I was told however that a psychic has visited the tree and felt as if the bodies were thrown to this side of the tree. Which is the back of the tree if your walking from the house towards it.

 

I have to admit I felt a bit creepy walking around the tree. It wasn’t just from the thoughts of men hanging from the tree it was from knowing that I was walking on a scared Indian burial ground.

Yes a burial ground. That is the other thing I was dying to know more about. I had heard there was one somewhere on the property. As it turns out it was a large area of the back grounds.  I am not sure how it was discovered but was told that almost immediately after it was that the owners put in this to keep the curious away.

Those are tennis courts and all of this grass area still has remains in it and also all around and under the courts. A one point some Native Americans visited. They left in a hurry saying they would never come back and said something about how the bodies could not rest because sacred things had been stolen and needed to be returned. Of course no one has any way of finding out what these “things” are.

I also saw the tree that was planted by Sally Rebecca Walke. Records indicate that  this Southern Magnolia was planted in April 1863 in memory of her fiancé who died during the Civil War  Measured at 131 inches circumference, and 75 ft. tall, in 2001.

The house also has a working well with an old pump that still works

Also if you look closely out back you can see the original road that ran out behind the house. (The front of the home was near the river)

 

I was really glad to get a chance to learn more of the history of the home and not just the “haunted” side. As much as I love the paranormlal I have to admit I am glad I don’t live near the home. I was told yesterday that some of the guest of the people who own the homes that were built on the plantation land had been by the house talking about dreams of men hanging in the trees and Indians cutting down the bodies and taking them away. Vivid dreams, but then again look how close the houses are.

 

*Note
Just to clarify things you should know that The Ferry Plantation house sits in the middle of a neighborhood in a cul de sac (court). Several Houses are on all four sides of Ferry Plantation home. These houses sit on what was once the land of the Plantation house.

Haunted Carter’s Grove

The windy road known today as Route 60 leads from Williamsburg to Newport News. VA. and if your not paying attention you won’t notice the  dirt driveway that once led to Carter’s Grove Plantation.  Built in the early 1700’s it was once one of Virginia’s finest plantations. It was closed to the public around 2003,  but tales of hauntings still linger among the locals.

From what I’ve been told a black man in raggedy clothes can be seen walking towards the Plantation from Williamsburg. Could this be the ghost of Jim, a slave who once worked at the Governors Place and walked the eight miles every Saturday night back to the Grove to see his family. From what they say he died of a broken heart when he came home one weekend to find that his wife and children had been sold and no one knew how to tell him where to find them.

During the time the plantation was open for tours flower petals could be found on the floor after being placed in what is known as the refusal room. Both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington offered marriage proposals to two different young ladies in the room and were turned down. Rumor has it that one of these young ladies still angry at herself for not accepting the life she could have had tears up the flowers any time they are left in the room. She especially hates white carnations. Could this have been what was offered to her along with the proposal? I suppose we will never know.  

Steps are sometimes heard in the halls. A phantom harp is said to play,  and another legend of Carter’s Grove is that Colonel Banastre Tarleton hacked the staircase as he rode his horse up the stairs to wake his troops during the Revolutionary War.


Click to open in new window where photo will be enlarged

I drove past the plantation today, and on a whim stopped at the beginning of the drive. The gates are locked now with big NO Trespassing signs in plain site, but for just a moment I jumped out of the car and took a few photos. When I loaded the photos and took a look I found something unusual in the upstairs window in the center of the house.

Take a look and tell me if it is my imagination or do you see a man wearing white pants and a red shirt.  Could this be Colonel Banastre in his Revolutionary War Uniform?

I may never know now that the plantation is  privately owned but from what I have read sometime in the future the new owners according to the terms of the sale have to open the house one day a year for tours. You better believe when they do, I will be there.

Seeking the Past

Mark your calenders. On May 23th. I will be returning to Gettysburg Pa. I can't wait to see what adventures I will find in this most haunted city.

Gettysburg, 1889: "In great deeds something abides. On great fields something stays. Forms change and pass; bodies disappear; but spirits linger, to consecrate ground for the vision-place of souls. And reverent men and women from afar, and generations that know us not and that we know not of, heart-drawn to see where and by whom great things were suffered and done for them, shall come to this deathless field, to ponder and dream, and lo! The shadow of a mighty presence shall wrap them in its bosom, and the power of the vision pass into their souls."

General Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain
Former Colonel of the 20th Maine Infantry

In search of spirits

The night was cold with rain and wind. Just perfect for a visit to a haunted house, and that was exactly where I was headed. My daughter  and I pulled up the Ferry Plantation house in Virginia Beach about a half hour before schedule. We arrived early due to the weather and the fact that even though I grew up in Virginia Beach and have lived in the Hampton Roads area most of my adult life I had never been to this house. Thankfully another person was arriving the same we were and showed us the way up to the house which was a short distance from the parking area. 

I loved the house from the minute I walked in and at no time felt uncomfortable.

As you can see it is full of warm cozy furnishings. 

We were given a short tour, told some stories then allowed to move about on our own. One of the local paranormal groups was there for this tour and had brought some equipment in which we were allowed to use. We grabbed a infra-red thermometer and a set of dowsing roads and set off to see if we would have any type of experience

We had heard the story of Sally Rebecca Walke who lived and died in this house, She seemed to respond when asked questions using the dowsing rods my daughter has in her hands. (young lady in the photo in the middle is Sally)

Some people believe that when a spirit is present that there energy will cause the rods to cross. We used them for simple yes and no questions. We would ask them to cross for yes and then ask the sprits to uncross them for us. It worked over and over.

 

We also heard the story of Henry a slave who died here. His room was at the top of these stairs. Its been turned into a storage room now.

We were told he had been chained to the wall at some point (not sure if this is a true story, We heard it from a teenage boy that was there with the paranormal group).

Rebecca seemed to be taken with this area and we spent some time there using the “ghost hunting equipment”

We never could get the meter to flash, but the dowsing rods did cross several times.

We moved on to other areas of the house. I was anxious to see if Eric the child that had died in the house would communicate with us. We made our way to the gift shop where I took out my voice recorder. We ask Eric if he was there, waited for a response. (It is believed that voices of the dead can be heard with a tape recorder. What we can not hear with our ears can be picked up electronically) We then asked him to make a noise for us. For several minutes we could hear what sounded like a tapping noise at the window. Both my daughter and I could hear it and of course realize that it can easily be de-bunked due to the rain outside, but it only seemed to tap when we asked it to. Was it our over active imagination? I am not sure, but it was enough to make us both nervous so we didn’t stay in there long. When I played back the recording. I can hear the knocks along with what sounds like a voice saying pretty girl, and also in response to me asking if Eric wants to come play…a YES, Before we took out the voice recorder we had used a pendulum in this room and ask simple yes and no question.  When ask if Eric was in the room it swung in the direction of yes, when asked if he wanted to play, it swung no, and when asked if he was frightened, yes, when asked if he would play later, it stood still and shook as if there was an undecided answer.

Our hostess had also used a pendulum in  another room and it seemed to be responding to “something”.

I really enjoyed roaming around this house and tried to spend time in the areas that were suppose to have the most activity.

On the third floor is  where the Nanny's room had been. She had died when she was descending these stairs

The way the story goes is she caught her heel on the third step from the top, and over the years others have either fallen up or down these stairs at the exact same spot.

Other than the tapping we did not have any personal experiences, but really enjoyed our evening and I plan on going back again.

Here is a slide show of random photos of the house.

In search of the spirit world

This  coming Saturday is the day that I am going on the “spirit tour” at the Ferry Plantation house in Virginia Beach. I am looking forward to the tour and like any good ghost hunter hope to have the ultimate experience and see something. However like any good ghost hunter I also believe in being prepared as far as knowing the history of the house/property. Not every spirit is nice and I don’t want to get caught off guard and suddenly wonder why I feel sick, or find things being thrown off shelves. At the same time I want to make sure I pay attention to which room or rooms that have shown activity in the past. This lead me to a google search on the house. I found several articles, but nothing that really talked much about the hauntings. Then I found information on a book called “Haunted Virginia Beach” and was able to read excerpts from the book. I was really excited to read about Eric, a child who died in the house. It seems that he likes to play tricks on people. He has also been seen on the steps. Another child, a young girl has been seen in the dinning room along with a woman. There is a spirit of a man who is called Henry. He was a servant and his job was to lead people from the boat landing up to the house. Over the years some of the land has been sold and modern day houses built. It has been reported that one of the neighbors had his patio furniture moved more than once during the night. It is thought that Henry was just making way for his unseen guest to enter the Ferry House .  Upstairs a woman is seen. She was the nanny and footsteps are heard pacing back and forth between her room and the nursery.  A woman is also seen by the downstairs fireplace. Cold spots have been felt in this house and shadows have been seen.

I can’t wait!

In The Woods

One of the most haunted places in my area is a place called Old House Woods. I have heard stories about this area for several years so we decided that it was time to check it out...

In the day light that is. With all the stories I had heard I was not about to go here at night.
Here are a few of the most famous stories.

Some of the recurring tales are about British Redcoats, pirates, skeletons in knights armor, mysterious groups of shoveler digging, ghost horses and cows which appear and disappear before one's eyes, a full rigged Spanish galleon which vanishes in thin air, mysterious floating lights in the woods similar to lantern light, and a "Storm Woman" who floats above the pines warning fishermen of impending gales.

Whew, that is enough to scare anyone. As you can see from the photos. These woods look creepy in the daylight.


Looking up and down the road in both directions.


The thick woods.







We didn't stay long and headed instead to the beach area where
Blackbeard, the famous pirate captain supposedly brought some of his treasure here to hide it. He forced several of his men to dig the hole at gunpoint. And then, he shot them, and threw their bodies in the pit with his takings. This is an old pirate superstition that is supposed to protect his treasure from thieves and other adventurers. And some have claimed to have seen men, madly digging in the night,
while another person supervises with his pistol in hand









I've heard the stories of how people digging for the treasure disappear never to be seen again. I wasn't about to take any chances, but.....Ok I confess. I did take one of these pretty shells for a souvenir. Shhhh don't tell anyone. I am not sure how good of a pirate I would make if one of these ghost takes me out to sea on the mysterious ship that has been seen in the area.

Revisiting Rosewell Ruins

Today I returned to Rosewell Ruins in Gloucester VA. I had visited this location last spring and had been wanting to return. All was quiet today but I can certainly see why this place is suppose to be haunted.

Stories have been told at Rosewell. Everything from slaves buried in the Cellar walls, to a mysterious lady who walks the front steps every night.






From Wikipedia,

Rosewell Plantation in Gloucester County, Virginia, USA for more than 100 years was the home of members of the Page family, one of the First Families of Virginia. Begun in 1725, the huge brick Rosewell mansion overlooking the York River was one of the finest in Virginia. Through much of the 18th century and 19th centuries, and during the American Civil War, Rosewell Mansion hosted the area's most elaborate formal balls and celebrations.






Rosewell Mansion and part of its history were described by author James Joseph McDonald in "Life In Old Virginia" (The Old Virginia Publishing Co., Norfolk, Va., 1907) thus:

"The mansion is substantially built of brick, three story and basement. The foundation walls are three and one-half feet thick. The reception hall is large, the ceilings lofty, and the whole mansion is indicative of refined taste and wealth. From the upper windows, a magnificent view is had of the surrounding level lands and the waters of the creeks and the York River.
"During the life of Governor Page, Thomas Jefferson was a frequent and welcome visitor there. While on one of his visits he wrote the rough draft of the Declaration of Independence in what is now known as the 'Blue Room,' situated on the northwest corner of the second story of this house."
The elaborate Flemish bond brickwork, the towering three stories, and the siting of the mansion were all meant to recall elaborate London homes of the era. In that sense, Rosewell was among the most sophisticated early buildings built in America.

The Rosewell Mansion was destroyed by fire in 1916. Today, a largely undisturbed historic ruin, the site has been the subject of archaeological work which has revealed many artifacts and shed light on some aspects of colonial life and architecture previously unclear.




Page family of Virginia
Governor of Virginia John Page (1744-1808) was the grandson of Rosewell's first owner, Mann Page (I). He grew up there, and was a classmate of Thomas Jefferson at the College of William and Mary in nearby Williamsburg where he graduated in 1763. John Page fought during the American Revolutionary War, attaining the rank of colonel. He also served multiple terms in the U.S. Congress and the Virginia General Assembly.

Other notable members of Virginia's Page family also include Governor Page's brother Mann Page III, his great grandfather, Colonel John Page of Jamestown and Middle Plantation, author and U.S. Ambassador to Italy Thomas Nelson Page, and Virginian Railway builder William Nelson Page; Confederate General Richard Lucian Page.






A family legend says that the courtship of John and Margaret Lowther Page began with an exchange of poems.


In 1790, John Page was a 47-year-old widower serving in the First Congress of the United States. Congress was meeting in New York, and it was there that he met Margaret Lowther, who was about 30 at the time. According to the legend, John escorted Margaret to a party and later realized that she had left a glove in his carriage. He sent the glove back to her with a note reading


"Taking 'G' from 'Glove' leaves 'Love'

Tis that I offer thee."


Margaret replied with another note:

"Taking 'P' from 'Page' leaves 'Age,'

And you are too old for me."


Perhaps Margaret was only teasing, or perhaps she soon had a change of heart, for the couple was married a few months later. They continued to write and exchange poems during their marriage.

Up coming haunt

On Saturday February 28th I will be joining in on a "spirit tour" of the Ferry Plantation House in Virginia Beach VA. It is said that this place is home to at lest eleven ghost including the spirit of Grace Sherwood, The Witch Of Pungo. I am really looking forward to this tour. From what I understand we will be taken on a full tour of the home's three floors and told the history and stories of the spirits that haunt them. At the end of the tour we will be given free time to explore on our own. Camera's are allowed, so you can be sure I will be posting lots of photos and talking about the night here.

It makes me wonder

While surfing the net I ran across this news story. You have to see this!

As Promised

As promised I visited two of my favorite old homes today. The first is Endview Plantation. (Here is a brief history of the plantation)

Built in 1769 by William Harwood. By the outbreak of the Civil War, Endview had passed out of direct ownership of the Harwood family and was purchased by William’s great-grandson Dr. Humphrey Harwood Curtis. Dr. Curtis was one of two physicians in the county at this time. The 1860 census shows that Curtis owned $8,000 worth of real estate, $21,000 worth of personal property and 12 slaves. By 1861 Dr. Curtis was off fighting the Civil War, but returned home and retreated with his family to Danville VA. for the remainder of the war. Federal troops occupied the Endview property and remained in and around the area until the end of the war. In early 1864, the Federal government confiscated the plantation and relocated seven African-American families there to farm. The Curtis family returned after the war and within a few months regained possession of there things.


As you can see the farm and land has a rich history so it is no surprise that the home is also associated with hauntings.


Reports have said that a woman has been seen crossing the road from the cemetery towards the house during re-enactments that are held at the Plantation. This woman is known as the woman in white. Reports also show that the room, that was used as a nursery has curtains that open after they have been closed for the night. Civil War re-en actors who would stay in the cabins (built for them to stay in during re-enactments) have reported ghostly happenings. Doors open and close on their own, cold spots appear even in the summer, and many of them felt a presence when they were alone and heard disembodied voices.


With these stories in mind I arrived early and joined a tour. No photos were allowed in the home itself but I did get a lot of shots of the outside.






These last two photos are graves of the Curtis family. I may be mistaken but I believe the child's grave is their child (They had 11). It is documented that one child a girl age 8 died in the home. She was suffering from intestinal worms and the "cure" at that time was arsenic. Her father being a DR. administered the dosage and she was given to much and died.


After I walked around the grounds near the house, I went back a bit further to the natural spring.

It is a bit hard to see in this photo, but when I visited last summer it had quit a bit of water in it. We were told that this spring was one of the main reasons that soldiers stayed here on the property during the war as it was one of the only natural springs in the area.
I continued on and found the Hargrove Cemetery. Several children and adults are buried here, and it is believed that there are several more unmarked graves.





Beyond this area through a field is where the famous "haunted" cabins were. I had never been back there and must admit I was a bit nervous. After all I was the only one walking around the property and could not see the house from where I was at. It is the dead of winter and this place looked creepy...I wondered how long it would take anyone to find me if something happened ha ha..
I took a deep breath and moved forward.







What I found back there were a bunch of old run down cabins that were once used for the re-en actors. It made me wonder why there are no longer in use. I felt very uneasy in this area and didn't stay long.
I had been at Endview awhile and knew I needed to hurry if I was going to make the tour at Lee Hall





I was very disappointed in this tour and will not waste your time talking about it. The tour guide was very brisk and rushed us from one room to another.
The only interesting part of this home was at the end. I met a lady and her daughter who had been on the tour with me at Endview. It seems that they were also interested in ghost and we started talking. It turned out this was the highlight of my day because the daughter (who is about 10) "see and feels" ghost. The mom "senses" things and together they were a lot of fun. The daughter said she felt a friendly presence there at Lee Hall. She mentioned this to the tour guide. Of course she phoo phoo the idea and within a minute of us talking to her the men's bathroom door swung open on it's own and hit me in the leg. We all started laughing and the daughter told the tour guide...well the ghost you don't have just went into the bathroom. I loved it.

Anyway and the mom, daughter and I started talking we of course turned the conversation back to Endview. I asked them if they had walked the grounds to the old cabins and they had said no, then the daughter told her mom she wanted to go and told her mom that she wanted me to come along..

Since the two homes are on the same road it took less than five minutes to return to Endview where we were told we only had a half hour before they closed, so we hurried to the back area where I once again took some photos. Both mom and daughter felt creepy and the mom said she felt as if someone was there. I am far from psychic but had to agree. I don't think it had anything to do with the cabins, but more with the land. Perhaps it was the spirits of the slaves or the soldiers of long ago. I suppose we will never know. While there the mom and daughter both turned on the recording area of there cell phone. Mom asked...Is someone here, Can you tell me your name, why are you here (with time between each question to hear an answer)
Then she played it back. If I hadn't been there I wouldn't have believed it, but clear as a bell when asked CAN YOU TELL ME YOUR NAME..I heard a clear whisper..STEVEN
We had a name..Steven..


One my first trip to this plantation I did not especially feel like it was haunted. Now I am not so sure. I suppose it depends on what you believe. Do spirits linger? Can they interact with the living?
Here is one thing that did happen that I haven't mentioned...
Take a close look at these two photos






Do you see the difference?
Yes the door is open..
The first photo was taken at 1:23
The second one was taken at 3:36
Could someone have come down the path in those two hours and opened the door? Of course they could have. We can always debunk the photos. After all I wasn't the only person to take a tour that day...but maybe, just maybe it was STEVEN, going out for a walk...

Upcoming investigations

I have a trip planned on Monday to revisit two of the local homes in my area that are reported to be haunted. The first of these is Endview Plantation.




I stopped in here last summer but did not get any impressions of anything out of the ordinary. However I only visited the house and small cemetary that is on the property. Since then I have learned the following information and will be taking a walk back to that side if the property.

Civil War re-enactors who would stay in the cabins near Endview Plantation in Newport News would report ghostly happenings. Doors open and close on their own, cold spots appear even in the summer, and many of them felt a presence when they were alone and heard disembodied voices.


The second home on my list is Lee Hall Mansion.




During my first visit there, I asked if there were any ghost stories. I was told there was one of a woman, but they didn't seem to want to talk about the story.
I do know of one person who lived in the town homes that have been built on the adjoining land next to the mansion (this all belonged to the family at one time) and she told me strange mist has been seen on the grounds of the mansion, and also she along with others have reported strange things happening in there apartment/townhome.
It should be interesting to see if my visit next week shows me anything "strange"

White House Ghost

As we all know the White House has new residents tonight. Congratulations to President Obama and his family. May you have four years filled with peace,love and hope. May you bring the change this country needs, and may we all come together as one people united the way this country is meant to be....God Bless you as we travel this road together.

Now with that said Let's talk about some past residents. Residents who refuse to leave...Those who linger on and have been seen by countless people.

Yes I am talking about GHOST. Did you know that the White House is one of the most haunted houses in America? One of the most frequent sightings is that of former President Abraham Lincoln. He has been seen near his bedroom (which he never used as a bedroom but as an office)Grace Coolidge,Franklin Roosevelt’s staff members and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands are among those who claim to have seen him.
President Harry Truman claims Lincoln once knocked on his bedroom door and Winston Churchill flatly refused to sleep in the room that was once known as Lincoln’s sleeping chamber. After having sighted the ghost of Lincoln.
Even more modern day Presidents like Richard Nixon were Among the many witnesses to the various sightings of President Lincoln – aside from the ones previously noted – were Theodore and Eleanor Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Jacqueline Kennedy, Lady Bird Johnson and Maureen Reagan.
Although the ghost of Abraham Lincoln is said to be the most active –other Ghost are said to reside in the house too.
Presidents Harrison,Andrew Jackson, and John Tyler have been seen.

Presidents are not the only ones who have been said to haunt the home. Reports show, that the wife of President John Adams has been seen." Dolly Madison has been seen in the rose garden on several occasions, and is said to have appeared when Edith Wilson – wife of Woodrow Wilson – made plans to have the rose garden replanted. As the gardeners prepared to go to work, Dolly appeared to them and told them to leave her garden alone and not bother her arrangement. The gardeners were so frightened that they fled in terror and refused to make any changes to the rose garden. To this day, it’s still arranged in the same way as it was when Dolly Madison was alive and well in the White House"
Willie Lincoln, one of the son’s of President Lincoln who died in his childhood at the White House, has been seen by a number of witnesses – including White House staff members
A British Solider has been seen along with The ghost of Major Henry Rathbone, who’d accompanied President Lincoln to the theater on the night of his assassination.
Humans are not the only ghost that have been seen...
a spectral black cat has also been viewed by a multitude of people. According to witnesses, the cat appears in the basement of the White House immediately preceding a national tragedy, such as in the case of the Stock Market crash and the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.
Sighting are not the only thing that happens at the White House..Sometimes only sounds are heard..
Did you know that the screams of President Grover Cleveland wife have been heard. She is the first woman to give birth in the White House and it is said to be be her during the pains of childbirth.
Footsteps have been heard and even the smell of laundry soap are some of the oddities that go on.

Of all of the spirits that are reported to walk the floors of the White House, Abraham Lincoln seems to be the one whose sightings have a specific purpose. His ghost is said to become particularly active during times of war, when he’s seen and heard restlessly pacing the hallways and knocking on bedroom doors throughout the day and night. Also during such times, witnesses tend to see his gaunt figure standing at the window of his bedroom or the Oval Office, looking out over what were once the battlefields during the Civil War.


The fact that Lincoln is sighted so frequently is of particular interest, since both he and his wife – Mary Todd Lincoln – were known to have conducted séances in the White House, in an attempt to contact the spirits of their deceased sons. Both strong believers in the existence of the afterlife, the Lincolns devoted a great deal of time trying to establish contact with the youngsters, and were said to be quite open-minded about interaction between the two planes of existence.


Please note that all of this information was "borrowed" from the Internet and was not written by me personally..

updates

I'm sorry that I have been neglecting this blog. I haven't been out doing much site seeing the last few months. Ghost hunting seems to be a warm weather hobby. I have however been thinking of some of the things I want to check out once the weather opens up a bit this spring.
There is a lot still in my own backyard (as the saying goes) to explore.
One of the places I have been wanting to go to for a long time is the Ferry Plantation house in Virginia Beach. This house was the site of the trial of the only convicted witch in Virginia, Grace Sherwood in 1706. Many people say the house is haunted by Grace, and I have heard that some of the local paranormal groups have spent the night there and rumor has it that in addition to Grace there are at lest ten other ghost living there.

Other things I want to do is make a return visit to both The Lee Hall Mansion and The Endview Plantation. Those two may be coming up in the next week or so, and if possible I will go to the house in Va. Beach, It is only open on Saturdays and I have one off soon, so check back in with me.

Something to look forward too

Author Beth Brown has a new book coming out in the early summer that will feature the haunted plantations of Virginia. I have not had the chance to meet Beth, but have read her book on the haunted battlefields in our area and highly recommend it. I am really looking forward to this book, because I have had a chance to visit many of the places she will be talking about in the book. In a recent blog comment I asked Beth about advance copies of the book and she replied that they may be available about eight weeks before they hit the stores on sites such as amazon.com.
Be sure and check her out and keep up with the release information if your interested.

Tears in the snow

Not far from where I live is the town of Gloucester. Like most small towns it has its tragedies, but none so great as the one that happened one dark winter night. It was sometime in the 1800's that a lovely young girl named Elizabeth went with her father to London. While there she met a handsome young man and fell in love. Alas it was not meant to be because they soon returned home. Her father who was against the match intercepted the letters and they never heard from each other again.
Now the young girl longed for her love so much that she fell ill and died.
Friends say she lost the will to live, and on a late November afternoon they buried her in a grave at the foot of the garden. Snow begin to fall as the grief stricken father made his way back to the house, heart broken that his only child had died.
As the story goes a former butler angry at the family dug up her grave as soon as it was dark. He planned to steal the expensive jewlery she was buried with. He dug away the snow and soon reached the coffin where he found the body. He took the jewels from her neck and reached to take the ring on her finger but found it stuck so he took a knife and cut off her finger. Much to his surprise and horror the young woman who was not dead but simply in a coma woke up. He ran into the night never to be heard from again.
Somehow the young woman crawled across the yard and up onto the porch of the house. Her father who sat by the fireplace lost in thought and grieving paid no attention to the stratching at the door. Perhaps he thought it was one of the dogs, or just the wind.
The next morning the young woman was found outside the door.....Frozen under a pile of snow. There was a trail of bloody foot prints leading from the garden.

To this day when the first snow falls and the fire is crackling in the hearth...the new generations of this family still see the apparition of a young woman walking up the staircase..the rustling of the petticoats. If you look out into the snow, you can see the bloody footprints leading from the garden..She has at last found her way home.
And in the spring near the steps of the house grow the most beautiful violets. Watered by the tears of a young girl, seeking refuge from the snow


I first heard this story when I went on a "ghost tour" of Colonial Williamburg.I was touched by it as soon as I heard it and it was my favorite stories about hauntings in our area.
It can also be found in Volume 1 of The Ghost of Virginia by LB Taylor Jr.

I plan this spring to visit the area where this story took place.

Wish List

Dear Santa
As you already know (because Santa knows everything) I love to visit old graveyards and houses and battlefields, and just about anywhere that ghost would live. A lot of information is on the Internet but I like books too. L. B. Taylor Jr. is one of my favorite local authors and I would love to get some of his books from you this year. Since he has about 18 on Virginia Hauntings any one of them will be fine with me. I'm not picky....Oh and Santa, I think Barnes and Noble is open late..

Love
Patty

And the winner is NOT ME

Well I received the list this morning of winners from the ghostly images contest and my name was not among them. I have to admit I was a bit disappointed. I really thought that it was a good photo, but I guess someone had a better one. Oh well, I can always visit next year and try again. On the bright side I got my newsletter today from About.Com paranormal and my photo was one of the featured articles for this week.
Winner or not the Jennie Wade house was an awesome place to visit. I didn't expect the image in the photo, I didn't see anything when I took it. What I did experience while there was the chains next to one of the beds moving. Of course I thought it was rigged so I went over and touched them I could feel a pressure on the chain as if someone was actually moving the chain. It's funny because at the time I really wasn't alarmed. I just shrugged it off and moved to the next room. I spent quit a bit of time in the house, and was there alone. Now I am kicking myself for not using the tape recorder and trying to capture some sounds. Oh well, there is always next year.




I included this photo, becaues it shows the mirror from a different angel..There is nothing strange in this shot.

One end of the chain, you can see there is no way it is rigged

Me holding the chain

The other end of the chain, again how could it have been rigged?

Photo

Check It out....I made about.com paranormal gallery!!

Just click on the words ghost photo
My Ghost Photo

This is NOT the photo contest mentioned in the previous post. I contacted them today for a list of winners and was told that they will have them available on Dec. 15th so I won't know until then how I did in that contest. However I am very excited that Steve Wagner of about.com paranormal gallery published the photo. They are usually very picky about what they put on that site, so I feel honored.

As Promised

CLICK ON PHOTO TO ENLARGE AND IS BEST SEEN IF YOU SET YOUR PAGE VIEW TO ABOUT 125 ON THE ZOOM



I promised several months ago that on Dec. 1 I would release the photo I took of the mirror in the Jennie Wade house.(Gettysburg PA) What you are seeing is the blue frame of a mirror..If you look at the right hand side of the photo near the word "permission" you will see a wooden rail which is the bottom of the bed..The white area you see at the center of the photo is the quilt that was on the bed..Now look again..Do you see the misty white figure sitting on the side of the bed? Keep looking. Find the words "be copied without" The ghost is there. I can see the legs dangling off the side. Look again..Do you see the body and the head. Ok I know not everyone believes, but you have to admit this is an "interesting" photo.
I haven't heard from the ghostly images people in Gettysburg yet, so I have no idea if it placed in the photo contest, but either way I think I got something.
I will be re-posting some information on the Jennie Wade house soon to the paranormal section so you can learn more information about the house and who she was.
In the meantime let me know what you think of the photo

Revisting an old haunt

You may remember me posting last year about the young woman who haunts the Public Records Office in Colonial Williamsburg.
For some reason when I went then I did not photograph the family cemetery, so on Monday while we were there I stopped by to take some photos,
I am reposting the story again for anyone who missed it the first time.
I have never experienced any paranormal activity at this site, but do find the old graves interesting.


Public Records Office



Jones Family Graves



Jones Family Graves




Jones Family Graves

Public Records office

Is the oldest archival building in North America. It once housed important documents. In 1784 it was converted into a grammar school. From 1789-1824 was rental property. In 1824 it was the office for the clerk of Chancery Court. In 1855 was acquired by the neighboring female Academy, which was located on the grounds of the Capital building. And in 1862 southern troops took refuge inside.
Near the turn of the century David Roland Jones and family owned it. They had seven children, and none of the girls married or left home. One of the daughters Edna became restless and when she met a man named John Mince she fell in love. Her father forbids the relationship. They made plans to run away together and meet at the Governors Place, which had burned over a century earlier. . Edna waited until dark and hurried to the meeting. One the way she was struck and killed by a speeding couch. It is thought that her spirit rushed home so that her father would not discover her deception.
Since that night she has been seen roaming the property.. She has also been seen at the Jones family cemetery. Her ghost has been photographed indeed the graveyard where her body rest. Strangers have heard her calling out as they make there way through the property.

Ghost Photo

Remeber the photo I told everyone about of the "boy" on the bed in the mirror at the Jenny Wade house? I haven't realeased the photo publicly yet because I have it in a photo contest that ends on Dec. 1....

This is what the contest had to say about it.
Keep your fingers crosses that it will be good enough to win...
After the contest is over I will be submitting the photo to several paranormal sites to see what they think..




Thank you for the photo. After carefully reviewing we agree that there appears to be something in the mirror that doesn't belong there. I can't say with certainty that it is an image on the bed but it certainly is interesting

xxxxxxxxxx

Ghostly Images of Gettysburg

One of my favorite things

One of the most interesting things we did while in Gettysburg was take a ghost walk with the Ghostly Imagines Tour Company. They took us to the former Children's Orphanage (Now the soldiers museum.) It seems that during the Civil War one solider was found dead clutching a photo of his three children. The picture was printed on October 19, 1863, in the Philadelphia Inquirer with a story under the provocative headline: "Whose Father Was He?"

The article said "a Union soldier was found in a secluded spot on the battlefield, where, wounded, he had laid himself down to die. In his hands, tightly clasped, was an ambrotype containing the portraits of three small children ... and as he silently gazed upon them his soul died. How touching! How solemn! ... It is earnestly desired that all papers in the country will draw attention to the discovery of this picture and its attendant circumstances, so that, if possible, the family of the dead hero may come into possession of it. Of what inestimable value will it be to these children, proving, as it does, that the last thought of their dying father was for them, and them only."

Amos' wife, Philinda Humiston, living in Portville, New York, eventually came upon a news account of the photo. So much sympathy was poured out for the Humiston family that the proceeds allowed for the creation of an orphanage in Gettysburg for children of soldiers.


Philinda moved to Gettysburg and for awhile ran the orphanage. She remarried and moved away leaving the children (in the orphanage) in the care of a young woman by the name of Rosa Carmichaels. Rosa was very cruel to the children. She would beat them, and chain them to the walls in the basement. There was a room that Rosa put the Orphans in to beat called the pit. She had 14 to 19 year old boys called stick boys. They carried large sticks to beat the boys as well as girl orphans. She also place the children in a cave type dwelling that has been nicknamed "The Pit".
Some of the children died while in her care, and are said to haunt the basement
and yard. Some visitors have had their clothes and bodies tugged at by invisible spirits.

The group I was with walked out to the stone wall that runs along the orphanage. The guide had warned us that some people have trouble taking photos there or have strange things show up on the camera. Several people around me took photos that came out with nothing but a white rope like streak running through the photo. When I tried to take photos I could not get my camera to work. I checked it and to my surprise found that my batteries were completely drained. We had just put fresh batteries in that had been charged just prior to going on the tour. (Thankfully we had extra batteries)
Once inside they took us in and let us see the pit and also where the children had been shacked. While listening to our guide the chain that separated the room suddenly started to swing. No one was near it and everyone in the group witnessed this. Suddenly one lady cried out..Oh my god..I just heard a voice say Help Me..someone help me. At one point they put the lights out and we sat in total darkness for five minutes. Do you know how long five minutes is when you can not see your hand in front of your face and you know you are sitting in a haunted place. Well, let me tell you it is a long time. Once the lights came back on our guide played a tape for us with EVP (recordings) taken by a local paranormal group. You could hear children's voices on the tape. He also showed us some photos that people had taken over the years and that the paranormal group had taken. They showed orbs and steaks of while. Then on the last photo he pulled out you can see three little face peeking around the chain...yep..the one that kept swinging..
It was really awesome!
If you ever get a chance to go to Gettysburg make sure you take this tour.
Be sure and click on each photo to show it full size.


Photo hanging on the wall is of the three children and is like the one found in the dying soldiers hand.




Our guide Bob talking with one of the other people on our tour. This is at the wall that is haunted and where my batteries went dead when we first arrived


The chain that moved on its own


My husband checking out the chain to make sure it is not rigged to move (It wasn't)


A view of the pit....The doll had been placed there and we were told sometime when people come in it has moved to a different location on its own

Haunted Gettysburg

My books arrived and I have already devoured the first one. Mark Nesbitt is an excellent author and the books are interesting and an easy read. I am making a list of "must see" places to visit. I know for sure that one of them will be the Farnsworth House. My friend Harry who is big into ghost hunting went there about two months ago and highly recommends visiting it. (He actually stayed there). They offer a ghost walk and tour, and I think unless something comes up to change my mind this is the one I will be taking.
Here is some information I found on the web about the place



Gettysburg - Farnsworth House Inn - Considered by many to be one of the MOST haunted houses in America! The first house in Gettysburg to be investigated by renowned psychic Carol Kirkpatrick, as well as Ghost Hunters International, a crew from Pittsburgh, Chicago, and Southern California. The crews from "Sightings" (Sci-fi Channel), "Unsolved Mysteries", and The History Channel have done filming here. Mary, a spirit from the Civil War era walks the corridors of the Inn at night. There is also a civilian man carrying a child wrapped in a quilt. You can hear him sobbing in an upstairs room. A midwife is seen watching over a young woman in labor. Three Confederate sharpshooters remain at their posts in the garret of the house. A soldier carries a wounded comrade into the cellar of the house. His voice is heard singing to comfort his dying friend, who dies in the catacombs of the cellar. Cold spots have been detected. "Balls of white energy" were photographed as white "auras" of energy throughout the house. Guests report many strange happenings on their stays here!

Getting the history

They say that the first step to any good investigation is getting the history of the place you are about to investigate. I thought this might be a really good way to learn the history and hear the ghost stories about Gettysburg ahead of time
The first THREE volumns in this series are in route to my house and should be arriving in a few days. Thank you amazon.com for used books! Once I get through these I will order the other two.

Something Strange in this photo

Click on photo to enlarge



Ok tell me if this is my imagination or do you see the back of a Revolutionary War soldier. I see the back of shoulders/backpack, the head and hat and a musket gun. It looks to me as if they were crouched down or perhaps had been hiding behind something that is no longer there. I see it/them just to the right of the slabs that are leaning up against the tree (those slabs by the way are a grave stone). This picture was taken at the same children's farm that my grandson first saw "The Lady". I took it on a recent trip there when I was trying to find the area of the first photo. Where I took this photo is almost if not the exact spot where the first one was taken last summer. Could this be one of the "shadow" people we hear about?
Let me know what you think.

Ghost of Gettysburg

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WteXzuyBE5g&hl=en&fs=1]

Sneak Peek

Sneak Peak

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WteXzuyBE5g&hl=en&fs=1]

Sneak Peek

Strange, really strange.

Ok, so I want to know what you think of this. You know how I am obsessing about this trip to Gettysburg right. Well all of last week I searched high and low trying to find a copy of the moive (Which by the way I highly recommend for you Civil War buffs out there). I finally found a copy of the movie at my local Blockbuster and we watched it. Tonight I mentioned to my husband I wanted to see it again, but my grandson was here so we decided instead to find a movie for him. I opened the drawer on my entertainment center that holds my tapes and guess what was there. A tape of none other than GETTYSBURG. Ok your thinking so what is strange about that.
Well, believe it or not, the writting on the tape over is my dad's handwritting.
My dad has been dead three years.
Now don't freak out. I have other tapes that belonged to my dad in there. but I swear I do not remember EVER seeing GETTYSBURG. It wasn't in the back, it was the third one in.I have to ask myself did he put it there, as a way of saying to me on some level. GO, no matter what Go.

Strange I say...Really really strange.

Gettysburg Dreaming

My husband and I are totally psyched about our trip to Gettysburg. It is still ten weeks away, but we have our entire trip planned in our heads. Of course you know that 99% of it will include ghost hunting In anticipation of that I ordered this book today. In The Ghost Hunter’s Field Guide: Gettysburg & Beyond by Mark Nesbitt.

In The Ghost Hunter’s Field Guide: Gettysburg & Beyond, renowned ghost story author,
historian, and paranormal investigator, Mark Nesbitt, explores the world of the paranormal,
focusing on the town of Gettysburg and the infamous battlefields that surround it.
The first half of the book delves into the history and phenomena of “ghosts,” reviews generally
accepted paranormal theories, discusses best “ghost hunting” practices, and presents the reader
with plausible explanations as to why paranormal activity is so prevalent in Gettysburg.
The second half of the book addresses the actual paranormal investigation. Designed to be used in
the field, the town of Gettysburg and the battlefield are divided into six sections. The reader is
provided with historical information, photos, maps, driving directions, and paranormal
investigative tips and techniques unique to each geographic area. Experienced and amateur “ghost
hunters” alike will profit from the advice and guidance offered in this one-of-a-kind book.


We also plan on taking his ghost tour. It has been voted the best ghost tour in America

Recommending a book

You may or may not know that I love walking around a battlefield almost as much as I love walking through a cemetery, so when I saw this book on a recent trip to the book store I had to take a closer look.



Although I didn't get the book yesterday because I had already committed my money to others I had wanted for awhile, this book is now on my "Must Have" list.
I did however jot down her web page and if you get a chance drop in and view her photos. Also there are a couple of really good EVP's there.

* Update
I received a very nice letter from Ms. Brown letting me know she now has a blog, go check it out HERE
She has some really great articles on the paranormal there.

Something To Ponder

Look what I saw yesterday.



I was waiting in the car to meet up with the paranormal group when this huge crow landed on the fence about 15 ft away from me. I am not usually superstitious, but I knew a crow can have several different meanings when seen. Some folklore say they are good luck, some bad, so I thought it was interesting when I found this:


Ravens, and to a lesser degree Crows, are very magickal creatures.

Raven with her plumage as dark as the void between the stars, is a citizen of the afterworld. She travels between the worlds of the living and the dead.

Being native to both worlds, Raven naturally has great knowledge and Power to effect transformations.

Raven is associated as a Wicca symbol because of this power to move between the worlds, and create new realities as she chooses.

According to the Medicine Cards "If Raven appears . . . you are about to experience a change in consciousness. ... Raven is the messenger that carries all energy flows of ceremonial magic between the ceremony itself and the intended destination."


Do you think he might have been traveling from one world to the next? It does seem kind of interesting that there was a cemetery on the property doesn't it.
It gives me something to think about.

2nd ghost hunt

Well the second ghost hunt with my grandson went about the way I expected. Nothing happened. If you remember back last Feb. we visited a local children's farm, and while there visited the graves of the last owners. While at that small cemetery my grandson who was two at the time told us he saw a lady in the woods. We saw no on but when I took a photo of the area this is what I got.

Since then this photo has been shown to anyone who will listen to me talk about it, including a local paranormal group. (Not the one that I went out with over the weekend) This group has shown some interest in my grandson (although they feel the photo is matricking). After several months we finally set up a time for them to meet with him at the same farm in hopes of him seeing something again. It didn't happen this time. I was pretty sure it wouldn't because he seems to have slowed down on these "sightings" of his. I think he is being influenced by his mom (and perhaps others) who are telling him that there are no ghost. Although my daughter is ok with me taking him out ghost hunting, she really and truly does not believe in it. (She thinks it is fun, she just draws the line in agreeing there might be something there)
Anyway, we have been back to this farm several times over the last few months and he has not talked about anything being there. I don't know if what ever he saw has moved on, or simply choosing not to show itself. Others have had personal experiences at this farm and there is talk of it being haunted, but yesterday it was just a quiet place for my grandson to play. (We went in after hours which was great for him, he loved it the cows loved it, everyone loved it but those of us wanting him to see the ghost ha ha). One of the investigators from the group did take lots of photos and those will be analysed in a few days so who knows maybe something will show up, who know. Oh well on to the next hunt....I am thinking about going back to Richmond on Sunday. They have some cool battlefields there and there is a lot more of Hollywood Cemetery I want to see

Review of my ghost hunt

Saturday evening my husband and I met up with a local paranormal group to go ghost hunting in a cemetery about 40 minutes from our house. This was my first time meeting them, so I wasn't sure what to expect. They all seem nice, but I didn't get a chance to talk to anyone other than the usual hello's because everyone went off on their own once we went inside. The cemetery itself was very interesting and had mostly old graves. Most of them were from the later 1800's to early 1900's with some from the civil war. We walked around about an hour and during this time I found a lot of family plots. Several of these were surrounded by the old iron fences. I love these kinds of graves and find it comforting somehow that the families are buried together. You don't find that often now days. When I was growing up my parents would take me to Georgia where my grandparents lived and we always went out in the countryside to an old rural cemetery where my great grandparents were buried. In those days the graves were still raised a bit above the ground with the dirt making a mound of sorts. I found a few here that reminded me of those except these were covered in ivy.



Also one thing I noticed about this cemetery was it seemed to have a "feel" about it. The only way I can describe it is it seemed to have high energy. At one point I was especially drawn to three graves surrounded by one of the fences I mentioned.
I was inside the fence looking at the grave in the middle when all at once I felt dizzy. I told my husband who was sitting outside the fence waiting on me that I felt "weird". At that point I came out and found the lady who was in charge of the hunt. Without telling her what had just happened I asked her to go inside and see if she "felt" anything. She took her EMF meter and did a reading around the area. Everything was normal until she scanned the center grave. At this point the meter reached a .4 reading. While this is in no way a high reading she said there was no reason for it to be past a 0-2 because there was no source of electricity to cause a spike. One of the other women on the hunt with us came over at this time and said that it smelled different to her. That there seemed to be a vacuum here with NO smell where the rest of the areas to her had an old smell to them.



I had my voice recorder with me but do not seem to have any type of EVP that I can detect and nothing shows up in my photos, but all the same it was an experience for me that I usually don't have.
Nothing usual happened the rest of the time I was there and I had an enjoyable time looking around and taking photos. When I got home I listened to my recorder and within the first seven minutes of entering the cemetery I got a very clear EVP. This was recorded BEFORE I stopped at the graves were I got dizzy.
I am posting it here and would like to know what everyone thinks it is saying. When you click on the link it will take you to a site where the recording is at. You will need to click on the download bar and it should load to your computer where you will be able to listen to it in what ever type of player you have.
Let me know if you have trouble listening to this and I will try and send it to you a different way
http://www.badongo.com/file/10153498

I won't tell you yet what I hear, because I really would like someone else to tell me what they think first.

Visiting Endview Plantation

The Hauntings
Endview Plantation
Used by both sides during the civil war as a hospital. Reports have said that a woman has been seen crossing the road from the cemetery towards the house during re-enactments that are held at the Plantation Reports also show that the room, that was used as a nursery has curtains that open after they have been closed for the night.



The History and Tour
Yesterday we took a trip to Endview Plantation. This plantation is one of the smaller ones that we have visited. It is located about 10 minutes from my house and I have passed by it several times without stopping. Although there is both Revolutionary War and Civil War history recorded here, the owners center more on the Civil War. During this time the home was owned by Dr. Humphrey Harwood Curtis. The young doctor established his medical practice at the plantation in 1856 and married Maria Whitaker in 1858. The 1860 census shows that Curtis owned $8,000 worth of real estate, $21,000 worth of personal property and 12 slaves. As disease and fighting took their toll, the Confederates used Endview briefly as a hospital.
The tour proved to be interesting due to the fact that we were the only ones there at the time. The guide was very friendly and took his time talking with us and answering questions.
We got a tour of all the rooms which included the Doctors office where we saw some of the original old medicine bottles. A few pieces of the Curtis family clothing and furniture are still in the home.
At this time the history of the home is still being researched and no one knows yet where the out buildings such as the kitchen and slave quarters were.
We did get to see the family cemetery and a natural spring on the property. Also they have day camp for kids there.
For girls ages 8-12. Includes tour of local historic sites, needlework instruction, etiquette, parlor games, dancing, campfire cooking.
For boys and girls ages 8-12. Includes camp life, drills, skirmishes and basic soldier’s equipment.
One thing I did notice while we were they is how hot the room the girls were in. They were sitting on the floor listening to a story and reading. I thought to myself.
BORING. According to the web page for the plantation the parents of these kids were paying about 100.00 to a 150.00 for the camp. Better them than me.


My Opinion...Is it haunted?
I would say no, not this one, although some stories have been told.
I think it is just a lovely old home, but no investigations have been done (I asked) on the property, so perhaps something may happen later to change my mind.

The Ghost at Westover Plantation

While visiting the beautiful Westover Plantation I took a short walk to the cemetary where the Byrd family is buried. I had read about the tragic love story of Evelyn Byrd and wanted to see her tomb. While standing there taking photos "something" brushed my arm. I thought it was a spider web and went to brush it away only to find nothing was there. I commented to my husband that Evelyn must have touched me. Is the place haunted. I would say YES to this one.


Story of Evelyn Byrd
(Taken from the Internet)

This stately plantation is said to be haunted by the lovely, Evelyn Byrd. Miss Byrd, was born in 1707. She was the daughter of William Byrd II.

Mr. Byrd was a very prominent statesmen during the colonial era. He was an advisor to the governor of Virginia and the founder of the city of Richmond, to name just a couple of his jobs during his lifetieme.

Evelyn when she was young, was considered an intelligent child, but on the other hand she was also considered to be spoiled. Although, Evelyn has been dead for over 250 years, many witnesses have reported seeing her at Westover.

When Evelyn turned 10 years old, her father sent her to England to be schooled. It was here that Evelyn fell in love with a man, many historians believe to be, Charles Morduant. But her father was adamantly against the relationship.

He ventured as far as telling Evelyn,
QUOTE
as to any expectation you may fondly entertain of a fortune from me, you are not to look for one brass farthing...Nay besides all that I will avoid the sight of you as of a creature detested.


So with heaviness of heart and reluctantly, Evelyn returned to Westover in 1726, forgetting the romance. But William Byrd would live to regret his decision. Because in 1737, Evelyn Byrd, many say died of a broken heart.

Evelyn has been spotted at Westover over the years. The first time was in about 1738, when Evelyn's dear friend, Anne Harrison, saw Evelyn walking towards her in the gardens of Westover.

Another relative of the Byrds, committed suicide here in 1777. William Byrd III was distressed over financial matters and committed suicide at Westover sitting in his favorite chair in his bedroom.

The first wife of William Byrd III, Elizabeth, was killed at Westover when a heavy cabinet fell on top of her, crushing her to death.

It is said that William Byrd III can still be seen at Midnight slumping over his favorite chair in his old bedroom. Elizabeth, it is said, you can hear her wailing still echoing through the halls of Westover, still awaiting for someone to help her.

Ghost Hunt

The next few days should prove to be exciting. Coming up on Saturday night I am going on a ghost hunt with a local paranormal group to a cemetery. Then next Tuesday I will be meeting with the group I told you about a few weeks ago that is interested in spending some time with my grandson. We will be meeting at the farm where he first "saw" the ghost lady I have in my photo. The group wants to spend some time with him. I am guessing that they will set up some equipment in the area and see if anything happens. Both trips should provide some interesting post, so check back for them. In the mean time here is a slide show from The Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond VA. (This is NOT the same cemetery that I will be going on with the group this weekend). I know I showed a few photos from there in a previous post, but with approx. 75,000 people buried there I thought you might like to see more.

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

Photo's Day One

Make photo slide shows at www.OneTrueMedia.com

For more information on Bacon's Castle and what happened to us there go to my Other BlogDoes It Go Bump In The Night

Richmond Vampire

As you know from my previous post, I visited the Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond VA today. The cast iron dog is not the only "haunted" story that comes from the cemetery. There is also a legend of The Richmond Vampire. Read the story below, and enjoy the photos. I have to tell you vampire or not this mausoleum was creepy.



From Wikipedia

The Richmond Vampire is an urban legend that began soon after a collapse on the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad's Church Hill Tunnel at Church Hill, a district of Richmond, Virginia, which buried several workers alive on October 2, 1925.

The story told of a blood covered creature with jagged teeth and skin hanging from its muscular body that emerged from the cave-in and raced toward the James River. Pursued by a group of men, the creature took refuge in Hollywood Cemetery, where it disappeared in a mausoleum built into a hillside bearing the name W.W. Poole.

Gregory Maitland, founder of Night Shift, a Richmond-based group that researched urban legends and oral traditions, and the Virginia urban legend and folklore expert of the Virginia Ghosts & Haunting Research Society (VGHRS), became interested in the Richmond Vampire story. His study of the disaster confirmed that after the tunnel collapsed a living being escaped from the wreckage. It was, however, a big and strong 28-year-old railroad fireman, Benjamin F. Mosby (1896-1925), who had been loading coal into the steam tank of a train with no shirt on when the cave-in occurred and the oven ruptured.

Mosby's upper body was horribly scalded and several of his teeth were broken before he made his way through the opening of the tunnel. Witnesses reported he was in shock and layers of his skin were hanging from his body. He died later at Grace Hospital. It was from there that the story took on a life of its own through decades of retelling.

Hollywood Cemetery-Richmond VA

I visited Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond VA today. Among the graves this was my very favorite. It is the statue of the cast iron dog. I had heard this story for a long time and was excited to have found the grave. Hollywood Cemetery has appox. 75 thousand people buried there. Here is the story of the Iron Dog

The cast iron dog used to sit out in front of a general store in Richmond. A little girl used to visit the store with her father weekly and always petted and talked to the cast iron dog while her father did business inside. The young girl later died of scarlet fever. During the civil war, which broke out soon after the young child died, the demand for iron was high. The cast iron dog was placed on the grave of the little girl. This was done to prevent it's being melted down and used to make weapons and to preserve it as a work of art.

This dog is said to guard her grave, and comes to life to chase people from her grave site. It has also been known to move on occasion. Many people have reported seeing it pointed in one direction and passing it later, it was pointed in another direction

Bacon's Castle

Bacon's Castle was Built in 1665 by Arthur Allen, Bacon's Castle is the oldest documented brick house in America. In 1676 it was taken over by Nathaniel Bacon and his men, who rebelled against the governor of Virginia and burned down Jamestown.
It took four years before Mr. Allen got his home back. The house had been passed down several generations and owned by numerous families. Additions to the house have been made at lest three times.
The family owning the home in the 1800's had both indentured servants and slaves who worked in the house and the adjourning fields. An original slave house is still on the property.
Several of the windows in the home had initials or names etched into them, including one which had an entire love letter from one of the young owners to his wife.
I am sorry I can't remember their names, but it was a bit of a sad story. They were only married about four years before she died at the age of 25 (or so)
Also we saw two previously hidden pieces of wall which was covered with sketches and signatures of the house's previous occupants.
This was by far one of the best tours that I have been on. The guide was very knowledgeable and took us to three different levels of the home, and the basement. The basement was the original kitchen.
The top level was where both indentured servants and slaves slept. One room was furnished to show a bedroom. The door was roped off so no one could go in, but as I stuck my head in the door I felt the energy in this room was "different". I made the comment that the room felt weird. My daughter seemed to pooh pooh this idea until about three minutes later when she was carrying my grandson down the stairs. She took one step and fell down the remaining stairs. (about 4 steps)I screamed out her name and rushed to her. Thankfully they were both ok and she jumped right up, more embarrassed than hurt. On the next level my grandson seemed to trip over his own feet falling to the floor. We all got the giggles at how clumsy they both were, but when we got outside my daughter swore to me that a ghost pushed them. She said "mom we never fall" I asked her did she really feel as if she was being pushed. She said she wasn't sure, because it happened so fast, but swore the rest of the day it was the ghost. I later read on the Internet while searching for more information on the home that during another tour someone had fallen down those same stairs.
this is also the same stairway that the young lady who haunts the house was said to trip on in the video at the end of this post.
Could it just be coincidence? Perhaps, or perhaps there is a ghostly presence that pushes young ladies down. You be the judge.
Just a side note here. While in the home on the main level, my grandson told his mother that he saw a papa outside near a tree, There was no one out there, or at lest no one we saw.
In my opinion, I did feel as if Bacon's Castle had some activity. I would love to get into this house at night with a ghost hunting team. I plan to make another visit back there soon.
In the meantime here is a
podcast of one of our local radio stations Halloween Haunts talking abut the castle
for photos of the house and grounds itself see my blog at Autumns Meadow
Also there are photos there of Lawnes Creek Church Cemetery where the mysterious fireball is said to have some from.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hWP7woe6QrQ&hl=en]

Fort Delaware Hauntings

(Photo Courtesy of Harry Flagle)
"FORT DELAWARE, Del. (AP) - June 19, 2008 -- Ghost Hunters from a Sci-Fi Channel TV show of the same name say they have found evidence of ghosts at Fort Delaware."

Did everyone watch last night's Ghost Hunters Show on Ft. Delaware?
I watched it with great interest since I had already heard some of the stories. I have a friend that visited a couple of years ago and told me then that the place was haunted. During the Civil War, Fort Delaware was a prison for Confederate Prisoners of war. During the war, more than 2,400 people died there, on Pea Patch Island.


Here is his photo of what appears to be a woman (possibly a slave) holding a baby.




(Photo Courtesy of Harry Flagle)

The Door

I have to tell you about the cool thing that happened tonight. My husband and I were invited to the home of an old friend of mine. C and I grew up together but had not seen each other in about twenty years. We do occasionally stay in touch via email or myspace, and I recently mentioned to her that I am into ghost hunting She wrote back and told me that she has one in her home. As it turns out the house is an old farmhouse about 150 years old and now sits in a quiet neighborhood with other homes around it. I loved it of course from the minute I walked in since that type of house is my dream home. I got a tour of the house and the grounds and a bit of history on the home. C and her husband are not sure who the original owners were, but they didn’t think anyone had died there. They had owned the house about ten years and they said there has always been a ghost or two, (they are not sure but feel like there is both male and female energy there) C went on to tell me that she has heard footsteps coming from upstairs in the part of the house that does not have an upstairs. (Only part of the house has the second floor) She went on to tell me that the door to one of the rooms downstairs opens on its own. Also just so you know the house is on the market for sale and that they are really having a hard time selling it.
It seems that every time someone comes to see the house, they leave saying the house feels strange or they smell an odor in the bedroom (the one with the door that opens)

Upstairs there is a small room that sits empty. C said she thought it might have been some sort of storage closet. I spent a few minutes in there, I noticed it had a window. For some reason I felt that this room had a female spirit that looked out the window as if waiting for someone to return home. I am not a sensitive, but have read in more than one case that hauntings in a home of this age seem to be women waiting for someone who does not return from the Civil War. The really strange thing about this room is it has the original door clasp and it was placed on the outside of the door as if someone was trying to lock something in the room instead of being in the room itself to lock someone out.
At no time did I feel uneasy or think there was any negative energy in this room or anywhere else in the house.

When I went back downstairs I and did not notice any type of smell. I went into the room in question several times to check.
Each time I made sure the door was closed well. At the end of the night I was not convinced the house had a spirit. Until we got ready to leave that is…..

The door was open, just slightly, but it had been closed security I am sure. C showed me that just turning the knob would not open the door. You had to push it after you turned the knob. No one had been near the door. At lest no one human.
I hope she invites me back. I suggested to her that I come sometime when it would just be her and I at home. I want to do some EVP recordings. See if anything shows up.
I will let you know if I get a chance to go back.

Don't bug me. I'm ghost hunting

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The Rosewell Plantation Ruins are located in Gloucester Virginia. This is about a half hour drive from my daughter's house. I have been interested in visiting for a while now because of all the reports that I had read about it being haunted. Since we were so close to home we decided to take a picnic with us. (I had read somewhere that there was a table) When we arrived we stopped at the visitors center where we paid our four dollars each to get in. While there we got a brief history of the place and watched a short film. Being anxious to learn more about the paranormal activity I question the worker there, who was happy to tell me that most of the stories could be explained. One example she gave me was that evidence of rats living in the walls had been found when the ruins were excavated Also she debunked the story of an old car blocking the drive, by telling me that someone living in the area had parked it there. I was still hoping to have some sort of experience so we drove a short distance up to the main area itself. My first thoughts were awe at how tall the structure is. The photos do not do it justice. I am not sure if you can call an old ruin beautiful, but I certainly thought it was. There was only one other person visiting while we were there. There was a woman by herself so we hurried and ate our lunch while she was looking around.

Now before I go any further let me tell you right up front, that it only took me about five minutes to debunk any and all ghost stories about this place. There is NO WAY there can be any ghost out there because.
THE DAMN BUGS WOULD HAVE EATEN THEM!!
I have never seen so many flies, gnats, bees and creepy crawlies in my entire life.
It was bad enough that we picked the hottest weekend we have had so far (Temps at 100 degrees) but the BUGS ate us. In fact it was so bad that as soon as we finished our sandwiches my husband retreated to the car. My daughter was a bit braver, but soon started cussing and yelling about the bugs. They were all over her and my grandson. For some reason when we first got there they were not bothering me. I told my daughter she could go to the car that I wouldn't be mad and she was about to when my grandson told me his momma and Dean were bad. He told that he would stay with me and go Ghost Hunting! I thought that was so funny and so sweet, since he is only three. After a few minutes they did give in to the bugs and went to the car. I was determined to see everything in the area so I walked back to the ice house, which is near the river. The woods were pretty, and I keep waiting for the temperature drops or noises I had read about but nothing happened. While there I did do some EVP recordings, but it doesn't appear to have anything on it other than my own voice. I had planned to do one in the family cemetery, but the bugs that had plagued my family earlier were now chasing me so I gave up and ran for the car.

We headed out of there and stopped at the Abingdon Episcopal Church. This church has a connection to the plantation because tombs of the Page family who were the original owners had been moved there. The bodies themselves are still buried at Roswell, so I have no idea why they moved just the tombs there except that some of the other family members are laid to rest in the church cemetery. Perhaps there is not enough of the remains to move? I am not sure.

The church and the cemetery were interesting and thankfully there were no bugs here. We spent several minutes walking around. I didn’t feel like the place had any type of activity although I did get a cold chill as I approached one area near a front corner of the cemetery. I am not sure who was buried there, but there was a grave sitting off a little near the trees. The feeling only lasted a moment and didn't happen again while I was there. I had not thought to get the recorder out of the car so I didn't do any EVP work, but may go back to that area again sometime.
Oh I forgot to mention. My daughter did have one experience at the ruins. As she approached and looked in the cellar area (By the way pretend you are not reading this part because we were told not to go into the center of the structure, but you know I am like a little kid and can't listen) she screamed and jumped back. She said she had seen something move in there. I looked and didn't see anything, and took a photo so I could use the flash as light and nothing shows up.
You can view the photo of the cellar in the slide show above.

So is Rosewell Plantation and Abingdon church haunted? I can't say for sure. All I know is it BUGS me that I didn't see anything but BUGS!!
Enjoy the slide show.
Oh also you might want to turn your volume off or down before you click on it to watch it. I added this really annoying spooky music.

My List

I am taking a week's vacation soon, and of course you already know what want to do. Yep go ghost hunting. I know there are only so many hours in a day, so I made a list of what I really want to get to during my time off. Of course we all know that night time is best when trying to capture the paranormal. Unfortunatly I won't get to do most of these at night, but it will still be fun to viist.
Here is my list.

Places to visit while on vacation

Berkley Plantation
Visitors to the restored mansion have reported seeing and hearing the ghost of a little drummer boy. The apparition of a tall, gaunt man has been seen walking along the riverbank, sometimes walking side-by-side with the little drummer boy along the old picket fence that runs up the hill to the cemetery.



Edgewood Plantation,
Haunted by Elizabeth (Lizzie) Rowland She died in 1870 at the age of 47. It is said that she died of a broken heart while waiting for her love to return from war. Before she passed away She etched her name on the upstairs bedroom window Legend has it that she still waits for him watching from the upstairs window. She is friendly



Westover Plantation
said to be haunted by Evelyn Byrd, daughter of William Byrd II When she was 10 years old she was sent to England to live and go to school. While there she met and fell in love with Charles Morduant. Her father was against the relationship and she came home to live at Westover in 1726 forgetting the romance.
William Byrd would live to regret his decision. Because in 1737, Evelyn Byrd, many say died of a broken heart.
Evelyn has been spotted at Westover over the years. The first time was in about 1738when Evelyn's friend, Anne Harrison, saw Evelyn walking towards her in the gardens of Westover.
Another relative of the Byrd’s committed suicide here in 1777. William Byrd III was distressed over financial matters and committed suicide at Westover sitting in his favorite chair in his bedroom.
The first wife of William Byrd III, Elizabeth, was killed at Westover when a heavy cabinet fell on top of her, crushing her to death.
It is said that William Byrd III can still be seen at Midnight slumping over his favorite chair in his old bedroom. Elizabeth, it is said, you can hear her wailing still echoing through the halls of Westover, still awaiting for someone to help her.


Rosewell Plantation.
Only thing left if ruins, but Reports of hauntings at the site are frequent. Music is heard playing, guests are seen descending an invisible stair, boys with lanterns stand where doorways once were and a woman in a red cloak rushes into a rose garden. Also, strange drops in temperature, odd noises and perhaps chatter from slaves as they return from working in the fields.


Bacon’s Castle-1655
An iridescent ball of light has often appeared and disappeared. Also seen is a woman with black eyes and a white scarf around her neck. Things have been moved around and smashed in the home.


Williamsburg Ghost Tour
This tour is based on L.B. Taylor’s books “The Ghost Of Williamsburg” and is approximately an hour and a half walking tour on the streets of Colonial Williamsburg.


Hollywood Cemetery, Richmond VA
Hollywood cemetery has numerous ghost stories including a dog statue that comes "alive" and is the home of the infamous "Richmond Vampire".


The Boxwood Inn
10 Elmhurst Street, Lee Hall Village, Newport News, VA (757) 888-8854
The gentle spirit here is said to be one of Nannie Curtis. Harmless activity is the norm, such as doors opening and closing on their own. She is also said to enjoy knocking on doors in the morning. Sleeping in is apparently not her idea of fun for this world. There is also an elderly gentleman, holding a cane, who appears on occasion


Old House Woods.
Some of the recurring tales are about British Redcoats, pirates, skeletons in knights armor, mysterious groups of people with shovels digging, ghost horses and cows which appear and disappear before one's eyes, a full rigged Spanish galleon which vanishes in thin air, mysterious floating lights in the woods similar to lantern light, and a "Storm Woman" who floats above the pines warning fishermen of impending gales.

Abingdon Church
Reported to be haunted by a white figure, first seen in 1863 by a Union soldier. The young cavalry soldier was separated from his unit and came upon the church. He went inside to hide from Confederate troops, but when he entered the church, he saw a ghostly white figure descending the stairs from the North Gallery


Endview Plantation
Used by both sides during the civil war as a hospital. Reports have said that a woman has been seen crossing the road from the cemetery towards the house during re-enactments that are held at the Plantation Reports also show that the room, that was used as a nursery has curtains that open after they have been closed for the night.

Kings Arms Tavern

I haven't mentioned any of the huanted establisments in Colonial Williamsburg for a few days so I thought I would take up where I left off with the Kings Arms Tavern

It is believed to be haunted by a woman named Irma. She lived and died in the 1700'a
As the story goes she died because of a fire when a candle was dropped. She isn’t seen very often, but she is heard speaking to staff and people have felt her presence. Irma blows out candles and helps the staff. She is very friendly. Rumor has it that the staff says goodnight to her each night upon closing for the evening.

Duddley Diggs House

Dudley Diggs House Yorktown VA


Dudley Diggs inherited this house from his father at age 16. Soon after he married Martha Armistead and they lived happily for ten years. Sadly she died wile giving birth to their second child. Dudley remarried two years later but never forgot his beloved Martha. The story has it that he felt that she never left his side and talked to her spirit in times of trouble.
She is said to haunt this house even today.
While visiting Yorktown over the weekend we walked past the Diggs house. The present owner happened to be out it the yard, and I stuck up a conversation with him. When I asked him about the ghost he was more than happy to talk about her.
He showed me the window to the room where Martha died (last window to the left upstairs in the photo). He went on to tell me that they had moved into the home three years ago and while he himself had never felt or seen anything that the family cat would not go into that bedroom. He also said that his wife feels the percents of Martha and that his brother has seen her coming down the stairs. He said she is very friendly. I talked with him awhile hoping that perhaps he would invite me in, but he didn’t so we moved along.



Second floor window of room where Martha Diggs died in childbirth

The Moore House

The Moore House, near Yorktown, Virginia. May, 1862 Photographed by John Wood & James F. Gibson and Photo (I took) of how it looks today



The Moore House is another of Yorktown's haunted houses. Located on the battlefields along the river it was built by Lawrence Smith II and sitting on a 500 acre plantation this home was called” Temple Farm." In 1754, Lawrence Smith’s son, Robert, who was the third generation of Smiths to work this farm, inherited this farm. In 1760, due to financial reasons he was forced to sell the family's 500-acre estate to his brother-in-law, Augustine Moore.

During the Revolutionary War, The Moore House and farm was the spot picked by British Commander Cornwallis to sign The Articles of Capitulation to end the Revolutionary War on October 19th, 1781.

During the Revolutionary War. a stray bullet shot and killed Augustine Moore Jr. while he was working the family fields.

Also a local merchant by the name of John Turner, came to watch the shelling of the British Army in Yorktown just days before they surrendered. He was wounded as a result of the shelling and died in his wife's arms. There was nothing she could do to save him. John Turner's remains are buried in the Moore House family graveyard, which is near the Moore House. The dates on the graves are from 1730 - 1800's, the final resting place of the families who lived here.





The manifestations of the entities started making their appearance after the Park Service fully restored the home to its 18th century decor and style.


Sheets on the bed in the master bedroom have been found with indentations as if someone had been sleeping in this bed.
Tour guides showing groups around the home felt that an unseen, friendly presence was overseeing their tour.
Sheets on the beds in the bedrooms on the second floor look like others had slept in them.
In the parlor, there was a depression in a red velvet chair, like someone was sitting there.




I have made two trips to this house this week. The first one was with my daughter and grandson. (Yes, he did tell us he saw something there. He said there was a lady on the porch with my daughter when she posed for a photo, and no, nothing showed up)
I also took a photo on the porch and just as soon as it was snapped I heard a noise. I jumped and got off that porch in a hurry.
The second trip I made was today to take photos of the graves. It was to late the first day to get good photos. I was not as impressed with this home as I was the Nelson House, but it was on my list of places to visit



Me sitting on the steps of the Moore House

*Footnote
Want to buy this beautiful home. You can for only $1,200,000
*est. monthly payment: $5755.69
I found a listing for it while I was doing reasearch on the house...

The Nelson House

Front of house from street


Back of house from the yard


(Part One)
As I mentioned yesterday I took a quick tour of Yorktown VA. I've been several times, but had not really looked into the haunted history other than to read the stories. This time I went with the intent to explore. My first stop was the Nelson House. Home of Thomas Nelson, Jr. (1738-89) Most of the Nelson House is original, including the bricks and most of the mortar in the outer walls. It is a beautiful home with some lovely gardens and is reputed to be haunted. Reports include a young male entity of a British soldier who was killed in the Siege of Yorktown. His apparition has been seen on occasion in various spots around the house. Footsteps and cold spots, are also reported. The sobbing of a woman was heard coming from an empty third floor room.
We did not go inside, but spent several minutes wandering around the property.
Part Two Coming Soon

Check This Out

I ran across this article today while searching for paranormal information. It was posted today so check it out!
Ghost Boy

Also I did some snooping ( I mean investigating) around in Yorktown Va. yesterday. I will be posting about it soon.

Enjoy your day..

My Personal Experience

Warning, this is a slightly long post, but please read it all you won’t be sorry.


Have you ever noticed when you talk to other people that you either believe in ghost or you don’t? According to a 2003 Harris Report (sorry I couldn’t find a current one) 51 % of all adults believe in them.
Out of those numbers I am not sure how many people have actually had a paranormal experience, but it got me to thinking
Why do some people see things and others don’t.

I would love to see a ghost. Yet I can’t seem to see a darn thing. I visit all the local haunts. I ramble through the graveyards. I always have my little voice recorder and my courage (ha ha) I rarely go out of the house without my camera in case “something” is there. Yes I know I took that really awesome photo of the lady and man at the tree but if my grandson hadn’t told me he “saw her” I wouldn’t have the photo. But I want to see something. Feel something. Hear a noise anything. Darn the luck I can’t even get a breeze half the time. As for EVP’s if I’m lucky I might get a slight whisper on a recording that might or might not be something. Yet I can watch shows like Ghost Hunters (Yes I know that is on TV and they have a zillion dollar budget with all the best equipment) and they get awesome stuff.
Sigh!
I never have any luck…….
Well, hmmm there is that “one time” that something happened to me. I suppose I should tell you about……Do you want to hear it? You do? Ok, clap your hands together really fast and say. I DO BELIEVE I DO BELIEVE I DO I DO (oh wait that is for fairies, oh well use your imagination, it might work for both)


My one and only experience with a “ghost” came when I was working at the information booth at a large mall in a near by city.
You see the mall I was working at is haunted. I even knew it was haunted. I had talked to some people who had worked there for years, and I had heard all the stories. I just didn’t believe them, until “something” convinced me other wise. Before I tell you what happened to me let me give you a little background.
When this mall being built back in the 1980’s one of the workers fell off the roof and died before he reached the hospital. Also a former security guard died while working there (I am not sure if he died in the mall or not, so the person in the food court might have been him not clear on this part) but someone had a heart attack in the food court and died. The food court is on the second floor so the mall and is built in the shape of a square so there are several hallways.
Also the mall had been remodeled several times taking away a theater that had been on the second floor leaving storage rooms. This left a lot of hallways open.
For years the security guards had talked about strange things happening.
Noises in the back halls. Smells of pipe tobacco late at night when the stores were closed. Feelings of being watched.
Even the mall office workers reported things.
Papers would be moved. Staplers and tape dispenser would not be where they left them; just little things that make you go hmmm.
They all told me it was haunted..
Yeah right I said.

So what happened to change my mind?
Well…..

One of the security guards and I had got to be pretty good friends. She would stop by everyday to visit when she did her rounds, and as we got to know each other better she told me that she “felt” the ghost. I just brushed her off, and then she told me the same thing again and again. She confessed that she was frightened to go in the back halls by herself.
At the time I really didn’t believe in ghost, but there was that side of me that is the little kid in all of us and I got brave and said…Ok…Show me this “ghost”
So she lead me up the back way behind the food court and into “the halls” We were chatting about other things just walking along when suddenly I just stopped. To this day I don’t know why I stopped, I just did, I looked down at my arms and had chill bumps on them. I think I said something like, oh creepy indicating to my arms, when I noticed hers were the same way. I brushed it off as my imagination and kept walking. We got to the part of the hall where she said she “felt” something. I looked around, Nope, nothing. No chills, no weird feeling, nothing, nada, just a hall. So we started back, and as we turned a corner something really strange happened. All at once I felt hot and cold at the same time. My skin was like ice, yet it felt like my blood was rushing through my body and it was really hot.
I am not sure If that makes sense, but I don’t know how else to explain it. I looked at my arms again and I had chill bumps. The feeling only lasted a few seconds, but I knew something had happened. Something besides us was in that hall. I don’t mind admitting that it frightened me. I got out of there as fast as I could. I worked there for several years after that and it took me a long long time before I would go back into those halls. I never denied that the mall was haunted after that happened and that one experience set me off on the path I am one today….To find the ghost!

*Footnote
I never saw it but I was told there was a photo taken by the mall personnel (It was one of those old fashioned Polaroid's that develop on there own) It was of a child and the Easter bunny. A "man" showed up in the photo and no one else was standing there. The claim is that it was the worker who fell off the roof.
Also I heard about how two female employees of a small store had "seen" an older man in the store one night. They were between him and the door and no one else was in the store. When they turned back around to asked if he needed help he was gone.

The Old Mill

The Robertson Windmill
Williamsburg's first serial killer stashed his young victim's bodies here, and it is said to be haunted by them.

I have not been able to document this information, but thought I would post it anyway

Visiting with Aunt Pratt

We had a wonderful time today at the Shirley Plantation and the highlight of course was seeing the portrait of Aunt Pratt. She sat in her place of honor in the first floor bedroom overlooking the beautiful James River.
I have to admit the picture gave me the creeps. There was just something about it that kept me from starting at it for more than a few seconds at a time. Maybe it was the stories I had read, or maybe it was her eyes. All I know was I didn't like her and neither did my grandson. The entire time we were in the room he seemed very uneasy and while the guide was telling us the story of the portrait I walked him over to the window to look out. When we got ready to leave the room my daughter and I both asked him if he liked her (Aunt Pratt) and he said no. I asked him if he saw her and he said yes. I then asked him where he saw her at and he pointed into the foyer way. I took him out there and asked him where, and he pointed to the stairs. We had not gone up there at all during the tour. Once we got outside he was very clingy for a few minutes and he sat on the bench on the porch. I rubbed his back for a few minutes and before long he was ok again and ready to get down and play. He loved walking around the ground but definitely did not like the inside of that house.

Sherwood Forest Plantation

On the way home from the Shirley Plantation we stopped at the Sherwood Forest Plantation. It was a beautiful old home that had been owned by our 10th President John Tyler. I didn't know much about the history of this plantation so when I got home I did a bit of research and found that the house has a ghost. Known as the Gray Lady she has been seen by several people over the years. I'm kind of glad I didn't know she was there because we were the only ones visiting the grounds this afternoon. The house itself was not open for tours so we really didn't pay much attention to it other than to peek in the door and two of the windows when we first got there. I don't remember seeing a rocking chair, and my grandson did not seem to have any kind of experiences while we were on the property. I did find out while doing research on the plantations in the area that there is at lest one other one that has some haunting, so I will be going back soon. In the meantime here is the information on this gray lady.

Below is information from the plantation website about her.



*For more photos of the house and grounds visit my Other blog


The Gray Lady is called that because she apparently wore gray. This leads to the assumption that she was in the service of the family that owned the house when she lived there, because servants then wore gray when cleaning at Sherwood Forest.

"It is thought that she was a governess, who had charge of a small child at one time here," Payne says. "She would take the child from a first floor bedroom (which is now known, appropriately, as the Gray Room) and walk her up through the hidden staircase to a second floor nursery. There, she would rock the child on her lap in a rocking chair."


Unfortunately, the child was ill and died soon after. This presents a speculative motive for the Gray Lady's ghost to remain in the house. It could have been that the Gray Lady was not nearby when the child passed away, or she might have perceived that had she been more attentive the tragedy would not have occurred. No one knows for sure.
What is known is that ever since, the sounds of the Gray Lady have been heard in the house - always in the same forms. Her footsteps are heard going up or down the hidden stairway, and the sound of her rocking is heard in the second floor nursery and in the Gray Room.

Dora Armistead House

Update:
1/28/09
Ladies, At your request I have removed this post and have left you a public apology in its place. I did not find your comment until today and am truly sorry for incorrectly posting about your family. I was taking my information from the book "The Hauntings of Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown" By Jackie Eileen Behrend. Please understand that I can not be held reponisible for her mistakes and was publishing for entertainment only.
Thank You.





I have removed this post at the request of family members who have contacted me via comments on this post. I would like to publicly apologize to them and want to let them know that I was posting information for a source that seems to be incorrect.
I am also sorry that it took me several months before this post was removed. I do not normally go back and recheck for comments after more than a few days. Again I am very sorry for any upset that it may have caused.

Aunt Pratt

Look where I am going on Sunday!
(They won't let you photograph in the house, but you know I will be back with loads of photos of the grounds)

PLEASE NOTE I STOLE THIS INFOMRATION FROM THE SHADOWLANDS WEBSITE AND IN NO WAY TAKE ANY CREDIT FOR IT, IT WAS WRITTEN ENTIRELY BY
Stacey Graham (WyntersMoon@theshadowlands.net)


Gracing the southern Virginian colony and commanding a view of the James River, Shirley Plantation began building in 1723 by Edward Hill III for his daughter, Elizabeth. Hill’s sister, Martha, had left for England to study, leaving behind an unsigned portrait of herself. A strong mouth and deep eyes dominated the painting, almost daring one to ignore its presence in the room. Martha later married an Englishman, Hugh Griffith, and remained in England. Though the portrait is known by the family as “Aunt Pratt,” no one seems to know the source of the name Pratt.

In 1858, long after Martha’s death, the family noticed the painting rocking violently against the wall above the mantel in a third story bedroom. Moving the noisy portrait to the attic only intensified its turbulent actions. Knocking was heard around the house and word got out that the plantation was infected with a rather boisterous picture. The Civil War soon surrounded the plantation and the residents of Shirley were caught up in the turmoil of having their home turned into a field hospital as General McClellan transported over 8,000 injured and dying men out of Virginia. With their access to the James River close by, injured men were transferred onto Union ships and the dead were buried in the family cemetery. There is no mention of Pratt’s activity during this time, they probably had more pressing matters to worry about.

After peace ensued, the portrait was taken out of storage in the attic and placed on the first floor in a place of honor for the old gal. Though happy for a while, it soon began its rocking and the hunt was on for someplace that the picture would remain quiet. Finally placing the picture in Martha’s second floor bedroom, it remained relatively quiet for the next few years.

In 1974, the Virginia Travel Council loaned the portrait with other items associated with psychic phenomena to an exhibit at Rockefeller Plaza in New York. Once placed in a display window, the picture began to rock so vigorously that the seal of Virginia, which was placed beside it, began to swing from side to side in front of spectators. Aunt Pratt made her national television debut on NBC-TV as a reporter on his way to lunch stopped by to see what all the ruckus was about and caught the rocking on tape. It caused such a disturbance that it was removed from the exhibit and crated up. The night shift reported hearing crying and rocking in the storage room. One morning it was found on the floor outside the storage locker, some thought she was making a break for the exit…

After being returned to Virginia, the portrait was taken to Linden Galleries in Richmond, Virginia to help repair the damage to the frame. While there, workers would tell of bells ringing, though there were no bells on the property. The portrait was finally placed back at Shirley Plantation and is seemingly happy in it’s second floor bedroom. Tours are available of the mansion though you may have to pay more to see the rocking… ;)

Review of tour at Williamsburg

If you’re planning on going on the Legends, Myths, Mysteries and Ghosts walking tour in Williamsburg expect it to be a waste of time. They say you get what you pay for and we paid 12.00 a ticket. It was worth about $5.00. On a scale of 1-10 this tour was a 4. The only reason I gave it that high is the first story was told in the Wythe House and that is one of the ones I had hoped to get inside of so that excited me. I did like the storyteller in this house, but it had nothing to do with the house. She told a story about a house in Gloucester VA. I plan on looking into it more and won’t spoil it by mentioning yet what it was. Anyway while I was the house I didn’t see or feel anything usual. Nor did hear Lady Ann running up the stairs. (See story on Wythe house)

The next stop was the Governors Mansion where we listened to, two stories. We simply changed rooms and new interpreters told the next story. I thought that sucked because they advertised that we would go to THREE places. The stories they told here again had nothing to do with the house or any house in Williamsburg. These last two were pretty lame and I had a hard time paying attention.. Also they did not allow any photos to be taken inside, and as you can see from the ones below, photos are a waste of time at night.
On the bright side I did get to carry the lantern. No one volunteered when the guide asked for someone so I spoke up. What the heck at lest that was cool. Our tour guide was funny so we did enjoy him and he was real sweet and walked my daughter and I back to the starting point. Along the way he pointed out a house that is suppose to be haunted. I had not heard any stories about it, so I took a photo of it and will do a bit of research on what he told me, so be looking for that later in the week. I understand there is at lest one other walking tour in Colonial Williamsburg. I think it is based on the books Ghost of Williamsburg by L B Taylor Jr. I suspect that will be more to my likening and the only reason I didn't asked for it this time is I thought we would do more walking and get in the homes. Live and learn as they say.
Oh also some weird guy latched on to my daughter. I guess he thought she was cute because he was like a puppy and kept right on her heels. He even jumped in the photo of her that I took. Just goes to show you live people are stranger than the dead ones. Ha Ha.


Me carrying the lantern

Outside the George Wythe house. (daughter with strange guy)

Our group outside the governors mansion
Notice the orbs (or dust depending on what you believe about orbs)

My daughter and I with the guide after the tour.

Haunted Maze

One of the most beautiful buildings in Colonial Williamsburg is the Governor’s Palace.
My ex-husband use to be a master gardener there in the kitchen gardens and although I have never been inside the palace itself I have spent time on the grounds.

Home of seven royal governors including Lord Dunmore, Patrick Henry and Thomas Jefferson. In 1780 the capital was moved to Richmond and in 1781 during the siege of Yorktown the palace was used as a hospital.. In 1781 the palace was burned to the ground killing one patient. In 1930 restoration of the palace began. While rummaging through the gardens archaeologists discovered a human skeleton. They continued to dig and found 156 men and two women. They also found musket balls with teeth marks on them indicating that they were bodies from the hospital. Because there was little anesthesia during the Revolutionary war the wounded suffered great agony. Most died from blood loss, shock, or infection. Theories of the women identity include that they are either family members who had followed the soldiers or more than likely nurses.

It is reported that a strange light appears in the palace at night when no one is there. When investigated it disappears.



The maze behind the building is supposed to be haunted by soldiers from the civil war and revolutionary war. The wall in front of the mansion is supposed to be haunted by the ghost of a criminally insane escapee of Eastern State Mental Institution, who in the 1920s slit a woman's throat.

Read It

If your a fan of TAPS and the Ghost Hunters you have to read this book.




I checked it out from the library yesterday and I am almost finished with it..
Great stories!

Blandford Church

I LOVE, and I repeat. LOVE old cemeteries. One of the best I have ever been to is Blandford church in Petersburg VA.

Listed as one of the top ten most haunted cemeteries in the country. There are reports of running pursuits through the grave lots, soldiers shooting from behind the cover of the headstones and other creepy stuff. My daughter and I took my grandson there last July (he had just turned two in May) and while walking around he told us he saw a "Papa". When asked where the man came from he walked over to a grave stone and laid his hands on it. Right there he said. This would be the first of many sightings that my grandson tells us about. Later that same day we were looking at some deer that were grazing in the back area. We had taken my grandson out of his car seat and let him stand next to us in the car (We were the only ones there and we were going about 3 miles an hour) He suddenly gasp and told us he saw a man. When asked where he all most crawled out the car window trying to point to the front bumper of the car. It really spooked my daughter and I. It was almost dark and we decided we better get out of there. It was just getting to creepy.

Later that night my grandson woke her up (he was sleeping in her bed at the time) and told her there was a papa in the room with them. She was really alarmed. She said she was afraid to look and told him to put the covers over his head and go to sleep. The next day we burned some sage and she didn't have any more problems with him sleeping. Could the ghost from the cemetary have followed her home?

Anyway I plan on taking a trip back there again soon. In the mean time enjoy the photos.





(The following information came from the Internet)



The cemetery adjacent to Blandford Church has been used as a burial ground since the early eighteenth century. The oldest marked grave dates from 1702. Among the more noted individuals buried within the cemetery is one foreigner, Major General William Phillips, British citizen and commander of the British troops during the April 25, 1781 "Battle of Petersburg." Phillips died on May 13, 1781 in Petersburg following a fever that was most likely malaria or typhus. A memorial stone, erected by the Daughters of the American Revolution in 1914, stands adjacent to Blandford Church, marking the general location of Phillips' secret burial, done at the direction of his deputy commander, Brigadier General Benedict Arnold. For more information on Petersburg's Revolutionary War history, follow the link on the left.



In June 1866, the first Memorial Day was celebrated in honor of the 30,000 Confederate soldiers buried on Memorial Hill inside the burial ground. For more information about Petersburg's Civil War history follow the link on the left.



The cemetery's gravestones, sculptures, and tombs represent a diverse array of eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century styles of funerary art. In addition, some plots feature exquisite examples of nineteenth century decorative iron fences. A walking tour, highlighting some of the monuments and burial sites in close vicinity of the Church is incorporated into the Church tour, weather permitting. More extensive cemetery tours are offered throughout the year, including a Halloween evening tour on October 31. Check the Calendar for additional information.



Begin your tour of Historic Blandford Church and Cemetery at the Blandford Visitors' Reception Center, 111 Rochelle Lane, Petersburg, VA 23803, (804) 733-2396. The reception center features a display of artifacts associated with the history of the Cemetery and Church as well as a gift shop.

A Ghostly Tale

In 1984, my husband and his now ex-wife lived at an old farmhouse that was on an acre of land in Oakhurst, NJ. They lived in the upstairs of the house along with her son and two daughters from a previous marriage.
They shared the home with friends who lived downstairs with their two children.
They shared the kitchen and both used the living room by dividing it with a blanket.

One time while they were living there the friends went out of town for a few days.
One of the nights while the friends were gone my hubby and the ex were upstairs in their bedroom watching TV. The kids were suppose to be asleep but one of them keep making noise and acting up so. They both dashed out the door, to the girl's room to scold her.

My husband glanced out of the corner of his eye, and saw what he thought was the downstairs roommates wife coming up the stairs, dressed in her white nightgown. When they got back from the daughters bedroom he asked his(ex)wife if the couple was back from their trip. She said, no, but she thought she saw her, too. When they looked downstairs, all the lights were off.

When the friends got back, they asked them if they had ever saw any ghosts in the house. The Male said that he saw ghosts through the blanket that separated his side of the downstairs from the living room, but only through shadows of what appeared to be people in the living room, partying. He just passed it off as him smoking too much pot.

Now for a bit of history on the house.
It seems when they moved in there was a large stain on the wall at the bottom of the stairs.
The wall was made of horsehair instead of sheet rock and no matter how many times they washed the stain it would always come back.

They eventually found out about the house. It had been built before 1900, and at some point a woman fell down the stairs, smashing her head against the wall at the bottom. After discovering what happened, they addressed the spirits in the house and told them there was no need to bother them because they weren't going anywhere. It must have worked because for the rest of the time they lived in the house, they weren't bothered anymore, but that stain stayed.

A Haunting We Will Go

Ok, So you know how I've been talking about all these haunted buildings in Colonial Williamsburg? Well guess what? I am finally going to get a chance to get inside some of them!!
Yep it's true. Come this Thursday night at 8:30 yours truly along with my brave daughter who I drag everywhere (when hubby doesn't go) and I are going on the Legends, Ghosts, Mysteries, and Myths tour (for some reason that sounds like it should be a Beatles song). Anyway I am sure it will be lame, and I will probably come back disappointed, but hey it is only $12.00 for the ticket so I thought what the heck.
Just to buy a day pass to go up there is something like $40.00 so this is cheap entertainment. I think there are several "ghost" tours up there but this is the only one that you can go into the building. So cross your fingers that there will be activity that night (There are reports that people do see things on these tours).
I have my camera ready and I will be reporting back to you on the evening ASAP.
In the mean time enjoy some more of my stories.

Do You Hear What I hear?

Hi Everyone
If you have a few minutes would you listen to this. I did a EVP today out at the farm where I took the photo of my ghost lady
I made a wave file out of the section I think I hear something in and wonder if anyone else hears it.
You can hear me ask the question.
Were you killed here.
At the end I hear what sounds like a whisper saying YES
I may be my imagination. I wanted an opinion
The second one is silence with what sounds like a whisper about half way though saying HIDE ME
This is a reverse of the original file.
Thanks for giving this a listen

http://www.badongo.com/file/9429933
HIDE ME

http://www.badongo.com/file/9429961

YES

Go to the link..Then open by downloading it, you then have the option to save or open..Just open and it will bring up what ever media player you use to listen to music

A Sad Love Story

Public Records office

Is the oldest archival building in North America. It once housed important documents. In 1784 it was converted into a grammar school. From 1789-1824 was rental property. In 1824 it was the office for the clerk of Chancery Court. In 1855 was acquired by the neighboring female Academy, which was located on the grounds of the Capital building. And in 1862 southern troops took refuge inside.
Near the turn of the century David Roland Jones and family owned it. They had seven children, and none of the girls married or left home. One of the daughters Edna became restless and when she met a man named John Mince she fell in love. Her father forbids the relationship. They made plans to run away together and meet at the Governors Place, which had burned over a century earlier. . Edna waited until dark and hurried to the meeting. One the way she was struck and killed by a speeding couch. It is thought that her spirit rushed home so that her father would not discover her deception.
Since that night she has been seen roaming the property.. She has also been seen at the Jones family cemetery. Her ghost has been photographed indeed the graveyard where her body rest. Strangers have heard her calling out as they make there way through the property.

The Public Records Office stands the Eastern end of Duke of Gloucester Street in Colonial Williamsburg. It is located to the north of the Capitol Building.

Boxwood Inn

The Boxwood Inn, Newport News, VA
10 Elmhurst Street, Lee Hall Village, Newport News, VA (757) 888-8854
The gentle spirit here is said to be one of Nannie Curtis. Harmless activity is the norm, such as doors opening and closing on their own. She is also said to enjoy knocking on doors in the morning. Sleeping in is apparently not her idea of fun for this world. There is also an elderly gentleman, holding a cane, who appears on occasion.


This place is about 10 mintues from me. I have pased by it dozens of times and have never been inside. It is open as a bed and breakfast amd the rooms run around a hundred dollars a night. Maybe I will save some money so I can spend a night there sometime....But then again, I like to sleep late.

*Note This photo came off the web. I have never stopped to take one.

Looney Lucy Haunts Her Old Home

Front of the house from the street


Side of the house looking at it from the street


Looking at back door of the house


A well that is in the backyard



Some of the backyard

Ludwell-Paradise House built around 1755
Midway on Duke of Gloucester Street between Queen and Colonial Street in Colonial Williamsburg (Next to Prentis Store)

Haunted by Lucy Ludwell.
Lucy was a member of one of Williamsburg’s most prominent families. Her grandfather was a member of the House of Burgesses and one of the city’s orginial trustees. Her father was a member of the governor’s council. Lucy was never liked by the townspeople and was considered unkind. She met John Paradise in London and they settled there. After the revolutionarily war the state of VA. confiscated Lucy’s house in Williamsburg.
When John died in 1795 it took Lucy until 1805 to get permission to return to Virginia and claim her home.
It was clear when Lucy returned that she was in a deluded state of mind and thought that the people of Williamsburg should treat her as royalty.
She paraded up and down Duke of Gloucester street waving with her servant following behind. She would dress herself with two or three dresses and walk for hours down the street. She would also take make-believe carriage rides by having her slaves push and rock her horseless couch in her stable.
In 1816 the townspeople had her committed to the public hospital, a mental institute
on Frances Street
As they carried her away screaming and shouting she vowed she would return home someday. With in two years of her incarceration she went completely insane and died in the asylum.
Her home was sold several times before the restoration of Colonial Williamsburg and it was five years after it was purchased by CW that restoration began on the home.
Workers would report tools missing papers thrown about documents missing, water turning on and off by itself, and noises from empty rooms. Some are convinced that Lucy has come home to stay.

Wagon Of Death/Public Gaol (Jail) Colonial Williamsburg
If found guilty of a heinous crime a person was placed in the Public Gaol (Jail) to await hanging.

Cells were small, unheated, no glass in the windows, which were barred. Prisoners slept on insect ridden straw, shackles were found during excavations, Prisoners were shacked to the floor.
The “Wagon of Death” came to escort them to the gallows. The condemned man could hear the creaking of the carts wheels as it rolled down Nicholson Street. The prisoner then had to sit on there own coffin for the mile long ride to Hangman’s Road. No physical evidence is left of the gallows but the Gaol is still standing and is one of the oldest buildings in Colonial Williamsburg. It housed murders, pirates, Indians, run-away slaves and common debtors until 1780. It continued to house offenders until 1910.
Stories have been told for over a century of hearing the sounds of a horse and wagon going down Nicholson Street in pre-dawn hours. When those hearing the sound would rush to the windows, nothing was there.

The public Goal is located on the eastern end of Nicholson Street. Nicholson Street runs parallel to Duke of Gloucester Street. Look for the Capital. The jail is to the left (north) side of the Capital

*Footnote

The Orginial brick building was 20 by 20 feet with an adjoining walled exercise yard. Presently the gaol has three rooms on the first floor, a larger one for the gaoler and two smaller ones for male and female prisoners. Attic chambers were used to confine petty offenders.
Hanging was often the penalty for arson, piracy, horse stealing, forgery and stealing. The gaol served the colony until 1780 and used as a jail by the city of Williamsburg until 1910.

Visiting a local haunt

In all the excitement of the talking about the meeting with the paranormal group, I forgot to mention that I have been working on my stories for the houses in Williamsburg that are suppose to be haunted. My husband and I were up there on Saturday to take some photos. I was able to get shots of about half the houses on my list. Here is my first one.I hope you enjoy hearing about

The George Wythe House



Resembling a small plantation estate the George Wythe House has a laundry, a lumber house, a well, a stable and a kitchen. It also has a kitchen garden and an orchard.
The house was given to George Wythe as a wedding gift from his father in law. George was a lawyer, judge, teacher, and speaker of the House of Delegates. He also signed the declaration of Independence. He died in 1806 after a lingering death due to being poisoned by his grandnephew who wanted to gain his inheritance.
George Washington used the home as his temporary headquarters just prior to the siege of Yorktown. After the siege the home accommodated men wounded during the battle. One of these was a Colonel named Oscar LaBlance. A local woman named Katherine Anderson watched over him day and night. When he was out of danger of dying they made plans to marry. Unfortunately he contacted malaria from one of the other patients and died within a week. Soon after Katherine died from “natural causes”. Rumors said she died of a broken heart.
For decades there have been reports of voices, and shadows of a man in the hall. Also a woman has been seen in one of the bedrooms.
We do not know if George Wythe himself haunts the house, or if it is one of the many soliders who died. Could the lady that has been seen be poor Katherine searching for her true love? Maybe soon I will get a pass and visit the inside

Update
I found the following information about the ghost that haunt this house

The many ghost of the Wythe House

Judge George Wythe- Murdered in Richmond by his grandnephew, George Sweeney. If you sit in the study, you might feel a cold hand feel your brow.
George Washington- Said to stayed there during the time of the Revolutionary War. He is seen in the windows from time to time. In powdered wig and all.
Lady Ann Skipwith- Her ghost is seen on the stairwell on the house. Said to be outraged at a party held at the Governor's Palace. She ran home and broke her shoe. She is said to be seen hobbling on the stairs in a fit of rage.
Governor John Page- He jilted Lady Ann for the company of her sister instead. His ghost is the more revendant of the group. He's the most quite of the group and is rarely seen. He bought the house from the Wythes.

Lady Ann

While reading a book n the Ghost of Williamsburg I ran across another story about the George Wythe house which I talked about in the previous post.
Here it is for your entertainment


When George Wythe was still living he often had house-guest by the name of Peyton Skipwith and his wife Ann.
She was born near Petersburg about 1741 and was known for her temper. She married Sir Peyton Skipwith and they lived in Mecklenburg Co. Virginia. Back in the days when the governor lived in Williamsburg they were invited to attend a ball at the Governor's Place. That night she wore a cream satin dress and tiny high heeled red slippers.
Her temper flared when saw her husband dancing with her sister Jean. She bolted from the Palace unescorted and dashed across the Palace Green toward the Wythe House. En-route she either broke the strap or heel of one of her slippers and arrived at the house hobbling on one shoe, the other foot clad only in her silk stocking.
As she went up the stairs she sounded like someone with a peg leg.
Many years went by and Lady Ann died in childbirth. Her husband then married her sister.

Does Lady Ann haunt the house? I'm not sure but: Around midnight, some report a clicking going up the main staircase. Many think it is Ann Skipwith, running up the staircase in anger, after having a fight with her husband.
She also has been seen combing her hair at her dressing table. Also there are cold spots at the top of the stairs.

Meeting with the ghostbusters

I have this song running through my head tonight!

Ghostbusters!

Something strange, in your neighbourhood
Who you going to call?
Ghostbusters!
Something Weird and it don't look good
Who you going to call
Ghostbusters!

And I am totally psyched. As you know I was invited to meet with one of our local paranormal groups. I won't name them here to protect privacy but they are a great bunch of folks and I learned a lot. We talked about experiences and ghost hunting, equipment and what to do and not do, and of course we talked about my grandson and the ghost lady.
They all agreed they see an outline of a woman and man in the photo, but said that it appears to be matrix. I had heard of this before and expected that this might be what they told me, but because of my grandson seeing her before the photo was taken they can not rule out that something may be going on at the farm.
They are very interested in him, and asked me if I could get permission from my daughter to let him go along on an investigation. Actually more of an observation. They want us to go to an area that has been sited in the past for activity (probably the Yorktown battlefield) and let him walk around. They will bring all of there equipment and possibly let him hold the EMF meter. We will probably take bubbles or a kite, a ball or something fun like that and just let him play and see what happens. If he is the little magnet that they hope he will be then they will get some evidence of a spirit which is what all of us who love the paranormal are hoping for.
I am not sure when this outing will happen but I will let you all know.

I want to check this out

Last night I watched the most amazing show on ghost children Called
Children Of The Grave
It was a two hour documentary. Check out the link for the trailer above. I don't know if it will be back on TV, but I jotted down some notes and plan on searching the web for some more information about that area.

Update
It came on the sci-fi channel and I checked out the listing there. It is coming back on May 28 at 2 pm.
Don't miss it.

Chit Chat

Well it seems my little Ghost Photo is making it's way around the web. Not only has it been published by two other sites. I now have a professional paranormal photographer taking a look at it. I wrote him a letter and asked if he was interested in viewing a photo and he wrote back this morning and said yes, so it is on the way to him.
Here is his website if you want to check out his other stuff
The Ghost Guy
I'm excited that the photo is getting recognized, because to me it validates that what happened is real and not just the imagination of my grandson.

I want to do some more investigation of the farm and graves, but now with it being summer a lot of people visit the farm, and it will be hard to be alone at the graves and woods near them.
I am going to try getting up really early one morning or either go just before closing one night. I will go during the week and see if that will work out to take some EVP's. It will probably be another week or so before I get to go alone. We are going next week for my grandson's birthday party, but more than likely won't visit the graves that day.

In the mean time I still plan on attending the meeting I have been invited to with one of our local paranormal groups. Hopefully they will decide to do another investigation out there and I can wiggle out an invitation to tag along.

Also I also got a very nice email from Haunted San Diego They have been by this blog and wanted to let me know they had visited. Way cool huh.
Here is some information on them.
Haunted San Diego is an informational web site about ghosts, the paranormal and supernatural. It is not a tour group or paranormal research group. They run a website where people can share stories and have a forum and stuff. Also photo's can be submitted there so I will probably send the photo and story to them.
It's amazing when you start looking around just how many people are interested in the paranormal. I love it. I wish I had started this interest 20 years ago. Just think of all the stuff I have missed out on. Oh well, I am into it now. So look out world!(Spirit World that is)

Types of Hauntings

Residual:

The most common style of a human haunting is a residual haunting. A residual haunting is like having an impression made in time. The entity may seem to be lost in a time warp. The spirit really isn't even there, only the energy is.

In most cases people may here screaming or crying due to the violence factor that may have caused this traumatic event to happen. People may also hear the sounds of footsteps walking on the stairs or through hallways.

Typically the repeated event is whatever the person who left the energy behind did often or an significant event that they remember happening to them. It is almost like it the energy has become part of the dwelling that they once occupied on an every day basis. These haunting styles always seem to happen in the same place every time.

There is usually very little you can do on this style of a haunting except make the family who is having these problems understand what is going on and explain to them that they are in no danger due to the energy not being controlled by the person who left it behind.

There is no actual entity present in this style of haunting, and the energy that was left behind is just like a video playing the same scene over and over again. Eventhough it is not aware that people are there, it can still be a scary and emotional situation to the people who have to deal with it happening in their home.

It may happen every night or every week or even every year. It is the most frequent haunting investigators will come across in their cases. An investigator will tell you there is nothing they can do about this style haunting and they are correct. People need to either except what happens and learn to deal with it, or move on.

-Jason (TAPS)


Negative entity / Demonic:

Demons are one of the known inhuman entities out there. Fortunately, they are a rare occurrence.

They are usually very easy to identify as long as they are not hiding. When it is a demonic haunting you typically notice a revolting stench similar to rotted flesh or sulfuric acid. They often let loose a growl that sounds like it is coming from everywhere at once. They like to make contact by pushing, shoving, hitting, and even scratching. The whole air in the affected area will feel thick like fog and the temperature will drastically change, typically becoming warmer.

These creatures are very strong, unlike human spirits, and they don't mind showing it. There have been cases where people have been thrown through the air and even attacked. Apparently, their main goal is to break down a person's free will in order to make way for possession. This can take days, months or years, but time is of no concern to them.

They have a hatred for mankind that dates back to the days of God and Lucifer. They have lived for millennia and will be here long after we are gone. So, you must understand that though you may be able to get these creatures to leave a dwelling with religious provocation you will never destroy them. They could go to the next place down the road if they choose, most likely they won't because distance is not a problem for these creatures. They could go from Maine to California on a thought.

They can take on any form they wish, but mostly commonly it is a half man, half animal form. They will have the head of an animal, the torso of a man, and the hairy legs of an animal. When they are approached by an investigating paranormal team they may feel threatened and appear in a human form to keep the home from being blessed and stop the use of religious provocation.

During an investigation you need assess the situation more by what happened before you arrived than what is actually going on during the time you are there. Demons are capable of changing form right in front of you from a human form to an inhuman form. They neither male nor female, but then can change that to meet their needs. People mostly see demons as black masses standing in doorways or near rooms. Sometimes they are called shadow devils.

If you feel like you have a demon in your home I would recommend getting help from a well known paranormal group as quickly as possible. Time is of the essence when dealing with these creatures.


-Jason (TAPS)



Intelligent:

In this style of haunting the entity or entities are aware of their surroundings. Most of the time you will find that these spirits are not confined to one spot, they can move around freely. Also, they will acknowledge the existence of human beings and even try to communicate in certain ways.

They are limited in what they can do. Most of the time they only move very light objects but they have been known to move objects up to around 10lbs. They are looking for people to notice them but they end up scaring people a great deal instead.

Usually, between the hours of 11pm and 4am are the times that the entities can more efficiently manifest themselves, due to this time period being the darkest hours of the night. Most of the time are not strong enough to show themselves during the daylight because it takes too much energy to make themselves visible. Think of it like this, if you were to turn on a flashlight during the daytime you would hardly notice the light, but if you were to turn it on in the dead of night, the light would be clearly visible. This is how spirits work as well. If they use too much energy during the day they will be too weak to show themselves at night.

These spirits can be benevolent or mischievous, depending on the reason that they are haunting a location, and there are several reasons. They may be haunting it because it was once their home and they want you to leave. They may be there because they've found that a child is able to see them so they feel noticed and are willing to stay around for this fact. There may be some kind of artifact that they are staying with and following due to some emotional bond with it. They also may be looking for something or someone. They may even not be willing to except that they have died. Whatever the reason may be, they are there and they do not want to leave.

Now comes the hard part, ridding a house of them. They are not inhuman entities which we will get to, so religious provocation will not be effective to rid the area they are in. You are, as they are, limited to what you can do.

-Jason (TAPS)

Poltergeist:

Poltergeist is from a German word meaning noisy spirits. Reports of poltergeists date back to Ancient Roman times.

The activity that takes place will start of with knocks and bangs, furniture starting to move around by itself. Then, the activity will become more intense, manifesting itself through voices and even the appearance of full apparitions. Furniture may slide across the room and beds may shake. Many shows are based on this is a style of haunting because it tends to be the most terrifying and rarest type of haunting that occurs.

Most of the time, in the case of a poltergeist, the haunting circles around a female in her teen years. Some of these cases seem to be caused by the female unknowingly controlling the energy around herself. Some cases happen around people that are stable and in the right mind space.

This haunting is hard to classify due to certain situations. No two are ever really the same. Most of the time you will find that one person in the household seems to be more affected by the haunting than anyone else. It may seem that most of the activity doesn't happen unless that certain person is present. Usually, the activity appears to stop when that person leaves the home. The majority of the time poltergeists are experienced by several people, but again they seem to center around one certain person. This person may be highly stressed as of late or maybe this person has gone through some type of extreme emotional situation. If this is the case, see that the individual involved gets some medical care, and soon afterwards the poltergeist will subside.

When it is not the teenager that is manifesting activity there are usually several spirits in the area. The spirits appear to pool their energy together in order to become strong enough to move larger objects and make more noises. In order to remedy the situation, you need to find the root of their anger so that they can pass over and leave you in peace. On most poltergeist cases they will disappear with out any warning, just as they appeared. Certain times it may stop within a few days, other times it may take years. You may never know the reason that it happened. Most people are just happy to see it go and that's enough for them.

By understanding why it was there in the first place helps you to understand how to keep it from ever coming back again. Knowledge is the key in protecting yourself in this world.


-Jason (TAPS)



Haunted Q and A____________________________________________
There may be simple, ordinary reasons for the happenings in your home. Try to look for logical reasons behind knocking, banging, hot spots, cold spots, voices etc.

Q: Can spirits follow you?
A: It is blieved that they can, they may be attached to you or something that you have ie:an object.

Q: Can children see spirits?
A: Children are more open minded; therefore, they might not know if what they are seeing is a spirit. They are not preconditioned to ignore the unexplainable and really don't understand the statement ?there are no such thing as ghosts?. Also keep in mind that fact and fiction are blurred in a child's mind, so use your best judgement when trying to decide if your child has had a legitmate paranormal experience.

Q: What is so bad about the ouija board?
A: You are giving something beyond our realm control of your motor functions. You are allowing yourself to be manipulated by something you don?t know. It?s not the board itself, you can make a spirit board out of anything, it?s the practice of using it as a vehicle to lower your will.

Q: I was sleeping and I couldn?t move, something was pushing on me what was it?
A: Could have been sleep paralysis. What happens is your body temporarily paralyzes itself during sleep to preventyou from enacting everything that you are dreaming about. Sometimes your body is awake but your mind is asleep and you end up sleepwalking. Other times it works the other way around, your mind is awake but your body is sleeping and you cannot move. This can leave you delusional as, while you panic, your breathing and heart rate does not increase to compensate, so eventually you fallback asleep and all is well.
Common side effects are feelings of being held down, shortness of breath, inability to speak.

Q: How do I start my own group?
A: This requires a group of like-minded individuals, a good sense of safety and responsibility, and common sense. Some people start with a group of friends, some look on the internet for other groups that are already up and running. On our main page there is a link to all our TAPS family members. The TAPS Family consists of established, affiliated groups that you may want to learn from. Click on the ?investigators? link to find one near you.

Q:What is the best equipment to use?
A: We do have extensive equipment, however it has been years in the making, and these things were not purchased all at once. It may take time and saving up a bit to get a good equipment base. However, excellent results can be obtained with the most basic of equipment such as a video camera with nightshot and an audio recorder, either analog or digital. Other equipment you might look to buy are; an EMF meter, thermometer, and cameras, 35mm and digital. Some of these are obviously expensive equipment, so to buy them one by one is ok too. These tools are an investment and need to be treated as such. Be sure to handle your equipment carefully and to store it properly?You want to be sure it will be useful to you for a long time. Always keep a checklist of your equipment, and inventory it before and after an investigation. When deciding on equipment, don't forget to factor in the cost of media (tapes, film, etc.) Many people choose digital to overcome this, while other swear the results are better with the non-digital variety.

Q: How do I get rid of an unwanted spirit?
A: Well, hopefully, with the right knowledge, you won't feel threatened by its presence, but if you are truly uncomfortable with the fact you may have a spirit, and it is the right type of spirit, you can ask it to leave. As a family you need to tell it to leave, to move on. This may take several tries, however it is your home and you need to take charge. Simply say ?we do not want you here, it is time you moved on?.

Q: Why do spirits move things?
A: We cannot interview a spirit to find out for sure, but we guess that they may want to let you know they are there. Simple daily tasks that we perform without even a thought may take a spirit some time to accomplish. You may wake up to a cup being a few feet from where you left it. That may be their way of telling you ?hey I?m here?. The important thing to do is to try and find the sense in the activity in an attempt to figure out what they are trying to accomplish.

Q: How much weight can a spirit move?
A: Iin our experience we've found that what we label as an intelligent spirit doesn't seem to move objecs more than around 10 pounds in weight. This can actually work out to be quite a shove or a grab. A demonic or inhuman entity, appears to be able to move much more than that.

Q: What is a demonic or inhuman?
A: A demonic or inhuman is a classification we use to describe an entity that has never walked the earth in a human corporeal form. Ther are many different types; demons, elementals, angels,etc.

Q: How come I keep seeing a shadow figure out of the corner of my eye, but when I look at it it?s gone?
A: Basically, light entering from the corner of the eye is distorted more than the light that enters the eye from straight on. What you see out of the corner of your eye is simply your mind's best guess at what you would see if you were to look straight at it. Therefore, you cannot be too sure of what you see through the corner of your eye.

Q: Why do you investigate at night?
A: One theory is that if an entity, while manifesting itself, causes any light at all, you will see it better at night with infrared cameras. Yet, if an entity, while manifesting itself, does not cause light, then you will see it at night with infrared cameras. If you were to do this during the day, you wouldn't catch that bit of light, should there be one. For example: if you turn on a flashlight outside on a sunny day it's not going to be discernable at all. But if you turn on the dimmest of all flashlight in the darkness, you will see it very clearly. Also, sound travels further at night do to a phenomenon called sound refraction. Most of all, that is when the reported activity almost always is reported to happen. And, that is when we aren't all working at our jobs, lol.



Q: I see on the show "Ghost hunters" that they are only there a short time. Why not stay longer?
A: Ah, the miracle of editing. TAPS is typically at a location for 12 hours or longer. There have been episodes that they have investigated for two nights but the show was edited to make it look like one night. It takes roughly two and a half weeks to film one forty-three minute show.
Q: Can spirits travel from place to place?
A:We don't see why not. They seem to have the ability to move at their will.

Q: Why can spirits travel through walls?
A: One theory is that they are made up of energy and as you know energy is not solid, giving them the ability to travel through a wall.



From
www.theatlanticparanormalsociety.com

Top Ten Ghost Hunting Tools Of The Trade

1. EMF Meter - Used to detect fluctuations in the electro magnectic field. Many believe that these fluctuations could be the result of paranormal activity. The Northern Kentucky Paranormal Group uses two types of these; the Tri-Field meter, which is one of the more popular models. And the K2 which uses LED lights and is very sensitive.

2. Thermal Scanner - Uses an IR laser to detect the air temperature. Used to detect "cold spots" which are believed to be spirits drawing the energy of their surroundings in order to manifest.

3. Digital Recorder with Microphone - Used to pick up EVP's, disembodied vocies heard on the recording that were not heard during an investigation.

4. Camera - Both 35mm, digital and camcorders are used. Helps document the area of an investigation and to try and provide proof of the paranorma.

5. Pen and paper - Used to document everything that happens in the investigation, from the research to the actual on site hunting.

6. Dowsing Rods - Used like the EMF meter

7. Motion Dector - Used to detect motion that we wouldn't be able to see otherwise.

8. Flashlight- A team from University College London finds that when we gaze around in a poorly-lit context, it can fool our brains into seeing things that are not really there.

9. Two Way Radios - Two Way Radios are recommended if the investigation involves splitting in to teams. This way you can easily communicate with the other team. Check that all radios are communicating on the same channel.

10. Batteries - Often batteries mysteriously lose their charge at an investigation. We recommend you bring at least one extra set of batteries for each piece of equipment that requires them.

I got published again

How cool is this!!


My photo is at Haunted America Tours

I submited this last night and they published it today

Spooky Link

While visiting Encounters With The Unexplained
I found this video on Shadow People of Waverly Hills
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tZqw6_EMm34&hl=en]
It is really freaky so I followed the link Here
For more information on The Waverly Hills Sanatorium.
Check it out. This is one place I am not sure I would want to visit.

Crawford Road Yorktown Va

Repost from Oct. 2007
Crawford Road in Yorktown..
Here is what Shadowlands Haunted Places has to say about this road

Yorktown - Crawford Road - A woman hung herself from an overpass on her wedding day. Her spirit has been seen her spirit, hanging in her wedding dress. Also, African Americans were hung down the road. A lot of spirits dwell on this road. - February 2005 Correction - Formerly listed under - Poquoson - Crawford Rd - There have been other stories about the part of the road where the Tour Road crosses over Crawford Rd. There is a story that on some nights that you can see a black lady in a white dress walk up on the bridge onto the ledge, then she falls off and then she stops in mid air and swings like she was hung. There have also been stories of your car cutting out and not starting. If you drove down it at night you could see someone hanging from the bridge where someone was hung years ago and that cars have shut off underneath the bridge. - December 2006 additional information: Before you come to crybaby bridge that runs about halfway down from the roads entrance on either side of the vast woods lies a fenced off road that actually heads back into a clearing if you're daring enough to cross the threshold. If you enter the clearing, you will find a solitary building that is long since abandoned with no doors. If you watch, there are red eyes that may appear in one of the open doorways (most likely the very last door all the way to the right) 'watching' you as you move around. Should you get close they may end up vanishing before you can locate them. Going into the building itself, however, yields the very eerie feeling of more than one 'being' watching your every move. It has been seen on film of shadow people walking around along the walls without actually anything being in front of the light source (always in the shape of a tall male creeping along). There have also been reports of people feeling like they have had their feet stepped on, voices whispering, and even hands lain upon the middle of their backs. This experience is random, but best done on a clear, moonless night. But you never know what you might find if you actually go to the radio station once the sun is down.

Well let me tell you it was creepy. We did not get out of the car and go walking in the woods there. The bridge was painted with lots and I mean lots of graffiti..We drove under it and kept going..After driving a few minutes and the road not coming out anywhere I told Dean to turn around so we could go back the way we had came. After we crossed under the overpass bridge again I had him stop and this is what we captured on the camera







Enlarge these photos one by one and you will see a bright white light in the first one..Remember we were in front of the bridge and I was standing beside the car shooting BEHIND me towards the bridge, no one else was on the road..So where did the light come from?

Enlarge the second photo and you will see the light has moved forward and now appears as an orb near the car

Enlarge the last photo and you will see several orbs floating around the bridge, also you can see the grafetti

*sorry, some of the photos were lost when I had my computer crash and can not be put back*

The Ambler House-Jamestown

Lydia Ambler was the oldest daughter of the wealthy Ambler family, living in Jamestown VA around the mid 1700. It was here that she met Alexander Maupin a young soldier. Soon after they met they married in Aug. 1776. Lydia wore a beautiful while, lace covered gown with a long training . As was the custom the family gave a large dowry to the groom. Soon after the marriage Alexander left for war, leaving Lydia behind believing he loved her. Everyday Lydia would stand on the pier near her home waiting for her beloved. Months went by and not a word came from Alexander.. She didn't know if he had been killed in battle or simply did not want to return. As time passed she grew more and more angry.
In 1781 /the Amblers large Georgian Mansion was burned to the grown. It was rebuilt that same year and Lydia would stand for hours gazing out on the James river. Lydia couldn't shake the feeling that Alexander had married her for her money and eventually the fury caused her to take her own life.
The home burned again during the civil war and again in 1895. Today on the shell remains.
It has been reported that at night Lydia can be seen walking around the ruins of the mansion, still waiting the return of her beloved Alexander.

Haunted Governors Mansion

In August of 2006 my husband, daughter and I went on a "ghost walk" in Richmond VA. While a bit on the boring side one thing did stick out that I enjoyed. We were taken to the gates of the Governor of Virginia's home. I had heard the stories that the mansion was haunted, and was really excited to read this newspaper article that was printed just a few months after I took my photo showing some orbs.
Here is the article along with some additional information on the "mystery lady" that haunts the home.




Mr. Governor, it’s the ghost again
By CHRISTINA NUCKOLS, The Virginian-Pilot
© December 8, 2006



If there’s a paranormal “Do Not Call” registry out there, Gov. Timothy M. Kaine would like to sign up.

The governor told radio listeners Thursday that the ghost who supposedly has haunted the 193-year-old executive mansion in Richmond for more than a century seems to have taken up telemarketing.

“The telephone will ring once in the private quarters that we have at a very inconvenient time. It rings once, pick it up, there’s nobody there,” Kaine said on his monthly radio call-in show. “It’s always at the exact same moment.”

Legend has it the Gray Lady took up residence in the executive mansion in the 1800s after dying in a carriage accident as she was returning from a party at the governor’s home.

“The story is, she came back to the mansion because that was where she had her last happy moments in life,” said Amy Bridge, director of the executive mansion, the oldest continuously occupied governor’s residence in the United States.

Kaine wouldn’t reveal the precise timing of the calls to avoid “copy-cat poltergeists,” but spokesman Kevin Hall said they occur just after midnight on the same day of the week. Bridge said former Gov. Mark Warner also received the spooky phone calls.

Realizing that his listeners might be unnerved to hear about their governor’s supernatural adventures, Kaine assured them he has never seen the Gray Lady.

“I could have just really unwound my whole term as governor by launching into a description of my communing with the spirits,” he said.






Ghost of the Governor's Mansion in Richmond

By Mary Moss, published Aug 06, 2007

The Governor's Mansion in Richmond, Virginia seems an implausible place for a ghost to be seen, heard and felt. But in fact the earliest sighting of a ghost in the mansion is a young lady sitting in a window. This sighting took place in the early 1890's by then Governor Philip McKinney. He is surely a credible witness! Reportedly, the Governor had come inside, washed up in a bathroom, and entered a bedroom. He was startled to see a young lady sitting in the window. He checked with his wife and was told she had no visitors. When he rechecked the bedroom, the lady was gone. A search of the mansion ensued, but turned up no lady or any clues to her identity.

On another occasion, the ghost of the woman was seen by a Capitol police officer. The officer reported seeing a woman standing at the window of an upstairs bedroom where visitors were not authorized to be. He went up to the room to tell her she was not allowed in the room. When he entered the room she disappeared before his eyes, like a ghost.

In 1972, during the tenure or Governor Linwood Holton, a curious incident occurred that added to the ghost's credibility. Hurricane Agnes tore through Richmond that year, and caused a blackout in downtown Richmond, including the Capitol and the Governor's Mansion. Governor Holton reported that during the blackout someone or something moved several of the paintings in his bedroom. Could it have been the ghost of the Governor's mansion?





Another ghostly incident that occurred during the blackout was reported by Ann Compton, then with ABC television. She was ABC's White House correspondent at the time and was on assignment at the Capitol. She was called to the house by one of Governor Holton's staff secretaries. The woman showed her that the entire mansion was dark except for one light bulb in the ladies' stairwell of the mansion. It continued to shine throughout the blackout. They tried every light switch in the mansion to no affect. Compton reported that Mrs. Holton had told her she always thought there was a ghost in the mansion.

Another Capitol police offer had a hair-raising experience with a ghost in the basement of the Governor's mansion during Governor Dalton's tenure. The officer became curious when the Governor's dog, with hair raised on his back, began barking furiously at a nearby window. As he approached the window he felt a cold chill in the room. There was a summer heat wave at the time, but the officer noticed the window had frosted over and the curtains were swirling. Within moments the curtains stopped swirling and the frost on the window disappeared.

Who is this mysterious ghost? No one has ever determined the answer to that question. But her presence was apparently real enough on one occasion to scare a Capitol police officer so badly he quit his job! The officer was in the basement of the Governor's mansion one night and claims he distinctly felt something or someone touch his face. He was apparently so terrified he threw his badge down on the floor on his way out of the house.

The ghost of the Governor's mansion is one of the most famous ghosts of Richmond, Virginia. She has never been identified and apparently means no harm. The ghost of this poor woman recently endured the complete remodeling and refurbishing of the Governor's mansion. Since no reports of her presence have surfaced lately, maybe she's finally satisfied with what they've done with the place!

Is there life after death? I believe there is. I hope so, anyway, because I have a lot I want to accomplish, and I'm not sure I can do it all in one lifetime!

It Made It!

Look whose photo made the
Ghost of America web page

Yippie!!

The Difference Between Ghosts and Spirits

The Difference Between Ghosts and Spirits

Courtesy of Jennifer
Peninsula Paranormal
Investigators Hampton Roads VA.


Yes, there is a difference between Ghosts and Spirits. GHOSTS are earthbound spirits that haunt locations or people. They may or may not know they are dead. Some are intelligent spirits that interact with the living. Some like to scare people on purpose. Others are just misunderstood. Some Ghosts are "residual" and don't even know we are their, it's like a record playing over and over again, which could
also just be their residual Energy from past events. Some ghosts don't even know they are dead and will hang on to a place. Others hang on because they have
committed suicide and feel guilty and are afraid of going to hell. Other's have other reasons for hanging on and haunting an area: They may have cursed a person or place, and pledged to haunt it, they may be looking for a lost lover, they may be trapped in a spot because they may have had a violent death, they may have murdered
someone, they may feel guilty about something else and are afraid to
cross over.

SPIRITS that are not earthbound have crossed over, but are not ghosts. They are not trapped in any spot. They can visit us in dreams or while we are conscious, and we can see apparitions of them and communicate with them like a ghost. Their appearance is different than a ghost. A Spirit that has crossed over to the light will be surrounded by light,look younger and healthier and vibrant, where as an earthbound Ghost will look dark like a shadow, or may even still show the scars of how they died. Also, they walk on a different plane of existence. Spirits float, because they are not earthbound. Ghosts that are earthbound, can look like people and their feet are at the same level as the ground...and don't necessarily float. The other main
difference, earthbound ghosts are restless spirits, unsettled, and unhappy, tormented, or torn between one place and another and unsatisfied with themselves. Spirits that have crossed over to the Light, are full of love and light and are complete in themselves.
Those are the main differences between Ghosts and Spirits.

Something to look forward to

It will take me awhile, but I have decided as part of this blog to include The Ghost of Williamsburg.
What I would like to do is go to each of the houses/areas, that are listed as "haunted" in Colonial Williamsburg. I plan on taking a photo and telling a little bit of the history or story of why the place is haunted. I think that will be fun and hopefully you my readers will enjoy the stories as well as learn about our local history.

Also just so you know. I have been invited to go to a meeting of one of our local paranormal groups as a guest speaker. I will be talking about my grandson and how he "sees" the Ghost Lady and other happenings he seems to talk about.
It isn't coming up for a few weeks, but I will be sure and mention how the evening goes.
Probably sometime tomorrow I will make a list of the Williamsburg Ghost stories and post some information.

Check The IV

The following EVP can be found at paranormal.com
Harry is a friend of mine and this is his EVP



"Harry, you can check...Thelma"
I have received several EVPs from my Mom who passed away on Nov 30, 2001. She passed away in a nursing home and there were questions because I had spoken with her that night. She was in excellent health, but had a problem with a nurse that was stealing items from her room. It's not uncommon for things to happen to patients in this situation. There are horror stories about these activities. I told my cousin that I wanted to check on this. Here's one of three messages I received from Mom. My name is Harry and her name is Thelma. The message says: "Harry, you can check... Thelma." And when played in reverse, it saye, "Quick, check the IV (intravenous) – Harry D. Flagle

The Ghost Who Cleans

My daughter called me about 11:15 tonight to report that my grandson is telling her that there is a Momo (grand mother figure) in his room. When ask what she is doing he replies that she is cleaning. He was upset and asking to sleep with mom (daughter)
I told her to have him tell the lady to GO AWAY. She said she did but he was still upset. I had her put him on the phone with me, and I asked him what was wrong. He was crying and said " There is a Momo in my bedroom". I told him TELL HER TO GO AWAY..Ok he sniffled cried harder. My daughter then took the phone and said bye. It's been an hour and she hasn't called back. Either the Momo went away, or he fell asleep crying. It has really un-nerved me to think that he sees these "things". I'm thinking of nailing a cross/and or a pentacle above his door.
It's just down right creepy, besides I don't know why she is haunting him. My house is the one that needs cleaning. My daughter keeps a spotless house.

Ghostlady

BE SURE AND CLICK ON THE PHOTOS TO ENLARGE THEM TO SEE THE IMAGINE




Ok tell me I am crazy, but do you see the ghost in the forest?
Here is a close up view.





Like I said maybe I am crazy, but I see a ghostly outline of a lady in a long dress facing sideways with her arm on her hip.
Just so you know...I took this photo today right after my grandson told me he saw a lady in the woods. He told me this about three minutes after we stopped here today.

The woods were behind us as I took the photo of the graves. We were not talking about ghost. We were simply looking around. Just out of no-where my grandson pointed to the woods and told us he wanted to go in there. My daughter asked him if someone was in there..Yes he answered, Who we asked. A lady he replied. Where did she come from we asked..He pointed to the sky. I ask him if it was a ghost. Yes, he said. Needless to say we left. This is not the first time we have been near graveyards to have my grandson suddenly started talking about seeing people that we can't see. I have to admit even with my belief in the paranormal I find it a bit un-nerving. When we got home and I loaded my photos from today the image of the woman was the first thing I saw in the photo. I quietly sat my grandson on my lap and asked him where he saw the lady in the woods at. He pointed right to the same area of the photo that I was seeing the "ghost" in. Shit I thought, so I asked him, Cody what was the lady wearing. Did she have on a dress or pants. A dress he said..hmmm I thought, what color was her dress. Blue he said..Ohh ok I said..Well was the dress up here (pointing to my mid thighs) or was it down here (pointing to my shoes). Down here he said touching the ground..
Ok, now I ask you again. Am I nuts? Or do you see a ghost in my photo?

Real People and Answering A Question(Re-post)

REPOST 4/11/08


I know your all probably tired of reading about my ghost story, but I want to share some thoughts with you.

It is driving me crazy thinking Is this real? Do ghost really exsit. Is my grandson really seeing something. I have tried unsuccessfully to find any information on the net about hauntings in that area. I was just about to give up, when I got to thinking about it this way.

Just for the sake of argument lest say it is a ghost.
Ok with that established we all know that before you can be a ghost you had to be alive. So I pondered over it awhile thinking to myself Just who was this woman (and man/the papa). What were their names, how did they die. What did they do when they were alive.

If I look in the mirror and I see myself I know that I have hopes and dreams, a home, children .And when I die, someone is going to know who I was.
So I realized, that this "ghost" must have been the same way. Someone had to know who they were. So I thought about it some more and I asked myself, ok where do I start. I wondered who owned this land. What happened there all those years ago. How did they die and Why are they haunting it.

Yesterday I took the bull horns and went to our local library. We have a special room dedicated to Virginia history so I knew I could at lest find something on the land.
So in I go, march up to the desk, and tell the librarian my story. Of course she looks at me like I have two heads, but she produces a file with newspaper articles in it. And guess what. It is all about the farm and who owned it and the names of the people who were buried in the graveyard there.

I won't give you a last name to protect there privacy, but I will tell you that it is a family cemetery.

the names and dates are as follows
Margaret born 1797 died 1835
*I think she is our "lady". The timing for the dress the "ghost" is wearing would be about right. Margaret would have died in her early 30's. My ghost lady looks young.

Philip was born in 1845, he died at age 68 in 1913 of a heart attack after coming in from the fields. I believe he is our papa/and the farmer seen by the worker at the farm. A farmer in 1913 would certainly be wearing overalls as she described.

I have different last names for Margaret and Philip, but I feel like they are related. Perhaps she was his grandmother or an Aunt of either Philip or his wife who is also buried in the cemetery.

Philips daughter is also buried there and believe it or not she died just three days before he did. All that I have listed is she died suddenly. She was 40.
At first I thought maybe our lady was her, but she didn't die until 1913 so I think the dress style does not fit.

Anyway I also found out that Philip was born and raised there, and served in the civil war.

Conincident, maybe, interesting thoughts Yes.
So what do you think?
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
REPOST FROM 4/12/08

Suzie ask me an interesting question about our "ghost". Did I want them to stay or go.

I thought Well, as long as they stay on the farm and not follow me or my daughter home. I think they should stay, after all this was there farm for hundreds of years. At this point I don't feel like they are harming anyone. This is after all a children's farm, run by the city and if bad things are not happening there then I think it is ok for them to hang around.

I can't help but wonder though if other kids have seen things and told there parents and no one has come forward and reported it for fear of being laughed at or worst.
Let's face it even in today's society where this type of thing is more widely accepted people still band you as a kook. As for me. I don't care. I say bring it on. I would love to have a full investigation out there. Get your camera's, voice recorders, heat sensors and all the other equipment. Whoo hoo, can you see us now on Taps
Ok back to the serious side.
Suzie also suggested that I talk some more to our friendly ghost asking them to give me some sort of sign as to who they are by making a noise such as a tap. Only problem is this is woods and open field. So short of dropping a tree branch on my head I am not sure what kind of noise they could make. In fact I have been twice with a EPV recorder but so far nothing more than the wind. I do plan on trying agin

In the mean time I am going to do an investigation of a different sorts this weekend.
It has nothing to do with this man and lady and is on an entirely different piece of land.
I will tell you more about it later

Things that go bump in the night

REPOST FROM 3/30/08

The phone rang about 10:30 tonight and it was my daughter telling me that my grandson was upset and telling her that there were people in his room. It was no surprise to me since this type of thing has been going on for a while now. It started with the lady in the woods (photo a few weeks ago) and seems to be increasing. Last weekend my daughter took him to the park and he saw the lady again (I think I mentioned this) then the next day we took him to Newport News Park.
During the American Civil War, the current park was the site of the Battle of Dam No. 1, part of the Battle of Yorktown (1862). In the days prior to the battle, the Confederate forces constructed rifle pits and other earth works from which they held off the Union Army forces commanded by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan. The earth works were preserved; though overgrown with woods, they are accessible from the White Oak nature trail on the camping side of the reservoir.
While we were there he said he "saw two men" sitting down, and then he saw lots of men in the distance.
We told him to tell the men to stay there, and we left. Just as we got to the exit he looked out the window and said. THE MEN, Lots of men....Hurry Mama
Sine then we has ask more questions and he said he plays with kids and also a lady.
Now I am not sure if we need a psychic or a psychiatrist but when my daughter called I knew I had to do something.
I had already been preparing, so my husband and I jumped in the car and went to her house. Her boyfriend is working over night tonight and I knew she was afraid.
When we arrived I went straight to work. I planned on doing a cleansing of the home.
First I told my grandson what we were going to do. I explained that the people he saw had to GO AWAY. He wanted to help, so we started at the front door and place sea salt in all four corners of all the rooms in the house. He really enjoyed this. As we finished each room he jumped up and down yelling yippee. At one point he was making noise hitting the tables and doors. It was his way of saying go away!
Once we finished the salt I lit some sage and once again walked the house, using a special feather to fan the smoke. My grandson help fan. Once we were finished I said in a loud voice. Nothing but good and love can live here. Bad things go away!
He was so excited and with in a few minutes he was ready for bed. I had brought a hematite stone with me and he put that under his pillow. He also wanted to wear my hematite necklace I had on to bed. I left it with him. It is now 1 am, the phone hasn't rang and all is quiet. I am hoping the house cleansing will release any negative energy at my daughters and leave things protected there now. I plan on doing my house this next week. I want to do some cleaning first. I have never had any problems here but I have protection around me all the time. One can never be to safe though so I will still do it. Right now the only annoying thing here is my husband snoring in the other room. Hmmm I wonder if sage will work on him ha ha

He sees dead people

Does anyone have the number for ghost busters? Seriously I think we might need one.
Do you all remember the photos of the lady in the woods, and how my grandson said he saw her? Well, it seems lately that he is "seeing" other spirits. My daughter took him back to the farm over the weekend and when he got to the area where the graves are he started talking about "the lady" She said he became quite excited pointing to different areas where he was seeing her when they would asked him about her.
Later that evening, he came over to my house and I asked him if he had fun seeing the cows. Yes, he said. and the lady. I said oh you saw the lady again. Unn huh he said. Did she talk to you this time I asked. Yes, he said, What did she say I asked..
He told me she liked the water. This didn't surprise me since every time he has "seen" her it has been near the lake there. After a few seconds he added...
She lived a long time ago.
Ok, now this is getting creepy, so being the type of person I am I started searching for more history of this farm. I emailed the farm via there website and enclosed the photos. I only told them that I captured something in the photos and did not tell them about my grandson. What a surprise I got when I received a response from a lady that works there telling me that she is the founder of a local paranormal group.
I immediately emailed her back telling her everything. I haven't heard back from her yet, but I was off today so I took a little trip out to the farm. I recently purchased a digital voice recorder, and went with the intent of trying to pick up some EVP (Much to my disappointment they were closed. The office however was open.so being the brave little ghost hunter that I am I went in and asked for the lady who I was emailing. She wasn't there, but I went ahead and told them my story, showing them the printed photos and ask if I could go out to the graves. I took several photos, but nothing showed up. I really didn't expect it to. However it makes me wonder. Was the first photo a fluke, or do you think the lady simply did not manifest because my grandson was not with me. Is he a conductor somehow? I haven't evaluated the recordings I did yet. I have a special program on my computer that wipes out the excess noise, and my husband knows how to use it. He will be home in a couple of hours so if anything shows up on tape I will post it here.

I have another ghost story that has happened in the last few days but I am saving it. I will post about it soon,.

EVP from Cave

Remeber a couple of post back I told you about Cornwallis Cave?
Well we did a recording that day and look what I picked up from
Corwallis Cave
If you listen to the recording in winamp look at the top where it counts down.
at -0137 seconds into the tape I hear HELP
Tell me what you think

Peyton Randolph House Williamburg VA

This small photo was "borrowed" off the web, but the next two were taken yesterday when my daughter and i visited Colonial Williamsburg. This is her standing in front of the Peyton-Randolph house.
We did not go in the house because it is a ticket only entry, but I have this place on my list of must see. I hope to go back soon and take more photos.

 

FRONT


SIDE



In Williamsburg Colonial Village, the home faces market square, and is one of the original structures. This two story Colonial mansion was built in 1715 by Sir John Randolph. His family lived there throughout the 1700's, and was eventually sold to someone outside of the family. In 1824, Mrs. Mary Monroe Peachy owned the house. One of her children died after falling from the tree.

After the Civil War, a young orphaned soldier stayed with the Peachy family while he went to William and Mary College. He came down with tuberculosis and died there.

Many have heard the shattering of a mirror and the sound of heavy footsteps. In an upstairs room residents have awakened in the middle of the night, to see a white, shimmering, male figure.


Late at night in the small rear 2nd floor bedroom there have been reports of a thin old lady in a gown and laced night cap. Visitors reported that she would wake them up politely by calling them by their names, and then she would wring her hands and cry. Could this be Mrs. Peachy?

Allegedly, the Peyton Randolph House is home to as many as 23 ghosts. Many of the house’s most famous ghost stories center on children. In one such story, a little girl was killed after her ghostly best friend, Elizabeth, grew angry with her and threw her down the stairs. Doctors claimed that superhuman force would have been required to cause such a death, given that she had only fallen from the second floor

Histrical information on the house:


The original structure of the Peyton Randolph House was built in 1715. Colonial Williamsburg's primary restoration of the home began in October 1938 and was completed in April 1940. More restoration of the main section was undertaken in June 1967 and was finished 12 months later. The center and west portions of the house opened for exhibition on July 1, 1968.
Original structure located at the corner of Nicholson and North England Streets
Built in 1715 by William Robertson
Sir John Randolph purchased the west wing in 1721
House willed to son Peyton Randolph
First restoration 1938-1940
Further restoration began in 1967
Center and west portions opened in 1968
Construction of outbuildings began in 1997
Rochambeau, Lafayette, and Washington among notable guests at the home

The deep red Peyton Randolph House is one of the oldest, most historic, and without doubt most beautiful of Colonial Williamsburg's original 18th-century homes.

The west wing of the impressive house has stood at the corner of Nicholson and North England Streets since about 1715. Among the historic figures that took shelter in the house were General Rochambeau and the Marquis de Lafayette.



William Robertson built the house that eventually became the west wing of the Peyton Randolph house. Sir John Randolph purchased the west wing in 1721. He bought the east lot for £50 on July 20, 1724 and had a home constructed there as well.

Sir John's son, Peyton Randolph, built a spacious and well-appointed two-story central section between the two houses. A hall with a large roundheaded window and a grand staircase connect single rooms on each floor. The first-floor parlor measures 19 feet square, and the bed chamber above has the same dimensions.



The southern face of the center section matches the appearance of the 29-foot-square clapboard house that makes up the west wing. The low-pitched hip roof of the west wing was extended across the addition but ends abruptly when it reaches the high gable of the dormered roof on the east wing.

Although the west and center sections of the house were connected by doors on both floors, there was no opening through the brick wall to the east wing. The east wing may have served as an office or a service building, or it could have been rented out. Demolished in the 19th century, the east wing was reconstructed by Colonial Williamsburg after the property was purchased in 1938.

The roof of the west wing was designed to funnel rain to two concealed two-log gutters, which apparently carried the water to a cistern. Only traces remain of this contrivance that may have leaked and was later covered by the roof. A chimney rises through the center of the wing, venting corner fireplaces in three rooms on each floor. The stairway passage is located in the southwest corner of each floor.



The center section contains some of the best surviving paneling in the city — some of it walnut — while unusually fine brass hinges and locks trim the parlor doors. The floor is mostly made of original edge-cut pine

Outbuildings supported household activity

A full complement of outbuildings stood to the north (in back), including a two-story brick kitchen, a stable for 12 horses, a coach house, and a dairy.



Sir John Randolph, the only colonial born in Virginia to be knighted, died in 1737. He left the house to his wife, Susannah Beverley Randolph, until their second son, Peyton, reached the age of 24. Their first son, Beverley, inherited property in Gloucester County; their third son, John, inherited acreage on the city's southern edge; and their daughter, Mary, received a dowry of £1,000. Susannah Beverley Randolph remained in the home until her death sometime after 1754.

Peyton Randolph, Speaker of Virginia's House of Burgesses in the years leading to the Revolution, brought his wife, Betty Harrison Randolph, to the home by 1751. It became a hub of political activity, and its owner Peyton Randolph was elected the presiding officer of the First Continental Congress at Philadelphia in 1774. An inventory taken at Peyton Randolph's death in 1775 indicates how the house was furnished and equipped.

Widow Betty Randolph opened her home to French general Jean-Baptiste-Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambeau, when he arrived in Williamsburg with General George Washington to prepare for the siege of Yorktown in 1781. The house served as the French headquarters until they moved to the field.


Peyton and Betty Randolph had no children and, after her death and according to directions in Betty Randolph’s will, the house was sold at auction on February 19, 1783. A newspaper advertisement described it as "pleasantly situated on the great square." It was conveyed to the highest bidder, Joseph Hornsby, on February 21, and the proceeds were divided among Betty Randolph's legatees.

By 1824, the house was in the possession of Mary Monroe Peachy. She had the honor that year of lodging Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, when he visited the city on October 20 and 21 during a tour of America.

Colonial Williamsburg's primary restoration of the home began in October 1939 and was completed in April 1940. More restoration of the main section was undertaken in June 1967 and was finished 12 months later. The center and west portions of the house opened for exhibition on July 1, 1968.

House Clearing for Ghosts and Spirits

House Clearing for Ghosts and Spirits
Adapted from The Pleiadian Workbook, by Amorah Quan Yin (Inner Traditions, 1996).

Simple Solution
There are lots of reasons to do an energetic house clearing for your home now and then. While many will want to do a house clearing because they intuit that their homes are haunted, others are moving into houses that are new to them, and desire to remove all the energy of the previous owners. Transitions in one’s life are another good time to do a house clearing, such as after a divorce, or even after an unpleasant argument, or if someone has died.

Here are guidelines for a six-step house clearing. It only takes about ten minutes, and you don’t need anything except a clear mind:

Repeat this process about twice weekly for a few weeks. Doing this process at bedtime may give you a better night’s sleep.

1. Using your imagination, put a grounding cord of light on your entire house or apartment at the floor level. Extend it to the center of the Earth.

2. Visualize a golden sun about two feet in diameter in the center of your home.

3. Expand the golden sun gradually until it fills and surrounds your entire home space.

4. Surround the golden sun with a four-to-eight-foot-thick wall of violet light.

5. Affirm: “This ball of violet light will remain intact until I do this process again. So be it.”

6. Next say this invocation: “In the name of the I Am That I Am, I command that this home and grounds be filled with golden light from the City of Light where the Ascended Masters dwell. Only that which is divine may enter. All that is less than divine, which is illusion, must leave now. This will remain so. So be it.”

Ghost Alley-Fort Monroe

 

The Woman in White


A famous area contained within the walls of Ft. Monroe is what they have dubbed as "Ghost Alley." Here is the story of the famous Woman in White ghost story begins. A beautiful woman had married a captain of the military who was nearly twice her age. With her husband being away most of the time, this woman befriended a captain that was closer to her age. The couple became fast friends but soon their friendship was much more than friends. The couple consumated their love for each other. The husband came home only to find the lovers in bed together. The husband became outraged and chased the man off. Still angry, the husband murdered his wife. It is said that her spirit roams ghost alley. Looking for her true love that she had lost on the fateful night. Will she ever find him or will she be doomed to roam the streets of Ghost Alley?


The Ghost Who Hates Roses


In another part of Ghost Alley, stands an officers' home. Past occupants have stated how someone or something detests roses. If a boquet of roses are placed anywhere in the home, the next morning, rose petals are strewn all over the floor. There are no other signs of this strange act and no one knows who is doing it. Perhaps a scorned lover has decided the roses are a grim reminder of the love they had lost and in a fit of rage, rips the petals off. Nothing like holding onto the past and taking the anger out onto the living of the present.

Chamberlin Hotel-Fort Monroe

More than one spirit is said to walk the halls of this large establishment, but the most famous is the ghost of a young woman named Ezmerelda. Her father, a fisherman, went to sea one day and never returned....and she's still waiting for him to return. Her spirit has been haunting the 8th floor since the 1920s. Her appearances were so freqeunt and so distrubing to the guest that the floor was once closed. She has been quite in recent years but you find yourself hearing the sound of footsteps or spotting an apparition or a coldness in a room. Maybe you'll even hear the playing of a piano.

Haunted Yorktown-Grace Church

Cornwallis cave isn't the only place that is haunted in Yorktown Va.
We also visited the historic Grace Church. Originally built in 1697 the church has had several changes. In 1781 it was used as a storage facility by the English troops who broke out the windows and all but destroyed the church. In 1814 it was burned, rebuilt and then burned again during the Civil War. The church was once again rebuilt and is use today.



We did not go into the church itself, having arrived on a Sunday just as morning services were letting out, but we did tour the grave yard. We did not see anything unusual, but local folklore history tells us that there have a phantom Colonial era funeral seen in this same cemetery. The first recorded sighting of this was in 1791.
There are also reports of an apparition woman holding a dead infant inside the church.
It makes me glad we went in the day time.

Grace Sherwood The Witch of Pungo Virginia

I have had a fasination with witches since I was a small child. I first heard about Grace Sherwood as a teenager. I attended high school not far from where her home stood. I remember a group of us kids riding out to the old house when it was still standing. It was an eerie feeling. I put my thoughts of Grace on the back burner for years, until my own children came along. Once again her name came to mind. After all she is a local legend. When my oldest was young I bought a book entitled The Witch of Pungo. It told the story of Grace along with other local history. My kids grew up hearing about her. I never forgot her. I have gone down the road where she was dunked in the river many times.

Here is her story.

Grace Sherwood was the wife of James Sherwood and the mother to three sons. She was said to be strikingly attractive, strong-willed, and a non-conformist by nature. These traits were resented by her neighbors, who began spreading rumors about her witch-like behavior. Being a very tall woman, she was threatening to many. She wore men’s pants and did not wear dresses.
She was accused of bewitching a neighbor's crop in 1698. Allegations grew over time until the Princess Anne County government charged her with witchcraft. A jury of women were ordered to search her body for suspicious or unusual markings, thought to be brands of the devil himself, and naturally the jury found, “marks not like theirs or like those of any other women.” However, neither the local court nor the Attorney General in Williamsburg, would pass judgment on declaring her a witch. It was finally decided that Grace, “by her own consent, be tried in the water by Ducking, (dunking).” Water was considered to be the purest element and the theory was that it would reject anything of an evil nature. Based on this theory, the accused was tied up and thrown into the water. If the person drowned, he was declared innocent of witchcraft; if he could stay afloat until he could free himself, he was declared a witch.


On July 10, 1706, Grace Sherwood, was marched from the jail (which is located near the present day site of the local Old Donation Church) down the dirt road (now the every day traveled Witchduck Road), tied and cast into the Lynnhaven River. This portion of the river has since been named Witch Duck Bay in memory of the occasion. Grace Sherwood was tied crossbound with the thumb of her right hand to the big toe of her left foot, and the thumb of her left hand to the big toe of her right foot, and thrown into the water. As predicted by her accusers, Grace managed to stay afloat until she could free herself and swim to shore. After she reached the shore she told the on lookers."Before this day be through, you will all get a worse ducking than I!". A torrential thunderstorm rolled in after Sherwood was pulled from the water. She was jailed and awaited trial for witchcraft for nearly eight years, when the charges against her were dropped due to the softening of her accusers hearts, and she was set free. After her release, Grace paid the back taxes on her property in 1714, returned to her farm, and worked the land until her death at age 80 in the autumn of 1740. Her husband had died in 1701, so her children had been sent away to live with relatives. Grace Sherwood, Virginia's only convicted witch tried by water.

On Saturday, April 21, 2007 After 300 years to the hour, at 10 a.m., Grace Sherwood was exonerated by Governor Timothy Kaine.

Grace Sherwood is known today, 300 years belated, as the only deceased person in Virginia to be exonerated.

Cornwallis Cave

Yorktown Virginia is where British General Lord Cornwallis surrendered to General George Washington, bringing an end to the last major battle of the American Revolution.
Local legend tells us that General Cornwallis hid in this cave on the bank of the York River during the artillery bombardment of Yorktown.
The legends also tell us that this cave is haunted.
Orbs have been photographed and distressing sounds have apparently been heard emanating from within its walls. We tried recording a EVP today and nothing really showed up. If I really use my imagination I think I hear a few whispers, but nothing worth posting. One photo however did show a few orb type lights. (click on next to the last photo to enlarge) It is hard to photograph or try to get voice recordings because the cave is not open to the public, but it was still a interesting place to visit.
Also, the cave does go in further than it looks. The blocked off area is the front of the cave and the other photo shows the cave itself. From what I understand it goes back at lest 10 ft. More than enough room from someone to hide.
Also we climbed on the top and it is very dense and goes off into the woods. As you can see from the last photo, it over looks the river.

To answer a question

Suzie ask me an interesting question about our "ghost". Did I want them to stay or go.

I thought Well, as long as they stay on the farm and not follow me or my daughter home. I think they should stay, after all this was there farm for hundreds of years. At this point I don't feel like they are harming anyone. This is after all a children's farm, run by the city and if bad things are not happening there then I think it is ok for them to hang around.

I can't help but wonder though if other kids have seen things and told there parents and no one has come forward and reported it for fear of being laughed at or worst.
Let's face it even in today's society where this type of thing is more widely accepted people still band you as a kook. As for me. I don't care. I say bring it on. I would love to have a full investigation out there. Get your camera's, voice recorders, heat sensors and all the other equipment. Whoo hoo, can you see us now on Taps
Ok back to the serious side.
Suzie also suggested that I talk some more to our friendly ghost asking them to give me some sort of sign as to who they are by making a noise such as a tap. Only problem is this is woods and open field. So short of dropping a tree branch on my head I am not sure what kind of noise they could make. In fact I have been twice with a EPV recorder but so far nothing more than the wind. I do plan on trying agin

In the mean time I am going to do an investigation of a different sorts this weekend.
It has nothing to do with this man and lady and is on an entirely different piece of land.
I will tell you more about it later

Real people

I know your all probably tired of reading about my ghost story, but I want to share some thoughts with you.

It is driving me crazy thinking Is this real? Do ghost really exsit. Is my grandson really seeing something. I have tried unsuccessfully to find any information on the net about hauntings in that area. I was just about to give up, when I got to thinking about it this way.

Just for the sake of argument lest say it is a ghost.
Ok with that established we all know that before you can be a ghost you had to be alive. So I pondered over it awhile thinking to myself Just who was this woman (and man/the papa). What were their names, how did they die. What did they do when they were alive.

If I look in the mirror and I see myself I know that I have hopes and dreams, a home, children .And when I die, someone is going to know who I was.
So I realized, that this "ghost" must have been the same way. Someone had to know who they were. So I thought about it some more and I asked myself, ok where do I start. I wondered who owned this land. What happened there all those years ago. How did they die and Why are they haunting it.

Yesterday I took the bull horns and went to our local library. We have a special room dedicated to Virginia history so I knew I could at lest find something on the land.
So in I go, march up to the desk, and tell the librarian my story. Of course she looks at me like I have two heads, but she produces a file with newspaper articles in it. And guess what. It is all about the farm and who owned it and the names of the people who were buried in the graveyard there.

I won't give you a last name to protect there privacy, but I will tell you that it is a family cemetery.

the names and dates are as follows
Margaret born 1797 died 1835
*I think she is our "lady". The timing for the dress the "ghost" is wearing would be about right. Margaret would have died in her early 30's. My ghost lady looks young.

Philip was born in 1845, he died at age 68 in 1913 of a heart attack after coming in from the fields. I believe he is our papa/and the farmer seen by the worker at the farm. A farmer in 1913 would certainly be wearing overalls as she described.

I have different last names for Margaret and Philip, but I feel like they are related. Perhaps she was his grandmother or an Aunt of either Philip or his wife who is also buried in the cemetery.

Philips daughter is also buried there and believe it or not she died just three days before he did. All that I have listed is she died suddenly. She was 40.
At first I thought maybe our lady was her, but she didn't die until 1913 so I think the dress style does not fit.

Anyway I also found out that Philip was born and raised there, and served in the civil war.

Conincident, maybe, interesting thoughts Yes.
So what do you think?

One more photo

After a second look at my photos I wanted to add this one
Do you see the two orbs on the right hand side of the photo. This one was taken in the same area and with in moments of the ones below.
Weird huh

Photos

As you can tell from the following photos that my grandson was hell bent on following "something" today. He became very attached to the papa Which is his word for any older man. That is the main reason I told him he had to tell the papa to stay there. We did not want this following us home. He told the man. Go lay down
How weird is that. As if he is telling him get back in the ground.
He insisted the man was in a hole.
We do know that there is suppose to be an old slave burrial ground somewhere on the property. We asked my grandson did the man have white or brown skin and he told us white, so I am wondering if he might have seen the old farmer that the worker there has seen. That makes sense. The part about the man sitting down at the old railroad shed makes sense too. If he died there perhaps in life he waited for train and got hot and went in search of a coke. I believe coke would have been invented already about time the station would have been on the property. The interestate now divides the land that the farm was once one, and my grandson seemed to see him just standing in the traffic. That was bit un-nerving and he told me to tell the man to get out of the road. I did and that is when he started chasing him down the path you see in the photos.
This farm just gets stranger and stranger.
All I can say is I don't ever want to be out there when it is getting dark

Ghost Man

She orginial post at Ghost Lady

Today We took my grandson back to the farm where he had seen the "ghost lady". Cody would not let us go to the grave yard. He immediately started talking about the lady and said no that she said we could not go to the graves. I went anyway and he called me back and said No...she would hurt me.
We left and I found the lady I had been in contact with a few weeks ago and talked to her. She didn't offer much in the way of information and would not commit to say if she saw the apparitions in the photo I had. She did give me a little information on the paranormal group she heads, stating that they were licensed and bonded. Similar to TAPS. I felt like that is probably why she didn't comment to much, because she felt like I might try to use it and say that they said it was a "real ghost". I respected that so I didn't push. Anyway she did say that she had seen things out there, that once she saw a little boy and another time an old farmer..Both disappeared. She also said that an old storage building is where an old train station use to be so it was part of that.
When we took Cody over there he said he saw a man sitting down. Then he said the man wanted a coke, and said he walked across the interstate. He told me to tell the man to get out of the road.
A few minutes later he started chasing the man and yelled out for the man to stop and hold his hand. He skipped along as if he had his hand in someone's. Then as Rebecca and I approached the "man" seemed to run away and Cody chased him yelling hold my hand, hold my hand, and saying I will catch him, he repeated that about five times then he said I got him. Mama Momo I got him. Now Mama you get him.
The man again ran away and for about 10 minutes we went through weeds and bramble bush to the waters edge. He insisted he was seeing a man. He also told us that the lady was in a boat. He cried when we made him leave and said he wanted to bring the papa to his house. We told him no that he had to stay and Cody said he liked him and cried. Once we got back on the main path he walked in a field pouring coke out every few feet saying that he was giving it to the people in the holes. He stopped about every 6 ft. We told him again to tell the papa to stay and he told him to go lay down....
The entire time I had a recorder on and Cody insisted on holding it himself.
About three minutes into the tape Cody was alone and we can hear him say. Are you here, are you here..hide

http://www.badongo.com/file/8620864


Click on the link above and download the file for yourself
Warning, it is a long file and will take about 15 minutes to listen to all of it, but if your a believer in the paranormal it is worth it.
I am going to put some photos in a seperate post

Things that go bump in the night

The phone rang about 10:30 tonight and it was my daughter telling me that my grandson was upset and telling her that there were people in his room. It was no surprise to me since this type of thing has been going on for a while now. It started with the lady in the woods (photo a few weeks ago) and seems to be increasing. Last weekend my daughter took him to the park and he saw the lady again (I think I mentioned this) then the next day we took him to Newport News Park.
During the American Civil War, the current park was the site of the Battle of Dam No. 1, part of the Battle of Yorktown (1862). In the days prior to the battle, the Confederate forces constructed rifle pits and other earth works from which they held off the Union Army forces commanded by Maj. Gen. George B. McClellan. The earth works were preserved; though overgrown with woods, they are accessible from the White Oak nature trail on the camping side of the reservoir.
While we were there he said he "saw two men" sitting down, and then he saw lots of men in the distance.
We told him to tell the men to stay there, and we left. Just as we got to the exit he looked out the window and said. THE MEN, Lots of men....Hurry Mama
Sine then we has ask more questions and he said he plays with kids and also a lady.
Now I am not sure if we need a psychic or a psychiatrist but when my daughter called I knew I had to do something.
I had already been preparing, so my husband and I jumped in the car and went to her house. Her boyfriend is working over night tonight and I knew she was afraid.
When we arrived I went straight to work. I planned on doing a cleansing of the home.
First I told my grandson what we were going to do. I explained that the people he saw had to GO AWAY. He wanted to help, so we started at the front door and place sea salt in all four corners of all the rooms in the house. He really enjoyed this. As we finished each room he jumped up and down yelling yippee. At one point he was making noise hitting the tables and doors. It was his way of saying go away!
Once we finished the salt I lit some sage and once again walked the house, using a special feather to fan the smoke. My grandson help fan. Once we were finished I said in a loud voice. Nothing but good and love can live here. Bad things go away!
He was so excited and with in a few minutes he was ready for bed. I had brought a hematite stone with me and he put that under his pillow. He also wanted to wear my hematite necklace I had on to bed. I left it with him. It is now 1 am, the phone hasn't rang and all is quiet. I am hoping the house cleansing will release any negative energy at my daughters and leave things protected there now. I plan on doing my house this next week. I want to do some cleaning first. I have never had any problems here but I have protection around me all the time. One can never be to safe though so I will still do it. Right now the only annoying thing here is my husband snoring in the other room. Hmmm I wonder if sage will work on him ha ha

Re-Post

I am re posting this photo(be sure and click on it to enlarge so you can see it better) because I need another opinion. Remember when I asked if anyone else could see the lady and several of you did? Well, I want you to take a closer look..Can you see the man in front of her bent on one knee? Do you think he proposed to her in that spot and that is why they have reappeared there?
Maybe I have a really overly active imagination, but I swear I didn't notice him until the other day. I saw her clearly, and the more I looked at it trying to find an explaination (other than my imagination) I suddendly realized he was there..
So do you see him?

UPDATE
Here is the same photo with a red arrow pointing to what I think looks like the back of a mans shoulders I posted this as a visual aide..Let me know what you think

Sunday Ramblings

BE SURE AND CLICK ON THE PHOTOS TO ENLARGE THEM TO SEE THE IMAGINE




Ok tell me I am crazy, but do you see the ghost in the forest?
Here is a close up view.

 

Like I said maybe I am crazy, but I see a ghostly outline of a lady in a long dress facing sideways with her arm on her hip.
Just so you know...I took this photo today right after my grandson told me he saw a lady in the woods. He told me this about three minutes after we stopped here today.

The woods were behind us as I took the photo of the graves. We were not talking about ghost. We were simply looking around. Just out of no-where my grandson pointed to the woods and told us he wanted to go in there. My daughter asked him if someone was in there..Yes he answered, Who we asked. A lady he replied. Where did she come from we asked..He pointed to the sky. I ask him if it was a ghost. Yes, he said. Needless to say we left. This is not the first time we have been near graveyards to have my grandson suddenly started talking about seeing people that we can't see. I have to admit even with my belief in the paranormal I find it a bit un-nerving. When we got home and I loaded my photos from today the image of the woman was the first thing I saw in the photo. I quietly sat my grandson on my lap and asked him where he saw the lady in the woods at. He pointed right to the same area of the photo that I was seeing the "ghost" in. Shit I thought, so I asked him, Cody what was the lady wearing. Did she have on a dress or pants. A dress he said..hmmm I thought, what color was her dress. Blue he said..Ohh ok I said..Well was the dress up here (pointing to my mid thighs) or was it down here (pointing to my shoes). Down here he said touching the ground..
Ok, now I ask you again. Am I nuts? Or do you see a ghost in my photo?