HGB Ep. 615 - Haunted Placerville, California

This Month in History - Chunnel Breakthrough

In the month of December, on the 1st in 1990, the chunnel breakthrough occurred. Soon after 11am on that date, 132 feet below the English Channel, a hole was drilled through sedimentary rock, large enough to drive a vehicle through. This hole was a link between two ends of an underwater railway tunnel. For the first time the Chunnel linked Great Britain with the European mainland. It took nearly four years and 13,000 workers to dig 95 miles, approximately 150 feet below the seafloor. Once the project was to be completed, the Chunnel would consist of 2 rail tracks going in opposite directions, as well as a service tunnel. The Chunnel connected Folkestone, England to Calais, France.  After the connection was made in December of 1990, the completion of the tunnel took an additional four years, first opening for passenger travel on May 6th, 1994. Of the 31 miles that the shuttle train runs, 23 of them are underwater, taking approximately 20 minutes from point to point.  As of 2025, the Chunnel remains the longest undersea railway in the world.  

Haunted Placerville, (Pla like plaster) California

Placerville is one of these California towns that got its start during the Gold Rush. This was a rough and tumble Wild West place also known as Hang Town. The Cary House Hotel was built to accommodate people coming in for the Gold Rush and was the jewel of Placerville. The hotel is believed to be quite haunted and there could be several reasons why. The Odd Fellows were strong in this town and met at the hotel. And there were two deaths there. But it isn't the only haunted location. Several buildings have spirits. Join us for the history and hauntings of Placerville, California.

Gold was found in Sutter's Mill, California in 1848. Placerville would grow up near it after gold was found there as well. The name was Dry Diggin's at first because miners moved cartloads of soil through water to separate out the gold. Like all gold mining towns, this one was rough and tumble. Murders and robberies were common in the camps and strikes were stolen. A year later, it was more commonly known as Hangtown because three men, two Mexicans and a white man, were hanged for robbery without a trial. Placerville would become the new official name in 1854 and was inspired by placer gold deposits. Placerville quickly filled with stores, banks and lodging and was considered a central hub for the Mother Lode region. An early branch of the Southern Pacific Railroad helped with the growth. A wooden hotel was built in the 1840s where the Cary House Hotel would stand and it was called the El Dorado. The hotel also sold supplies and was a Gold Exchange. This burned down in 1849. The town of Placerville would actually burn three times by 1856. They put up a fire bell on a tower in 1878 to help with warning people and this bell still stands today. The builder of the Cary House Hotel was an East Coast businessman named William Cary. This was his first venture into business on the West Coast. Because of the fires, Cary made sure to construct his hotel out of red brick and it was completed in 1857. This was three-stories and done in the Italianate and Second Empire architectural styles and the interior featured 77 rooms, bathrooms on every floor with hot and cold running water and stained-glass artwork in the lobby. But there was no heat. A few wood stoves were all that the hotel had.  In 1911, the Raffeto family purchased the hotel and owned it for 68 years. They decided to add a basement to the hotel and as they were digging, they found a cache of gold dust and gold nuggets. This gave them the opportunity to add a fourth floor and they added steam heat. The hotel was renamed The Raffles Hotel during this time. In 1926, an elevator was added and this is the second oldest running elevator west of the Mississippi. The family sold the hotel in 1979 and the name went back to the Cary House Hotel.

When the rich and famous came to California to visit, they stayed at the Cary Hotel. These people included President Ulyssess S. Grant - who was an Odd Fellow and that may have attracted him to Placerville - John Studebaker, Mark Twain - who used to write for the Mountain Democrat in Placerville - Bette Davis, Elvis Presley, Levi Strauss, Horace Greeley, Brooke Shields and Lou Diamond Phillips. Phillips' film Route 666 from 2001 was filmed at the hotel. Placerville has had quite a few movies filmed there - particularly horror. The Invited was filmed there in 2010. The Cary House Hotel still features its original 1850s woodwork and bricks. The interior was renovated with expansion of rooms and adding of bathrooms, so now there are only 40 rooms available and many of them are suites with kitchenettes. The lobby also has display cases with artifacts from the hotel. This is wine country, so the theming is very much centered on that. But the third floor rooms are named for famous guests like the Studebaker Room and Mark Twain Room. The current owner is Vijay Patel and the hotel is part of the Lexington Collection.

The Cary House Hotel is said to be haunted and it gets so bad with the activity that employees have quit because of it. One year, the hotel had 11 employees quit because they couldn't take the activity anymore. The hotel rooms all have journals for guests to record their experiences. One housekeeper claimed that shortly after she started working there, she was poked really hard from behind when in a room on the second floor and when she turned around, no one was there. Many people have complained about being poked or grabbed by something unseen. The General Manager Josh claimed that he wasn't really a believer in the paranormal, but he had heard enough stories from guests and employees that he became a believer. He said, "These guests came down and told us that they were pulled out of their bed and that's actually been a common occurrence here. People freak out and decide not to stay here. When people get pulled out of bed, it is always the same room on the second floor. That's where most of the haunted activity actually takes place." 

There are several spirits here, but two of them are the most prominent: Stan the bellhop and Irish Dick. Now it seems that Stan was a flirty guy, which could get him in trouble and it actually lead to his death. One day, he flirted with the fiance of a guest and that guest had a knife. He stabbed Stan to death on the stairs and Stan toppled all the way to the bottom, where a pool of blood formed beneath him. 

Irish Dick's real name was Richard Crone and he was a gambler. He liked to gamble at the hotel that stood before the Cary House Hotel and one night, he had a dispute over a monte game. It was about 2am and he stabbed to death the man with whom he had the disagreement. He ran off to a bar where he was captured at 8am. The Mountain Democrat reported, "The news of the murder spread like wildfire in the neighboring canyons, ravines and flats, and by 1 p.m. there were in Hangtown, fully 2,000 angry men, everyone armed with something that would hurt, from a pick-handle to a rifle. The farce of a preliminary examination was allowed to be gone through with before Justice of the Peace Humphreys in the middle of the street. The evidence was brief, and the Judge ordered Dick committed to the custody of the Sheriff (Uncle Billy Rogers) [William Rogers], and Alexander Hunter and John Clark, Constables, to be placed in the county jail at Coloma, the then county seat of El Dorado county. The Judge had scarcely made the order when a lariat was thrown over Dick's head, and he was literally dragged along Main street and up Coloma street to an oak tree. The loose end of the lariat was thrown over a limb of a tree and Dick was pulled up and strangled to death. One of the principal leaders of the move was a large, powerful man, who bore the sobriquet of “Dutch Ben.” 

Stan likes the ladies still in the afterlife and occasionally touches them. One woman claimed that she entered her room and locked the door. Then she decided to go out on the balcony and after she stepped out, she heard the door close and lock from the inside. When she turned, she saw the apparition of a bell hop who waved at her. She was locked out, so had to call down to people on the street for help. There was no employee in the hotel who matched the description of the bell hop. Stan likes to crank the stereo too down at the bar. The stereo will shutoff when the bartender yells for Stan to knock it off. Even though Irish Dick had never been in this actual hotel, he seems to be haunting the ballroom. And a female ghost that smells like lavender has been experienced.

Katrina and Jack visited the hotel and stayed overnight during Season 2 of Portals to Hell. They decided to set up some trigger objects in the ballroom. They put cards on the table and an empty bottle of alcohol. They had a GeoPort and when they asked if Irish Dick wanted a drink, they got a "no." They took the bottle cap half off the whiskey and were hoping that it would get tossed because they had been told by the manager that this had happened once to him. Then they felt something under their feet like a bang coming from under the floor. This would be in the basement, so they went down there. Jack went down and asked if he could join the Odd fellows. Then he felt an extreme cold chill around him. he actually shivered because of it. Katrina and Jack invited Psychic Medium Michelle Belanger to join them and she walked through blindfolded, picking up on a distinguished looking gentleman in what she thought was a ballroom (maybe Irish Dick), rituals in the basement and blood at the bottom of the main stairs. Michelle said that they would have practiced some kind of ritual, they would have been practicing some sort of magic and what they were doing might have gotten out of hand. There might have been some things that happened here that weren't supposed to happen here in regards to the types of rituals they did and if that's the case, what doors did they open?" Katrina asked if she thought there was a portal there and Michelle thought the basement had one. She said, "I can tell you that over time if you were doing things like that, it changes the fabric of the space and makes it more conducive for spirit activity. One of the purposes of running rituals is to thin the veil, which is basically making a portal. 

Romero was a longtime worker at the hotel and he told YouTuber Jack Devan in October of this year, some of his experiences. He said, "One time, I think it was probably like 9:00, 9:30 or 10 the most. I was coming down from the third floor and as soon as I step out of the elevator, I heard this loud scream. It was loud like those horror movies when they're chasing the girl and they're going to stab her...so I looked through the window. No one was there. And then I heard like big steps running from this room right here, all the way towards the front. So followed that sound and there was a lady and her daughter standing there and I asked them, 'What's going on back there?' And the mom goes, 'Did you hear that?' And I go, 'Oh, yeah, of course. I heard it all the way to the front.' They verified that it was really loud. And the daughter was shaking with fear." He told the girl not to be afraid because the ghosts at the hotel weren't bad. Romero said that the ghosts like to turn the lights out on him in the basement. 

There are other haunted hotels in the area. Just three miles south of the Cary House Hotel stands the Diamond Springs Hotel. The hotel is named for the small town where it is located and this was built up around some clear water springs. This was a stop on the Carson Emigrant Trail and a Pony Express stop. The hotel was built in 1916 by Anton Meyer and is the only hotel and boarding house to still survive. In 2004, Moon and Amy Shim bought the hotel from Dan Dammett and it runs as a restaurant now. The list of ghosts here include a little girl in a yellow dress, a dog that likes Table 19 in the restaurant, the first owner of the hotel - Anton Meyer and a woman named Rosa. Many people have heard the sound of children running around upstairs. Customers in the restaurant have claimed to smell cigar smoke and watched as chairs have moved at nearby tables. A cheap perfume has also been smelled when it's early morning and staff is starting to set-up. Celebrity Psychic Nancy Bradley claimed that a corner of the dining room had a vortex for spirits. Kevin Schultz had been a chef at the hotel since 1997 and he had his share of experiences. He told the Mountain Democrat in 2010, "They’re around. This [referring to investigations] will probably stir them up again and they’ll be back in the dining room." Another longtime cook at the hotel named Leonard Landers told the paper, "I took the garbage out to the dumpster one night and locked the gate closed when I came out. The next morning, Dan was yelling because I had left the gate open." Landers maintained he had locked the gate, so the men checked the security cameras and sure enough, Leonard had locked the gate. They then watched it slowly open on its own at 3am. Both cooks had seen an apparition in a bone-colored shirt going around a corner in the kitchen. The article also shares about the owners at the time, "Amy didn’t believe in ghosts anyway — until things started to happen that couldn’t be explained away. First it was the sound of heavy footsteps coming up the stairs when she and Moon were alone in the hotel upstairs doing paperwork. Another time, after picking up her two sons from summer camp, Amy brought them back to the hotel. As her boys walked ahead into the hotel, Amy stopped to greet a couple of regular customers, sitting on the patio having lunch. During the course of the conversation, the wife in the couple referred to Amy’s three children. Amy corrected her by holding up two fingers and saying, “Only two, not three.” The woman stared at Amy and then said, “But you just brought them home, your little boy, a little girl and a bigger boy.” The woman had seen three children walking together from the parking lot into the hotel with Amy, one of them being a little girl with long hair wearing a yellow sundress — a little girl whose presence has also been seen and heard by paranormal investigators."

El Dorado Chamber of Commerce is located at 542 Main Street in Placerville. And this place is haunted because, well, you know how Placerville was called Hang Town? Well, this is where the hangman’s site was. The first building here was the Kossuth House, which was built in 1852 by Phillip L. Platt. This was a log building that catered to miners as a hotel. Dr. Platt died in 1853 and his widow sold the property to Anna W. Clark for $200 in 1856. She owned it for a couple decades. 

When the building was bought by the County of El Dorado in 1923, Marcus P. Bennett was the owner. He was a highly respected Superior Court Judge. The county demolished the hotel and built in its place a building to serve as the American Legion Hall for Post No.119. The El Dorado County Chamber of Commerce occupied this building beginning in 1972 after the Legion had moved to Veterans Memorial Hall. The reports of hauntings include feeling cold spots and pictures falling off the wall. Toilets flush on their own and EVPs have recorded voices speaking French, Russian, and English with a Scottish accent. There are sightings of a full-bodied apparition believed to be named Darrel, who is a bearded man dressed in black. He likes to peer over the staircase and stares down the street at night. A spirit wearing green overalls has also been seen.

The Sequoia Wedgewood Mansion is also known as the Bee-Bennett House and is located at 643 Bee Street in Placerville. The Sequoia Mansion sits atop a wooded knoll and is a glorious Victorian mansion built in 1853 by entrepreneur Colonel Frederick Bee. The house features a multi-gabled roof and wraparound porch. Bee was a protector of the immigrant Chinese workers and he built a tunnel from his house to Placerville's Chinatown to help protect them. 

Bee lost his two-year-old son to the croup in 1855. The Conklin and Duncan families lived in the house next. Judge Marcus Bennett and his wife Mary would be the next owners and they expanded the house in 1889to have 16 rooms and they added a tin ceiling to the verandah. Two of the Bennetts' children died in the house. Marie was only a few months old when she passed and Marcus Jr. passed when he was three. He tumbled down the stairs apparently. The Elks Club owned the house from the 1970s to the 1980s. Today, this is a wedding venue with the Nello Olivo Winery tasting room in the basemen. Here Comes the Guide writes of the location, "The upstairs Get-Ready Room, decorated with gilded mirrors and rich red velvet, affords a peek out the window to watch as guests arrive. A graceful dual staircase descends to the main floor, to a choice of three ceremony sites. The first is a glass-enclosed, light-filled stone Veranda, a cozy space that recalls a bygone era and overlooks a charming garden lawn. Next is the sprawling lawn itself, which enjoys a backdrop of the mansion's quaint façade and the snow-dusted mountains in the distance. Lastly, there's a lush forest retreat around the corner, where towering sequoias, pines, and a lily pond seem right out of a fairy tale." Sightings of the apparitions of Mary Bennett and her children have been reported, as were cold spots. A cook who worked at the Elks Club arrived one afternoon to prepare the meal for an event that evening. When she got to the porch, she saw a man and woman sitting on the porch swing. Then she noticed they were in Victorian era clothing. But then she thought that perhaps they were dressed to go with the house for the event. She passed them and said, "Hello." The couple nodded cordially to her. The cook made her way to the kitchen at the back of the house and as she started to get out equipment, it hit her that the porch didn't have a swing on it. And then she thought more about the clothes the couple were wearing. She suddenly became afraid remembering stories that others had told her about weird stuff at the house. The cook ran out to the porch, saw no swing, and kept going until she got to her car. She got in it and never returned to the Elks Club.

Mary was also called Molly and her favorite place to haunt is the second floor and the room she particularly likes has been called Molly's Parlor. Brides getting ready in this room have claimed to see the spirit of a women in period dress who is smaller in stature. Linda J. Boojer writes in her 2014 book "Gold Rush Ghost of Placerville, Coloma and Georgetown" of Molly, "She materializes regularly to staff members of Camino Flower Shop, whose floral designs regularly grace weddings. In 2014, Molly, dead for over sixty years, was seen on the sweeping staircase by the shop's owner, Dottie Cole McKenzie, and a mother of a bride. A few weeks earlier, her entity appeared in the form of a fast-moving mist to McKenzie's daughter, Matti." 

Seasons Bed and Breakfast is located at 2934 Bedford Avenue in Placerville. This site originally held a gold stamp mill before 1859. A merchant, undertaker, and sexton named Abraham Vedder built a home on the property in the Gothic Revival style, using tombstones for the foundation. Apparently, they had engraving mistakes. He sold this to Henry Ollis in 1862 for $100. Ollis once employed John “Wheelbarrow Johnny” Studebaker - yep, the guy who invented the Studebaker. In 1874, Ollis sold the home to a Canadian named Francis Plumado for $600 in gold. The Plumado family would keep it for 75 years. A chicken coop on the property was refurbished into a home for Miss Jo, a local seamstress. Ann Gladwill owned the property and named the establishment after a series of paintings she did featuring life in El Dorado County at different times of the year. Robyn Rawers is the current owner. Staff and guests have claimed to see an apparition named Martha who likes to rearrange the furniture.

Cuppa Coffee and More is located at 442 Main Street. The brick structure that houses it was built in 1855 in the Gothic Revival style by Caspar Hart. This was their private residence for five years and then they sold it. The building went through a variety of owners and tenants. There was the Piedmont Cafe and a pool hall before being the printing shop, "The Line & Letter Shop." Cuppa Coffee and More opened in 2010 under Jill Barnes and chef Melissa Arcona. 

They were the first ones to talk about the ghosts. Apparently there are two, named Tom and Amy. Tom is around twenty years of age and a prankster. Amy is a ten-year-old. People have claimed to see a vapor hovering near the ceiling and some believe that this is from a gun that was used to shoot Tom on the street in front of the shop. Amy likes to play with the radio and kitchen equipment. She also likes to pinch people. Paper towels in the bathroom have also gone flying and completely unrolling in piles. Haunted Hangtown Ghost Tours said of the place in 2018, "I can substantiate that when we were in here that Tom can be smelled. He likes to move the chairs. We've had our REM pods going off and we caught an EVP when we were leaving telling us to come back.

Linda J. Boojer writes in "Gold Rush Ghost of Placerville, Coloma and Georgetown," 

 

Placerville has some interesting Gold Rush history and very old buildings. Is it possible that ghosts from that earlier era are here? Is Placerville haunted? That is for you to decide!

HGB Ep. 614 - Rolling Hills Asylum

Moment in Oddity - Agar Art Contest (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

Some say that art is in the eye of the beholder. It can take many forms and utilize many different media. Art can be created by drawing with pencil and ink, or painted in oil, acrylic or watercolors. Sculptures can be made out of too many materials to name. Art can be digital or mixed media and encompass numerous techniques. There is a very unique method of 'painting' that is celebrated globally every year by the American Society for Microbiology, also known as ASM. This is the Agar Art Contest. The individually designed pieces of art are created in petri dishes which are filled with a jelly-like 'agar' that is a nutrient rich food source for microbes. You heard that right, the art itself is made up of different colored microbes. Microbes is a broad label to describe different microscopic organisms. Some examples are fungi, protists and viruses. When the microbes are grown in a petri dish they develop into different colors over 24-72 hours. Serratia creates bright red, Bacillus is a warm yellow, Chromobacterium is a deep violet and so on. Participants carefully inoculate different parts of their petri dishes with different microbes and after a couple of days, their art comes to life! ***The process kind of reminds me of glazing pottery since you can't really see the finished colors until after firing. The ASM Agar Art contest was first held in 2015 and continues through today. We definitely encourage listeners to look up some examples of the entries. They are truly incredible. While the art is beautiful, creating it with microscopic bacterias and viruses, certainly is odd.

Rolling Hills Asylum

Rolling Hills Asylum in East Bethany, New York was once known as the Old Country Home and served as the Genesee County Poor Farm for decades. The main building spans over 60,000 square feet with a subterranean tunnel and has stood for almost 200 years. It saw its share of tragedies and hardship through the years. Today, it serves as a museum and paranormal hotspot, featuring tours and investigations. This is said to be one of the most haunted locations anywhere in the world. Join us for the history and hauntings of Rolling Hills Asylum.

Bethany in New York was first settled in 1803 and was a part of the town of Batavia. This was a Roman name for part of the Netherlands. These towns are all referenced as hamlets and have never had large populations. A stagecoach tavern sat on the property that the Genesee County Board of Supervisors bought to establish the Genesee County Poor Farm. They had made the decision to build the poor farm during a meeting on December 4, 1826. An official announcement was placed in the Batavia Times on December 9, 1826 and read, "Notice is hereby given that the Genesee County Poorhouse will be ready for the reception of paupers on the first day of January 1827...The Overseers of the Poor of the several towns of the County of Genesee are requested, in all cases of removal of paupers to the county poorhouse, to send with them their clothing, beds, bedding and such other articles belonging to the paupers as may be necessary and useful to them." The original main building that still stands today was built in 1827 on the Kirkbride Plan and in the Gothic Revival style of architecture. So it has that long multi-wing look that helped to segregate all the different populations that would be housed here. Lots of windows provided plenty of light.

We've talked about several poor houses on HGB. These were basically cast-off houses for widows, orphans, the elderly, the disabled, mentally ill and lesser criminals. The term "farm" was appropriate though as these were indeed farms that were self-sufficient and the people who lived there, the inmates, all participated in running things. This could include raising of Holsteins, ducks, chickens, pigs, draft horses, and raising crops. Genesee County Poor Farm also had a bakery where jams and pastries were sold and there was also a coffin shop. So come on down to the poor farm to buy your final resting place!

In 1828, it was decided that the property needed to be used to house not just the poor, but the mentally ill, so a stone building was constructed next to the main building and the mentally ill and minor criminals were put there. The mentally ill would be moved to a different facility in 1887. The property grew as more land was acquired until it covered 200 acres. The asylum's superintendent in 1915, George Fleming, put forward the effort to plant trees around the property to create wooded areas. He planted 31,000 trees and in the 1920s, the state of New York provided more trees and help with planting. This continued for a decade until there were over 169,000 trees on the property. This is now Genesee County Park & Forest hat everyone can enjoy. In 1938, the Genesee County Infirmary was added as a general hospital. For the time, the hospital was very modern. It was not only fire proof - the first building in the county with that claim - but it was one of the most contemporary facilities at the time. The Genesee County Nursing Home would be the new iteration for the property in 1964. It ran that way until it closed in 1974. There would be three private owners after that from 1980 to 2009. Sharon Coyle bought Rolling Hills in 2009. She said, "I gave up my home, my marriage, everything, and moved 3,000 miles out to Western New York, with just one suit case and not much else, except gumption, drive, fostering the dreams and aspirations of saving this historically rich and architecturally beautiful property, now encompassing just a little over 11 acres, 60,000 sq. ft of main buildings and several out buildings." And she is still there today, preserving the site and running events. 

There was a cemetery here, but it has been lost to time. People who died at Rolling Hills without family, were laid to rest on the property. There are no formal records left, but a document from 1886 read, "The burying ground we have improved by building a fence in front and grading and leveling the ground as much as could be done without injury to the graves." Fortunately, a memorial was placed in the Genesee County Park in 2004 after five headstones, dated from 1887 to 1888, were found. 

There are many stories of tragedy connected to Rolling Hills, as is the case for every poor farm and asylum we have covered. Roy was a long-term resident of Rolling Hills. He had been born into a prominent banking family in New York and he was born with a blip in his genetic code that left him with extreme gigantism. Roy's hands and feet were incredibly big and the left side of his face was deformed. His family didn't want a circus freak show in their family, so he was dumped at the asylum when he was twelve years old. Roy grew to a height that was well over seven feet. He actually thrived at the asylum and was described by everyone as having as big heart to go with his stature and he was kind - so important in this world. He loved to listen to opera music. Roy remained at Rolling Hills his entire life until he passed at the age of 52. The psych ward and solitary confinement had iron brackets, more than likely to help control unruly patients. There are reports that people in these areas were treated cruelly.   

Rolling Hills is considered in the top 10 of haunted locations in America and has made appearances on nearly every paranormal show on cable and YouTube. And finally, we are covering it! The list of what people experience here is vast. A man wearing a suit has been seen standing in doorways, typically by Intake. A tour guide named Jay was taking a group through and everyone heard audibly, "Thank You" in the infirmary. People have witnessed a ball roll out of a door, turn in direction and come back into the room through another door - all on its own. A book was lifted off a table and slammed back down. Doors are heard slamming all the time.  

There are several ghosts here. Our kind-hearted Roy is here. Weird NJ shared, "Sharon tells a story about running into a rat in the infirmary about two months after moving into Rolling Hills. Terrified by it, she screamed and ran away. The very next day she found the rat dead on the stairs, blood oozing from its mouth as if its neck had been broken. On the wall above the rat was a giant bloody handprint. Sharon believes that the ghost of Roy witnessed her distress and killed the rat for her." Roy is most often seen as a large shadow man. There was an elderly blind woman here named Hattie who would yell out "hello" to get the attention of nurses and this female "hello" has been captured on EVP. Sharon herself captured this and played it for a former nurse at the facility and she recognized it as being Hattie. And there was a mean nurse who may still be walking the halls. She was known as Nurse Emmie and she was cruel. Inmates and staff alike were afraid of her and tried to avoid her because they believed she could put curses on people. EVP captures of a cackly-like laugh have been attributed to Nurse Emmie. A number of EVPs have been captured over the years. EVPs have been caught many, many times of a woman screaming. When Sharon moved in an old antique washing machine and asked Queenie what she thought, an EVP of a woman said, "Happy with it." Another time they asked Chuck, who was with him and an EVP said "Erin." 

A woman said that she had come all the way from California and the Spirit Box said, "Grateful." Jay and Drew, who worked on the crew of Rolling Hills in 2017, were conducting an EVP session and specifically trying to talk to the spirit Cecil. They asked him if he would like them to bring him a sledgehammer to finish taking down a wall he had once been working on and he answered, "No, that's ok." 

The superintendent we mentioned earlier who planted all the trees, George, well he ended up getting really sick and he had a couple of strokes and had to be given a tracheotomy and he was cared for at the asylum. He did pass away here. People claim to hear him growling or making a gutteral noise because of the tracheotomy. There is a chair in George's room that people will sit in and they feel they're being touched on their shoulder or on top of their head. People will open the closet door in there and if they go inside, sometimes the door will be closed on them and the handle will be held. George has been caught on EVP laughing when this happens.  

Kurt Filipiak visited in 2010 and wrote, "Three years ago myself and my two friends, Bobby and Tommy, were in the Christmas room doing EVPs and when we reviewed the audio, we discovered an EVP that said, "kill them." Interesting EVP here: https://www.tiktok.com/@groundedparanormal/video/7024971238351179013?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7519268673312622135

Just like Waverly Hills with its fourth floor of shadows, Rolling Hills has its own Shadow Hallway too. This is on the Second Floor of the East Wing, in the old men’s dormitory. Sharon told Weird NJ, "This is where we see a lot of shadow people. When you look down toward the infirmary section you start to see shadow people, and they could look like you and I, solid, they can be light grey, medium grey, dark grey or pitch black. They could be normal human shaped or anamorphous shapes. They come in and out of doorways, walk across the hall. Sometimes they’ll poke an arm or a leg out, sometimes they crawl on the floor, and that can be creepy, especially if you’re sitting on the floor during an investigation and one is coming at you––because you can actually see the shadow moving toward you." 

The Morgue had two large walk-in refrigerators where bodies were stored and this area is rife with activity. More than 1,000 died at Rolling Hills. People have been shoved in here. Disembodied voices have been heard.

On the website, Sharon shares this along with several clips, "I wanted to share the results of an experiment I've been doing at Rolling Hills Asylum in conjunction with George Lopez, of Port Orange Paranormal Society on March 5, 2011 (the night after Roy's birthday) via his Blog Talk show - DEAD AIR. The experiment consisted of George and I conducting a live dual spirit box/Frank's box session broadcasting live from Florida. George has four people in the spirit world whom he communicates with regularly: Amanda - former team member who was killed in a car accident 2 yrs ago. Gabriel - Amanda's friend who is in spirit world and helped to cross Amanda. Collette - George's Spirit Guide. Michael - George's Spirit Guide. George communicated to all four, through his Spirit Box live on the radio. I then called in from RHA and put him on speaker phone as I used my Frank's Box (#87) in Shadow People Hallway. Both FL and RHA recorded the session. George then sent his four spirit contacts to RHA where he provided test questions - many of the answers we'd heard audibly (some were clearer during playback). For instance, George asked Amanda to say Rolling Hills Asylum three times if she had made it up here - and she did! We heard her say "Rolling Hills. Rolling Hills. Rolling Hills." Amazing! While in the Shadow people hallway I had asked the spirits to call out one of our names (one of the living) in the hall, "Sharon Coyle" was heard clearly by all. When I asked for a second name - we couldn't hear it audibly - but upon play back you hear "Damn it! That's who I know!". The experiment consisted of three parts: the 1st part - talking to George's spirits in FLA; the 2nd part was sending George's people to RHA and communicating with them and the RHA spirits together at RHA; and finally, the 3rd part was sending George's spirits back home to FLA accompanied by Roy and communicating with them via George's Spirit box. Over all we had over 200 direct responses! This included, interactions between living and spirit as well as interactions between spirit and spirit - all in a three hour period! It was truly amazing!!" 

Mike from New Jersey Paranormal Research wrote, "We were just went up the stairs by the office area and started looking in rooms for a digital recorder we had left, when we caught this loud 'Please stay in your room' then 'It's nothing' we didn't hear these things when we recorded them only on playback." 

Past Intel on YouTube posted a video from their investigation in 2010. They said, "Several Groups of investigators went to Rolling Hills Asylum in Bethany NY. We decided to try communicating with the Spirits using a Frank's Box also known as a Ghost Box. During the live session we picked up a word or two, but after listening to the session a few days later, I found that we had several answers, and when one of our investigator coughed/sneezed we had an INTELLIGENT response ( Bless you and Gesundheit ) I was tickled pink to say the least! check out the video, and PLEASE LEAVE A COMMENT as to what you think." (Bookmarked) 

Celestial Spirit Investigators wrote in 2011, "We had an amazing night! had about 45 minute K2 session in the shock therapy room and the most EXCITING part of the evening was we turned on the phantom of the opera and low and behold out came Roy. he was wonderful to see him swaying back and forth to the music."

Username Ghost Encounters wrote on Reddit, "In the morgue, there was an autopsy table I think it was where people claimed that there was a heaviness on their chest when they laid down on it. I laid on the table and didn't feel anything. There was a suit hanging on a string nearby that if you asked questions about people in the room, the suit would turn in that person's direction. When a few other people entered the morgue they asked if the suit would turn to my Mom and I. It was still and nobody had moved it then it slowly turned toward my Mom and I and stopped. When I was laying on the table, it hadn't moved at all. But now it was turning towards us. Pretty creepy but I wanted to see some more parts of the building and kept moving."

Cake Nibbler wrote on Reddit, "My friend was pushing me around in a wheelchair when I saw a black shadow person run across the hall but bending in ways people shouldn’t bend, so I got up and froze and to my surprise my friend just goes “what someone just crossed the hall” and I said something along the lines of “that wasn’t human” and we proceeded to debate if it was a person or not and we realized we can easily just clear the hall room by room and see if anyone was on the floor with us. After searching the wing we realized not only was there no one was in the room we saw it run into, no one was even in entire wing." 

Gibbenz wrote on Reddit, " I really only had one strange and inexplicable experience while I was there, and it came in Nurse Emma's room upstairs. To make a long story short, I knocked on the door frame, introduced myself, and sat in a chair and attempted to speak to her in German for about ten minutes. My brother refused to enter the room and remained in the doorway. While I was in there nothing happened, but I did feel rather comfortable being in there, unlike other areas in the building. Now here's where it gets strange. As I was leaving the room I said, "Danke. Guten Nacht, Emma." Just after I said it I heard what sounded like a slight shuffle from the closet and I turned to see the door move about an inch. I'd be lying through my teeth if I said that chills didn't instantly run through me haha. I just kind of stood there, whispered for my brother to come back, then walked away. Man, it was really weird. Other than that I thought I saw a shadow pass into a room at the end of the shadow hallway, but I'm going to chalk that up to my eyes and the poor lighting playing tricks on me. I also had eerie feelings on some rooms compared to others, but you can take that as you will." 

Username S-81_Music posted on Reddit about a ghost hunt they participated in at Rolling Hills last year. They wrote, " Anyways, the main reason for this post is because I am quite unsure what I have captured in this photo. Mind you, the building was pitch black as the ghost hunt took place from 7pm-11pm, so the reason it appears bright is due to my iPhone 11's flash. Pictured to the right is my grandfather entering a room and my grandmother was already in the room. I am 100% certain that we were on the second floor at the time, but am not entirely sure what room I was looking at when I snapped this photo. I will provide both images; the photo straight from my iPhone 11, and the edited photo. Just for some context, I specifically squared up the end of the hallway to raise the exposure 5 stops and try and do some significant noise reduction. I am curious if this is one of those instances where your phone's camera creates artifacts or random patterns of noise or not." Here is the first picture and then the second picture.

 

  

Interesting TikTok (48 seconds in) https://www.tiktok.com/@heelsandhalo/video/7471522965943897375?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7519268673312622135 

And this one: https://www.tiktok.com/@hauntedtherapist/video/7558297438134537486?is_from_webapp=1&sender_device=pc&web_id=7519268673312622135 

Rolling Hills seems to be an incredibly active place with a wide variety of paranormal activity. Are Roy and George and several others who lived much of their lives here and who passed away in the building, still here? Is Rolling Hills Asylum haunted? That is for you to decide. 

HGB Ep. 613 - Kreischer Mansion

This Month in History - Hedy Lamarr Born (Written by Jim Featherstone)

In the month of November, on the 9th, in 1914, Hedy Lamarr was born. She played a key role in shaping today's technology. Hedy Lamarr didn't invent WIFI, but she co-invented a key technology - frequency hopping. This laid the foundation for modern wireless communication, including WIFI, Bluetooth and GPS. In 1941, Lamarr and composer George Antheil developed a method to prevent enemy ships from jamming torpedo signals by having the signal "hop" between different radio frequencies. The U.S. Navy didn't adopt the process at the time, but the concept became crucial decades later in secure and spread-spectrum communications. This technology is used today to spread a signal across a much wider frequency band than is necessary for its information content, making it more resistant to interference and jamming. By using a unique code to spread the signal, it becomes difficult to intercept or detect without knowing the specific code, thus enhancing security and privacy.

Kreischer (Cry sure) Mansion

A little known factory town was home to the Kreischer Mansion, which actually had a twin. There were two exact mirror-image homes that sat next to each in Staten Island, fittingly owned by brothers. Only one of them remains and it changed ownership many times over the years. There were deaths on the property and people took to calling this the murder house.  It very well might be a real life haunted mansion. Join us as we explore the history and hauntings of the Kreischer Mansion. 

Kreischerville had been a small company town on the New York City borough of Staten Island. Its history is one of bustle and then crash and the bustle is understandable because of its proximity to the harbor and there was ample immigrant labor. This was originally an area settled by the Dutch and they called it Charleston. Kreischerville was named for its founder, Balthasar Kreischer, who had come to America from Germany in 1836 after a great fire had obliterated New York City. His specialty was in brickmaking as his grandfather had been a brick manufacturer and he was apprenticed to be a stonecutter in that business. Balthashar opened a brick factory on the Lower East Side of New York City. The brick business was prosperous as builders were seeking elements to help fireproof buildings and bricks were a no brainer. Kreischer decided to relocate the business to Staten Island because rich clay deposits were located there. The entrepreneur decided that it would be best to build a company town to make it easier to attract workers. In 1875, he built tenement houses and in 1890 double houses were added. Most of the houses would be of that variety and four of them remain today. Sidewalks in the town were laid with yellow Kreischer bricks. The town of Kreischerville had everything that laborers needed: a post office, a country store and several churches. The town went back to the Charleston name during World War I because, you know, we were at war with Germans.

Prominent in the company town were the homes of Kreischer and his two sons, Edward and Charles. Balthashar built a mansion on top of a hill near the brick factory in the 1860s. This was a massive Italianate-styled villa that no longer stands today. He also built two identical mansions in 1888 for his sons down from the hill and next to each other. These were in the Victorian Queen-Anne style and interestingly were made from wood. The houses had a prominent corner tower, verandas, decorative railings, gables with jigsaw bargeboards and tall chimneys. The interiors were opulent with chandeliers and the walls were covered in Lincrusta wallpaper, which is a cross between leather and linoleum. There were seven bedrooms and three bathrooms, parlors and a dining room.

Kreischer died the year after his son's mansions were built. A fun fact about Balthashar is that he gave Henry Englehard Steinway $75,000 to help start his piano manufacturing company, Steinway & Sons. And his daughter Louisa married Henry Steinway's son Alfred. The brick factory of all things burned to the ground shortly after that. It was rebuilt, but the family's fortunes had fallen. Now there are some who say that this downfall lead to Edward Kreischer killing himself by shooting himself in the temple near the factory in 1895. But something else might have happened here and this might have been murder. We saw a story that claimed Edward's wife was having an affair with a doctor. And with that doctor's help it is said that she was poisoning Edward, but that wasn't working so they shot him. But he also was said to have had a fight with his brother and then also someone at the factory. But according to the New York Times and the reports at that time, this was a suicide. (Newspaper Bookmark)

The factory shut down in the 1930s. Eventually both Balthasar and Edward's houses burned down and were demolished, so only Charles' mansion is still standing. It was abandoned for a time. A Victorian restaurant was run in the house until 1997. Ohio developer Isaac Yomotovian bought the five-acre estate in 1999 for $1.4 million. He wanted to build a 55-plus community on the property. He restored the house, but was unable to fulfill any other part of his vision. He put the house on the market in 2012, but only got one offer so he held onto it and put it on the market again in 2016. At some point there had been a restaurant in the house, but we couldn't find much on that. There was an auction held in 2021 to sell off the house. Eric Bischoff and Julia Mackie obtained the property in 2024 and have been restoring the house into something that can be an events center and wedding venue. 

The house had run a haunted attraction out of it for many years with the last run being in 2024 and people had rented it for paranormal investigations and various events had been held here. We're not sure if any of that will continue in the future. There are several reasons why hauntings might be going on. Obviously, we have Edward's death. Then two children died on the property, Henry and Alfred. Seances were held in the house to try to communicate with Edward to figure out if he was murdered or committed suicide and it is thought they opened portals, but didn't close them. A legend claims a cook died in the kitchen. And then there was a murder in our modern era. This happened in 2005. There was a former Marine at the house who was working as the caretaker. His name was Joseph Young and everybody called him Joe Black. He got himself mixed up with the mob, specifically the Bonnano crime family. They paid Joe $8,000 to rub out a man named Robert McKelvey. McKelvey was also involved with the mob and he had offended a guy named Gino Galestro and he owed him money. So Joe got three other men together to help him and they got McKelvey to come to the mansion and they stabbed him. McKelvey managed to run for the door and a couple of the guys grabbed him and tried to strangle him. McKelvey got outside where the four men finally managed to drown him in the shallow pool out in the front yard. The body was taken down into the basement and dismembered and burned in the coal-burning furnace. The FBI investigated for a year, but by the time they got to the house, the furnace had been removed. There was enough other evidence though to bring Joe to trial and he was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in 2008. In 2009, Galestro was given 20 years for ordering the hit.

When the haunted house attraction was going, a room was dedicated to dolls and they were hung from the ceiling and walls. There could be attachments as people donate dolls to the house. People claim to hear a woman's wailing and it is thought that this is Edward 's wife, Frieda. Children are heard often in the house. The lights have minds of their own. Cold spots are felt and most people just feel uncomfortable in the house. 

Rick Rispoli was a caretaker at the mansion in 2019 when Inside Edition visited. He told reporter Lisa Guerrero that they have heard moans and groans and disembodied footsteps and doors have slammed shut on their own. Rick also shred with Inside Edition that he and his sister were unloading chairs about 12:30 at night and a song came on over the radio, which wouldn't be a big deal if it wasn't for the fact that this was his sister's car and she was holding her keys. The car wasn't running, no keys in the ignition. The direct opposite of stories we hear about cars that stall near haunted locations. He also said that they have caught in pictures, which peaked our interest based on the details. These were a cluster of 4 orbs that moved into five different pictures through five shots. It was like they moved in a circle. We will point out that these big lights were on in the house and the front doors were open , so possibly a reflection into the camera and the taker moving? Pictures have captured what people claim are spirits. Rick has had so many experiences. He claims that a picture once caught seven faces in seven windows. They shut the water off in the winter, so he went down in the basement with his assistant and they were having issues so they decided to get a plumber. Before they left the basement, they heard kids screaming upstairs. They were the only people in the house, but they checked anyway. Then they went to get the plumber and returned four hours later. The same thing happened when they were in the basment, so they quick shut off the values and got out of the house. Another time he was in the house with a buddy and they both watched a black mass come down the stairs and go out the door. The kids like to prank Rick by moving stuff around and they tug on his shirts and pants. When they had the haunted attraction, they also ran a hayride and the one night, one of the drivers came into Rick and said, "You need to stop having that kid in the white shirt that comes out from between the barns running in front of the wagon." When Rick asked how old the kid looked, the driver said, "About 10." And Rick was like, we aren't hiring no 10-year-olds. He had a guide who road on the back of the wagons and she complained about the same thing. A worker got scratched on the back of his leg outside when he was working.

Paranormal Files was there to investigate in 2023. Rick was still there and he told them that they had picked up on Edward, Balthasar and their wives. The kids were apparently punished back in the day by being locked in the closet. When the haunted attraction was being run, they would occasionally put customers in the closets and they would get stuck in the closets. So Rick said they thought it was an issue with the doors and the wood swelling so they shaved off some of the door and the issue continued. There also is an entity that hangs around outside that Rick said they call "The Hairy Man." He's disheveled and so they think he was a homeless guy that might have died on the property. As Rick was giving the investigators a tour of the house, several times there were unexplained noises coming from upstairs. These sounds happened again when the tour was over and the investigators started investigating. They captured childrens voices and even a scream. They used the Night Talker App and they got "My life ended fast" and "I Move Things." The cat balls kept going off. The Rem Pod went off for a really long time. I've never heard one go that long. They were using a Ouija board at the time. This device was right in front of a mirror, so they asked it to come through the mirror and the Spirit Talker said "Bad spirit." This thing only increased in intensity. This was a room where they conducted seances. These guys were legit scared. When they asked if this was a member of the Kreischer family, the Spirit Talker said, "No, it's not." When they asked later who they were speaking to and they got "Henry." They had a motion detector music box in the other room and it kept going off. This place was crazy with activity and that probably is because this is a place that hasn't been investigated often and when they were there in July 2023, nobody had been in the place since November. 

But many of the big names have been here including Sam and Colby and Nick Groff and Katrina brought Paranormal Lockdown in 2016. The new owners are hoping for a rebrand, but with as crazy as the activity is in this place we'll see how that goes. kay_ray_1105 commented on Instagram, "That place is haunted.  You can fix it up all you want, ultimately the paranormal activity will still be there. There’s no way in hell I would ever consider going anywhere near that place, no matter how nice they fix it up. Seriously do your research. you will find what I’m telling you is true."

There are several haunted locations on Staten Island, but the Kreischer Mansion seems to sit all on its own at the furthest tip of the island from where most of the ghostly stuff happens. But we thought it would be fun to venture up about 10 miles to Fort Wadsworth. This is one of the oldest military installations in the nation and sits on 226 acres and is part of the National Park Service. They call it Gateway National Recreation Area. The British had occupied Staten Island from 1776 to 1783 and they were the ones to fortify this particular area of Staten Island in 1779. After the Revolutionary War, the state of New York built the fort to defend the Narrows in the early 1800s. This complex included Fort Wadsworth, Battery Weed and Fort Tompkins. In 1841, New York State gave the War Department permission to occupy part of Fort Wadsworth. Maybe the state would regret this later as the federal government decided to take full control in 1847. Fort Tompkins had started as sandstone and this was upgraded to granite and brick by 1876. Battery Weed was also rebuilt between 1847 and 1862. Fort Wadsworth would get its name in 1865 to honor Brevet Major General James Wadsworth, who was killed during the Civil War. More modernization came in 1907 with electricity. The place got lights and motorized ammunition hoists and telephones. The fort was manned during World War I, but didn't see any action. The fort was equipped with anti-aircraft guns during World War II. The U.S. Army Chaplain School was located at the site from 1974 to 1979 in Fort Tompkins and then the army completely vacated in 1979 and the Navy turned it into the headquarters of Naval Station New York. The Navy gave Fort Wadsworth to the NPS in 1994. 

So even though the place really saw no battle, there are stories of ghosts. Visitors have a feeling of being watched.  Disembodied footsteps are heard. People have claimed to see a  glowing apparition in a Civil War uniform hanging out in an underground tunnel. At first, they think this is a costumed staff member, but as they get closer, they see that the soldier is somewhat transparent. 

Staten Island is often called the forgotten borough of New York City. The Kreischer Mansion sat almost as if forgotten for sure. We hope that it does indeed have a bright future. We're thankful it isn't going to be torn down to make way for condos. Is it haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 612 - Haunted Historic Cary Homes

Moment in Oddity - Raining Meat (Suggested by: Chelsea Flowers)

We have all heard bizarre stories of strange objects falling from the sky. From frogs, to fish, to sharks. Umm, hello, Sharknado? Typically these strange occurrences are attributed to waterspouts picking up the critters and then depositing them, sometimes miles away. Even Diane once had the experience of a fish falling out of the sky and landing right next to her. Although that was one fish and I am sure that the bird of prey that dropped it was ticked about losing its lunch! Back in March of 1876 there was a very strange event that occurred over Olympia Springs in Bath County Kentucky. According to a New York Times article, chunks of meat showered down on Allen Crouch's property as his wife was outdoors making soap. Mrs. Crouch stated that, "The sky was perfectly clear at the time and the meat fell like large snowflakes." Most of the pieces were around 5x5 centimeters. The following day, two men showed up to taste the meat-rain, even though much of it was spoiled by this time. The unidentified men proclaimed that the meat had either the flavor of venison or mutton. Pieces of the meat were preserved. A few months later, a report was published in Scientific American, that the substance was actually nostoc which is a type of cyanobacteria that can float in the air, unseen until it rains. It then swells up forming a jellied mass and falls to the earth. It is also known as 'star jelly' and 'witches butter'. However, once nostoc takes on its gelatinous form, it has a green color to its mass as it is a blue-green algae. It does not resemble meat. In addition, Mrs. Crouch had stated that it was a clear day, no rain involved. The man that declared the 'meat snowflakes' as being of cyanobacteria origin also shared samples with a histologist who said it was likely the lung tissue of a human infant or a horse! Seven samples were examined. Two were determined to be lung tissue, three were muscular tissue and two others consisted of cartilage. Ultimately, Dr. Kastenbine wrote in an 1876 edition of the Louisville Medical News, that the creation of the meaty shower was projectile vulture vomit. Vultures can often eat up to 20% of their body weight when given the opportunity. It has been recorded that they can projectile vomit up to 10 feet in distance and have been known to do so when startled as a defense mechanism, or when needing to take sudden flight or gain altitude. Whatever the reason that created this event, chunks of meat raining down onto the earth not only is disgusting, but it certainly is odd. 

Haunted Historic Cary Homes 

Cary is a town west of Raleigh in North Carolina that routinely shows up on lists as a desirable place to live and is known as the gourd capital. Railroad companies found it desirable too and this became a town built by the railroad. Cary also was a center of manufacturing with many factories opening up. The town attracted all types from robber barons to bootleggers and some of their historic homes still remain and feature ghost stories and legends. Join us as we explore the histories and hauntings of these Cary homes! 

Cary, North Carolina got its start as a railroad village. The Tuscarora and Catawba people lived on the land until European settlers came to the area. Disease decimated the Native Americans numbers. A man named John Bradford set up a homestead and called it Bradford's Ordinary. He built an inn and opened it in the 1750s. Two other men owned land in the area and their names were both Nathaniel Jones. By the early 19th century, the settlement had a gristmill and sawmill and in 1854, the North Carolina Railroad came. This would be the year that Bradford's Ordinary would become an official town under a man named Allison Francis Page, or Frank Page, who named it Page's Station. He is considered the founder of Cary and he added another sawmill and a general store and built his home that he named for himself, Pages. When Page opened the post office in 1856, he named the town Cary for Samuel Fenton Cary, the head of the Sons of Temperance in the state. The population didn't really grow until after the Civil War and most of this centered around the railroad. There were a few factories opened as well and the town was incorporated in 1871. Since Page believed in temperance, as port of the incorporation, it was written into Cary law that no whiskey couldn't be sold in town and most other spirits were added in 1889. The prohibition law would remain until 1964. This left the city wide open for bootlegging, which was rampant. And it had its share of shootouts. But the city also became an educational hub. The Research triangle Park was a place where IBM established a strong presence in 1965. And for our gamers, you've probably heard of Epic Games behind little games like Fortnite, they are headquartered in Cary. Many successful men came to Cary to build their factories and they also built their homes. 

The Cotton House

We'll start with the Cotton House because...beer. The Cotton House Craft Brewers call the Cotton House at 307 S. Academy Street home now. This had once been known as the Pasmore House because William Pasmore had it built in 1900. He had married Cassandra Wilson in 1856 and they had seven children. Two tragic deaths occurred here involving William's daughters. The second death was horrific. Stella died in 1906 at the age of 31 from typhoid. She was a beloved teacher at the Cary High School. 

In 1902, Mary Pasmore was 42 years old and the Roxboro Courier reported, "Awful Death in Flames. Raleigh, N.C. Sept. 5th. Miss Mary Passmore, aged 42, of Cary, suicided last night by burning. She was found wrapped in flames in an outhouse and died at eleven o'clock last night. She declared before she died that she set fire to herself because she was tired of living." William himself died in 1901 at the age of 63, so he didn't have to experience his daughters' deaths. Imagine his poor wife. Later, his son William would be arrested for public intoxication in Cary, which took some effort since it was a dry town. The house eventually became a boarding facility for some of the very first students at Cary High School. In 2018, the brewers had a name, but not a house, until they found the Pasmore House. They renamed it and renovated into a tap room and brewery. Two of the original fireplaces were exposed and they added a 25-foot Prohibition-era bar with an Italian marble top. Walnut fixtures hang from the ceiling and the bar back and tap handles were all fashioned by local carpenters and woodworkers. There is also a 1910 piano on the premises. People claim that there are spirits left over from the school boarding house days and perhaps even the Pasmore daughters are here. 

Katherine Loflin is a historian in the town, has written the "Hidden History of Cary," and hosts the ghost tours in town on a trolley. She has brought guests through the Cotton House on tours and says that on those tours they have captured audible word responses. Disembodied footsteps are heard and employees and patrons have reported seeing full-bodied apparitions. We should mention that the street the brewery is on, Academy Street, has the apparition of a horse connected to it. This horse is also heard on the nearby Ambassador Loop near the Page-Walker hotel. It isn't aren't often seen, but people hear the ghost galloping and it is thought to be connected to the Civil War. Peggy Van Scoyoc write in her 2006 book Just a Horse Stopping Place, “this horse could be heard coming up that street galloping and just going as fast as he could go, but nobody would ever see any horse.”

The High House

Unfortunately, the High House no longer stands, but may still have a female apparition hanging around the site. The house had stood on the left side of High House Road and was built by Tingnal Jones sometime between 1760 and 1765. The house stood two stories and had high ceilings. Fanning Jones inherited the house from his father Tingnal and he lived in it until 1822. He sold it to a Raleigh lawyer named Nathaniel Green Alford in 1833. The Williams family owned it next and when they moved out in early 1900, the house was left abandoned. There is no record of it after 1930 and we could find nothing about a demolition record. The house seems to have just disappeared, but more than likely just collapsed. Leander Williams had been born in the house in 1883 and he told his daughter Margaret of a dream he had. This dream was about valuables being buried in the hearth of the house and apparently his mother had the same dream. So they returned to the high House that they had abandoned and found the hearth torn apart. As to where this treasure had come from, perhaps it was from an earlier occupant. Fanning Jones was considered a scoundrel in Cary. He was on the side of the Tories during the Revolutionary War and he put together a group that murdered and pillaged. So perhaps this was some of his loot. Hauntings were reported about the house dating back to the Revolutionary War. The ghost of a woman was seen in the house and walking around outside of it. One of the legends told about her is that two men were in love with her and one day, one of them killed her in a fit of rage during a fight. Another legend claims that the woman is Fanning Jones' wife. She died a few years after their marriage in 1799. The Raleigh Register reported on September 8, 1806, that she was found "in a grove far from the house, depraved of all reason, where it is supposed she had been praying (having been very religious for some time past). She remained in the deplorable condition till her death on July 27, 1806." Robert Hoke Williams wrote of his father's experience with the female ghost and this is shared in a document called "The Ghost of High House" available from the AAFA Library. (Document) 

The woods where High House had stood had ghost stories connected to them as well. An 11-year-old boy reported in the 1860s that he saw a woman wandering in a field in broad daylight and she was heading towards the house. He assumed it was his mother returning from church, so he ran to the house to greet her and found no one in the house. His parents didn't return until later in the day. And in the 1870s, a young girl was staying in the house and awoke at night and asked her dad for water. He took her out onto the front porch and handed her the water dipper. She looked past him with wide eyes and started screaming. The father turned to see a woman standing very still in the dark front yard and the feeling he got was of something not human. They rushed back into the house for fitful sleep and left early the next morning for Raleigh. This female ghost appeared to three generations of the Williams family and is still seen in the Black Creek Greenway to this day.

Nancy Jones House

The Nancy Jones House is located at 9321 Chapel Hill Road and was built in 1803, making it the oldest known residential structure in Cary. Where it stands today is not where it started. It was moved in 2021. The two-story house was built in the vernacular Federal style architecture with chimneys on both sides and a one story addition on the back with the kitchen. The rear second story was a later addition as well. The double-tier Italianate-style front-gabled porch was added in 1880. Four of the rooms had Federal-style three-part mantels with reeding. The walls had paneled wainscot and flush-board sheathing and the floors were made from heart of pine. Many rooms in a Federal style house were called shed rooms, which means they functional rooms like a laundry room or kitchen which were typically found at the back of the house. They were usually very simple. This was built by Henry and Nancy Jones to run as a tavern and stagecoach stop, but probably not an inn, so they lived in the house as a residence. The land underneath had been owned by Henry's father, Nathaniel Crabtree Jones. Fun Fact: There were so many Nathaniel Joneses in the area that they all took to having middle nicknames to identify themselves, so there was also a Nathaniel White Plains Jones. And another interesting fact is that there was a practice where fathers would let their sons build on land they owned, but wouldn't give the land to their sons until their death and this was done to convince sons to stay close to home and not "Go West, young man." Henry had been previously married and had a daughter named Eliza. He and Nancy would have five children together. Henry died in 1841 and Nancy continued to run the business and live in the house for another 30 years, so that is why it carries her name. 

By the Civil War, the area around the tavern was called Jones Station. Union troops camped out on the property as they went to and from Bennett Place in Durham. Sherman's troops marched through North Carolina and they Raleigh to Jones Station. North Carolina governors would stay here and President James K. Polk once stayed as well. Nancy's youngest son Adolphus wrote to his half-sister Eliza in 1874, “Mother will be 91 years old in a few days… She retains the faculties of her mind pretty well but her physical powers are gradually giving way. She walks about the yard and garden – sometimes she walks over to a near neighbor’s house.” 

Nancy died in 1876 and Adolphus inherited the house and he opened it as a school. Adolphus later sold to S.R. Horne and then the house passed through several hands. The Heater family lived in the house during the Great Depression and when their well drilling business went bankrupt, they sold the chandeliers from the house. Thomas and Audrey Stone owned the house from 1935 until 1991, when Audrey passed away. She put forth the effort to get the house on the registry of historic places in 1984. She welcomed people for tours as well. Other families lived in the house. Kent Henley rented it in the late 1990s. Then Sri Venkateswara Temple owned the property. The town of Cary got ownership of the house in 2019 and moved it in 2021. It is still undergoing renovations to be used as offices. Peach brandy was very popular in Cary and Henry Jones apparently made his own and he wrote in a letter to his daughter Eliza in 1836, "You wish to know my method of making Peach wine; In the first place I beat and press the peaches as late in the Evening as possible in Order to give the liquor as little chance to ferment as possible, which it will be sure to do in warm weather, next morning have a good clean tight Barrel ready, with about Eight gallons of Brandy in it before you begin to put in the peach Juice…” The letter goes on after more explanation to say, “I never added Sugar to any I ever made, but am Satisfied it would be the best, say one pound to 10 gallons I think would be enough…".

Margaret Heater always maintained that the house was haunted and she had many experiences in the house when living there. She claimed to hear disembodied footsteps and when she would yell for her father to help her, he would look around for whoever had been walking around and never found anyone. The Heater family also couldn’t keep the doors locked. They would lock everything up tight at night and find the doors unlocked in the morning. Families that lived in the house after the Stones claimed to hear strange noises they couldn't explain and disembodied footsteps. Kent Henley heard the strange creaks and such as well, but he always maintained it was just the wind.  

The Matthews House 

The Matthews House is located at 317 W. Chatham Street and is this large beautiful white house with black shutters that was built in 1915 by lumber magnate Joseph Cephus Matthews. After the house was no longer a private residence, it hosted several businesses including a floral shop, dress shop and a salon. Carroll and Sheila Ogle bought the house in the early 2000s and they refurbished the house to be an events center, specifically for weddings. They added a Grand Ballroom and a commercial kitchen. Carroll passed away and Sheila eventually sold the house in 2016 to the Chung family who renovated the house further and continued the wedding business and they partnered with Southern Harvest Catering.

Paranormal Investigator Katherine Loflin told the News Observer in 2023, “We think we get a lot of Bob. Bob seems to have stuff he wants to tell us.” Her group, City Doctor Productions, believes that they contacted up to 50 spirits during one ghost hunt at the house. The Bob that she was referencing was Bob Strother, a prominent resident in the town who ran a floral shop and was known for his Christmas decoration displays. He died in 2019The News Observer joined the investigators and reported, "Upstairs in the master bedroom, Al Parker had volunteers try out the spirit box, which involves wearing headphones tuned to a rapidly changing AM/FM receiver flicking through stations every half-second. For this otherworldly exchange, Parker fired off questions while the volunteers, headphones on, barked out whatever words arrived through the airwaves - radio or spectral. Is anybody here with us right now? Robert was the answer. Is that Bob Strother? Bob, are you here with us tonight? Escape was the answer. How many people are here with you? 51 came the answer. Does it bother you that we’re here?" During a previous investigation, the investigators got the following words during an ESTES Method session: smoke, fire, powers that be and rip-off. Katherine Loflin wondered what these words could mean and when she dug into the history, she found out that Bob had planned to buy the Page House and renovate it in 1971, but he was unable to do that because the house burned to the ground. A caretaker at the house was to blame as he tried to extinguish a small fire started by a spark with a rag that he dropped on a can of gasoline. But Bob actually believed that the fire had been set on purpose by some people who didn't want him controlling what they felt was the historic heart of the town and he told this to the Cary Historical Society during an interview he did with them. Loflin said, "Until somebody acknowledges that Bob got a little screwed, that might be why Bob’s sticking around." 

One of the other spirits here is a little girl named Janelle and she seems to be connected to a painting of what is believed to be her and this painting has a tendency to fall off the wall on its own. Loflin has been trying for several years to get to the bottom of who this little girl is and we hope one day that she is successful.

Old houses always seem to have interesting stories. Cary's historic homes have interesting stories and could quite possibly be haunted. Are these historic Cary homes haunted? That is for you to decide! 

HGB Ep. 611 - Haunted Newport Mansions

This Month in History - First Deep Level Electric Tube

In the month of November, on the 4th, in 1890, the world's first deep-level electric "tube" railway was officially opened in London, England. Deep-level rail lines are subterranean train tunnels and they were created to result in less disruption to surface streets and buildings. The railway was designed by James Henry Greathead and was inaugurated by Edward, Prince of Wales, in November, 1890, but did not open to the public until December 18th of the same year. This was the first major railway to use electric-powered trains. The line ran approximately 3.2 miles from Stockwell to King William Street in London. The construction method consisted of tunneling and lining the tunnels with cast iron tubing which earned the route the nickname of "The Tube". The nickname is still used today for London's underground railway system. The initial tunnels ran under the River Thames and were a major technological achievement proving the viability of deep-level electric tube railways, thus paving the way for future lines. Today, The London Underground AKA 'The Tube', accommodates on average, around 4 million people per day. 

Haunted Newport Mansions

Belleview Avenue was the Millionaire's Row of Newport. The avenue was lined with Gilded Age summer cottages built by wealthy industrialists. Those "cottages" were actually palatial estates and many of them still stand today and are run as museums or are privately owned. Several of them are haunted. These include Belcourt Castle, Seaview Terrace, The Breakers and Rough Point. Join us as we explore the history and haunts of these summer cottages to the rich and famous in Newport, Rhode Island! 

Belcourt Castle 

Newport is thought to have become a summer playground to the wealthy because of its proximity to New York City, views of the Atlantic Ocean and mild climate. Oliver Belmont was an interesting character. Belmont was born in New York City in 1858 to August Belmont who was an agent for the Rothschilds family and he built great wealth. August was so prominent that the famous Belmont Stakes, which is the oldest horse race in the Triple Crown, was named for him. Oliver attended the United States Naval Academy and served for a year as a midshipman before joining his father's banking firm. He became the publisher of the weekly paper, Verdict. Oliver served as a Representative in Congress for New York's 13th district from 1901 to 1903. August died in 1890, leaving his vast fortune to Oliver who was still a bachelor at the time. He decided to use some of that inheritance to build a massive summer home in Newport. And this wasn't because he had a large family. Belmont was a bachelor at the time. And as to why he chose Newport, it must have been because this is just what the rich and famous did because Oliver detested the nouveau riche (reesh) who built what he felt were ostentatious homes in Newport and he asked the architect to build his house facing away from all the others. Now, perhaps his neighbors didn't really care for him either. This was a guy who proposed marriage to a debutante named Sara Swan Whiting, but his parents objected because he was too young and they sent him off to Germany to learn the banking business. While there, Oliver delved deeper into gambling, which he had taken up in America before getting to Germany. He also discovered absinthe and became a heavy drinker of it. His playboy lifestyle got so bad that his parents agreed to him marrying Sara, which wouldn't be a good thing for her. The couple married in 1882 in Newport and they traveled to Paris for their honeymoon. Sara's mother joined them for several weeks and Oliver decided he had enough of that and he went out hitting up gambling houses and brothels and continuing with his drinking of absinthe. He got violent with Sara and see left for America. Oliver took up with a French dancer. After Sara got home, she realized she was pregnant. Oliver would disown that daughter - she managed just fine without him, becoming a prominent New York socialite. Belmont married Alva Vanderbilt in 1896, the ex-wife of a good friend of his. And she may have become that ex-wife because Oliver traveled with the Vanderbilts when they were married and it is believed they were having an affair. Belmont died in 1908 after he got septic from an operation for Appendicitis.

Richard Morris Hunt was the architect of Oliver's gorgeous Victorian mansion, which he called Belcourt. Belmont really did most of the planning and Hunt disagreed with much of the design, but he figured that it was Belmont's money so he did what Belmont wanted. One of these design elements was having stables and carriage areas on the first floor. Oliver wanted his prized horses in the mansion. Construction started in 1891 and was completed in 1894. Another quirk was building no kitchen because Oliver had his meals delivered from town. Several architectural designs were used including French Renaissance, Gothic and various German and Italian styles. The main house was a large three-story block with two-story wings coming off it with a large central courtyard. The roof on the main house is mansard with oval copper dormers. 

The mansion had 60 rooms and covered 50,000 square feet. The interior had magnificent hallways to highlight Belmont's love of pageantry and horses. The first floor had a Grand Hall and foyer with stained-glass windows decorated with the Belmont coat of arms and damask in blood red. A Grand Staircase connected the Lower Grand Hall to the Upper Grand Hall and most rooms are French in design with elements of Gothic. After Oliver's second wife passed in 1933, Belcourt went to Oliver's brother Perry Belmont. When World War II started, he emptied Belcourt out because he was afraid it would be damaged during the war and he sold off most of Alva's belongings because he hadn't cared for his sister-in-law. Perry sold Belcourt to a man named George Waterman in 1940. Waterman planned to open the house as an antique auto museum, but zoning wouldn't allow that, so he sold it to Edward Dunn after he had spent a bunch of money restoring the mansion to its original look. Dunn owned it for eleven years and never lived in the house. He rented out the stables to the military so they could repair equipment. Louis and Elaine Lorillard bought the mansion in 1954 and they used it as a seat for the Newport Jazz Festival, but the neighbors protested a continued use in this way and the property was sold to the Tinney Family in 1956. What they bought was rundown and abandoned house for the most part. The Tinneys poured their hearts into bringing the mansion back to life. They changed the name to Belcourt Castle and restored it, filling it with their own antiques and reproductions they made. The banquet hall featured a chandelier done in an Imperial Russian style with 13,000 rock crystal prisms and 105 lights. The rose marble mosaic floors in the hall were refurbished as well. The family installed tracker organ in the Organ Loft and raised the roof of the loft to accomicate thatand they converted a reception room into a chapel with German Renaissance stained glass. They added taller entrance gates and sculptures of terra cotta, marble, stone and bronze. The mansion was opened as a museum and visitors marveled over the English style libraray, Empire-style dining room, French Gothic ballroom and antiques and furnishings from 33 European and Asian countries. A Tinney family member lived in part of the mansion as a private residence and when Harle Tinney lived there, she hosted the tours. No better guide than the owner. The Tinney family held onto the property until 2012 when Harle sold to Carolyn Rafaelian who renovated the mansion and reopened it as a tour house, event space and gallery for art. 

From the 1940s to the mid 1950s, the mansion was abandoned and boarded up. Teenagers would challenge each other to sneak in and a creative caretaker decided to scare intruders by pretending to be a ghost and it worked with rumors spreading that the house was haunted. And while this was fake, it seems the place has real ghosts. There are many ghost stories affiliated to Belcourt and many of the spirits must be connected to the artifacts and antiques in the house because there are reports of knights and ghostly monks. 

Harle Tinney wasn't shy about sharing her own experiences. She even wrote a book about the ghosts in 2006. Harle claimed to wake up one night and see a man clad in a brown robe. For an instant she thought it was her husband until she reached over and felt him next to her. Then she watched the robed entity turn and walk through a wall. There is a monk statue that Harle believes has this monk attached to it, so they say the statue is haunted. The first floor ladies room used to have the monk statue near it and people claimed to see the spirit go from the Grand Hall into the bathroom. The statue was later moved to the chapel and there were claims the ghost monk was seen in there. One time a person thought the monk was preparing a mass in the chapel and she asked Harle when the mass was going to be held and when Harle asked why she asked that, Harle ended up informing her that she saw a ghost. Likewise, a suit of armor on the second floor is rumored to be haunted. People claim to hear it screaming when they pass by it. A psychic said that she had been told by the knight that he had been killed by a spear and left by his fellow knights for dead and so he died alone. The helmet on the suit of armor sometimes turns on its own. Chairs in the ballroom move on their own. Sometimes this movement is throwing the sitter out of the chair. A tour guide only worked one season after she had an experience that terrified her. She was leading a tour group through the ballroom and she heard a male voice saying to get out several times. She felt very uncomfortable the entire summer and didn't return after that. A lady in pink has been seen in the master bedroom and Harle thought it was her mother-in-law visiting. A woman in a ball gown is sometimes seen on the second floor gallery.

Ghost Hunters investigated the house during Season 5 in 2009. Harle and her husband had painstakingly recreated a golden coronation coach and this was one of the items that the Ghost Hunters wanted to investigate because of reports of a ball of light floating above the carriage. One of the interesting things that happened was Jason and Grant were in the banquet hall when they heard footsteps above their heads. When they got upstairs, the thermal imaging camera revealed a heat signature on the floor that looked to be the shape of a footprint. Disembodied footsteps were heard on the spiral staircase. Some people believe that Mr. Tinney haunts the house since his funeral was held in the ballroom. People say his spirit has been seen on the balcony above. The crew were able to pick up voices either humming or moaning near the suit of armor.       

Seaview Terrace

Seaview Terrace is massive and gorgeous. This is the fifth largest Newport "cottage." It is also known as the Carey Mansion, but was built by a man named Edson Bradley, Jr. Bradley made his wealth in Bourbon whiskey and built his first mansion in Washington, D.C. in 1907, which was known as Aladdin's Palace. This was a French-Gothic mansion on the south side of Dupont Circle that covered more than half a city block. The mansion had a large ballroom, an art gallery, a Gothic chapel and unbelievably, a 500-seat theatre. Edson was in D.C. to try to fight against Prohibition. Bradley decided in the 1920s that he would like to move to Newport, but he loved his mansion. So he decided to disassemble it and move it with him. This would be a big undertaking and is thought to be one of the largest buildings to be moved in this manner. The site that he bought in Newport already had an Elizabethan-Revival mansion that had been built in 1885. Bradley clearly liked massive homes, so he incorporated this mansion into his mansion. Edson planned to give this to his wife, Julia Wentworth Williams, for their 50th anniversary. The construction was completed in 1929 with a mostly Châteauesque style of the 16th century in France. Howard Greenley built Aladdin's Palace and he moved it and built Seaview Terrace. For his efforts, the American League of Architects awarded him the President's Medal in 1928. The original mansion on the site had been called Seaview Terrace and Bradley kept the name. The house had some "quirks." The attic was where the servants lived and the floors had many spy holes, so the servants could see into the rooms before. It was said this was so they could make sure guests didn't steal anything. The chapel had a pipe organ in a hidden room next to the chapel and this room could only be accessed by a trap door on the second floor. Stained-glass windows were all made in the 16th century.

Edson and his wife Julia moved into the 54-room, 39,648 square foot mansion. The Bradleys filled the home with medieval decor that included hunting trophies, there was Chinese porcelain, Renaissance chests, Chippendale chairs, Gobelin tapestries, elaborate hanging lamps and Persian tiles. Julia was a leading society hostess in D.C. and hosted the American Beauty Ball. She wanted the house to be the most beautiful in the city for that ball and she bought up every rose in the city to decorate the house. The city was devoid of roses for a while after that. 

Julia and Edson had one daughter together. Julia didn't enjoy Skyview Terrace for long. She passed away the same year it was completed at the age of 77 and her funeral was held in the chapel. Edson's fortunes turned and he passed in 1935. Their daughter, Julie Bradley Shipman, acquired the estate and she lived there until 1941. She failed to pay three years worth of taxes, so the city made her vacate and the house became officer quarters for the U.S. Army. The property was sold for only $8,000 in 1949 - it had cost $2 million to build. .In 1950, the mansion became a girls boarding school named "Burnham-by-the-Sea." The mansion became famous starting in 1966 when it was featured as the fictional "Collinwood Mansion" in the vampire soap-opera, "Dark Shadows." In 1974, the Carey-Bettencourt family bought the property and they still own it today, thus the name "Carey Mansion." Parts of the mansion were destroyed in a fire on February 28, 2024.

Several paranormal shows have investigated the mansion. SYFY's Stranded (created by Josh Gates - was similar to the reality show Fear. People were left at a haunted location for several days ) was there in 2013, Ghost Hunters investigated during Season 7 in 2011 and Ghost Nation and Kindred Spirits teamed up for an investigation on Halloween in 2020. That is because the Carey Mansion is said to be one of the most haunted locations in Rhode Island. Weird banging that happens randomly is heard, as are disembodied voices. One of the spirits is said to be Julia Bradley and she is seen most often as an apparition sitting at the Estey organ, playing it in the chapel. 

On Stranded, three musician friends investigate the house and they hear disembodied footsteps, doors open and close on their own and their EMF goes off several times. A set of locked double doors burst open in front of all three of them. And they heard phantom organ music, which freaked them out because the organ appeared to have been dismantled for years. Was this Julia playing? On their first visit, Ghost Hunters heard an audible male voice in the grand hall saying, "Hello, is that you?" A door handle turned by itself on the third floor. The crew said that up to this point, this was "the loudest evidence they've ever heard." Ghost Nation got a lot of evidence when they returned before Halloween in 2023, which included disembodied whispering, eerie noises and cold spots. They caught on camera a weird mist in the garage. It looked like smoke, but there was no one in there when they went to investigate. 

The Breakers

The Breakers is another mansion built by a Vanderbilt. Cornelius Vanderbilt II had been left $5 million dollars by his grandfather for whom he was named and he was also left $70 million by his father, William Henry Vanderbilt, so he was a very wealthy man. He took over as President of the New York Central railroad when his father passed in 1885 and was known to be a hard worker and he also donated a lot of money to charitable causes. Vanderbilt married Alice Gwynne in 1867 and they had seven children. 

The couple built their 70-room Beaux-Arts, Italian Renaissance summer mansion in 1893 to replace an earlier wooden home they had on the property that had burned to the ground. This was declared the grandest and biggest, three-story cottage in Newport. Architect Richard Morris Hunt designed the house and the interior was designed by Jules Allard and Sons and Ogden Codman Jr. The mansion was built from Indiana limestone blocks with a foundation of brick, concrete and limestone with a Terra Cotta red tile roof. The interior had marble, terrazzo and mosaic floors, alabaster fireplaces, gold painted hand-carved woodwork and marble fountains. The National Register of Historic Places says of the mansion, "The elaborately decorated facades and interiors appear now as they did upon completion in 1895, as documented by the photographs of its construction in 1895 and those of its interior in 1904. The original furniture and fixtures, interior plasterwork, gilding and decorative painting remain untouched from when Cornelius Vanderbilt II occupied The Breakers." The first floor has a Great Hall with six doors that have limestone figures representing humanity's progress: Galileo, Dante, Apollo, Mercury, Richard Morris Hunt and Karl Bitter. There is a library with coffered ceilings featuring paintings of a dolphin within a frame of walnut paneling with gold leaf and green Spanish leather embossed with gold. (Library picture: By UpstateNYer - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7548915) There are two busts in the library: a bronze of William Henry Vanderbilt II, the oldest child of Cornelius II and Alice, who died of typhoid at the age of 21 while attending Yale University; and a marble of Cornelius Vanderbilt II. There is a Music Room on this level as well that hosted recitals and dances. The ceiling is gilt coffered with silver and gold lining and the edges feature the names of composers. A Second Empire French mahogany ormolu mounted piano is in the room and Alice was known to play this while her husband played violin. This floor also has an ancient Rome styled Billiard's Room with slabs of Italian Cippolino marble and Renaissance style mahogany furniture. A dining room, kitchen, breakfast room and pantry are on the first floor too. That dining room is said to be the grandest room in the house with 12 freestanding rose alabaster Corinthian columns.

The second floor had bedrooms for the family. The third floor had a sitting room with Louis XVI style walnut paneling and mostly servants' quarters. The attic had a few more servant rooms and cisterns that supplied hydraulic pressure for an Otis elevator in the house and a fresh water cistern and salt water cistern. The Terrace was an open-air patio that had classical columns and arched openings with a view of the ocean and estate gardens. (Picture: By Renata3 - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=109923572) 

Cornelius died at the age of 55 in 1899. Alice outlived five of the Vanderbilt children, dying in 1934. The couples son Alfred died on the RMS Lusitania after he gave his life jacket to a woman who couldn't swim. Gloria Vanderbilt was a granddaughter of Cornelius and Alice. During World War II The breakers served as "Newport No. 1 air raid shelter." Youngest daughter, Gladys, inherited The Breakers and she opened it for public tours in 1948. Her heirs sold the mansion to The Preservation Society of Newport County in 1972 with the stipulation that they could still use the bedrooms located on the third floor. Alice Vanderbilt loved this home and seems to still be here in the afterlife. Her full-bodied apparition has been seen and staff claim to feel as if they are being watched. No investigations have been granted at the house, so we have to trust the staff on this. The house doesn't seem to embrace its haunting.

Rough Point

Frederick William Vanderbilt had Rough Point built in 1887 by architectural firm Peabody & Stearns. This was in the English Manorial style and the house was constructed from red sandstone and granite. The location was in a beautiful spot overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, bordering the Cliff Walk. The Vanderbilts started renting the house in 1894. Tinplate King William Bateman Leeds, Sr. rented the house in 1904 and 1905 and bought it in 1906. Leeds died in 1908 and his wife held onto the house until 1922 when she sold to James Buchanan Duke and his wife Nanaline. 

Duke had made his money in electric power and tobacco. Duke University is named for his father. The Dukes added two new wings to the house. They had a daughter, the infamous Doris Duke. She was twelve when her dad passed in 1925 and he left his whole fortune and residences to her, leading her becoming a billionaire and one of the richest women in America. Her debutante ball was held at Rough Point in 1929 and this became her most prized property. For a time in the 1950s, she emptied Rough Point out completely and lived in New York City, but she returned in 1958 and refurnished the house. Someone who helped her with the redecorating was interior designer Eduardo Tirella, who became her good friend and close confidant. Tirella would come to his end at the hands of Doris. Doris was an interesting woman. She used her vast fortune to buy lots of things, but she also was very philanthropic. And she had a wide array of interests. Doris studied singing under Composer, soprano and celebrated voice teacher Estelle Liebling. She learned to surf from the Duke himself in Hawaii. She was the first non-Hawaiian woman to take up competitive surfing under surfing champion and Olympic swimmer Duke Kahanamoku. She worked in a canteen for sailors in Egypt during World War II. Doris also worked as a foreign correspondent for the International News Service in 1945. After the war, she wrote for Harper's Bazaar in Paris. She could speak French fluently. Duke also loved animals and even owned a couple of camels. But she was also described as vindictive and possessive. She once stabbed a lover during a fight.

Those two personality flaws may have lead to the death of Eduardo Tirella. Tirella had been an actor and advised on films and he was a Renaissance man and war hero. He was gay and quite skilled at interior decorating. Doris had hired him as the artistic curator and designer for her several homes. Ed had worked for her for ten years and in 1966, he was ready to move full-time to the West coast and dive deeper into his Hollywood career. He would have to sever his professional ties with Doris to do this and he knew she wouldn't be happy. Surely, he had not only heard about her famous anger, but probably witnessed it first hand. 

On October 6th, he flew into Newport and Doris picked him up at the airport. The next day, Ed told Doris the news and they fought, as reported by Rough Point's staff. Things calmed down and the two got into Duke's station wagon to head to an appointment with Ed driving. When they got to the gates of the estate, Ed got out of the car to unlock the chain and open the gates. Doris jumped into the driver's seat, released the break, shifted to drive and hit the accelerator without the gates even being open yet. The two-ton vehicle hit Tirella, burst through the gates, crossed the street smashing through a fence and crashed into a tree. Ed was left crushed under the rear axle, dead. Doris was taken to the local hospital with minor injuries. Police questioned her and held no inquest. Within 96 hours, they rules the incident a terrible accident and Duke would never face consequences for what nearly everybody believes was a murder. Some people believe there was a quid-pro-quo here because Doris donated a massive amount of money to Newport to refurbish 84 colonial-era homes. 

Several of the police were rewarded as well. The police chief retired shortly after the crash and bought a couple of condos in Florida and the investigator that questioned Duke got a promotion over other detectives to police chief. Doris died in 1993 and Rough Point has remained much as it was when she lived there. The house was tied up in litigation for a few years and eventually opened as a museum in 2000. The Newport Restoration Foundation, that Duke set up to restore the mansions in Newport, manages it today. And it would seem that Doris is still at her mansion according to employees.

The podcast Hometown Ghost Stories shared an employees experience at Rough Point in 2020, "Shirley ran through in her head everything she was supposed to do before leaving for the night. She cursed herself for not taking notes when Mrs. Clark explained it to her earlier in the day. It was her first night closing up shop at the Rough Point Mansion and she made mental notes rather than writing everything down. She said out loud, 'I think I just shut off the lights and lock up.' The echo of her voice bounced around the immense foyer, sending a chill down her spine. The building gave her the creeps during the day, never mind alone at night." Shirley always chuckled to herself about how picky Mrs. Clark was about how things should be left, like chairs pushed in, but not touching the table. And Mrs. Clark said the employees always had to say goodnight to Doris. Shirley forgot to do that. She grabbed her car keys out of her pocketbook and got the feeling that something was watching her. Looking back at the house she thought she saw a woman in the window. She put on her glasses to see better, but dropped them in the dirt and bent down to get them. When she looked back up at the house, the figure was gone. Shirley went back to the house, unlocked the door and hollered inside, "Goodnight, Doris." As she closed the door again, she heard what she thought was the faint voice of Doris Duke singing her favorite song from the room with the window where she saw the woman.

In the process of finding stuff on Doris Duke, I came across this story on Reddit about another mansion Doris had owned that is now demolished, Duke Estates in Hillsborough, New Jersey. This person wrote, "Before this was removed, me and my father had one of the scariest encounters in our life here. Back in the late 00’s, me and my father went to the estate for a boy scout outing. After everything was over, my father, my friend, my friends father and I decided to walk around for a little bit. We stumbled upon the closed down mansion, and decided to sneak past the gates to have a look around. After we last those gates, I started to get a really weird anxious feeling, but just brushed it off. My friend and his father ran somewhere, and my dad and I were at the side of the house. We both instantly freeze up, and get this absolute dread and fear coursing through our bodies. I’m in absolute tears, but we can’t move. My dad recounts that he heard a voice screaming “LEAVE NOW”, but he replied, “I’m a follower of Jesus Christ and God, you can’t hurt us”. The feeling then slowly subsided, and we can move. We got out of there quickly, and didn’t talk about it for about a decade. When I brought this up a few years ago, he was surprised I even remembered. We talked it over and we both remember the same exact events and how it played out. My friend and his father didn’t experience this though, just us two." 

The historic mansions on the former Millionaire's Row of Newport, Rhode Island are really something to see. We're glad that many of them still stand and that they have been restored to their former glory. Are these summer cottages haunted? That is for you to decide!